The federal Violence Against Women Act is up for renewal. This law, originally passed in 1994, provides the following programs and services:
- Community violence prevention programs
- Protections for victims who are evicted from their homes because of events related to domestic violence or stalking
- Funding for victim assistance services, like rape crisis centers and hotlines
- Programs to meet the needs of immigrant women and women of different races or ethnicities
- Programs and services for victims with disabilities
- Legal aid for survivors of violence
The law has already been renewed twice, in 2000 and 2005, always without fanfare. This year, however, opponents object to expanding the coverage to gays and lesbians, and want to limit protection for domestic violence victims who are illegal immigrants.
Please pause and read the following article:
GOP’s Violence Against Women Act would open up undocumented victims to more abuse, on HuffingtonPost.com.
Two sides of the debate
So here, according to the article, are the two sides of the debate regarding immigrant women:
In some cases, husbands would use their control over their victims’ immigration status as a tool of abuse, refusing to sign the proper paperwork or threatening to revoke it.
And
House Republicans say that some women have taken advantage of the confidentiality by fraudulently claiming abuse to acquire residency status.
Which side is correct? Both of them.
Lovefraud has cases that illustrate both sides of the argument. I’ve heard from women from other countries whose abusive partners threatened to get them thrown out of the United States if they tried to leave the relationship. And I’ve heard from men who married foreign women, and as soon as the women obtained their green cards, turned around and accused them of domestic violence.
In both cases, we’re dealing with sociopaths. Dr. Liane Leedom says that half of the people who commit domestic violence are sociopaths, and the other half have sociopathic traits. And, as far as I’m concerned, everyone who commits love fraud is a sociopath. Who else could seduce an unsuspecting partner into marriage and then dump him or her with fake domestic violence charges?
Impotent legal system
The problem comes down to this: Rules are made for people who follow the rules. Sociopaths believe the rules do not apply to them. Therefore, when it comes to dealing with sociopaths, the rules are virtually useless.
Laws do not prevent sociopaths from doing what they want to do. The only usefulness of a law is being able to punish a sociopath afterwards, if the person actually gets caught and prosecuted. And this only works when there is enough evidence, and a savvy enough prosecutor, to keep the sociopaths from talking themselves out of trouble.
Here’s what we all need to understand: When it comes to dealing with sociopaths, everything is different. Whenever the structures of civil society impede their agendas, this subset of humans simply ignores them. They don’t want to be inconvenienced by laws, rules, ethical guidelines, social conventions, customs, manners or interpersonal consideration. They have no moral compass.
Renewing the VAWA
So, when it comes to renewing the law, what’s the answer? I’d vote for keeping the protections strong for victims. But perhaps some of the money should fund training for law enforcement, courts and domestic violence counselors about sociopaths, and how good they are at pretending to be victims when they aren’t.
If an immigrant woman can confidentially apply for a visa to escape true domestic violence, that’s good. But if a woman (or man) falsely claims domestic violence in order to stay in the country, I’m all for throwing her out.
G1S
My son’s P father had a maid who was an illegal immigrant. I learned about this because my son’s grandmother (the P’s mother) told me about the situation.
She (my son’s grandmother) said that the P would threaten to call immigration if the maid didn’t do what he told her to do. She (the grandmother) was horrified that she had brought such a person into the world.
I’m sure he wasn’t treating the maid well or generously.
My guess is that she was some kind of slave labor.
Truthspeak
Donna, thank you SO much for posting this!!! And, the point that rules are made for those who follow rules is truthful and valid.
Educating Law Enforcement would be a great idea if empathy and “public service” were mandatory for all Law Enforcement Officials and Representatives. Unfortunately, we know that neither of these attributes can be mandated.
Thanks so much, Donna.
Ox Drover
In the case of my son Patrick, laws are just things to be broken and checked off his list of “things to do” The same with prison rules, getting away with breaking prison rules, whether it is having sex with a cute little married major, smuggling in a cell phone, or just what. If there is a rule, it is to be broken.
Rules are for others though. If he steals your stuff, tuff. If you steal his stuff, now that’s a horse of a different color, you must be punished for that.
