Hard News by Russell Brown

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Hard News: Smack to the Future

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  • BenWilson,

    The point of the hypothetical alternate question isn’t for you to posit the likely result. It is to highlight one aspect of the actual question that was problematic.

    The fact that it's childishly easy to answer in a way that squares with the likely moral intuitions of the masses suggests it's not that problematic at all.

    They would be saying that the idea that a smack could be something that is “good husbandly correction” is absurd.

    Yup, that's what makes it so easy to answer. Good husbandly correction does not include smacks, so it's no defense, and thus a simple assault. There could be other good husbandly correction. Like "having a talk about it".

    You said in your answer to do it would be a crime.

    Most people would want it that way, I think. Whether it was a crime or not. That's what the question's asking. Seriously dude, what's hard about this?

    That’s either a pointless statement, or you’re appealing to the criminality of the matter as a support of your position on the criminality of the matter in question.

    You're tying yourself in knots and then saying it did it. I just said that people would not only want it to be a crime, but would probably realize that it already is. One is not the supporting premise of the other.

    Because surveys don’t make decisions.

    But they could. We could have had the MMP referendum off a survey. I'm not fundamentally opposed to this idea. It would need to be a government run survey, though.

    Harm is not as amenable to science as you seem to think.

    Nor you, apparently:

    Me: “The question of whether there is some detrimental effect from being smacked as a child is not a moral question. It is a scientific question…”

    Ben: “Right”

    Harm is a balance of detrimental effects and positive effects. How does science weigh up the positive value of every lesson from every smack? Sure there might be better ways to that positive effect but that doesn't take away the possible positive effect from a smack. For instance, a smack might have prevented the death of a child because they remembered not to run across the road without looking. Does science have some lovely way of calculating the value of that saved life?

    1) you realise your focus on the idea of science as where you get your morals from is a straw man, don‘t you? Neither myself nor James W said that.

    You did not, I agree. You said laws should come from science, or be 100% informed by science with no question of morality. I disagree.

    (2) To paraphrase you: I'd say there a sense that anal sex is as harmful as the people who engage in it think it is. That doesn’t apply to the smacking issue, as the children aren’t asked if they consent to getting smacked, are they?

    I was clarifying the idea of the non-scientific side of harm. To include consent, another moral notion, is only to play further into my hands.

    I specifically choose the “bullwhip” example because it refers to a notorious case whereby the jury did consider it was reasonable. Thus, it wasn’t illegal.

    At least in that case. Each case is new, with new jurors. Justice can be a bit like that, unfortunately.

    Why is it so poor? No analogy is perfect, but they’re useful for making points, esp. in informal arguments. Confer your own use of an analogy when discussing a scientific assessment of harm. (I don’t think that analogy holds up, but note that I bothered to say why.)

    It's really poor because if you want to create a statement that elucidates how confusing the referendum question was, you don't do it by making up an example that is even less confusing.

    It wouldn’t have to be widely popular, just something that people considered to be a private matter, not something the Law or the Government should be poking its nose into.

    To get any kind of majority in a referendum it would need to score at least half of the votes. That currently includes both men and women, so it would be widely unpopular. In times past, when only men could vote, it would have been more popular, I'm sure. Your example would be better set in the 19th century. It scarcely needed a CIR to block women's rights back then - the elected representatives were doing the job just fine.

    So by analogy you’re saying in the smacking debate we would start with children. Easy sell. Do they get a say in referenda?

    Children don't vote, no. I don't have a strategy by which you could convince the population smacking should always be a crime, because, dude, I don't even agree with the statement. That's your challenge.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 10657 posts Report Reply

  • andrew llewellyn,

    Would the result have been different if the question had been:

    "Should children have the same legal protections from assault as adults do?"

    There are some over at Kiwiblog (old thread) who have stated they should not. When pressed, it was "because they are children".

    Can't be arsed hunting down a link though.

    Since Nov 2006 • 2075 posts Report Reply

  • BenWilson,

    I'm still struggling to see how "Should children have the same legal protections from assault as adults do?" is a lot vaguer.

