Posts by rodgerd
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I'm not sure which is more depressing: that we can find a village idiot wiling to defend any behaviour my a bunch of crooks in uniforms, no matter what damage it does to their victims, the integrity of the justice system, or to the day-to-day lives of their fellow officers, or self-styled enlightened liberals still pushing the delightlfully pre-feminist idea that the defining characteristic for the acceptability of an adult woman's consensual sex life his what her male relatives think of it.
Women are not chattels.
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I'm not sure about that one, but only because there are far too many people already abdicating the responsibility of parenthood by dumping wee babies into daycare that they pay very dearly for
You are aware that most contemporary research on child development says that children growing up exposed only to their parents and a small circle of their friends children is significantly less developmentally healthy than kids who spend time in creches and preschool, right?
Obviously not.
Even if there wasn't research around it, I think it would be obvious to anyone who's spent a non-trivial amount of time looking after kids to grasp that even one kid can easily burn through the energy available to an adult tethered to the hearth.
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Well, let's say that for some bizarre reason you'd decided step-parenthood causes abuse in and of itself. What you'd want to do is make sure solo mothers didn't feel financially pressured to enter new relationships. You'd want to provide them with some sort of Benefit. For Domestic Purposes, perhaps.
Certainly you wouldn't want to trap them in relationships with their previous violent partner because you have some sort of irrational believe that a solo parent is worse than an abusive relationship.
But if we're talking about radical solutions you could follow the system being trialled in some parts of Britain, where solo mothers can get the police to check up on potential partners (which I think stinks, but hey, if we're proposing radical solutions like "reducing women escaping from bad relationships to poverty", we could give that one a go, too).
I did see, in the 90s, a government-comissioned report on dometic abuse that claimed that much abuse was an 80:20 problem, not just with the majority of abuse being perpetrated by a core of abusers, but also that a surprising amount of reported abuse came from the same people. If that's true (and I know one person who used to work with Rape Crises told me they reckoned the report was rubbish), then perhaps one problem we have is that people who get into abusive relationships need help to avoid making the same mistakes in the future.
The thing about 'community' is that sometimes it reinforces some pretty appalling behaviours.
Quite. I've never quite understood the assumption that CYFS are directed to lbour under, that children removed from abusive immediate family should be placed with extended family. While I know bad bastards can come from good families and vice versa, I would tend to expect the people most likely to teach abusive parents how to be abusive are... the parents' family!
Anyway, the interesting thing about this sort of problem is that, like the question, "Why did Rome fall?" it excells at telling you more about the hobby-horses of correspondents than much of anything useful.
I suggest they do some research and see how approving they are of Te Rauparaha's activities.
Oh lord, the time some whiny self-hating leftie white boy at a party told me what a hero of the Maori people Te Raupraha was. Mind you, he started arguing that 6 year olds could, in theory, give consent to sex, which is when I told him he could leave.
we will know that this nation is ready to do something about the appalling violence wreaked on children when an All Black donates his player of the match award to a campaign to stop child abuse.
Nah, more like when one performs a John Kirwin (who fronts for depression awareness), and shows up on TV ads saying, "My Mum/Dad belted me with the wooden spoon/belt/whatever, it was lousy then, it's lousy now, cut that shit out."
The simple truth is if a kid goes off the rails it's the parents fault (yes, as an individual the child bears responsibility as well). [...] People always shy away from this conclusion because its a difficult truth
Yes, genetics, the influence of schools, peer groups, and so on, are irrelevant. This explains why kids from the same family always turn out identical.
- can one foul at Judo
Oh, yes. There's an exhaustive list. I'm allowed to put an opponent in an arm lock that'll break or dislocate your elbow if you don't give up, but I'll get disqualified if I punch 'em in the face 8)
What is "just" or "warranted" is not dependant on the opinion of the crowd.
Indeed. When I'm at Judo I expect to be grabbed, thrown, pinned, strangled, or arm barred. I don't expect, even in the most vigourous shiai (tournament) to get elbows to the groin or kicked in the head. Them's the rules. Breaking them isn't a bit of a giggle. Apparently, in rugby in New Zealand, it often is.
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Um, drawing a meaningful distinction between being on a rugby field with 29 other adults and a referee and treating your children like a football?
It's a valid distinction, and I say that as someone who's main sporting hobby is a martial art. But it's pretty hard to deny there's a huge affection for thuggery in the game - it's not too hard to find people bemoaning the loss of a better, bygone era when there were more punch-ups and they were treated more leniently.
The rugby players are at least bashing those of roughly equal physical development.
Yes, because the mystery person who broke Mark Allen's jaw from behind was, you know, just playing the game as it was meant to be played. Prop Richard Loe assaulting an Aussie back and breaking his nose was a fair fight, as was his classy eye-gouge. England are addicted to playing that thug Grewcock, no matter how many times he gets banned.
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if someone wanted to maximise the financial benefit to themselves of something like the DPB, it would involve having as many children as possible, and neglecting them as much as possible
The DPB is, I would assert, the worst possible thing to chop if you want kids out of abusive situations. An abused person with kids to care for faces enough barriers to getting out without adding even higher financial ones than already exist.
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At the risk of sounding prissy:
Newland's actions were more than just a blend of cunning strategy and violent cheating, they were a nod to a time-honoured tradition. Tales of players being levelled at lineouts are part of the fabric of the game.
A paen to the virtues of a from-behind punch n the weekend.
Ask yourself this : how many violent TV programs / movies / computer games would you be willing to forgo in order to save 1 child from this sort of abuse ?
Well, it's an interesting question, if you accept the argument. But, in the same vein, banning cars and alcohol would also save a lot of kids' lives. Will you also give up your beer and your car, even if you drive carefully and never turn violent iafter a few bevvies?
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but turning someone from a dole bludger into, say, a cleaner isn't going to suddenly remove the thing that makes them the sort of person who'd harm a child.
If the "things" that are fuelling abuse are financially stressed, and having no prospects of your life getting better, then, yes, actually, it will.
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There are no longer any boundaries
Maybe you need to go back to the last discussion here and take a take a good, long, hard look at child fatalities presented in UN reports on the topic. New Zealand has dropped massively in the last 30 years. Contrary to your "kids today" hysteria, the fact is "the kids today" kill fewer of their children than their parents.
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A spin to the left of course ...
More like an uncharitable description. But not inaccurate, either.
I read Key's denial of what Audrey Young published not as a 'smear' but as an attempt to clarify.
If you were any more charitable, you'd be giving him your shirt.
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Sorry, Don, I just don't buy the notion that there's any blameless victim here.
Well, there's a surprise.
And ron, we've moved on from David, since he's gone. We're on the "National party leader caught lying in attempts to smear journalist" now.