Written By: - Date published: 5:45 pm, January 29th, 2008 - 57 comments
Categories: child discipline -
Tags: child discipline
Mike Moreu from The Press is shaping up to be quite a fine cartoonist. Here’s his take on the Religious Right’s petition to restore the riding crop lady‘s right to beat her children.
Meanwhile the folks over at Newzblog have done a great send-up of the increasingly incoherent Garth McVicar from Sensible Sentencing and the equally dreadful Christine Rankin of “we’ve got a Maori problem” fame.
All the more timely in light of today’s speech. I wonder what Garth would think of boot camps?
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Careful Milt
As noted above, the fashionable crusade of “children’s rights” is self-consciously anti-family. The gummint is declared to be more interested in the welfare of children than are their parents.
It seeks rights and laws for children that neither they, nor their parents, want. It promises children legal sanctions against their parents. In so doing, it pits children into dialectical conflict with their parents.
The inescapable implication is that children are not in safe hands with their own parents and that Nanny State has to intervene in order to protect them. The assumption that parents are at best inadequate, and at worst, hostile, to the needs of their children is straight-out anti-family propaganda.
A “right” is classically defined as “the freedom to act without interference, according to one’s conscience.” It means nothing unless the individual has the capacity to act upon their right. Children, by nature of their immaturity and inexperience, do not have that capacity.
That’s why they have people who act FOR them, in the form of the people who created them and who love them more than anyone else. Those people, the adult parents, have a freedom to act according to their conscience, and within the law, with their children. It is that freedom that the Communist Sue Bradford has snatched away with the help of the useful idiots who supported her Private Member’s Bill.
Note that s59 already protected children against outright physical abuse masquerading as “discipline.”
Socialist Sweden was cited by the Bill’s supporters as having similar laws that NZ should emulate. What has been the Swedish experience?
The Nordic Committee, under its energetic and fearless chairman Ruby Harrold-Claesson (who came to NZ to speak against anti-smacking legislation), has managed to access many of the figures relating to the seizure of children by the Swedish authorities.
These are difficult to obtain because they are not recorded in the normal, criminal courts, but in courts analagous to our Family Court. Hence the ability of the Swedish authorities to claim that there have been no prosecutions under the 1979 law.
Children are taken away under the auspices of an administrative court which, in the public interest, of course, keeps the figures safely out of reach of most people.
To convey an idea of the extent to which the Swedish state has usurped the family, it is necessary to set out the context. Sweden has a population of eight million. It is extremely homogenous as to race, has virtually no poverty, wall-to-wall welfare and no large cities. The capital city has a population of less than two million and the second city has one hundred and fifty thousand people.
There should be very few cases where children need to be taken from their parents. Yet, in 1981 the authorities seized 22,000 children. This represents an annual seizure rate 86 times greater than that of West Germany. An equivalent annual figure for America would be more than 687, 000 children.
No doubt the authorities had such a field day because of the number of children who’d been smacked by their parents before the 1979 Act came in. The figure fell somewhat in later years but, in 1995, 14,700 children were still being removed from their homes.
That’s a seizure rate 57 times that of Germany. In American terms, nearly 500, 000 children would have been taken away from their parents and into state care.
Recent media reports make it clear we are only starting to see the downstream effect of Bradford’s pernicious legislation.
Tane and Psycho. Baldock did not do the petitions. Someone else did the other one – and guess what – both have nothing to do with Unity for liberty. Dont you read you emails Tane?
Dave, forgive me if I don’t keep up to date with the sectarian politics of the religious nutjob community. Whichever particular lobby group was technically behind the petition is irrelevant – they’re all campaigning and no doubt drumming up signatures too.
The criticism is of all the assorted religious right groups that are campaigning to reinstate the riding crop lady’s right to beat her children. I don’t particularly care which label they happen to organise themselves under.
I suggest that the reason the CIR threshhold is 300,000 signatures is to preclude the possibility of any “nutjob community” to hijack the public process.
Irrespective of who is behind the petition, should it crack the threshhold, it will be because the organisers have tapped into what Parliament long ago a valid public sentiment.
As for the oft-cited by leftards “riding crop” incident (it’s refreshing at least to see you calling it what it is, rather than a “horsewhip” as leftards typically do) it might prove instructive to read the open letter to the PM by the woman concerned:
http://familyintegrity.blogspot.com/2007/03/open-letter-to-prime-minister-from.html
Easy there, Tane fella!
You are really coming down hard on Christians at the moment. I myself am not a fan (especially when it is inyourfaceyouarealldamnedtohelletc) but they have a right to an opinion and a voice as well – even if we don’t like what that voice says.
In saying that, looks like the spirit of Jerry Falwell is alive and kicking in Aotearoa.
[lprent - junk warning - this is probably dad4justice under yet another alias. It is in his usual IP range and with the usual comment type.]
Tane,
Have you forgotten about democracy??
Family first among other groups want a referendum on the “anti-smacking’ law. Do you not get it. They actually believe in democracy unlike you.
I guess you don’t even know what referendum means??
