From the Politico’s breathless piece about Pete Hoekstra’s crazy plan to amend the constitution:
Hoekstra last week introduced a bill in the House to amend the U.S. Constitution to permanently “enshrine” in American society an inviolable set of parents’ rights. The bill had 70 co-sponsors, all Republicans, including Minority Whip Eric Cantor and Minority Leader John A. Boehner.
The bill, said Hoekstra, is intended to stem the “slow erosion” of parents’ rights and to circumvent the effects of a United Nations treaty he believes “clearly undermines parental rights in the United States.”
[….]While a treaty that seeks to protect children may sound innocuous, its opponents, such as Michael Farris, the Christian conservative founder of the Home School Legal Defense Association, see in it a dystopian future in which “Parents would no longer be able to administer reasonable spankings to their children”;
It’s always, always, always about something like spanking or diapers or torture with these people. Lest we forget, supporting spanking is what put James Dobson on the map
beltane
I guess child abuse is one of those family values we hear about so much.
r€nato
Well thank goodness the GOP is offering Americans a serious alternative to Obamunism rather than resorting to cheap political stunts.
Yep, a constitutional amendment regarding parental rights is just the thing to win over the votes of the vast, vast bloc of tinfoil-hat-wearing, Glenn Beck-watching voters who stay awake at night pissing their mattresses over the threat of black helicopters and fluoride in the drinking water.
The Moar You Know
Huh. I guess the housing crisis, credit crisis, Iraq war, crumbling infrastructure and all that is solved.
AhabTSp'nker
Are we going to revisit the idea that permissive parenting is responsible for the decline of Western Civilization!?
Delia
Well, I don’t think this amendment is clear enough. What about parents who want to discipline their children by whipping them with an American flag rolled up and knotted at the end? I certainly think we need an amendment to the Constitution to cover that and every other bit of bizarro world specialities these psychopaths can dream up. After all, that’s what the Constitution is for.
Laura W
The title of this post misled me.
I’m going back to the open thread.
LD50
The point of the whole thing is to either score political points by forcing Obama to sign it, or to score political points by making Obama refuse to sign it. Whichever happens, the GOP will endlessly babble about it in 2010 & 2012.
evie
Diapers? I don’t get it. How is that in the same sentence as spankings and torture?
burnspbesq
Well, what do you expect from people who think "The Handmaid’s Tale" is an instruction manual?
The Moar You Know
Hmmm. Let’s take a trip and look at the possibilities of the GOP’s legislation:
Abortion = not OK
Spanking Child = OK
Therefore:
Punching pregnant woman in stomach hard enough to discipline unruly unborn child (but not hard enough to induce a miscarriage) = must be OK
I encourage the GOP to persue this idea further.
JGabriel
For the life of me, I cannot imagine wanting to hit child. And I don’t even much like children. But the concept of wanting to hit people who are that emotionally and physically ungrown and unfinished just appalls me.
.
Rick Taylor
WTF is wrong with these people? Helloooo, the economy is falling off a cliff. We’re in two wars. Climatologists are becoming more and more frantic. Are tea parties and constitutional amendments to ban spanking really what you want to go the mat over?
WereBear
I dunno, this kind of outrage (and yes, I mean it both ways) is a bit of a luxury when parents are worrying more about Johnny and Janey getting food through next week.
DougJ
I have David Vitter on the brain. I’ll take it out, it doesn’t make sense.
Jason
If there’s one thing I hate, it’s when a group tries to create special rights for itself, based on some behavioral preference clearly rejected by right-thinking folks in the mainstream. At least they’re doing it the "right" way, with legislation, instead of letting activist judges impose spankings on an unwilling pre-electorate.
MikeJ
How about a right to healthcare for the kids they want to beat, even if the parents don’t make any money?
JL
If the democrats were bright, they would get ahead of this by stating that the repubs are trying to legalize child abuse.
JGabriel
Rick Taylor:
Uh, actually that’s a constitutional amendment to protect spanking that they’re advocating. Which is just all kinds of silliness.
.
