The breaking news out of Cleveland involving three young women held captive for as long as a decade brought back to my mind the story of another young woman from the Midwest, Chicago-area attorney Shauna Prewitt. On Oct. 4, I had the opportunity to hear Prewitt speak at the University of Toledo College of Law. The topic was motherhood through rape and the lack of protections for the mothers and their children. This is a topic Prewitt has firsthand experience with. While still in college, she was raped and became pregnant. Though conflicted at first, she decided to keep her child. At first glance it may not appear that these stories have much in common, but what they share is motherhood through rape.

Kenneth Sharp

At least one of the young women in Cleveland, Amanda Berry, is a mother; undoubtedly her captor will be found to be the father. Prewitt was shocked to learn then, as many of you also will be shocked to learn now, that fathers in rape cases have rights. This has a lot to do with our perception of rape and women who give birth to a child conceived by rape. First, it is important to see the child as the mother’s and not the rapist’s. I have seen, in the comments sections on the Cleveland story, well-intentioned people giving Berry credit for raising her rapist’s child. It is her child — conceived in rape, but her child, not the rapist’s. Nothing rightfully belongs to one who acquired it by force.

A second important change must come from our collective thinking about the “degrees” we place reflexively on victims of rape. As Prewitt pointed out, when the woman aborts we instinctively give her report of rape high credibility. If she chooses to place the baby for adoption, we still give her report great credibility. But if she keeps her child, some feel that the mother may have some other motivation and may not have been raped at all.

The degrees are also separated by the “stranger rape” prototype and the “acquaintance/date rape” prototype. The stranger rape report is highly credible, while the acquaintance or date rape is seen by some as more suspect, especially if a woman decides to keep the child. The problem is that the vast majority of women who are raped are not raped by a stranger. While the woman is not given the respect she deserves in telling her story, the male aggressor is given undue influence in her life and that of her child.

I have two examples to show how the legal system in America can favor the rapist over the mother. In the first, a 14-year-old girl was raped and brought the baby to term. She then sought to give the child up for adoption. She was legally required to notify the father, an adult. The court granted her motion to give up her rights to the child. The rapist kept his rights and sued her for support.

In the other example, a woman gave birth to twins after a date rape. The rapist learned of their existence and sued to establish paternity and get visitation. The woman was, at the time, living with a domestic partner and the rapist attempted to use her sexual orientation against her.

Prewitt listed Ohio as one of the many states that does not have overt protection for mothers of rape. Parental termination is the only sure answer. The legislature has not seen the issue as important yet. Perhaps the case in Cleveland will bring it to the forefront.

The State of Ohio may find ways to fast-track termination of parental rights to the father from this case, but it still leaves the fact that Ohio has no real protections for women who conceive through rape and decide to keep the baby. It is a black mark on our state and our legislators that this issue has not already been addressed.

Prewitt pointed to two states that have at least a start on the issue if our legislators need guidance, Missouri, where her own rape occurred, and Maryland. As usual, it will require a groundswell of citizen support to spur action.

I encourage those who wish to do more on this issue to read Prewitt’s own account at http://georgetown lawjournal.org/files/pdf/98-3/Prewitt.PDF and then contact their representatives, as I intend to do.

Email Kenneth Sharp at letters@toledofreepress.com.

Tags: Cleveland abductions, Kenneth Sharp, Libertarian Perspective, rape, Shauna Prewitt, University of Toledo

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 9th, 2013 at 1:03 pm and is filed under Libertarian Perspective, Opinion.
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Sequester, minimum wage and jobs — it is all about the money. When looking at the headlines and the roles Democrats and Republicans have taken, one wonders if they even have a basic understanding of economics or the platforms their parties claim. Even John M. Keynes knew government involvement had its limits. The Democrats have become hawkish on military spending and the Republicans are running as fast as they can from spending cuts.

First, let’s look at sequester and what it means in terms of our government spending. In the debt ceiling round of dysfunction in Washington, the White House and Democrats proposed, and the Republicans agreed to, an automatic cut in spending that would occur if they did not reach another accord. This cut in spending is actually a decrease in the increase of spending to all the affected areas. Nowhere will any agency have less this year than last year. Of the examples touted in the news and from the government’s own reports as being on the chopping block, some are no longer agencies (The National Drug Intelligence Center) or are state-owned (Boca Raton Airport). Why are we paying for these?

