International Business Times US
June 17, 2011 11:55 AM EDT

American Father Self-Immolates To Protest Against Family Courts

On June 15 around 5:30 pm, a 58-year-old New Hampshire father named Thomas Ball self-immolated in front of the Cheshire County Court House.  Ball was pronounced dead at the scene.

Before he died, he sent a letter [to] The Keene Sentinel to explanation his actions.  The full text of the letter [1] can be found here. (Also in PDF format: [2] Tom Ball’s Last Statement; 133 kB)

Ball said he set himself on fire in front of the courthouse because he was “done being bullied for being a man” by the US family court system.

Ball’s troubled started in April 2011.

He said he slapped his then four-year-old daughter, giving her a cut on the lip, when she refused to obey him after three verbal warnings.

His wife then called the child’s mental health provider.  Ball claimed the health provider told his wife that if she did not call the police, both she and Ball would be arrested….([3] Full Story)
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Note by F4L: That article is full of errors.

• Tom Ball’s problems did not start in April 2011.  They started in April 2001, when the incident with his daughter occurred and he was arrested for the first time in his life, a Vietnam veteran and 48 years old at the time.

• Tom Ball did say that he was “done being bullied for being a man,” but he did not say that he was being bullied just by the family court system.  He did not even single out the family court system, but he felt that his rights were being violated ever since 2001, by the police, mental health providers (not necessarily the mental health provider of the daughter whom he had disciplined, but one for another daughter), the State of New Hampshire, the State Attorney General, the Legislature, the State Governor’s Office, the U.S. Department of Justice, his Congressmen, Senators, the Federal Treasury Department, the Federal Reserve, The U.S. Attorney General’s Task Force on Domestic Violence, the Police department in the nation (at least the 93% of them who are actively engaged in the persecution of men), the police, prosecutors and judges in general, the NH police department, the Jaffrey NH police department, Monadnock Family Services, their lawyer Byron, Judge Sullivan, guardian ad litems, and more, but also the federal government for waging war against men since about 1975 and for running an Office on Violence against Women, even though when the government program for the persecution of men started there were equal numbers of female and male perpetrators of domestic violence.

Tom Ball did his research, and he was no crank. He was a man wronged, wronged like millions of other men (and like some women, as well).

His observations regarding the legal system that put the squeeze on him are right on the mark, and especially his remarks regarding the circumstances, origins and workings of the domestic-violence industry are on target.  Still, I should not have to summarize any of the key point that concerned him.  He wrote [4] a very lucid statement, but obviously not just on the day he killed himself.  That statement is 12 to 15 pages long (depending on the font-size your printer uses).  Read it, you will not regret it.

For instance, did you know that 72 million Americans have been made homeless at one time or another during the 25 years or more that the U.S. Government has been waging its war against men and their families?  As I said, Tom Ball did his work, and he did it well.  Read what he wrote.  I included him in the list of men who broke, at Fathers for Life.  He broke, alright, but he did not crack.  I wish he were still with us.

Tom Ball died for you, for me and for all of our children and grandchildren.