Tane if you don’t want to keep up to date with the sectarian politics of the religious nutjob community, dont go on their mailing lists, then..
Simple,really. To everyone but you it appears
I also suggest you read the lengthy post on this link, in which the “riding crop woman” speaks for herself:
http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/KiwiSmithFamily/315455/
What you will see here is not a “child abuser” or a “religious nutter,” but an intelligent, articulate woman with a managerial job with a genuine love for her children.
Put up or shut up …
The actual CHILD ABUSE here has been perpetrated by CYFS social workers with an exaggerated idea of their own importance and of the role of gummint.
Anti-family socialists, in other words.
“What you will see here is not a “child abuser’ or a “religious nutter,’ but an intelligent, articulate woman with a managerial job with a genuine love for her children.”…
You are talking about the same woman who has now accumulated charges related to all 3 of her children right?
charges which include hogtie-ing one of her kids and letting the step dad assault him in the street (as reported by the media).
“Accumulated charges” as in CYPF social[ist] workers are operating a vendetta against her for refusing to knuckle under.
Twat!
You are really coming down hard on Christians at the moment.
Hey Brownie, na I’ve got no beef with Christians in general, just the right-wing nutters of the Family First/Destiny Church variety.
Have you forgotten about democracy?? … I guess you don’t even know what referendum means??
Simeon, of course I believe in democracy but I’m not sure a referendum based on media hysteria is the right way to go about it. I’m more of a fan of the citizens’ assembly model myself – get a whole bunch of ordinary people representative of society’s makeup, give them the facts in a neutral manner and let them come to their own recommendations.
I’m also uncomfortable with the idea of a majority voting on what rights a minority should have, especially if this minority is disenfranchised. Though I’m not sure what the answer is in this situation.
Michelle, here’s a bit of a response to you:
“As noted above, the fashionable crusade of “children’s rights’ is self-consciously anti-family. ” – I don’t agree
“The gummint is declared to be more interested in the welfare of children than are their parents.” – False
“It seeks rights and laws for children that neither they, nor their parents, want. ” – This is true for some people and false for others. As a sweeping generalisation it is false.
“It promises children legal sanctions against their parents.” – Yes. Of course, there are already lots of legal sanctions for children against parents. Parents have to feed their children, have to clothe them, can’t put them to work rather than send them to school etc etc. ‘Legal sanctions’ aren’t inherently good or bad, it’s the nature of what the law is that determines whether it is good or bad.
“In so doing, it pits children into dialectical conflict with their parents.” – False.
“The inescapable implication is that children are not in safe hands with their own parents and that Nanny State has to intervene in order to protect them.” – Well in some cases, this is true. Remember the kahui twins? If there was no speeding limit and the government was proposing introducing one, would you be railing at them for their direct criticism of the driving skills of everybody in NZ? The Speeding Limit only *really* impacts on the speeders (even though everone watches their speed). Sue Bradfords bill only really affects people who assault their children.
“The assumption that parents are at best inadequate, and at worst, hostile, to the needs of their children is straight-out anti-family propaganda.” – What crap. You seem to think that every family in the country is going to fall foul of this law. I don’t think that will be the case.
I’d do the rest, but your posts are too long. I read the ‘riding crop incident’, and I certainly agree that CYFS can rip a family apart. That seems to be the real problem to me in that case, nothing to do with the law being debated.
Though I’m not sure what the answer is in this situation.
Gee, you`re Labour through and through. Did you get that direction fron the 9th Floor?
Michele, I also find it interesting that someone who has now had charges for crimes against all three of her children is the paragon of civility, and is being perecuted by a government department for having the temerity to stand up against the Evil Family-Hating Forces of Oppression.
So there’s no chance that the charges are true? None at all? It’s all the Big Bad Govt. Right.
One more thought, you have banged upon about how women shouldn’t breed if they can’t look after the kids. One woman, five kids, and there’s trouble.
God you’re a hypocrite.
Gee, you`re Labour through and through. Did you get that direction fron the 9th Floor?
Yes Dave, they even tell me to vote Green.
And – here’s some gossip – just yesterday Heather Simpson rang Irish Bill and told him to pan Helen’s speech. It’s all super-complicated reverse psychology stuff that I wouldn’t expect you to understand.
Seriously though, get a life.
I am representing Family First in all future litigation against the state.
[lprent - junk warning - this is probably dad4justice under yet another alias. It is in his usual IP range and with the usual comment type.]
Dad,
I have a Swedish duvet.
Thank you Billy for the kind offer, however I prefer Swedish blonde’s myself.
[lprent - junk warning - this is probably dad4justice under yet another alias. It is in his usual IP range and with the usual comment type.]
Yes Dave, they even tell me to vote Green.
You`d probably vote blue if they told you to, as well… yes sir, Heather, three bags full Heather, anything you say Heather.
captcha Dearly H ( heh)(
Dave bro, I see you’re having trouble with that whole humour thing.
Perhaps that explains the racist ‘Maori’ version of Facebook you’ve posted up on your site as ‘humour’.
Tane, I`m not your “bro”, bro.