The amount of spending sequestration represents with regard to the total allotment is miniscule (I avoid the term “budget,” as we haven’t had one in years). It is estimated at 1 to 3 percent of more than $1 trillion in spending. Those are huge numbers. Cuts as large as $85 billion have been discussed. Surely that would wreak havoc upon our floundering economy, hurt job growth and promote a zombie apocalypse. Not so much, when put in perspective. The idea that even a 3 percent cut in overall spending must come at the expense of vital programs is untrue.

The sequestration as written was intended to force Republicans to concede. It targeted programs generally popular in Republican circles (military) as well as popular with the general public (education, transportation). We see this tactic locally all the time, especially with school levies. They exclaim, “We must cut athletics, special education, extracurricular activities and we will bring harm to our teachers unless we get more funding.” There is never a real discussion of how and where the current funding is being spent (this is why a full audit of Toledo Public Schools is important).

Even more recently, scare tactics like the release of illegal immigrants by a department are meant to spur us (them) and it should. We need to demand full audits of all agencies, the Senate and House offices, The White House and certainly the Federal Reserve. We cannot afford these bloated entities. This will take years to accomplish so it is important to start now.

Discussion needs to be had on the idea of a $9 minimum wage. Having recently completed a college level introductory course in both macroeconomics and microeconomics, I can assure you they teach this concept early on. A price floor, which is a point that, by regulation, you cannot go below, has a definite effect on both supply and demand. In the case of the minimum wage, the supplier is the laborer and the demand or consumer is the business that would employ them. Recently, in these pages, a study by economists Card and Krueger was cited that states that a minimum-wage increase can strengthen job creation.

Economist Benjamin Powell recently debunked this oft-repeated study. (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ben-powell/minimum-wage-merry-go-rou_b_2713136.html).

But the study doesn’t ask the right questions. The study shows that a minimum wage at or near the real equilibrium point will have little effect on unemployment. When the first national minimum wage went into effect in 1938 at 25 cents an hour, the prevailing wage for the majority was 60 cents an hour; it had little effect. That is except in Puerto Rico, where the average wage was 3 to 4 cents an hour. Forced to comply, the result was massive unemployment and businesses that went bankrupt. The example of San Francisco was brought up: it already pays more than the new proposed minimum and has an unemployment rate lower than the rest of California.

That is the free market at work. To say all of California, or all the states are homogenous is a mistake. To impose San Francisco rates on Fresno or Findlay would be devastating. If there is to be a minimum wage, it needs to be decided as locally as possible.

We must learn to ask the right questions. Right now the question we need to ask all our elected officials is, where is my audit?

Tags: debt ceiling, Kenneth Sharp, Libertarian Perspective

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 5th, 2013 at 2:15 pm and is filed under Libertarian Perspective, Opinion.
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These names are familiar to all Northwest Ohioans: Victoria’s Secret, JCPenney, Target, AT&T, Microsoft, IBM — I could list many more. These names will be foreign to most Northwest Ohioans: Toledo Correctional Institution, Corrections Center of Northwest Ohio and Lucas County Corrections Center. The names may be unfamiliar, but it is likely you know someone who has spent at least a short while in one of these institutions, or, as we call them, jails or prisons. That is because the United States has the largest number of people incarcerated or under some form of judicial control in the world. That is not per capita, but in raw numbers of people. We imprison more of our citizens than China, a country with four times our population and a reputation for being repressive. We imprison more of our countrymen than Iran or Russia.

This hasn’t always been so. In fact, our incarceration rates were generally steady for decades and violent crimes have, even in recent times, declined overall. The rate of in incarceration began to pick up in the early 1970s. From that time, it has climbed dramatically. In 1970, there were 3,384 nonviolent drug offenders in federal prison and 17,302 violent criminals. In 2005 the number of violent offenders had increased by 294 percent but the nonviolent drug offenders rate had increased by 2,558 percent [numbers provided by Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP)].

LEAP is probably also unfamiliar. It is comprised of more than 1,000 police, judges, prosecutors, prison wardens more than 70,000 civilian supporters in 119 countries. They are spread over the globe because America’s drug prohibitions have spread violence and death to many nations. In Mexico, it has cost tens of thousands of lives in recent years, many of them innocent. At home, the cost has been no less in lives destroyed and money wasted.