    Than the referendum question? Because it makes no specific mention of what protections are being referred to. It's a much wider net than smacking. Also, it's not clear whether a yes answer even means less protections, or more. At least with the referendum question it was asking whether something should be a crime.

    This supposedly identical question is not identical in either form or content. A yes answer to one would not necessarily follow from a yes answer to the other, and a no would not follow from a no. Which is probably the simplest definition of propositional equivalence there is - two statements are equivalent if they entail each other. Which means they are true or false in all the same conditions.

    So I'm fairly sure there would be significant variance in the answers to these non-identical questions. Nothing about that proves that the referendum was vague, or begging the question.

    Perhaps a better example would have been the simple removal of the word "good". That might have got different numbers, and the propositions with the word and without are very, very similar. But still not exactly the same. If you leave out good, then you allow bad parental correction. Which would indeed turn some no-voters off, since it could plausibly imply excessive smacking, smacking to get kids to do things they shouldn't have to, etc.

    I believe it was part of Sue Bradford's proposal that a public education programme would go along with the law change.

    Once it became the government bill of death and got passed, the government I think didn't want to know anything more about it because it would keep reminding the public about it with an election coming up, so that it just was a law with no accompanying programme.

    It's rather sad that things went that way, and in that order. It could have started with a public education programme about discipline without smacking, which in itself might have had some really good positive effect. Then a law tightening up on abuse would have looked really progressive. Similar to years of campaigning about the damage caused by passive smoking paving the way for the indoor smoking ban. It could have been a win for Labour.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 10657 posts Report Reply

  • Sacha,

    Leaving it as a Green bill could have been a win for Labour.

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report Reply

  • Craig Ranapia,

    Key says he will make an announcement on Boscawen's bill at 4 p.m.

    Presumably he'll go for more consulty-wulty, maybe supporting it to a select committee or whatever it is with private members' bills.

    Instead, Key rather politely said "fuck off". Good chap.

    BTW, I heard Boscawen on Checkpoint and Mary Wilson handed him his arse on a plate. Not very difficult when he starts off by calling Key a liar then denies he did any such thing. He trots out the "88% of New Zealanders have spoken", then gets all pissy because Wilson points out the simple fact that statement just isn't true. And if I understand him, the Police's advice to Key is also a pack of lies that's been pushed by that well-known hotbed of namby-pamby liberalism. /sarcasm. Except he never said that either...

    North Shore, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 12370 posts Report Reply

  • Craig Ranapia,

    Oh, and someone really needs to ask Boscawen what the hell is wrong with "criminalising" a father who admitted to Police that witnesses who said he punched his son in the face were telling the truth?

    But of course, he never said that either... How the hell do you engage rationally with people like Boscawen, Baldock and McCoskrie when they're not so much moving the goal posts, but changing the game whenever it's convenient. It's too strong to say they're habitual and hardened liars, but it's painful listening to someone who denies making a statement seconds later.

    North Shore, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 12370 posts Report Reply

  • Rich Lock,

    Instead, Key rather politely said "fuck off". Good chap.

    He has gone up several points in my estimation since that announcement.

    He trots out the "88% of New Zealanders have spoken"

    Mary Wilson may understand the difference, but New Zealand's Paper of Record (tm) continues to Epically Fail Stats 101.

    back in the mother countr… • Since Feb 2007 • 2728 posts Report Reply

  • Craig Ranapia,

    He has gone up several points in my estimation since that announcement.

    From this (blue) corner, I've got to add a hearty ditto ditto! for Phil Goff.

    Mary Wilson may understand the difference, but New Zealand's Paper of Record (tm) continues to Epically Fail Stats 101.

    As I've just pointed out over on Kiwiblog: Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, nobody is entitled to their own facts. I was the willing to give the media the benefit of the doubt on Sunday morning. Who hasn't made "trivial typing errors" or infelicitous turns of phrase slip through hard on deadline. But when you're running a misleading factoid -- and allowing lobbyists to repeat it unchallenged -- five days later? My patience is officially exhausted.

