Mood:  sad

So john Key is not only refusing to listen to the actual words of people who say smacking should not be a criminal offense (only willing to listen to his own imagined meaning)  but is now saying he will whip his caucus to ensure john Boscowan's private member's bill is thrown out at first introduction.

He has painted himself into the naughty corner. It is no good palying hide and seek when the crowd has moved to another place.  He must go.

      John Roughan's attack on the organisers of the referendum as "sinister" is pathetic drivel and scaremongering.  Out of prejudice he refuses to accept that the organisers are honest in stating their views.  Without any evidence he actually suggests the organisers want the right to flog children, which is libellous and absurd.  Is it so hard for him to believe that an intelligent well-meaning parent could disagree with him: could genuinely believe Bradford's law is badly written and bad for children and their families?

People who oppose Sue Bradford's law do so because they read it at face value. They have a plain view of life: if someone breaks the criminal law it is a criminal offence;  "correction" means to change something or someone from going wrong to going right.

But there is something sinister about this debate. It is sinister for Bradford and the "yes" side to imply that people only become criminals if their offence is prosecuted and they are convicted. This reduces the law to "everything's Ok so long as you don’t get caught, and even then you might get off."  Respect for the law suffers as a consequence.
 
      I know that the prison service is called the Department of Corrections but most Kiwis would agree that the title is one of the most misleading in all of government.   To assert that "correction" doesn’t have its primary dictionary meaning, but means harsh punishment long after the fact, is a devious argument.  "Correction" in section 59 has nothing to do with prisons. And if Bradford meant punishment why didn’t she just say so?

 A plain reading of the law means that you can lawfully use force to stop a child behaving badly now (subsection 1) but if in any part of what you are doing you are trying to correct them - trying to stop them behaving badly in future - then subsection 2 overrules subsection 1 and you are breaking the criminal law.  It is sinister to imply that the plain words of a law are less important than what a politician spins it to mean.  
     
      It is sinister to imply that just because people obey a law therefore it does not need to be changed - as John Key and the "yes" vote often assert.  Obedience out of fear of the consequences does not make a law acceptable, democratically or morally. Just look at totalitarian regimes where other people also obey laws they loathe.   If the people of New Zealand overwhelmingly hate this law and want it changed to something they can agree with, then it should be changed!

  I obey this law because I believe the laws of New Zealand should be obeyed - just as children should generally obey their parents. But my respect for the rule of law has been massively diminished by this contemptible law that undermines the ability of parents to correct their children. I will not condemn people who feel their parental duty to teach their children right behaviour  means they must break the letter of this law.

What is a parent to do when time out, verbal reprimands, withholding privileges, ignoring bad behaviour, emotional distance, putting valuables out of reach, rewarding good behaviour, etc.  cease to work?  To many parents a smack is the failsafe last fence at the top of the cliff,  the backup to be used when the other methods of correction fail. To most parents it is patently absurd that the "yes" side simply quotes theories and mantras such as "smacking doesn't work" when the parents' practical experience is that smacking usually does work. 

It is absurd that all this attention is paid to the moment of a smack and nothing paid to the overall goal of trying to teach a child good behaviour for their own sake and the sake of the family. 

What about the harm done to a child by leaving them uncorrected when these other methods of correction fail to work?   The learning of manipulation, of bullying parents into compromise and bribery, of disrespecting parents and the rights of others, the growing emotional gap as parents preserve themselves and their property from the self-centred demands of their children. 

To leave a child uncorrected is abuse.
 
Sinister?  This battle was not started by those who were driven to instigate the referendum.  It was started by a politician who could not win the hearts and minds of New Zealanders by persuasion, and so decided to force her views on the unwilling, the overwhelming majority of the public, by blunt use of the law.  How sinister was that?

Bradford won a skirmish.  We "no" voters may not have started this battle but we are determined to win it. Change the law to something that means what it says and is reasonable.  Is that so hard!

Deborah Morris-Travers, in an opinion piece  in the Herald http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/466/story.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=10494956 speaks up for the Anti-Smacking point of view.    She reveals how hard it is to parent without smacking but that she has thought hard about it and this is the way she has chosen to bring up her daughter. Now I am prepared to respect her right to parent her child in the way she chooses. What I do not respect is that she or anyone else has a right to force others to parent the way Deborah Morris-Travers chooses.

I might suspect that her method of parenting could be ultimately damaging to her child: that she is teaching her child to argue with parents, to disobey when she feels like it, to ignore the inconvenience to which she puts others, and to set herself up as the final arbiter of if and when she will obey rules and laws set up for the greater good of family and society. Ms Morris-Travers may be able to stop her single child going off the rails with copious attention and money,  but I might condemn her  approach as impractical for parents with several children each jealous of the other's share of parental attention and power over the family.    However I would not be so rude as to intervene in the parent-child relationship and  belittle the mother and her method of discipline in front of the child - unlike the anti-smackers who are determined to intervene. Even if I think she is very wrong I would  not seek to pass a law against her method of child-rearing, threatening her with investigation by Police or CYFS because of my suspicion of long-term harm. But  how dare Bradford and Clark outlaw REASONABLE force (note: not beatings, by definition) for purposes of CORRECTING a child  merely because of their unproven child-raising theories. Their law is NZ law and must be obeyed but I regard it with utter contempt and loathing.  Repeal their bill !