Monday, August 28, 2006

Overdue letter

It's always a risky business for charities to get involved in politics. Of course they are free to, just as I am free to withdraw my support.

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4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I suspect the sad fact is that they will figure the government has more money than you do.

1:29 PM
Anonymous said...

Excellent. More people need to withdraw their support of Barnadoes as well.
Well done.

7:41 PM
Anonymous said...

Great letter. I reckon more will be written once it is learned that Barnardos have totally repudiated their Christian roots and in fact have committed what founder Dr Thomas Barnardo would have called gross apostasy: they have gone over to secular rationalism. Read the introductory part of their submission on the Bill to repeal Section 59 at http://www.barnardos.org.nz/AboutUs/writtensubmission.pdf.

Not only that, they advise the Parliamentary Select Committee to ignore any other submission that makes reference to Biblical faith. That sounds like trying to subvert the course of Parliamentary precedure. You'll find those comments at the end of their written submission.

10:50 PM
Anonymous said...

Michael Reid in the summer issue of “Evidence” 2004 wrote

“Although most in Labour want to abolish smacking, its not that simple. It runs the risk of alienating a wide swathe of Labour’s support(middle New Zealand- decent parents doing a good job. raising their children ) So while the spirit to repeal Section 59 is truly willing , it would not be without political risk He then went on to observe that Labour would be hoping for increased lobbying on this and other Childrens rights issues, so that the initiative must be seen to have come from out side of government. Now fast forward to 2006 and note the following:

The common trait amidst the anti smacking lobby groups is that they all benefit from Government funding Barnardos, Plunkett , Save the Children etc. They have full time paid staff able to work on this issue. One wonders to what degree( if any), they have sold their soul to maintain there funding.I guess we will never know.

I note that Barnardos have an annual street day appeal. I,m aware that many Christians contribute to it. One wonders to what degree they will alienate themselves from part of their support base in their pursuit of social engineering masquerading as concern for child abuse. Those with understandable reservations about the ideaology within Barnardos may wish to redirect their support to other organisations rather than withdraw completely

There’s a lot to be gained by claiming the status of being “the reasonable ones” in this debate. That side that can project the most reasonable imagery will be the one that wins the day. Barnardos and others have made a big effort to project an image of reasonableness, but does this image stack up under scrutiny? Do their actions match their words? For instance, consider the following.

.
Ruby Harold-Claesson, Swedish lawyer, is lecturing here warning us of increasing State powers in family
matters. She has a very reseached argument punctuated with dramatic examples of apparently wrongful removal of children from good Swedish homes.
. In an effort to discredit her standing, Barnardos chief executive stated in the New Zealand Herald, 20 July 2006 that Mrs Harrold-Claesson “is quoted in Sweden as saying “children are emotional creatures who listen well through their skin”, The inference being that Ruby is an advocate of beating children as a means of communicating with them. Were it not for the investigative journalistic skills of the Herald’s reporter, this comment would have gone unchallenged. Ruby said that the quote about children “listening through their skin” came from a case where a non-Swedish speaking immigrant boy was taken from his mother. Another mother tried to comfort him and was told “don’t bother, he wont understand you anyway” (because of the language barrier). Ruby responded by saying “children are emotional creatures, they understand through their skin”. She is only too aware of the immense suffering of children in places like Bosnia and Serbia where children have suffered through lack of love and touching. To take this quote out of context serves only to highlight the depth that anti- smacking lobbyists will go to, in an effort to discredit the good work of others. The fact that no apology has been forthcoming serves to further diminish the integrity the public can attach to those that claim to be “the reasonable ones” in this debate.

2:07 PM

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