1. To Larry Baldock, my sincere thanks for furnishing Granny Herald with a photo that makes anything I might write about your lust for child-punishing redundant.
2. To the 88%-of-54% who voted “no”, many of whom thought they were just being practical, and fair, and don’t want “good parents” punished, I invite you to consider that people like Larry Baldock don’t actually care what you thought, because all they wanted, and all you’ve actually done is given them more credibility when they say “oh, and not just light smacks, but rulers and wooden spoons too.”*
3. Finally, to anyone who thinks a referendum based on such a loaded question actually means anything, I can do no better than leave you with Sir Humphrey:
Any no-voters reading this? Please feel free to preface your comments with a single incident of a parent being “criminalized” for a “light smack” or GTFO.
*What next? People with intellectual disabilites? Oh, but only when they’re endangering themselves and you can’t reason with them and it’s just transitory (which would seem logically inconsistent with having any disciplinary effect anyway) and sometimes you just get frustrated and lash out but that doesn’t make you a bad person EXCEPT IT DOES.
And this is why I will vote yes, and this is why I will forever be fucking pissed off at people who complain that “there’s a difference between a light smack and child abuse” and “I never hit my kids, I just smacked them“.
I mean, first of all because they’re wrong, but that’s a whole ‘nother flamewar.
Because here’s the thing, pro-smackers.
Sure, you see the magical line between smacking and hitting.
You’re the kind of parents who don’t abuse their kids but just sometimes give them taps on the bottom as part of loving discipline.
So it seems totally kosher to you that parents should be legally allowed to defend their actions as being reasonable force.
But when you stand up and say “parents know what’s best for their children, and sometimes physical discipline is the only recourse”? And when you say “the nanny state shouldn’t interfere with the parent-child relationship” and when you say “look, this guy is a good parent, he was just at the end of his tether“?
Great list of suggestions for alternative questions in our upcoming “child discipline” referendum over at The Dim Post. I’m a particular fan of:
Should a smack as part of good parental driving out of devils be considered a criminal offense in New Zealand?
And the commenter who extensively cited Lewis Carroll gets ALL the e-cookies.
So far the leaders of our two major political parties have variously indicated that they agree the question is stupid (but seem to have determinedly avoided pointing out that this is due to our CIR procedures being rubbish in this regard) and probably won’t vote.
Well, I’m going to vote. Because the people who put forward questions like this are not overly swayed by facts. If only 80,000 people actually fill in their ballots correctly and 75% are no-votes, which of those numbers are we going to hear about? The pathetic turnout or the “75% of people think section 59 should be put back into effect!” spin?
Voting yes, for me, isn’t just about supporting a law that is working or making a stand against all violence in New Zealand families. And it’s not just a way of saying “fuck off” to Bob McCoskrie and his ilk (though that’s a bonus). It’s a way of showing them hey, you do NOT speak for the majority of New Zealanders, you do NOT speak for “normal” or “mainstream” or “middle” New Zealand, your ideas are BAD and you should FEEL bad.
Tony Veitch police file released – because, you know, he just snapped and it was totally a one-off mistake and abuse isn’t escalating and long term and isn’t the Granny Herald glad now it ran that bullshit story about “ZOMG they’re charging Our Hero with throwing a glass of water, how TRIVIAL”?
Robbing public transport to pay for roads by Russel Norman over at frogblog. Because Steven Joyce is too stupid to understand that the reason Aucklanders poll in favour of public transport but still use cars is because current Auckland public transport is shit and maybe they’d use it if it got some actual investment oh no there I go being logical again.
And Eddie at The Standard basically sums up my feelings on “Punch in the face” dad guilty. Don’t even get me started on the idiot “commentator” on Sunrise this morning who, in response to Ella Henry’s comments about previous horsewhip/electric cord cases said obliviously, “But they got convicted, didn’t they?” NO YOU MORON, THAT’S WHY THE LAW HAD TO BE CHANGED, FUCKING HELL. I would lament that someone that uninformed is being paid to “comment” on issues of the day, but it’s probably part of some masterful Sunrise plan to plumb Henry-esque depths of stupid in an attempt to steal Breakfast viewers.
Exhibit A: “good parental correction”, as in “Should a smack as part of good parental correction be a criminal offense in New Zealand?” Because, you know, that’s a totally objective standard, contains no inherent assumptions, and will totally yield an accurate account of to what extent New Zealanders support beating kids.