    North Shore, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 12370 posts Report Reply

  • Jeremy Eade,

    The Government will fund 15,000 idle Auckland youngsters who could get up to mischief in the school holidays to go on one-week programmes this summer.

    - herald today

    A quick off topic piece, whether you support this or not this is hardcore nanny state. Nanny is welcomed by all parties apart from those lonley unloveable bastards Act.

    auckland • Since Mar 2008 • 1112 posts Report Reply

  • Martin Lindberg,

    BTW, I've been wondering about some of the terminology in this debate. How do you "criminalise" someone? I can see how an act can be criminalised, as in "an activity that was once legal is now illegal". But are people who continue performing this newly criminal act "criminalised"?

    For example, a while ago they made selling party pills containing BZP illegal. If someone would now be selling those same pills - have they been criminalised?

    "Criminalised" appears to infer some kind of victim-status to the offender.

    Stockholm • Since Jul 2009 • 802 posts Report Reply

  • Rich Lock,

    I was the willing to give the media the benefit of the doubt on Sunday morning. Who hasn't made "trivial typing errors" or infelicitous turns of phrase slip through hard on deadline. But when you're running a misleading factoid -- and allowing lobbyists to repeat it unchallenged -- five days later? My patience is officially exhausted.

    Without wanting to get all 'moon landings filmed in a hanger' about it, the 'No' campaign has been taking out an awful lot of full-page, front of shop advertising in the print edition recently....

    back in the mother countr… • Since Feb 2007 • 2728 posts Report Reply

  • Caleb D'Anvers,

    As I've just pointed out over on Kiwiblog: Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, nobody is entitled to their own facts.

    Thanks for that link, Craig. It's amusing to see that JK has earned the sobriquet "Neville Key" for his stance on the smacking issue. Because if there's one Hitler stood for, it was his passionate commitment to not smacking children. That's clearly what the annexation of Czechoslovakia was really about.

    London SE16 • Since Mar 2008 • 482 posts Report Reply

  • Lyndon Hood,

    How do you "criminalise" someone?

    It is the case that if you commit a crime, you're a criminal; but an awareness of the full extent of things that are crimes suggests that few are immune and it's not necessarily as bad as it sounds.

    I've had the impression there's a similar issue with people where they can't see smacking as a bad thing because they've done it and they're not a bad person.

    It's probably not coincidence that the same logic that same logic means criminals are condemned as evil people (and they condemn themselves), which relates to a whole nother debate.

    I'm also reminded of complaints of "law-abiding" drivers being fined for speeding.

    He has gone up several points in my estimation since that announcement.

    I can say I felt like seeking him out and shaking his hand. "Well played, Sir!"

    It probably helped that he'd want to stop people speculating what the Nats would do by the evening news.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 1115 posts Report Reply

  • Craig Ranapia,

    Without wanting to get all 'moon landings filmed in a hanger' about it, the 'No' campaign has been taking out an awful lot of full-page, front of shop advertising in the print edition recently....

    I wouldn't go that far, Rich, especially where someone like Simon Collins is concerned. I'll always go for the lazy cock-up theory over the advertising department lead conspiracy any day of the week.

    "Criminalised" appears to infer some kind of victim-status to the offender.

    And as I said up thread, pardon me if my hard right-wing heart is all out of sympathy for this shitbag. Even Family First (quietly) stopped running ads citing Jimmy Mason as a good parent who had been "criminalised" by Sue Bradford and her PC wannabe King Herods.

    North Shore, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 12370 posts Report Reply

  • Caleb D'Anvers,

    I'm loving the confused vitriol being dished out over at Your Views:

    When I voted National. I voted because I thought Key had guts. How wrong I was. JK has just proven that he is the same as other politicians (Gutless, two faced, liars, that are out for self gratification only. I Do believe that there is far to much violence to wards children and that something needs to be done, But this crap arse law is not going to do anything worth while. The referendum was nothing more than a pr exercise and JK made sure of that. 9 million dollars of self glorification.

