Hard News: The cane and the strap
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“All of these young people have entered a system of education and society where discipline and responsibility are being replaced by the politically correct nonsense of childrens’ rights,”
Graeme, I think that this part of the quote is a fair basis for the Herald byline.
Since when have "childrens' rights" been "nonsense" anyway?
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Of course they're nonsense, just like prisoners' rights, natives' rights, women's rights, in fact the rights of anyone who ain't them.
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Is anyone aware of a movement against verbal violence?
kiwiblog sure as hell hasn't...
Since when have "childrens' rights" been "nonsense" anyway?
and that 'children's rights' meme is a recycled line from during the child discipline bill debates. i refer you to rbs indication of who's behind this discipline drive.
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Don - I still think that a little unfair to FF. He's complaining about the lack of discipline and responsibility in schools,__and in the same paragraph__ gives the evidence of this lack of discipline as the (at least arguably) low proportion of students stood down for assaults on teachers.
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From their own slightly crazy website:
Family First Comment: Schools and classrooms becoming more violent? But we thought that's why politicians banned corporal punishment - to stop that trend. Violence begets violence, and all that stuff - the very same arguments we heard for criminalising parents who smack!
Notable Quotes:
* “Corporal punishment in schools should be abolished because it is the single most significant reason for N.Z. being violent.” – Dr. John Dobson, Director of Community Psychological Medical Services, Christchurch, TV2 News 7th August 1984.
* “The continued existence of corporal punishment was responsible for the upsurge of violence in the community.” – Ian Mitchell of C.A.V.E. (Campaign Against Violence in Education) N.Z.Herald, 10th September 1984
* “Teachers who use corporal punishment are incompetent.” - Russell Marshall, Minister of Education, Radio N.Z. News 4th October 1985 -
Since when have "childrens' rights" been "nonsense" anyway?
Haven't you read David Copperfield? Children aren't humans, and therefore have no rights.
And Graeme, in this case Family First may be less strident than the Herald (and what does that say about the Herald!), but at this point I think its opportune to list a few of their core principles... I just dragged these off their website, and hadn't appreciated exactly how close to a US-style religious right organisation they are:
We affirm the natural family to be the union of a man and a woman through marriage for the purposes of sharing love and joy, raising children, providing their moral education, building a vital home economy, offering security in times of trouble, and binding the generations
Read: De facto and gay relationships don't cut it, at least when it comes to raising children
We affirm that the natural family is the foundational family system. While we acknowledge varied living situations caused by circumstance or dysfunction, all other “family forms” are incomplete or fabrications of the state.
Read: Actually, de facto and gay relationships in which children are raised are in fact figments of the anarcho-communist lesbian conspiracy.
We affirm that the world is abundant in resources. The breakdown of the natural family and the consequential moral and political failure, not human “overpopulation,” account for poverty, starvation, and environmental decay.
Read: Being permissive to de facto and gay relationships causes environmental decay?! As opposed to, you know, pollution.
I'd say, if anything, they're even closer to the american "Focus on Family" style lobby than Maxim.
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Violence at school ?
Reduce testing and increase education; but above all reduce class sizes. Make sure that primary and junior classes are very small and that the teachers can teach.
As for corporal punishment.
Sorry but I can’t really separate the personal in this issue. Corporal punishment was never part of the class struggle, not from my POV. I have a callous on the top of my head. I earned it whilst attending a “privileged” English public school. Like many kids the beatings didn’t stop at the school gate, when you lived there it was 24/7. I guess it must be the same for other kids at home. What did I learn ? After 25 years there is a bit of me that still wants to really hurt people. Physically, that bit never wins, verbally, emotionally.... at school when I couldn’t hit back I learned to be cruel and play nasty mind games. I was in part, the cause of two teachers leaving the profession. As I grew all the beatings turned into a desire for retribution and so boy turned into thug.
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The breakdown of the natural family and the consequential moral and political failure, not human “overpopulation,” account for poverty, starvation, and environmental decay.
They'll be all over this article in the latest Listener then.
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Eddie - it says about the Herald, what I was trying to say about the Herald.
I'd say, if anything, they're even closer to the american "Focus on Family" style lobby than Maxim.
I'd have thought that were obvious. Maxim are for the most part just conservative. I doubt Family First has many thoughts on free markets and economic policy.
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Graeme, fair enough re the Herald (and I agree!). And I doubt that Family First has many thoughts full stop.
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Since when have "childrens' rights" been "nonsense" anyway?
I think the technical term for children (and wives) in fundamentalist discourse is "chattels". And no right-thinking man would give to rights to a chattel would they?
Unless you're a goddamn, lily-livered, pot-smoking commie ...
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And no right-thinking man would give to rights to a chattel would they?
... this will lead to people marrying their sofas and hatstand-education classes in our schools.
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ron,
That would be the likes of Save the Children, Barnardos and EPOCH - the very groups that Family First spent months this year slagging off for their views on "smacking".