Keith
It’s Amendment Season already? Seems like I just took down my decorations from last year. :(
r€nato
Depends. They’ll first need to have their kitchen countertops inspected by Stalkin’ Malkin.
r€nato
One of Michael Moore’s recurrent theses in his work, is that the elites in this country use fear to keep the proles in line. The GOP proves Moore right virtually every week.
Fern
@JGabriel:
I remember, back in the days when I was of Christian persuasion, a bunch of folks who believed that spanking their children was not a right, but a God-given responsibility. Because the little tots needed to have their wills broken. I said that the kids might find having a will of their own useful in later life, but that did not go over well. Apparently they would not be able to submit to God without having all independent spirit whipped out of them. So they beat their two-year-olds with kitchen implements.
Made me sick.
NonyNony
They’d be forced to only administer unreasonable spankings. Crafty UN bastards. I’m sure that somehow those unreasonable spankings will lead directly to the Reconquista or tea bagging or force gay marriage in secret re-education camps or something.
Sometimes I think the GOP will eventually run out of inane stances to take on issues, but only very rarely. But who could imagine that the GOP could vocally object to a treaty designed to limit child abuse?
MikeJ
He and Al Gore are fat. You’re supposed to ignore them.
r€nato
Of course not. People who do not unquestioningly obey (Republican, right-wing Christian) authority can well end up asking uncomfortable questions like, "Is there really a God?", or, "did God really literally create the entire universe in six days?", or, "do we really need to fight this war?", or, "am I really less of a man if I don’t buy a new car every three years?"
It’s a slippery slope from there to sodomy, hellfire and voting Democratic.
kommrade reproductive vigor
I had to look it up:
Sounds like Ren Hoekstra and his pals have had a change of heart on abortion.
GSD
Can we call this the No Child Left Unbeaten Bill?
-GSD
jcricket
What I find funny is how far off the rails the GOP is coming in such a short amount of time. They used to totally excel at this kind of political theater. Now it’s like they’re trying really hard, but it’s al FAILBLOG fodder.
I think it’s like that movie Multiplicity (Michael Keaton). They’ve cloned themselves so many times that the current crop is dumb as a box of hammers, but still has the same political leanings.
DougJ
Very good.
r€nato
@GSD:
Sounds good to me.
I have no children but I also have no problem with a parent who gives a 5 year old the occasional swat on the rear, because really sometimes there’s no other way to get their attention. They’re children and they don’t use reason or think rationally like (most) adults.
But there’s a big difference between the occasional swat on the butt and regularly beating a child. The problem I have with this kind of legislation, is that it’s supported by folks who really don’t think that the state should be allowed to interfere at all with ‘parental rights’. Of course, if you asked them point blank "do you think it’s OK to beat a child?" they’d say, "of course not!"
But in general, they think that it’s better for children to suffer from a little too much discipline rather than not enough of it. Plus, their libertarian streak objects to the very notion of a government bureaucrat interfering in a family matter, no matter how justified.
Of course, if CPS only ever took away children belonging to welfare queen mothers of the colored persuasion, that would be a different thing altogether.
The Raven
What they’re defending, of course, is not "spanking," as normal hominids would say, but beating. But in fact the actual document–which you can read–is very supportive of parental authority.
Krawk!
YellowJournalism
I prefer Unflogged.
jcricket
Awesome.
I was thinking the "Endangered Spanking Protection Bill"
or maybe in the spirit of all those bills where the title was the exact opposite of the actual bill (Clear Skies), the "Strengthening American Families Act"
kommrade reproductive vigor
To pick up on jcricket’s point, what the fuck is it with pulling shit out of their ass, slapping it on a piece of paper and expecting to be taken seriously? The man wants to amend the Constitution with this:
What the hell does this mean? Who is "the person"? I assume he means the child (though I could be wrong), but apparently clearly stating what he means was too much for his tiny brain. Of course we know he was in a tizzy because he heard the R word. Oh noes! You can’t give teh children rights, we were going to pick on them if we ever lost teh ghey!
Pathetic.
