Monday 24 August 2009

It was never just about smacking, you know [update 4]

The primary focus of the anti-smacking brigade is not smacking.  Once you understand that, you will understand their reaction to the weekend’s poll.  The primary focus of the anti-smacking brigade is not smacking, and it was never about child abuse. It was always about control.  They have used reasonable misgivings about smacking and widespread outrage at child abuse to advance an agenda of state control that has been enabled  by politicians too dim to realise they’re being used.

This morning’s cabinet meeting would be a good time for John Boy to realise that.

In case you hadn’t noticed, statists like Cindy Kiro and Sue Bradford want the state to be part of your family. The original intention of Sue Bradford’s private member’s bill: to ban smacking outright, was entirely consistent with her Marxist philosophy of state control in all facets of life – it was the Trojan Horse  by which she and Cindy hoped to get the state into the family. That’s the agenda here, a much wider one than the way you discipline your children – and an important one to realise when “compromise” is on the cards, as it will be again at this morning’s cabinet meeting.

You can see that wider agenda at work in 'Surveillance Cindy’s' plan for clipboard-wielding Stasis examining every family in the country against criteria set by Cindy Kiro and her children's commissariat.  Don’t raise your kids like Cindy tells you, and you’ll feel the wrath of the apparatchiks.

You can see  it in  Sue Bradford’s long-standing support for Stalinist Cindy’s scheme, and in her and Catherine Delahunty’s Marxist training school Kotare – what Delahunty describes in this speech outlining the Kotare School's aims as "a centre for radical and liberating education for social change."  (Part 2 is here.)

You can see it in Sue Bradford’s announcement in the wake of her anti-smacking amendment being passed that "This [was] very much the end of the beginning."

You can see it too in her utter disregard for the effect of the anti-smacking amendment on good parents, and in their lack of interest in those parents who are still killing their kids, which outrages happen each time without a word from primary sponsor of the amendment that was (it was alleged) intended to stop these violent assaults.

But this was never about smacking, not really.  It always has been about control – control not of bad parents but of good ones. The tragedy still is that only one side seems to understand that.

UPDATE 1: MacDoctor takes on the statistical “confusion” about the result exhibited by the control freaks.

UPDATE 2:  Danyl at Dim Post beautifully satirises some of the likely changes to the anti-smacking law, including :

  • Alter font of Section 59 amendment from Courier12 to Times New Roman.
  • Initiate second non-binding referendum to ask voters if they understood question in previous referendum.
  • Key to address Families First meeting, stand at podium with shit-eating grin and demand to know who the fuck else they’re going to vote for.

UPDATE 3:  It’s worth remembering that it wasn’t just John Key who turned tail on his original opposition to Bradford’s Bill, and who emailers, commenters, Twitterers and Facebookers should now be pressuring to reconsider his first instinctsWhat about all those National Party turncoats who stood up on the steps of Parliament in April 2007 swearing total opposition to the anti-smacking amendment, and then in May 2007 filed obediently into the lobbies to vote for it. I’m talking about National Socialist sell-outs Chester Borrows, Shane Ardern, Toe-rag Henare, Maurice Wimpianson and Judith ‘Don’t-Believe-A-Word-I-Say’ Collins.

Get onto them and tell them now to have the courage of whatever convictions they pretended to have back in April 2007.

mailto:chester.borrows@parliament.govt.nz
mailto:shane.ardern@parliament.govt.nz
mailto:tau.henare@parliament.govt.nz
mailto:m.williamson@ministers.govt.nz
mailto:j.collins@ministers.govt.nz

(And if you’re super-keen, then as a commenter advises send the buggers a letter. "MP name, parliament" is all that it needs. No stamp required. Emails are much much easier to delete than letters, which will all be delivered physically to the MP’s office.)

UPDATE 4:  Interesting that the Reds’ Red Alert blog hasn’t mentioned a thing on the referendum. Seems their beloved democracy gave them a good smacking on this occasion.