Ever since President Richard Nixon declared the War on Drugs, we have made more than 46 million arrests and spent more than $1.5 trillion. What have we accomplished with all this capital spent and these lives destroyed? Have crimes been reduced by all the drug-related arrests? Have drug use and addiction rates gone down? What about overdoses? We all know the answer is no. In fact, in 1914, when the first U.S. drug law was introduced, the government stated our addiction rate was at 1.3 percent of the population. In 2012, after all we have done, they say our addiction rate is still at

1.3 percent of the population.

But elsewhere they have abandoned our criminal approach to a health and education problem. In Portugal, in 2001, they decriminalized all drugs. Contrary to the prohibitionists’ beliefs, the country did not become a drug user’s haven; their society did not fall apart. In fact, drug use overall declined by 25 percent and treatment sought increased 300 percent. All because they weren’t spending money to arrest, convict and warehouse people with health issues, and users were not afraid of arrest if they sought help.

Our prohibition has not been enforced uniformly. Studies don’t show that black males use drugs at a higher rate than white males. Yet the arrest, conviction and incarceration rates of minority males are many times higher than those for whites.

We have effectively destroyed the family in our urban areas as these men get hung with nonviolent felony convictions and can no longer get education access or decent jobs. Oh, remember that list of companies I began with? They are willing to employ these prisoners for practically nothing.

Because you are already deeply involved in our culture of incarceration, and because I can only scratch the surface here, I ask that you keep some time free to join some of your fellow citizens, along with special invited guests, for a week of varied programs on this subject. It will be in the first full week of April under the banner Toledoans for Prison Awareness.

For more information, visit http://toledoprisonawarenessgroup.org and watch these pages. This is a community problem that spans all political and religious ideologies. It requires we all work together.

Tags: AT&T, Corrections Center of Northwest Ohio, IBM, JCPenney, Kenneth Sharp, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, Libertarian Perspective, Lucas County Corrections Center, Microsoft, Target, Toledo Correctional Institution, Victoria’s Secret

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 14th, 2013 at 2:53 pm and is filed under Libertarian Perspective, Opinion.
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I knew that after the final tally one of two men would be president. I knew it would not be Gary Johnson. The work of Libertarians and all minor parties is the same as it was the day before the election. For the Republican Party and many of its supporters, the defeat has been a powerful personal blow. Do not blame Libertarians, though it may be tempting. Blame falls squarely on the Republican Party.

In Tampa, at the Republican National Convention, the party elite decided to disenfranchise Ron Paul Republicans and Tea Party conservatives. These voters, millions in numbers, did not all flock to the Libertarian or other parties. An overwhelming number of Ron Paul supporters were the highly desirable youth vote. I have had personal conversations with a few of these young new voters, and their experiences have led them to decide that they will never vote for a Republican. Some refuse to vote at all. You only get one chance at a first impression. Among older Tea Partiers it is probably different. But many of these voters will also not return. This does not mean Libertarians or other parties automatically get them. Your party elite decided they did not need every voter. Also do not blame certain local media that gave a voice to Libertarian candidates and ideas, specifically WSPD and Toledo Free Press. Both where very fair in their coverage. Both gave credit to all candidates when and where it was due. No one told you or anyone else how to vote. Allowing free and full debate is to be desired not denigrated.

Libertarians will continue to fight Big Government and the rapid erosion of civil liberties under this and future administrations. We continue to represent the majority of Americans’ views on issues as diverse as the war on terror, the domestic wars on drugs and poverty (which have become wars on the poor and minorities), civil rights for the LGBTQA community, repeal of the NDAA, an audit and review of the Federal Reserve and drastic and immediate debt reduction in part by eliminating unnecessary military spending and ending the wars. For the past four years the current administration has expanded or failed to address these issues.

There is good news nationally and locally. Six states voted to nullify federal law. Montana, Alabama and Wyoming all voted to nullify the health care mandate, and Colorado, Massachusetts and Washington state all voted to nullify some aspect of federal marijuana prohibitions. I do not expect President Obama to respect the rights of the citizens of these states on either issue.

Locally, the numbers of people willing to break free of  “fear and revenge” voting to vote Libertarian more than doubled from the 2008 presidential election and more than quintupled from the 2011 primary election. While we did not reach the number of votes nationally to directly break the monopoly of the two party system, we have loosened the hold. There is a lot to do before the next election, not even considering the next presidential election. The Libertarian Party considers itself right of the left and left of the right. That places us in the middle for the majority of Americans. The issue has been meeting more of the voting public to expand our base. The Lucas County Libertarian Party is, logically, most concerned about Lucas County. Expect us to reach out more, and we hope that you will reach out to us even if you are unsure where you fall with your political beliefs.

