I'm very sorry that Jim Boulware, James' Boulware's father, is suffering such grief and loss. I wish it were not so, but it is, and it's difficult for any parent to lose their child. He has my sympathy.

He does not, however, have my sympathy for his claim in this CNN interview that liberal policies created the situation that caused James to lose custody of his son.

In fact, if liberal policies had been in place, it's likely that Dallas police would not have had to dodge a hail of bullets, that James might be alive and still have custody of his son. But they weren't.

Mental illness or not?

When James Boulware was 14, he punched his mother in the face. After being ordered into anger management counseling, he told counselors he had attempted suicide. They hospitalized him, treated him for schizophrenia and released him after a 2 1/2 month treatment period, after determining that he was stable and medicated.

After that incident, there did not appear to be any further tangles with the police until 2010, when the mother recounts a spiral into paranoia and anger once again.

She told the court in 2013 that James "was getting very paranoid and talking about a 'Great Accumulator' and claiming a government official had come to his house and talked to him about it." She went on to say that "[James] said he had called the White House about it," so she managed to get him to come live with her because she feared for his son and didn't want him alone with him.

Again in 2012, the mother recounts an incident where James "talked obsessively about the Aurora, Colorado movie theater shootings, and later, the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings." She said that he told her he'd known about them because his dreams foretold it.

But in 2013, things got much, much worse. Quoting her complaint:

"In March/April of 2013 the father bought two new guns and began talking about getting rid of people he didn't like...Shortly after that my brother [redacted] and my grandson [redacted] told me that James had been making threats against me, saying he wanted to choke me and crucify me in the backyard."

This is what led to the first incident in 2013, where James choked his mother, and his uncle intervened. Police were called, James was arrested, and he spent three weeks in jail until his father bailed him out.

James' mother sued and successfully won custody of James' child based upon his unstable mental health.

There was nothing she could have done for James himself, because the laws concerning conservatorship for the mentally ill were gutted right around the first time he acted out. There are no real mental health services in states like Texas to deal with James, assuming he would have sought them.

And so, after a 2-day trial in May of this year, James' mother was awarded custody of his son, and James and the child's mother were given supervised visits to be overseen by a third party at their expense.

I don't know whether schizophrenia was the issue, or whether it was something else. But his mental state clearly endangered his son, and the court acted to protect the child, as they're expected to do.

Enabling behavior

In the CNN interview, Jim Boulware says it was "liberal policies" that invited Child Protective Services into the mix, and caused his son to be broke because he couldn't get a job due to the domestic violence charges on his record.

Those aren't liberal policies, unless the elder Boulware has decided it's not a crime to beat women up whenever he gets angry with them.

If James Boulware was so broke, how did he find the $8250 to purchase an armored vehicle from South Carolina? How did he manage the funds to buy weapons and body armor? Was that a loan from Dad, or did he rob a bank?

According to court documents, James was supposed to pay $150 per month child support for his son through the Texas courts. That's what they determined he could afford to pay under existing child support laws. He was also expected to pay for expenses associated with supervised visitation for his son. Evidently, he couldn't scrape up the money for these expenses, but could somehow afford to come up with the funds to plunk down $8,000+ on an armored vehicle. I'm not buying it.

The "law and order" policies in effect that give rise to difficulties getting a job didn't come from liberals. However, domestic violence is one of those crimes that is often overlooked in the hiring process. It's more likely James had more of an issue with how he presented himself than his criminal record.

It seems to me that the father has his own issues with anger, enabling, and paranoia. He may have passed it on to his son, but let's put the responsibility for policy on the shoulders of those who own it.

A liberal would have wanted him to get mental health services and have health insurance to cover it.

A conservative would want him to tough it out and further bar family members from having any capability to help him get help.

The conservative policies won.