UK politics, Truss me, I really am that mental.

[Derfel Cadarn]

It’s illegal in Scotland.

[Matrim Fox Cauthon]

When a person claims that their primary concern about puberty blockers is the well-being of children, they kind of undermine their own argument there when they then proceed to defend parents physically assaulting their kids. The concern for the health and well-being of kids kind of goes out the window at that point. But defending the well-being of children is certainly more socially acceptable than being more out and openly a bigot against people with gender non-conforming identities. 

[Heartofice]

54 minutes ago, Matrim Fox Cauthon said:

When a person claims that their primary concern about puberty blockers is the well-being of children, they kind of undermine their own argument there when they then proceed to defend parents physically assaulting their kids. The concern for the health and well-being of kids kind of goes out the window at that point. But defending the well-being of children is certainly more socially acceptable than being more out and openly a bigot against people with gender non-conforming identities. 

The current law in England is that smacking is illegal if it goes outside of 'reasonable punishment'. That basically means if you do anything that causes injury to the child you are liable for punishment. Anything that would constitute physically assault or even close to it I think should definitely be outlawed. Right now a small slap on the bum is considered reasonable and I don't really have much of a problem with that. I wouldn't ever suggest it would be something that would ever be used except in the most extreme circumstances, and is not something I would advocate. 

However, I'm a parent, I know there are periods where children act out and misbehave, sometimes in very dangerous ways. It can be very difficult to find a solution that actually gets the child to understand when something is very bad, and you might try every single tactic under the sun. Luckily it hasn't had to happen for me, but I do know that things like restraining or trying to explain to a 3 year old, who is trying to punch and bite someone, simply doesn't work. 

Either way, I think the current law seems sufficient. It's another area where the law doesn't really need to intervene in a circumstance where a parent has given their kid a small slap on the bum. Maybe there is some vagueness in the language that could be tightened up.

I'm not sure a light slap on the bum is really the same ball park as administering permanent medical damage and infertility to children based on bogus science and ideology, no. 


 

Edited April 17 by Heartofice

[BigFatCoward]

kier can be pretty dry sometimes, at PMQ's 

Sir Keir raised the subject of Ms Truss and her book at Prime Minister's Questions, joking that he was the "proud owner" of a "rare unsigned copy".

Edited April 17 by BigFatCoward

[Zorral]

4 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

but what behaviour would result in hitting someone?

You never met guys like my dad.  Him being pissed off at whatever, and I mean whatever, not having anything to do with me, or just being bored, was enough to slap me around or even out-and-out beat me. I guess ... maybe ... he could have been excused for throwing me across the room when I was 6 months old and was suffering from colic and didn't stop crying.  Somehow my grandmother didn't see it that way. She said she hated him from that moment on forever.

In some ways he was very smart, and in some ways -- particularly when reaching toward being old -- a good and generous person.  But he was a shit father, particularly of girls.  He had a hair trigger temper, and no anger management skills kids today would say. Ultimately that killed him right damned dead. He got furious waiting for traffic to thin enough to enter the main flow, gunned the car, and got hit broadside by a semi trailer truck. 

No laws would have stopped him, that's for sure.  Particularly out on a farm 'where nobody can see and hear what we do.'

 

[Fragile Bird]

5 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

I can't think of a single thing that hitting a kid would improve the situation.  Using force to grab/restrain them when they are danger is absolutely sometimes necessary, but what behaviour would result in hitting someone?

I think there’ are such deep Protestant roots in the UK that the concept of “spare the rod, spoil the child” will never go away. It was certainly ingrained into a very Calvinist Ontario here in Canada. Blame Samuel Butler for adding the “spoil the child” idea to biblical proverbs that talked about parents who didn’t discipline their children were doing no favors.

Just out of curiosity I looked up the original poem by Butler:

”What medicine else can cure the fits

Of lovers when they lose their wits?

Love is a boy by poets styled

Then spare the rod and spoil the child”

The Bible verses that get quoted as justification for hitting children talk about discipline with both “rod and reprimand”.. Examples, “whoever spares the rod hates their children, but the one who loves their children is careful to discipline them”. And “a rod and a reprimand impart wisdom, but a child left undisciplined disgraces its mother”.

The problem is of course the fact that people can be brutal and lack common sense. We know that, sadly.

[Zorral]

Look at the ingrained, embedded, cherish traditions of cruelty in the UK public schools.

[Heartofice]

10 minutes ago, Zorral said:

Look at the ingrained, embedded, cherish traditions of cruelty in the UK public schools.

I guess this is true if your only reference point of British public life is watching Downton Abbey and reading Tom Brown's School days. Britain really isn't the 'spare the rod' kind of country being depicted above at all. 

[Werthead]

The overwhelming complaint in UK public schools right now is a near-absence of discipline, kids can't be expelled even in cases of physical violence towards other students or teachers, and teachers who try to impose discipline on kids are sometimes threatened with violence from the children (and recall this can be up to 16-year-old, quite big kids) and/or their parents.

Obviously caning and that level of corporal punishment - which went out the window fifty years ago - is a thing of the past and rightly so, but the pendulum has swing around to allowing anarchy free reign in some schools.

[Heartofice]

Kids are also highly aware of their protected status and love to take advantage of it.

I can think of a number of incidents over the past few years where I’ve seen kids act up in public, say smashing stuff up on buses or playing music on speakers, and when any adult complains to them, the response is ‘you can’t do nuthin’ to me bruv, I’m just a kid’ 

And they are essentially correct. 

 

Edited April 17 by Heartofice

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Why not just send them off to magical lands via bedknobs or wardrobes? Or just send them to Wales, it's all the same. 

[Zorral]

Even Charles III was dreadfully bullied and hurt his public school.

People who actually attend these schools on whose playing grounds was won the late lamented empire say despite lip service things haven't changed that much in many if not most.

Edited April 17 by Zorral

[Heartofice]

5 minutes ago, Zorral said:

Even Charles III was dreadfully bullied and hurt his public school.

People who actually attend these schools on whose playing grounds was won the late lamented empire say despite lip service things haven't changed that much in many if not most.

Guess you also watched the Crown then. 

[Tears of Lys]

Hey, don't forget "Oliver Twist" and "David Copperfield"!  Those demmed Brits have been knocking kids about for CENTURIES.

 

/s

[polishgenius]

 

[mormont]

I'm a little confused about kids today, who are simultaneously anarchic visigoths roaming the land secure in their invulnerability to adult disapproval but also oversensitive woke snowflakes who never leave their bedrooms, but one thing's for sure - they aren't to be trusted to make their own decisions.

[Heartofice]

16 minutes ago, mormont said:

I'm a little confused about kids today, who are simultaneously anarchic visigoths roaming the land secure in their invulnerability to adult disapproval but also oversensitive woke snowflakes who never leave their bedrooms, but one thing's for sure - they aren't to be trusted to make their own decisions.

Don’t feel bad about feeling confused. It can be hard to understand that multiple things can be true at once. You’ll get there. 

[Kalbear]

12 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Don’t feel bad about feeling confused. It can be hard to understand that multiple things can be true at once. You’ll get there. 

It can be true that the kids are roaming the streets looking for ultraviolence and also never leave their homes? Are they driving around in RVs then?

[Heartofice]

3 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

It can be true that the kids are roaming the streets looking for ultraviolence and also never leave their homes? Are they driving around in RVs then?

Nah, kids are too young to drive. 

[Kalbear]

19 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Nah, kids are too young to drive. 

BREAKING THE LAW EVEN MORE THEN, I SEE