And rightly so. Their views on smacking didn't have a whiff of scientific evidence behind them. Although no doubt these groups were afraid to bite the hand that feeds them. But to confuse smacking with child abuse really was beyond the pale. I note that the two children recently admitted to Starhip hospital, who were both allegedly abused, don't appear to have received their injuries from being smacked.
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ron,
Haven't you read David Copperfield? Children aren't humans, and therefore have no rights
Well, it's true they don't have the right to vote, or drink in pubs, or drink at home, or have sex, or go to war, or gamble, or drive a car, or smoke, or see r18 movies, be left home alone, etc, etc. Is that what you meant?
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Although no doubt these groups were afraid to bite the hand that feeds them.
You mean the donation-giving public? That's who 'feeds' SCF anyway (and not that well I may add).
But to confuse smacking with child abuse really was beyond the pale.
Really? From today's Melbourne Age "THE manslaughter of a five-year-old boy who was beaten and strapped as a form of discipline was among the worst killings of its kind, a Supreme Court judge has been told." The man who killed that child was administering discipline, which he probably called smacking.
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ron - children can drink alcohol at home. And smoke. And have sex. All without breaking the law.
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I note that the two children recently admitted to Starhip hospital, who were both allegedly abused, don't appear to have received their injuries from being smacked.
True, but I'll bet the people who beat them started with smacking and escalated from there when they didn't get the result they thought they should get.
Well, it's true they don't have the right to vote, or drink in pubs, or drink at home, or have sex, or go to war, or gamble, or drive a car, or smoke, or see r18 movies, be left home alone, etc, etc. Is that what you meant?
No, probably here we're referring to the rights the rest of us take for granted - you know, not to have the crap beaten out of us by thugs and sadists. Or is that a privilage rather than a right?
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A few points, ron.
1) Have you read David Copperfield? Just wondering. Cos you didn't really seem to get the point I was making.
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I note that the two children recently admitted to Starhip hospital, who were both allegedly abused, don't appear to have received their injuries from being smacked.
Not very good logic there. You seem to be implying that because two people were seriously abused but not smacked, smacking never leads to serious abuse. This is, of course, a completely incoherent position.
3) Regarldess, I don't care if smacking leads to serious abuse or not. Smacking kids is, in and of itself, wrong (note that I'm not saying parents that smack their kids lightly once in a blue moon should immediately be sent to jail, but its still wrong). Likewise, caning or strapping kids is wrong. Indeed, most people who argued against Sue Bradford's bill claimed to only want the option to give their kids a "loving corrective tap", and apparently agreed that hitting with objects was wrong. Have the goalposts now shifted to wanting teachers to be able to give kids a punitive bash with an object?
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but above all reduce class sizes.
Amen to that.
Although no doubt these groups were afraid to bite the hand that feeds them.
Correct. Who is paying the Families First bills? And please, spare me the "concerned citizens" line.
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Don - I still think that a little unfair to FF.
Graeme, if you want to stick up for a group that thinks rights for children are PC nonsense be my guest. Where would you draw the fairness line?
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This morning I also heard it was because of teh drugs and violent video games. OH COME ON PEOPLE! Whatever happened to violence begets violence?
Well said, Heather - I know one teacher who told me she came home from a parent-teacher conference concerning one of her 'problem kids', and seriously considered never going back. And we're not talking about a convent-reared hysteric who goes to pieces at a bit of adolescent male attitude either. She was genuinely terrified after being subjected to an obscenity-laded tirade from the prick's mother about how she must have done something to provoke being told by a 14 year-old boy that she was a c**t and deserved a 'good fucking'.
Somehow, I suspect that little charmer already gets smacked around quite enough.
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And rightly so. Their views on smacking didn't have a whiff of scientific evidence behind them.
That really is a staggeringly ignorant statement.
Although no doubt these groups were afraid to bite the hand that feeds them. But to confuse smacking with child abuse really was beyond the pale. I note that the two children recently admitted to Starhip hospital, who were both allegedly abused, don't appear to have received their injuries from being smacked.
So what's the rate of child assault in homes where children aren't hit at all, ron?
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Where would you draw the fairness line?
I'd start with accuracy. Saying someone said something they didn't say, or is something that they are not, is unfair (even if the person said something, or is, monstrous).
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3410,
On a lighter note:
I don't ever ROFL, but I came pretty close to it with this statement in the weekend's Sunday Star-Times:Hayley Meekin, 24, manages Gore's pub and cafe, Howl At The Moon. She told the Sunday Star-Times the findings [Gore the least gay town in New Zealand] didn't surprise her at all after living in the town for 11 years.
"I don't know why it is, but I definitely haven't noticed any gay couples coming in who are local. I think Mikey Havoc only said what he did because gay rhymes with Gore."
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I shall have to remedy my pronunciation of Gore immediately.
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