I kan haz funkchunul opposishun partee plz?
r€nato
It’s because they got nothin’. They have no uber-charismatic Ronald Reagan figure to sell their policies; in fact it’s the Democrats who have their very own Ronald Reagan and what’s more, Obama is a very formidable opponent. He’s very charismatic, he’s very likeable, he doesn’t have the whiff of sleaze following him around like Clinton did, and he’s very very unlikely to have a bimbo eruption or other sleazy scandals they can hang around his neck.
They thoroughly fucked the economy and the two wars they started and as long as those situations persist (particularly the recession), people are going to continue blaming the GOP for our troubles.
They have no coherent ideology to peddle, seeing as they traded it in along with their brains for 8 years of Bush and daily GOP talking points.
So all the GOP has left is their bag of cheap stunts, like the ‘nuclear option’ or Terry Schiavo or the Contract on America.
They just keep throwing shit on the wall, hoping that something sticks. Sadly, the GOP is a Zune in an iPod world. Until the GOP manages to re-boot – meaning, marginalizing the fundies, queer-bashers and especially the grip which the Axis of Hate (Rush, O’Reilly and Hannity) has on their party, they’ll continue to be a sad, pathetic spectacle.
jl
I looked up the treaty at
http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/k2crc.htm
I don’t have time to read all of it carefully right now, but Article 5 and 6 put a lot of dynamite close together -they will make for some interesting court cases, and maybe some bad law.
Article 5
States Parties shall respect the responsibilities, rights and duties of parents or, where applicable, the members of the extended family or community as provided for by local custom, legal guardians or other persons legally responsible for the child, to provide, in a manner consistent with the evolving capacities of the child, appropriate direction and guidance in the exercise by the child of the rights recognized in the present Convention.
Article 6
1. States Parties recognize that every child has the inherent right to life.
2. States Parties shall ensure to the maximum extent possible the survival and development of the child.
Then there is this:
Article 40
(b) Every child alleged as or accused of having infringed the penal law has at least the following guarantees:
(i) To be presumed innocent until proven guilty according to law;
(ii) To be informed promptly and directly of the charges against him or her, and, if appropriate, through his or her parents or legal guardians, and to have legal or other appropriate assistance in the preparation and presentation of his or her defence;
(iii) To have the matter determined without delay by a competent, independent and impartial authority or judicial body in a fair hearing according to law, in the presence of legal or other appropriate assistance and, unless it is considered not to be in the best interest of the child, in particular, taking into account his or her age or situation, his or her parents or legal guardians;
(iv) Not to be compelled to give testimony or to confess guilt; to examine or have examined adverse witnesses and to obtain the participation and examination of witnesses on his or her behalf under conditions of equality;
*****
That number 40 could cause some cognitive dissonance in non-penal law household law proceedings.
*****
Dobson must be worried about a dog bill of rights. I think he clobbered his dachsy with a belt when the dang thing didn’t toilet train on time as ordered. Dobson is so weird, he bragged about beating the poor dog in some column about how awsome the violent ‘discpline and punish’ approach is.
****
I searched ‘spank’ ‘whollop’ ‘beat’ ‘whoop’ ‘whip’ ‘whop’ ‘whup’ ‘humiliate’ ‘yell’ and ‘dachshund’ and didn’t fine anything. So, what are they worried about? They can ‘yell’ and ‘whup’ to the extent consistent with ‘local tradition’ –oops, meant ‘custom’, maybe there is a catch there. They should have said ‘tradition’ since surly includes any outrage ever committed by a nutjob reactionary.
AnneLaurie
In other words, if some future John Yoo wants to crush a child’s testicles in order to intimidate his accused-of-terrorism father, no problem!
Your modern Republican Party: It’s all about hurting people in order to protect things.
Joshua Norton
Or "No Child’s Behind Left Unbeaten".
The Other Steve
I’m worried about losing my right to wear two wet suits.
jl
@37: ‘governmental interest’ of ‘the highest order’ I would guess includes preventing death and major organ failure. If the kid’s old enough, he/she can do without a spleen, except for rare immune disorders, which should not count.
