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Does Cuba Agree with Hillary that Government Owns the Children?
California Father of Seven Lost HIS Children to the State
By: Mary Mostert, Analyst, Original Sources (www.originalsources.com)
April 10, 2000
Hopefully the situation with Elian will shortly be resolved, but it will leave
behind some really angry people and some very serious unresolved questions in
the minds of many people. Perhaps the most serious of those questions is what,
if any, rights do parents have in Cuba, or, for that matter, in the United
States of America? We've heard a lot recently about a segment in the Cuban
Constitution which allegedly puts the State in control of all of Cuban
children. It has been used by Cuban exiles to block Elian's return to his
father.
However, there are those who claim that each individual state in the United
States has exactly the same "rights" to make children wards of the State that
the Cuban government supposedly has. We do know that the Cuban Constitution is
not based on any notion that rights are God given. Unfortunately, there are a
whole lot of people in America today that also reject the notion that our
individual rights come from God, and we, the people, give the "rights" to
govern to the government. If God does not exist, the thinking seems to go, we
obviously do not HAVE unalienable, God-given rights of life, liberty and the
pursuit of happiness, which the Supreme court has held include our rights as
parents to raise and education our children.
In fact, I received the following from the lawyer brother of one of my readers
making that point:
"He (Elian) is a possession of the Cuban government". You know, we self serving
Americans really ought to look into our own laws before we criticize others.
The truth is that those rights not relinquished to the federal government are
reserved to the individual states of the union. So study them. Basically all
children born in the united States are wards of the state in which they were
born.
Ever wonder why the state can move in so quickly when there is child abuse?
Some would say it is an infringement of the parent's rights. But the powers of
the states are the powers that existed before the formation of the union. They
are quite broad. In fact, some interpret their breadth by suggesting that, as
children are (from birth) wards of the state, in fact they are only permitted
to live with their parents because of convenience to the state, the natural
love and affection between parent and child, etc.
In other words, once born, the state basically only "permits" the parents to
rear the child because the child sort of really belongs to the state. I didn't
invent this. That's the way it really is. So, apart from your non-legal eyes,
or the altruism involved, Cuba and the USA are not so much different on this
point.
The above comment will come as something of a shock to those folks who believe
the 10th Amendment was killed off by the 14th Amendment. But, the writer has a
point. There is an obvious belief in legal circles that there is no "God-given"
right to raise and educate our children, REGARDLESS of what the Supreme Court
has ruled.
Three years ago I wrote about a father of seven children, David Wixom of
Placerville, California, who was in a pitched battle with his former father-in-
law for his children, after his ex-wife was killed in an automobile accident.
Under the law there should have been absolutely no question that David should
have been able to have his children and take them to Utah where he had a job
and a home lined up. He only had stayed in Placerville, after the no-growth
movement had killed off his profession, construction, to be near his children.
However, apparently before the funeral, during which the father-in-law refused
to allow the children to be comforted by their father, and he had filed a
document requesting custody of the children. When Dave Wixom showed up at the
father-in-law's home to take his children with him, the father-in-law stood in
the door and refused his access.
There was no charge of child abuse. The claim in the court document was that:
"Mr. Wixom is a user of people, and would be nothing more than a parasite if he
were granted custody of these children." The father-in-law also declared that
"The minor children presently have no known estate other than potential
eligibility for AFDC or social security benefits" and avoided Annette's estate
being in probate court by declaring that she owned nothing and there was no
will."
Well, of course, there WAS an estate - furniture, piano, car, etc. It should
have gone to the children. It did not. The document didn't state, and none of
the TV and newspaper reporters of the area thought to ask exactly how Wixom was
going to be a "parasite" if he were granted custody of his own seven
impoverished, motherless children.
Wixom was not a wealthy man, however, the father-in-law was. The father-in-law
also had asked publicly for funds for a "trust" for the children. However, the
"trust" I discovered, what totally under the control of the father-in-law. The
eldest son, then a 17 year old, told me that his grandfather said that $300,000
had been sent by concerned people and businesses in both California and Utah
for the children's benefit.
What happened instead was a bitter lawsuit for custody. The "village,"
represented by the El Dorado County Superior Court, granted temporary
guardianship of David Wixom's children to his former father-in-law. Those who
knew the young Wixoms were well aware that the real basis for the father-in-
law's hostility to the father of his grandchildren was religion. No charges of
child abuse, no charges of David being an "unfit parent," no charges of drug,
alcohol addiction were placed against the non-drinking, non-smoking, non-drug
using Mormon father. With the stroke of a pen, and without even David Wixom's
knowledge, his children were made wards of the State.
First David Wixom hired a local attorney to plead his case. His entire family,
siblings and parents, moved in behind him to help pay legal fees. In the first
three months, the local attorney cost them $20,000. The court required a
psychological evaluation of David and the children - but not of the father-in-
law and his live-in girl friend who had been given temporary custody of the
children.
After a few months, Justin Wixom, the oldest child, who was 17 years old,
refused to live any longer with his grandfather, or with his mother's
unemployed brother and his wife on the family estate. He left to live with his
father, at which point Watson siezed the high school senior's car, which was in
Justin's and his mother's name.
Justin asked Western Sierra Bank, which was handling the public contributions
to the fund, whether there would be money in the "trust fund" for his college
expenses, he was told he had no right to know anything about the fund. It was
not a trust fund. It was a savings account controlled totally by his
grandfather.
The court appointed attorney for the children, Pamela Roberts, who was supposed
to be protecting the children's interests, and half of whose fees were being
paid by David Wixom, refused to do anything to protect either Justin's car, the
children's so-called "trust fund" or even to take steps to stop the grandfather
threats of disposing of his mother's belongings by "taking that junk to the
dump."
Several months and over $100,000 in legal and other fees went by and the Wixom
family, having mortgaged homes and given up life savings for children's
education and other goals, ran totally out of money. David Wixom, beaten by the
system, went into court without an attorney and told the judge he had no
attorney, and had no choice but to get back to work to pay the legal expenses
and sign the children over to their wealthy grandfather.
The last I heard of the family, David Wixom was working two or three jobs. His
children were still living with the wealthy grandfather, all of them, except
Justin, on welfare. Justin joined the Marines. The kids were complaining that
they "never saw much" of their father - who was working 16 hours a day to pay
off the legal bills and, incredibly, to continue child support payments set in
his divorce with his now deceased wife.
The State of California took the position that it, not the children's father,
controlled the lives of those seven children. And, without some monied group to
help pay the legal expenses, no ordinary working father can possibly fight the
State and its massive resources and win. David Wixom tried it. He lost both his
children and, the last I heard, about $130,000 in legal fees and court ordered
"studies" which he was ordered to pay to the State - to pay for his children's
welfare payments!
So, perhaps the letter writer is right. If the notion put forward by Thomas
Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence that "All men are created equal"
and are "endowed by their Creator with Certain Unalienable rights" is
eliminated from the equation -and it has been by those who reject the notion
that our rights come from God, then Hillary Clinton's notion about the Village,
meaning the government, being required to raise children fits. The government,
i.e. the Village, DOES own the children - whether those children are in Cuba or
in California and the battle IS between the governments of Washington, D.C. and
Havana, Cuba where Elian is concerned.
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