We seem to be a divided nation. The numbers between Democrat and Republican votes are close. Americans seem to enjoy a specific form of Schadenfreude, or the enjoyment of other people’s misery. I have seen in the Bush and Obama eras the delight taken at the expense of others in our society over election results. This creates in voters an “us versus them” mentality. Lost in any discussion is an honest debate about policy and the effects on us all. A large number of the electorate vote to watch the anguish of others even if it is detrimental to them.

I am very content, even though my candidate failed to win, even though he failed to surpass a threshold to break the monopoly, because I voted for a candidate I believed in and not against anyone.

Tags: Barack Obama, Gary Johnson, Kenneth Sharp, Libertarian Perspective, Mitt Romney

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 8th, 2012 at 1:47 pm and is filed under Libertarian Perspective, Opinion.
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During the past four weeks I have demonstrated how, on major issues, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are the same. The response has been frenzied ridicule. Yet, critics cannot refute the facts, based on their own candidates’ statements. For example, in the wars on terrorism and drugs, which have killed and maimed tens of thousands of innocents and devastated communities both abroad and at home, the candidates are identical, varying slightly in degree, not policy. In both wars we have had more casualties among civilians and the innocent than among the intended targets. Both have brought this nation to the edge of economic collapse. It does not mean raising a white flag to rethink our practices. It is not weak to admit failure and fault. But, there is no point in covering well-established ground.

I have been told that it is unreasonable to vote Libertarian (or anything other than the big two). Depending on who is speaking, it is called a vote for Romney or Obama. Mine is in fact a vote for Gary Johnson. It is far more unreasonable to vote for Romney and expect him to repeal Obamacare and not replace it with something equally oppressive and tentacled. Likewise, it is highly unreasonable to vote for Obama and expect that he will not have a kill list and include Americans under the National Defense Authorization Act. It is reasonable to vote for a candidate who has proven to uphold one’s morals and values, even when the odds of winning the election are unlikely. Last week I showed that a 5 percent vote for Johnson would end the monopoly of the two party system. There is a lot of reason and rationality in voting for that.

During the past 150 years, the Republicans and Democrats have jockeyed for power and control. During that period some good has come — the abolition of slavery, the right for women to vote, civil rights applied to minorities in a meaningful fashion — but it has come at a great cost to the major parties and thus Americans as a whole. Both parties have moved further from their core values and more toward centralized power at the top. They have moved ever closer to each other in that regard. They still speak of differences as if they still hold their original philosophies. They do not. They are concerned with power and force, the seduction of government. It is why Romney will replace and not repeal and why Obama has expanded, not ended, the Bush-era Patriot act.

Is this inevitable? Are the seduction of power and the use of force so great that good people succumb? Will all Parties eventually fall victim? I can’t answer that, but I know that the Founders were aware of this problem. John Adams said: “There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution.”

But also under our system we have the power to check them, if we let go of our fear. It is generally our fear of the freedoms of others that makes serfs of us all.

Governments, in all forms, are an evil. That does not mean they are populated by evil people; on the contrary, almost all truly feel they are doing a service. So why is government an evil?

Whether you are a believer in a supreme being or just in natural law, you recognize that each individual is endowed with certain inalienable rights.

These rights are at times on loan to governments and then used collectively. If you are a true believer this loan of your God given power to an entity for whom God did not intend it is the first step. When those rights are retained by these outsiders it increases the evil. If you are a believer in natural law it is the same. When you loan some part of your sovereign power to others, without real power to get it back, it goes against natural law. In both cases, when we yield sovereign power we become more childlike to their adult status in our power relations. Under the Constitution, we still retain the ability under both scenarios to take back our power, but we don’t. We fall victim to the fear each major party spreads to keep us from doing so. We avoid the stern parent.

It is up to us to keep our public servants from gorging on our collective rights under the guise of paternal care. All incumbents need to be returned to private life eventually. I think the time is now.

Vote.

Tags: Barack Obama, Gary Johnson, Kenneth Sharp, Libertarian Perspective, Mitt Romney

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 1st, 2012 at 12:10 pm and is filed under Libertarian Perspective, Opinion.
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