So spleens is iffy. And them darn kids go smashing their darn fingers and toes all the time. And the highest GOP authority Rush himself said the enhanced interrogation methods were like frat pranks, so that takes care of the more mature young men and women. So, there you go, nothing to worry about, everything will be fine.
Joshua Norton
That and the whole fathers and sons showering together still creeps me out. Whenever wingnutz claim that they’re acting in the best interest of your kids you need to grab them and run.
MikeN
This is the same Dobson that detailed his epic tale of having to beat the crap out of a 12-pound daschund with a belt to get it to obey, and followed it with the comment that kids are like dogs, only more so.
I had a 70-lb german shepherd/ husky-wolf cross that I could control absolutely with a snap of the fingers- at his most resistant I’d have to raise a hand in the air- and this guy’s telling me how to raise my three sons?
counterfactual
Ironically, the original edition of Dobson’s book, with the photographs carefully demonstrating the way to properly chastise your teenage son, go for large sums of money on the gay spank porn market.
r€nato
In fact, the erosion is so slow that you can’t even see it happening!
Which merely serves to prove Hoekstra’s point.
yeah, my (asshole) father was never a religious nut at all but he used to beat both the dog – still does, in fact – and the kid (me) to get it/me to obey.
I guess the point of my comment is that religion isn’t necessarily the only rationalization people use to act like monsters.
Brian J
It’s like we’re watching the conservatives operate as if they are completing Mad Libs where the only choices are some combination of the following: socialist, terrorist, communist, gay, homosexual, and lesbian, or some weird combination of the last three, torture, United Nations, tax cuts, family values, and so on. Seriously, it’s that bad–and that’s before you even begin to wade into the homoerotic undertone of what these people say.
r€nato
Out of curiousity I sampled some blogs writing about this amendment and it sure seems like there are at least a few people out there who really believe this crap, that there are government bureaucrats lurking around every corner just waiting to take away their kids, confiscate 100% of their income or force them to gay marry a Muslim.
So the next time you see a Gooper pandering to this crowd, just remember that the politician wouldn’t be doing it if they didn’t think they could get votes for it.
gnomedad
@kommrade reproductive vigor:
Is there a right-wing equivalent of "bleeding-heart"? "Bleeding butt", maybe? What a stumbling, illiterate, piece of crap.
Calouste
I expect every decent representative to vote against any amendment like this that takes away powers explicitly granted by the Constitution to the President and the Senate.
Pixie79
I didn’t read any of the links, but I will say that kids today are in dire need of beatdowns (belt/spanking, not close fisted punchfests). When I was a kid, if I was rude or misbehaved or generally acted disrespectful, my mom would be there to give me a nice ass kicking. It doesn’t work for EVERY kid, but I think a lot of these little snots nowadays that I see smarting off to their parents in public, throwing tantrums in the airports, etc could really benefit from a nice ass whoopin. I’m 29 and I realize I sound like a crotchety old fart by saying this, but oh well. :)
gnomedad
Somewhat OT, the Palin / Johnston pact continues to unravel. That young’un could use a whuppin’.
asiangrrlMN
I’m with Laura W. on this one. It’s not fair, DougJ to use that teaser of a title to lure us poor unsuspecting folks who are expecting an entry on adult entertainment to read another entry about the rightwing lunacy. For shame!
r€nato
fuckin’ awesome. The Palin family is the gift that keeps on giving. Thank you, John McCain!
jcricket
This fued has induced some serious popcorn over-dosing on my part. It brings out her most vindictive side, which is really her #1 skill and her biggest political liability.
We should set up a fund for a "Levi Speaking Tour" to keep this thing going :-)
jenniebee
Not the child’s interest, notice. In these people’s minds, the child isn’t a person who has interests distinct from its parents, at least not any that adults are bound to respect.
This could make it impossible for anybody to remove a child from an abusive situation. It’d be easier to jail a parent for sexually abusing their child than it be would to terminate the parental rights to that child, even after the parent was convicted of child rape. So are these people just not thinking, or do they think that there aren’t any really abusive parents out there, or are they just ok with child rape? Inquiring minds want to know.
r€nato
a feature, not a bug.
these people really do believe that children are like property and as we all know, private property rights are inviolate according to the rightards.
r€nato
OT:
South Park ripping on Carlos Mencia for being unfunny and stealing jokes.