If he tells you a lie, so what? But if you lie to him or break an agreement, now that’s a terrible thing and you must be punished.
If you catch him in a lie—well to him that’s nothing. Big deal, no embarrassment.
He robs your friend’s office, steals all the computers, using your car to haul the loot…well, he has to make a living you know. No big deal.
As for the laws against violence against women, and I think that law should be changed to “laws against violence against PEOPLE .” There will always be people who will use this law against others to try to get citizen ship, and most of the women who have come here as Russian mail order brides turned out to be scammers or slaves, and I’ve known several.
Back_from_the_edge
In my experiences, laws mean nothing to sociopaths/psychopaths. They are meant for everyone else but them. They are above the law. They are entitled to do whatever they wish because they lack morality and conscious. And, their lacking that morality and conscious is YOUR FAULT, not theirs. In fact, everything is your fault. You allowed them to do it. That is their mindset.
The laws need to be renewed and to include ALL PEOPLE not specific groups. Just ALL PEOPLE who need to be protected from abuse, be that abuse emotional and/or psychological or actual physical abuse. They should be considered the same. Harming a person, intentionally, either physically or psychologically is equally as damaging. With one, the bruises show and with the other the bruises don’t show.
It’s not enough to educate ‘law enforcement’…
It’s not enough to educate the medical profession…
THE PEOPLE need to know and be educated. They need to know they have ‘back up’ in their homes and in their lives. NOBODY should have to accept abuse yet it happens all the time because there is insufficient ‘legal’ back up. I bet if you gave law enforcement the tools they need, they would enforce these laws. Unfortunately, nothing can be enforced unless it’s a law.
I am so glad I am out of my ‘experience’ now.
Once and for all, FINALLY! There has been stalking but nothing to the degree I had expected. It has gotten real quiet now and it sure had better stay that way.
I pray for all the people who are at this moment being abused by an ugly person. May they find their ‘escape’ and may their eyes open wide before it’s too late.
Dupey
Truthspeak
OxD, absolutely change it to “Laws Against Violence Against People!”
Looks like you were beginning the “Sociopath Bucket List,” there, Oxy!
Hugs
G1S
Educating all people is the way to go.
I caught the tail end of a MSNBC special last night on Charles Manson.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EWckBPSbfc
An expert and the host were watching a taped interview with Charles Manson.
The “expert” said that serial rapists and murderers don’t come from loving home environments.
She responded, “This is what happens when we don’t take care of our children. Warm, happy, nurturing families do not produce people who grow up to kill other people for fun or revenge. The probation and parole agencies need to be more mindful of how they treat and what they do with preadolescent, adolescent, and juvenile offenders.”
The host came back with, “Some say that there are people born bad.”
“I think that occassionally there is a bad seed, that despite nurturing and good parental love and supervision a bad person can come from that, but the vast majority of men who became serial killers came from very dysfunctional families and were victims of phsyical abuse, mental abuse, and sometimes sexual abuse at the hands of their own mother.”
“And the lesson is?”
“Treat your children well.”
So, now we know. It’s the mothers who sexually abused their children and didn’t love those babies enough who are responsible for the serial killers in our world.
Ox Drover
Yep, that’s me!!!! I did not love poor Patrick enough. Funny though, the rest of the kids are not serial killers or killers at all. I must have just picked on Patrick, that’s it. I guess any time a person turns out to commit a crime,, the parents should be locked up instead of the offspring. I will go report for my sentence.
G1S
My mother has four children. One is a P. The other three are not.
I could have sworn I was the scapegoat in the family and got the bulk of the abuse.
The P walked on water in my mother’s eyes.
Neither of my parents sexually abused any of us.
GASP! Could that “expert” have been wrong??
Ox Drover
As long as people think that kids are born blank slates upon which environment ONLY writes, then we are doomed to blame the parents. For generations so far back in time that no one remembers, parents were blamed for children who were “off”
The only ones I know who had it right were the Jews and if your son (or daughter) was uncontrollable you could have them judged to be stoned.
G1S
Then my S mother would have gotten rid of me and kept my P sister.
Not that I was uncontrollable, but I definitely was the one that she didn’t like.
We know whose word would have carried, don’t we?