Parenting & kids - The worm turns Canada keeps families in charge

On Mon, 23 Feb 2004 16:05:48 -0500, Ivan Gowch
wrote:

On 15 Feb 2004 14:52:54 GMT, (Fern5827) wrote:

==As I predicted, The High Court in Canada did not overturn parents
liberty
==interests in the education of their minor children.

Actually, parents' "liberty interests" had nothing
whatsoever to do with it.

The court did, in fact, uphold the constitutionality
of Sec. 43 of the Criminal Code of Canada, which
exempts children from the otherwise-universal
prohibition against physical assault.

At the same time, however, the court defined what
constitutes "reasonable" force in the correction of
children so strictly that, as a practical matter,
parents risk prosecution if they administer any
corporal punishment that a court would regard
as being more than "minor corrective force of a
transitory and trifling nature."

"Transitory and trifling," get it? That eliminates
"spanking" as most people understand the word.

And, getting even more specific, the court said it is
not reasonable -- and it is therefore illegal -- to
assault a child under the age of two and over the age
of 12, to use any inanimate object whatsoever, and
to strike a child on the face or head.

So, Fern, if you want to crow that the Supreme Court
of Canada did not ban assault on children altogether,
go ahead.

But understand that the court also limited the
acceptability of such assaults so narrowly, that,
practically speaking, a parent who deliberately
hurts his/her child where other people can see
it runs a far greater risk of prosecution and
conviction than before the court ruled.

Still consider this a victory for your side, Fern?

Of course. That would be standard ops for those that are thinking
disabled.

What they miss, or neurotically blind themselves to is that this is
but a step, a preparatory ploy by the politicos and the court, to get
the folks ready for the next step....a total ban.

Canadian politicians are no less canny than ours when it comes to
mixing the medicine with a dose of sweet juice. One little step at a
time. Let them think the preservation of the constitutionality of that
law going to allow them to keep walloping their kiddies.

Watch what happens in courts now when that defense is used.

The judges know what's up and they will find so that they are not
overturned on appeal.

The next step.......try some cases where a parent just used a trifling
tap and watch the definition move to NO tap is triffling.

All my warning to folks to voluntarily give up the practice of
spanking has been for naught. What I said will come to pass will, in
this country as well. And just as Canada, and what I fear most, the
FEDS will determine what is and isn't "parenting" in all it's
permutaions and byways, by this one thing, this one item.

Canada is a lesson the spanking states better catch on to really quick
or they could be facing things like the withdarwal of funding for
child welfare in states that still have too liberal an interpretation
of "spanking."

The whole thing is set to go if one just stops and puts it together.
DHHS is inviting in conservative church groups to help set law. This
particular adminstration isn't going to be here forever, and the
backlash will result in more liberal laws being passed that more
constrain "spanking."

It's a commin' folks.

Kane