Awesome.
TenguPhule
My money is on 3.
wasabi gasp
If I had republican kids, I’d wanna beat ’em too.
asiangrrlMN
@TenguPhule: You are more skeptical than I on this one. I go for number one. They just aren’t thinking. Why? Because that seems to be their default position.
@wasabi gasp: I hope you’re here all week.
Comrade Jake
@GSD:
I think "No Child’s Behind Left" works better.
Roger Moore
@jenniebee:
Probably some from each column. There are some who reflexively oppose it because it’s supported by the UN and the rest of the world, some who think it’s a solution in search of a problem, and some who think that women and children are property that men should be able to treat however they choose. And, of course, there are definitely some who don’t believe any of that stuff but think it looks like a great way of rallying the base, especially because it doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of passing.
Comrade Kevin
@jl: Holy crap, I had never heard that thing about Dobson and the dog. Apparently it is in one of his books.
Alabama Blue Dot
So this amendment would mean that if a school tried to force my child to wear a uniform, my right as a parent to choose their clothes would supersede them. If they school wished to impose random drug tests, my right as a parent to forbid those tests would supersede the school system. The right-wing nutjobs need to pay close heed to the law of unintended consequences. We DFH parents just might decide to take advantage of our "rights" to raise our children free of fear, intimidation and conformity.
AnneLaurie
Actually, I vaguely remember the fReichtards screaming back when
ClintonTeh Clenis of EEEVUL signed the original bill, and one of their plaints was that it would make it illegal to execute criminals under the age of 18. Because, if "we" couldn’t kill 17-year-olds, or even 12-year-olds, then how would we teach our kids to respect authority? ! ?But that was before the invention of terrorists, who are even scarier than murderous teenagers, of course.
Fern
@Roger Moore:
They seem to have lost any ability they ever had to imagine what their shenanigans look like to the non-wingnut world.
wasabi gasp
Don’t feed the trolls.
Eric U.
When I was younger, I lived in an area where beating kids was obviously the norm. Every time I went to the grocery I’d see the same thing played out. Kid is whining continuously through the store. Parent ignores until they get to the checkout, and the intensity of the whining goes up a notch. Parent whacks the kid, and the kid starts screaming. Then we all have to listen to the screaming for the next 5 minutes.
The whack-a-kid types aren’t very smart. You can avoid the violence in any number of ways. I remember the worst and last time I ever punished my daughter was the time I made her sit on the steps at age 5. This worked like a charm until she was 15, when all hell broke loose. But from what I see, all hell breaks loose for the NCLUB folks at a far earlier age.
Ash Can
@JGabriel:
You will make a damn fine parent if ever the the time does come.
jcricket
What exactly would be left then?
If all the "moderates", "independents" and "Blue Dogs" got together with the few "sane" Libertarianish/GOP types left, maybe they’d be a party with national potential. But if you kick out the people you’re talking about that’s easily 50% of the active GOP voting base (and increasingly the elected officials). I hesitate to count the GOP out, but I just can’t see how they can shake off the black-hole gravitational field the nutjobs exert.
BTW – This is what bugs me so much when you read "straight" reporting about how republicans, independents and democrats feel about obama, without noting that Republicans != 50%. If Democrats and Independents give Obama 70-90% approval ratings, that means 75% of America thinks positively about Obama. Who gives a crap about the remaining 25%.
Wonder what’ll happen if 2010 and 2012 are further Democratic routs. Are they going to start reporting on Republicans like they do other marginal groups?
Steve
I’d be in favor of this if I can beat them.
imasmart
@The Moar You Know:
No, they just don’t have anything rational to offer beyond "no". It’s easier to create Constitutional Amendments that will never see the light of day.