    I know it's perhaps unfair to expect. People who can't type. In complete sentences. To have actual coherent thought patterns. But ... LOLWHAT?

    London SE16 • Since Mar 2008 • 482 posts Report Reply

  • Martin Lindberg,

    Oh, and someone really needs to ask Boscawen what the hell is wrong with "criminalising" a father ...

    Exactly. Saying, as Boscawen and others have said, that he was "criminalised" makes the father a victim.

    Child gets assaulted by father - father is"criminalised" and convicted - father is the victim. What is the child's status in this? Accomplice? Provocateur?

    Stockholm • Since Jul 2009 • 802 posts Report Reply

  • Craig Ranapia,

    Meanwhile, Kiwibogger makes shit up because those stupid facts make his head hurt:

    Sure, I get the point that you voted “Yes”.

    Oh. Fuck. Off.

    North Shore, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 12370 posts Report Reply

  • Craig Ranapia,

    It's amusing to see that JK has earned the sobriquet "Neville Key" for his stance on the smacking issue. Because if there's one Hitler stood for, it was his passionate commitment to not smacking children. That's clearly what the annexation of Czechoslovakia was really about.

    Yeah, I was tempted to call Godwin on that. But considering the faeces facial I got over there for merely suggesting that comparing Helen Clark to Robert Mugabe was... somewhat OTT and nonsensical (OK, "fucking moronic" was closer to the mark), it's just not worth the bother.

    North Shore, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 12370 posts Report Reply

  • Rich Lock,

    I wouldn't go that far, Rich, especially where someone like Simon Collins is concerned. I'll always go for the lazy cock-up theory over the advertising department lead conspiracy any day of the week.

    Oh, I know you're right. I'm just, y'know, sayin', is all.

    back in the mother countr… • Since Feb 2007 • 2728 posts Report Reply

  • simon g,

    I love democracy in all its finite glory, but when you read the "But I voted for John Key!!111" rants (Caleb's comment above) you have to wonder how somebody could walk into the polling booth in November and not know how the most famous and contentious law of the past three years got passed in the first place.

    "When I voted National. I voted because I thought Key had guts".

    No you didn't. You voted because you hated Helen Clark, and would have voted for a bag of decomposing toe nail clippings in order to get rid of her.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 1333 posts Report Reply

  • Craig Ranapia,

    No you didn't. You voted because you hated Helen Clark, and would have voted for a bag of decomposing toe nail clippings in order to get rid of her.

    Not quite my electoral driver, simon. But, hey, I've been quietly smiling at folks -- both here and elsewhere -- who've applied clothes peg to nose, swallowed hard and quietly murmured Well played, Mr. Key. Very well played indeed. It's a funny old world. :)

    North Shore, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 12370 posts Report Reply

  • Craig Ranapia,

    And even Idiot/Savant has extended Key the closest he's ever going to get to a make out session with tongue and a bit of under the shirt gropeage.

    John Key has announced that the government will not support John Boscawen's child-beating bill. Nice to see National on the side of right for once.

    Damn, let's not get too crazy here. :)

    North Shore, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 12370 posts Report Reply

  • simon g,

    Not quite my electoral driver, simon.

    Granted, Craig, but I didn't have you in mind as a "Ur Views" frother.

    It's one thing for voters to complain about hidden agendas and treacherous sell-outs, but the names of the people behind the Section 59 compromise were mentioned somewhere in the news. Even those with fingers in ears might have heard Key defend it occasionally.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 1333 posts Report Reply

  • Jeremy Eade,

    good on john key but let's put sue bradford on the dollar bill....more sensible policy from Sue Bradford or anyone please.

    And shouldn't we really admit the referendum policy needs more work too.What a waste of time.

    auckland • Since Mar 2008 • 1112 posts Report Reply

  • Craig Ranapia,

    I'd also note a rather sad timing irony about the 'Neville Key' cracks.

    Its a week until the 70th anniversary of the start of the Second World War -- here's hoping that is going to inspire some more thoughtful, and historically informed, reflection than Kiwiblog seems capable of.

    North Shore, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 12370 posts Report Reply

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