Oh wait, no, see, what I did there was probably “twist other people’s words” or “condemn all smacking as violence”, which … well, no apologies, ’cause it fucking is.**
Unless you’re Exhibit B: “I smacked my children, but I’ve never hit them.” Which is fine if a) you’re a former rugby player and thus get an automatic hall pass on anything you do, and b) if you honestly think the only definition of “hit” is “hit really hard and not in a manner I thought was justified at the time”.
Sorry, who’s messing around with language now?
Oh, right, it’s our naughty, naughty Government, which, in Exhibit C, is refusing “to acknowledge any sex.” Because an evil lesbian conspiracy* has decided to change official court language: “Foreperson” instead of “Foreman” of a jury. Now, sure, there’s a bit of life in the idea that we could just use Foreman or Forewoman as appropriate (I really don’t want to be the one to try to tell Bob Jones about the fluidity of gender), but even putting aside identity issues, I can’t wait to see Rodney Hide get bitchy about the amount of money it’d cost to print two versions of every single pertinent document.
…
Going off the topic, and others have already said it, but this really does appear to need repeating:
TWELVE-YEAR-OLDS CANNOT CONSENT TO SEX YOU FUCKING ASSHAT.
*I so wish I was making that up.
**But that’s a post for another day, or several posts, since we apparently have to have a fucking referendum on this now.
Mike Moreu is a cartoonist for local rag The DomPost.* His blog profile on Stuff says
Mike Moreu is a full-time editorial cartoonist with a passion for using funny pictures to make serious points.
Which would seem a fairly textbook description of a political cartoonist, yes?
So I can only assume I’m missing a) the funny and b) the point:
"Two sides of the same coin"
It’s, um, funny because people are dead. Specifically, Israeli people? And, um, the implied irony of Israelis releasing live prisoners and Hizbollah executing prisoners is, I guess, really hilarious? Or just smirk-worthy? And the point … is that Hizbollah are bad and Israel is totally morally in the clear with regard to Middle Eastern conflict? Wow, what breathtaking insight. What an amazing, incisive depiction of complex situations that’s truly made me think about the situation in a new light – oh, sorry, no, my actual response was “Wow, if we’re just going to incite more conflict, could we at least have some kind of punchline?”
Update: and now this has hit the blogosphere in force, there’s also a round-up of posts at The Hand Mirror, in addition to what I’ve garnered at the end of this post.
…
Via PublicAddress, I learn of a High Court review, instigated by Right to Zygote Life NZ, of the workings of our Abortion Supervisory Committee.
And it’s kind of, do-I-laugh-or-do-I-cry:
In a review of the workings of the Abortion Supervisory Committee, initiated by Right To Life New Zealand, Justice Forrest Miller said there was a reason to doubt the lawfulness of many abortions.
Here’s the deal in the liberal hippie communist paradise of the South Pacific, bastion of human rights and progressive thinking (see also Women’s Suffrage, Abyssinia, nukes, Georgina Beyer):
Via a Feminist Bookmark Alert at Hoyden About Town, this post on street harassment at The F-Word … well, it should be thought-provoking. The fact that almost every woman on the planet has at some time faced harassment, threats, or abuse from random strangers on the street – and the fact that this is almost invariably sexualised, so please spare me the “But TEH MENZ get hassled too, honest!” – should be shocking and unbelievable.
But it isn’t, to me.
Last week I was walking to a dance class at the Ungodly Hour of 7.00 pm. It’s been an absolute fright of a winter in these parts, so I was in black stockings, knee-length skirt, big fluffy scarf and bulky hoodie. My shoes were flat and plain. I had a backpack on.
And as a small red car full of young white men sped past, one wound down his window and shouted, “HEY BABY, HOW MUCH?” at me.
I’m amazed how quickly I managed to regain control of my thoughts and flip the wankers off. And then I felt shaky, and nervous, and kept looking around expecting the car to come back, and thought about the front cover of my copy of Against Our Will, with the words writ large: “a conscious process by which all men keep all women in a state of fear.” And after my class I asked my teacher to give me a lift home – because at 8.30, on a weeknight, in a well-lit area of a pretty bloody safe city, I did not want to be a woman walking home alone.