Qmanol
I guess I don’t really see the fuss about spanking. I was spanked occasionally as a child, usually when I’d dome something really wrong. A short sharp smack or two on the backside was only painful for a minute or so and gave a very obvious signal that I had done something wrong. I also don’t think I got punished that way past about 8 years of age – withholding of allowance or some other method became more effective as my rationality increased with age.
People saying that the idea of ever hitting a child makes them sick as well as those who are haunted by the fear that the government will stop them from spanking their child both confuse me a bit.
Indylib
OT Berlisconi is the George W. Bush of Italy.
MNPundit
@AhabTSp’nker: I thought it was pretty well established that Republicans are the cause of the Decline of Western Civilization.
Name one thing the GOP has touched that hasn’t utterly crumbled into dust after they got hold of it?
@Qmanol: Well there’s a difference between a swat on the ass if they get a little unruly and holding over your knee whack whack whack. But I guess I don’t understand I fought with my parents very much growing up (from about age 8-23) and never got spanked but then, I always listened to sense about stuff like going to bed or taking medicine. I might have hated it, but I had to acknowledge they were right.
Ripley
I guess my Dad and his Dad should get together some time and go bowling.
Karen
I think this proves the point that they love fetuses but hate children. They never care about funding for children’s health or schools and now parents want the right to beat their kids without the worry of losing them to Family Services. Because damnit, it’s a parent’s right to do whatever the hell they want and G-d help who takes that right away. Even if that includes beating a child to death.
drunken hausfrau
They also like to spank/beat their wives… and their small dogs. (I won’t link to the dachsund beating stories of Dobson… or the Christian wife spanking websites — find them yourselves if you need a perve fix.)
Xenos
The very general terms, which lump infants, toddlers, kids, and teens under the category ‘child’ is part of the problem. The idea that an infant or a fifteen-year old would benefit from a spanking is absurd. Some very limited level of physical correction for, say, a four year old, can be justifiable and effective, but you get so far into the particulars of the child and the family in question that it really defies regulation. I am not talking about parents who are over their heads flailing about and hitting their kids in public, of course.
Some kids need firmer boundaries to be set than others, and in some cases a traditional spanking can establish boundaries when nothing else works. That stuff about spanking teenagers is beyond weird though. A healthy six year old is too mature for a spanking to make sense – what sort of teenagers do these fundies have?
drunken hausfrau
Pat Boone bragged about spanking his then 17 year old daughter Debbie (who was a pop star at the time).
They are inherently pervy… diapers, torture, spanking — notice how much detail some of them (Dobson, for instance) go into for the "correct" way to spank — the correct "instrument" of correction (switch or belt or hairbrush or hand??? dear me, so many choices!).
Christian wives must submit to their husbands — and husbands need to "correct" their wives — don’t like dinner? spank your wife or beat her with your belt — it’s your Christian duty! domestic abuse fetishized and given God’s blessing!
Johnny Pez
No, no, no, you people are missing the big picture: the GOP simply wants to protect the phrase "beat X like a red-headed stepchild". Because how long can that ornament of the English language last if parents cannot in fact beat their red-headed stepchildren?
Folks just don’t understand the Republican Party’s committment to traditional similes.
DrDave
Because each of these Republican sponsors is someone’s child, I think it would be appropriate to consider dragging each and every one of them down an alley to spank the living crap out of them.
What a bunch of fucking idiots.
Seanly
These are the same folks who seriously thought that an equal rights amendment would mean that public restrooms would all be unisex.
August J. Pollak
The point of the whole thing is to either score political points by forcing Obama to sign it, or to score political points by making Obama refuse to sign it.
There’s nothing for Obama to sign here; they’re proposing a Constitutional amendment. It will go absolutely nowhere, but you have to really admire the openness of the GOP in that 70 members of the party have signed on to amending the constitution to secure the rights of parents to beat their children.
Dennis-SGMM
Republican Governor Jim Douglas, commenting on Vermont’s same-sex marriage bill.
