Bleeding Hearts.....

Yep, the bleeding heart, do good, sandal wearing, beardies and wimmin are on the fucking march again. This time it's to get the smacking of children banned by law. Great idea, lets criminalise just about every parent in the UK! What about those whose children have grown up? Shall we retrospectively charge them as well? The thing that gets me about this is that apparently we are such a violent society because of the fact we occasionally reprimand our kids with a smack on the wrist or arse. Peter Allen from Radio 5Live's excellent Drive programme argued the point eloquently yesterday to a sandal wearing beardie. The beardie had stated that violence today is rife because we smack our children. Peter Allen then asserted that in fact we smack our children less these days than perhaps in Victorian times or at anytime up until the 70's. So, how come our society is more violent now than back then? We certainly never had the degree of street crime in the past that we see today. I agree, back then, even when I was a kid, it was seen as the norm to discipline children with a smack or a belt with a stick, but yet they didn't grow up to be muggers or binge drinking fighters. At least not in the volumes we see today. So, with less smacking of children we now apparently see more violence in society. The beardie struggled to answer this point, in fact he wriggled out of it in a politicians manner. Good ole Peter didn't let him off that lightly though.

Now even I know it's not that simple, but it does seem to me that a short sharp smack makes the point and shocks the child sufficiently into knowing that punishment follows bad behaviour. I also know that this is open to abuse and this can spiral into horrific conclusions as with the tragic case of Victoria Climbie, but most parents are responsible adults who do use corporal punishment very sparingly. So, the vote yesterday was one for common sense and at least has (albeit temporarily) stopped the do gooders in their tracks. I do not doubt the altruistic motives of these people, but as with everything they are misguided in their intentions. What does stopping a child's pocket money, or sweet ration do? Does a child learn from being talked to like an adult (maybe at 8 or 9 onwards)? Do they learn from such apparent punitive measures as being stopped from watching TV, or going out with friends or playing with their toys? I would argue that is a less effective punishment as the child may not relate it to the offence, especially if the misdemeanour was carried out hours or days before, or if the punishment drags on for hours or days afterwards. What they do remember is the pain of the smack, there and then! Oh yeah, and the bleeding heart sandal wearing gang say that it legitimizes assault on children where you can't do the same to an adult. Well in the interests of consistency I believe I should be able to deck the odd adult! Especially if it shuts some of the fucking idiots I work with up!

Later, Grocerjack