Thursday, the 9th of October, 2003

Ray Drouillard wrote:
Committee on the Rights of the Child issues decision in Geneva
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=35000

[...]
The U.N. body says Canada should "explicitly
prohibit all forms of violence against children,
however light, within the family, in schools and
in other institutions where children might be placed."
[...]
Paul:
For more context,
http://www.unog.ch/news2/documents/newsen/crc0338e.htm and
the report by the Canadian delegation
http://www.unog.ch/news2/documents/newsen/crc0329erev1.htm
I said:
I'm not sure that any context could make this kind of
action against the corporal punishment of children in the home
other than outrageously objectionable.
Kane:
You are outraged that you cannot bully, humiliate, injure, torture,
your children at your whim?

No one I believe said *anything* about bullying, humiliating,
injuring, torturing or indeed *anything* about *at my whim*.
We were talking spanking, which has zero to do with any of the
above.

Kane:
Fancy that.

Yeah, fancy it.

I said:
It seems to me a prime
example of legislation by people who appoint themselves as
scientific experts on stuff that science cannot possibly
address,
Kane:
On the contrary.

On the contrary, on the contrary. This is absolutely unaddressable
by science. You cannot possibly control hundreds or thousands
of possibly important variables. If no control then no science.

If you want to provide a cite to a study, I would be happy to critique
it directly.

Kane:
Science does address this issue.

No, it does not address this issue at all. What addresses
this issue is ideology. And, well, my ideology is a better
(as in objectively better) than yours.

Kane:
Brain scan studies show that distractions inhibit and
distract from learning tasks,

This is the fallacy that measurement of something equals science.

Kane:
and if you aren't spanking to teach what ARE you doing it for?

Simple, to punish my children for disobeying a rule.
Precisely so that they learn obedience to important
commands, precisely for their own safety when they
are of an age too young to reason about it. It also
is muchly to be preferred to the "time-out" in that
forgiveness and forgetting are immediate. Lesson
learned. Case closed. We don't do that again. The
time out strateches the whole thing into a drama, with
no clear end and no clear lesson taught. And that is
the problem. You can always tell a child which has not been
disciplined. He's precisely the sort of child the "childproofing"
one's house, and the schools and the daycares notion got
started for---the idea that the children cannot be expected to
behave themselves and opbey simple safety rules, and instead
the world needs to be made safe for them.

I said:
and then bolster social engineering programs with
"studies" that do not show what they purport to show.
Kane:
"Social engineering" is what YOU do when you
proport to teach children using physical and psychological pain.

I spank my children, or did at a young age, in order to
demand obedience at that age. For their safety and in
order to give them good ethical habits of respect for other people
and for other people's property.

Kane:
Your opponents at least aren't taking you literally out behind the
woodshed.

My children do have the freedom to disagree with and oppose me
as soon as they reach an age of reason.

Kane:
Whose the more honorable party, those that want parents to learn how
to teach their children without the deliberate use of pain and
humiliation or those, such as you, that want to continue to lie to
each other about what you are doing.

The issue is whether you actually do teach the children so
that the child, for instance, fastens his seat belt as a matter
of habit, and stops upon command when he is about to run out
into the street, or reaches by habit for his parent's hand in
a supermarket parking lot. These things are not reasoned out
with a young child, is the problem, and that is a problem that was
well understood and addressed by the ancients. Hence, you begin
in authority and discipline, you inculcate good habits, and the child
grows into free choice with a default mode of good habits to
sustain him and keep him safe while he grows.

I said:
In my opinion, the decline of the widespread acceptance of spanking
in the US is directly correlated with the widespread bad behaviour
of children in the US, not to mention a whole lot nastier set of
adults.
Kane:
Actually you are completely wrong. In the US, for instance, some of
those "unscientific" studies show that 90% or more of citizens report
they have been spanked.

No, I think I am completely right. The number used to be about 100%.
The leftish social activists have tried to equate spanking with abuse,
and have consequently tried to shame it underground. As a result,
many parents don't spank except as a last resort, by which time they
are angrier and spank less consistently and in a less controlled way.

Kane:
Children are being spanked at at least the same, or possibly
greater rates than in the past and more abuse is an
outgrowth of spanking that didn't work (as it mostly doesn't) so was
escalated to injury.

Sorry, but your statistic neither shows this (since the survey surveys
adults)
and there is no evidence that abuse comes from spanking.

Kane:
The nastiness you are experiencing in people comes precisely from
being humiliated and tortured by parents who believe your nonsense.

Nope. It comes from kids not being disciplined and, consequently,
disrespecting the property and person of other people. My wife,
a veterinarian, has story upon story to tell of children coming
into the exam room with parents and Fido, and children making noise and
climbing all over mega-expensive equipment while parent is trying to
tell vet what is wrong with Fido. And, interrupting every moment or
two to tell kids to stop doing whatever it is they are doing, and the
kids just ignoring the command. This comes from no discipline. No
expectation that good behaviour *will* happen or else.

Kane:
Non spanked children are consistently better behaved and far less
likely to be involved in criminal activity. And I don't mean that a
child who is spanked then when not spanked for a few weeks shows signs

of improvement. I mean a consistently gently parented child.

I seriously doubt it, and doubt you can give *any* study to show it.

I said:
It looks to me like US conservatives were exactly
right to oppose this Convention.
Kane:
What makes you think the idea of not spanking children is exclusive to

liberals?

Sorry, I do not use "liberal" to mean "social progressives". I am liberal.

Kane:
I'm a conservative and I consider those that spank either
stupid, ignorant, or vicious, not to mention socially maladjusted
because of the spankings they got as a child. I know plenty of other
conservatives that agree with me, and rather a lot of liberals who do
NOT extend their politics to their child rearing practices. They
spank.

A majority spank at some point or the other. The issue is whether it
is wrong and shameful to do so, so that spanking ends up being associated
with last-ditch frustration and anger. Or whether it is a line of first
resort,
in which case it is controlled and immediate and, well, attention-getting.

Kane:
Have a good one, Mike.

You, too, Kane.

Mike Morris
)