Smacking debate has moved on
Today's NZ Herald editorial invites a number of responses. I have only focussed on one aspect of it.
Dear Editor
If you are right and New Zealanders have "moved on" from the anti-smacking debate then that is a real shame. Because the debate is about far more than whether or not a smack is an acceptable way to discipline a child. That should be a matter for private individuals to decide. Not agents of the state who wish to impose their thinking by force.
The increasing intrusion by those who would harness political power to alter morality has gone on for too long now. The 'rights' movement - from women's to human to children's - hasn't been a raging success. Governments have not been able to engineer a kinder, more caring society. In most cases they have swapped one problem for another, usually worse one. It is not the role of the governments to run our social lives. Their job is to maintain law and order and fulfil a very few economic functions that individuals alone can not. It is only relatively recently (in historic terms) that they have charged themselves with the task of telling people how to think and behave.
If New Zealanders have moved on from that debate then we truly are easy meat.
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6 comments:
The Editorial is correct in its assessment that people have moved on, the legislation is in place and, so far, initial concerns about it appear unsupported by evidence of heavy-handed prosecution of good parents.
The perspective that you raise, however, is of paramount concern to the defence of a free society.
This Labour-led Government believes that democracy is best protected by removing it from the hands of the individual.
Each piece of legislation is a surreptitious step towards the socialist dream of total state control, whilst the opponents are labelled as conspiracy theorists.
New Zealand's place in the world is so benign that most people are blissfully ignorant of the bigger picture - "you don't appreciate what you have until you don't have it anymore".
2008 will be a defining year politically.
The trouble is that most of those opposed to this amendment want to impose *their* thinking by force as well. Eg they would criminalise women for having abortions if they could.
I would have been more sympathetic to those who did not support the amendment if not for that fact.
Lindsay
Thanks to National's John Key for making criminals of Kiwi parents who give a smack on the bum as discipline.
Mike Mckee
Seatoun
But Ruth I am quite clear in my mind why I oppose the anti-smacking legislation. Who else opposes it, and their reasons, are irrelevant.
Just because I support a group's actions (eg the Maori Party opposing the EFB) that doesn't mean I am going to vote for them or I endorse their other ideas.
I appreciate many people see it as you do Lindsay.
However I think the 'support on an issue by issue basis' makes one look like so much intellectual ballast, and comes back to bite you at election time.
I despise the religious right, and all it stands for.
You point about abortion is very valid Ruth. The religious right go very far in what they consider a defence of their od-given rights. Yesterday I read a post where good parenting, i.e. bringing your kids up without smacking, was off-handedly labeled "luck". It is not luck. Not in my book.
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