And interesting too that the Reds’ luminary, Braying Oddwords, chose to mention it on Saturday only with a photo of Larry Baldock punching the air in celebration and the caption “A Picture Worth a Thousand Words.”  (FWIW, I left the comment “You do spin well here, don’t you,” but Oddwords wasn’t interested in my comment and it never made the main page.

13 comments:

Johnnieboy said...

Thanks for putting your finger squarely on the real issue here, and articulating it in such a clear way.

I can't understand for the life of me how John Key can say the law is working when he has kids of his own, and when the law is clearly working only to further an agenda of state control.

Lucia Maria said...

Yep. It all makes no sense at all, unless something far deeper is going on. That John Key is now a part of.

homepaddock said...

Whether or not the law is working, or how it's working isn't the point.

It's bad law.

Anonymous said...

mailto:chester.borrows@parliament.govt.nz

and if you want to be taken seriously - don't bother emailing.


Send a letter. "MP name, parliament" is all that it needs. No stamp required

Emails are much much easier to delete than letters, that will be delivered physically to the MPs office.

Madeleine said...

I sent my letter to cabinet last night - it is now on the front page of my blog.

My point was that government had a duty to ensure black letter law is clear. This law is not clear, therefore they have a duty to fix it. I don't really care which of the various proposals they adopt as long as I can read the legislation and understand clearly what is required of me.

Anonymous said...

Excellent post, just awesome. Spot on, tiger. It's always been about control, never about the smacking and the Left care not one iota for the rampant child abuse still rife out there. I just hope John Key comes to his senses, backs his original stance and darn well backs the people! (otherwise, what on earth is going on...?)

Elijah Lineberry said...

What is sad is a sizeable demographic is unaware it was all about 'control'; a sizeable demographic unaware this was marxism in action.

Such a shame that the advocates of freedom have to start from absolute scratch because of decades of socialist indoctrination of the population.

JC said...

Can we dispense with the saying "good parents" in regards to smacking?

Good parents may indeed smack their kids but so do ordinary parents who are not so good. In fact you could argue there are a hell of a lot of parents who are "bad" or indifferent because they refuse to discipline their kids.

Every parent should have the right and responsibility to smack their kids if they believe it will do some good.

And can we dispense with calling smackers "loving" parents? I don't give a shit whether they love their kids.. all I want is for kids to be smacked if they need it.

Also, can we dispense with "a light smack on the bottom? If the kid needs it give him a good solid smack on the arse and be done with it. Like Barry Obama said.. If you see the neighbour's kid acting up, give him a "whooping".

JC

Anonymous said...

Why does John Key not understand that he has no right to foist law upon his "subjects" that he would not decree necessary for his own family? Does he think his own family is above such legislation? If not, why not? If so, does he believe the "great unwashed" needs legal guidance in the raising of their children? He knows perfectly well that ignorant or sadistic people will continue to batter children, regardless of the law. What the hell is he up to?

Libertyscott said...

What I find telling is how Cindy Kiro would NEVER ever point the finger of blame at the underclass of accidental parents, sadly disproportionately Maori, who are at best negligent and useless, at worst sadistic and evil.

No - all parents needed her loving embrace of big sister care.

Hopefully the Nats have effectively cauterised the Office of the Children's Commissioner role (they don't have the courage to abolish it)

Anonymous said...

Cindy, what's her name, is clueless and continues to feed her fat arse in the public trough. But I don't blame her. I blame the system which not only allows, but encourages useless people like her to pad out our "govt" expenses. She, and many others in similar positions, have achieved absolutely nothing. Why do I, as a private employee, lose my job if I'm useless, but she, and her like do not?

Peter Cresswell said...

Simple answer: Because you keep voting for it, that's why.

Richard McGrath said...

Well put, PC. The whole thing was about control and entrenching the state into people's homes and lives.

And I wonder how the Spineless Six are feeling now - the Nat Socs who spoke against the bill on the steps of parliament, then swallowed a dead rat later on after John-Boy told them how they would be voting?