Posts by Deborah
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I really think this is an area best left alone.
Well, that would suggest getting rid of sectin 59, rather than getting involved and offering a specific defence to people who assault their children.
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Quite straightforwardly, we aren't desecended from chimpanzees. We share a common ancestor, from about 6 million years ago.
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and why are people so anti cretins? all the kiwis that over there say they're really nice
That would be 'Cretans' for the inhabitants of Crete.
Every now and then I like to justify my fully paid up membership of Pedants Anonymous.
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You really are a pathetic cretin. Why don't you take up a new hobby, like self-immolation.
Um, okay, so Ross becomes our first ever struck-off user.
Good call. Ross's arguments were driving me crazy, but this was the point where he went over the line. The way I see it, it's fine to say that someone's arguments are weak / silly / stupid / ridiculous / absurd / farcial / preposterous / risible / contemptible / deficient / feeble / lame / pathetic / wanting, or just plain unconvincing (as long as you provide some reasons to back up your assessment), but calling someone weak / silly / stupid / ridiculous / absurd / farcial / preposterous / risible / contemptible / deficient / feeble / lame / pathetic / wanting is a step too far.
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I have used the Student Job Search site to find casual babysitters, and firends have used it to find after-school caregivers. It's worth giving it a go.
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B'ad men... Now that you have the AA ad running down the left hand side of my screen, I can no longer see the list of the latest PA blog posts. Any chance of getting them back? I tend to go to PA System first now, and only flick back to PA to read the blog posts.
This is on Safari, on a Mac.. (and Firefox too - I just checked).
I'm supportive of the ads, and happy to take part in surveys if that will help you to establish demographics so that you can generate some good revenue from the site. Best wishes for making this site financially viable.
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No, I don't believe only a criminal conviction is meaningful. But I suspect that in the last two cases of alleged rape, the jury may have declared innocence if they were able to. Isn't that a weakness in our system?
I read this exactly the other way, ross, and I'm sure many other people do too. This is one instance where the jury may have returned the Scottish verdict, 'Not proven" if they had been able to.
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Isn't it significant that Nicholas was judged by her peers who found her testimony/credibility to be wanting?
Actually, ross, she wasn't on trial.
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The tone on PA is usually quite polite (c/f other NZ blogs), and usually I try to adhere to that, but really, Stephen - what a crock. Talk about muddling by metaphor, and engaging in philosophical obfuscation. I have had enough.
Let go of the system installation metaphor. It adds nothing to the discussion. We all know that children need teaching: what is at issue here is the method(s) we use to teach them. Wittering on about 'system installation' is just a red herring, and it smacks of an undergraduate philosophy essay. Although this is nicely argued, it proves only a small point (children need teaching) and it is irrelevant to the discussion at hand.
We do ignore assaults all the time. A friend gets into a heated situation at a pub: we grab them by the arm and pull them away. A stranger steps out in front of a bus: we push them back, roughly. A yoof starts hassling other people at a nightclub: a security guard hustles them out. No one ever, ever prosecutes these sorts of assaults.
And let's be quite clear that we have not, for a long time, accepted that the personal nature of a relationship somehow makes violence more acceptable. Remember the 'It's not just a domestic' campaign? It used to be that giving the missus the biff was thought to be just a private matter, deplorable maybe, but nevertheless not something the police needed to worry about, even if the missus had bruises and broken ribs. We do care about what happens in personal relationships, we do think that physical violence is unacceptable, and we do not think that it is right for one person to impose their will on another by the use of force. But before you say, "Oh, so the police will interfere in every case," remember that the police do not turn up every time a wife pushes a husband, or a husband pushes a wife. The police turn up, and prosecute, when bodies are bruised and broken, and then it is simply not acceptable to claim that you were using reasonable force to correct your partner's behaviour.
As for erring on the side of caution - we do, in general, accept this principle. We have a speed limit of 100kph, even though in some cases, it would be safe to drive faster. Abortions are generally limited to the first trimester, because we are just not sure enough about the status of the fetus past about say, 23 weeks (the first trimester ends around 13 or 14 weeks). We eschew capital punishment, just because it is too easy to get it wrong. And if a principle of caution operates anywhere in this debate, it operates in favour of overturning section 59, because it would lead us to protect the vulnerable i.e. children.
Claiming that the principle of caution leads us down some slippery slope is a cheap debating trick - it is dead easy to make judgments at either end of a slippery slope, and very difficult in the middle. But that's what we are being asked to do here. Just becuase we can analogise to one end or the other of the slippery slope, and make an easy judgement there, doesn't mean that our judgements about the middle are correct. So quit playing around with pseudo philosophical structures, and start telling me exactly why you think we should be able to hit children, without any jargon or labels. What is it about children that makes it acceptable to hit them? Lose the hi-falutin' tone, and start arguing directly, and trying to prove exactly why children should not have the same basic rights as other New Zealand citizens.
And while I am at it, Graeme... if we were labelling this bill correctly, it would be the 'removing the reasonable force defence bill'. It's not an anti-smacking bill. It does not say you may not smack your child. All it does it is say that when you are charged with assault against a child, you may not use the defence of reasonable force.
Tell you what, if you don't agree with my views, why don't you come around and smack me to set me right and teach me how to behave?
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There's a column by Garth George about the bill in this morning's Herald.