So 70 Republicans pop out of a clown car and demonstrate their seriousness by offering not just a resolution but a freaking amendment to the United States Constitution insisting on the right to spank. The Republican party isn’t just facing long term minority status, they’re facing long term status as the butt (No pun intended) of jokes.
gex
Well of course we have answers to this. Behavioral science has pretty definitively shown that positive reinforcement is a much better at shaping behavior than negative reinforcement.
But of course, that is the sort of thing they are most resistant to. The more we learn about how the human animal works the more we learn things like the example above, that being gay is natural, and that moral behavior likely has evolutionary sources. All of it undermines their world view which largely consists of needing to find things to label as evil and then destroying said evil.
Dennis-SGMM
@gex:
You and your behavioral science. Science won’t save your soul. Repent now, embrace beating, and there will still be a place for you in the kingdom of heaven.
kay
Two things:
1. we have a well-established standard for the difference between spanking and child abuse, and doctors make the call. The term is "inflicted injury" and both words have specific meaning.
2. parental rights are already a fundamental right under the US and state constitutions.
Every US House member knows this, or, if they don’t, they could task their staff who could find out in 20 minutes.
This is pure, unadulterated BS, and, once again, Republican House members: know better, and are trumping up an issue where there isn’t one.
The Republican Party really, really need a platform. This is getting ridiculous. Sit down and write one, guys. Just do the work. The shortcuts aren’t fooling anyone. I have no idea why the people who send these reps to the House put up with this nonsense. They aren’t doing their jobs.
Oh, and the media have an obligation to do that 20 minutes of research and call them on this. Let’s see how far they let this bogus "debate" proceed. I’m betting WEEKS, all to avoid doing THEIR jobs.
** Atanarjuat **
Parents who resort to spanking to discipline their children have simply lost control of their own anger and are taking it out on those least able to defend themselves.
That’s very weak. And decidedly vicious.
-A
gex
@Dennis-SGMM:
Ha. My parents spanked me. I turned out to be a liberal lesbian atheist. So apply hand to backside with caution.
And Atanarjuat pretty much has it right in #88.
Jay C
Y’know I remember reading a piece somewhere on the ‘Net a while back about the Republicans’ general practice of giving their special-interest legislation overtly contradictory titles: the comedian, or whoever, offered the example of:
"They’d introduce a bill making it legal to beat your children, and title it the "Happy Families Act’"
I always thought it was just a joke: until "reality" caught up with me…..
@r€nato:
Unfortunately, I think this is exactly how they feel: out of power, unpopular, no real agenda (other than Obama-bashing) to pursue, no real role in Washington left other than obstructionism – high-minded, noble-sounding culture-war fluff like this "parents’ right" crapola must seem like a sure winner to them. It pushes all the right (-wing) paranoia-buttons – UN, government interference, religion, etc. – and all in the name (as usual) of "Family Values". It might just as well be a flag-burning or "In God We Trust" issue: and will probably have just a much impact.
Dennis-SGMM
@gex:
Our son is autistic. Spanking him would have been like cutting off a puppy’s head for pissing on the carpet – not that that analogy would occur to these whack jobs. Some of their closest adherents have killed learning-disabled kids while attempting to exorcise the devil so obviously in them.
Glenn Fayard
Beating kids = A+. Little bastards ain’t shut up otherwise. Hearing all this whining about not destroying our kids’ beautiful minds makes me sick. Kids ain’t got no fuckin’ morals as it is, you gotta beat the Republican out of ’em.
And hell, I’m autistic and I got spanked. Don’t see me fuckin’ traumatized about it.
South of I-10
I have to admit that anger/fear got the better of me once when little South had just turned three. She got away from me in a parking lot and was almost to a very busy thoroughfare when I caught her. I swatted her on the butt. Not a proud moment for me. She is a very independent little girl with very definite opinions of her own and that sassiness is part of what I love about her. Time out in the hall is pretty effective for her and gives her some time to think about what it is she has done that is wrong. I don’t understand why anyone would want to beat that independence out of their kids. I don’t think these people give their kids enough credit for understanding what you are saying to them if you explain it in a calm rational way once everyone has calmed down.
pharniel
holy shitfuck. i just agreed with Atanarjuat
anyway, being in the member of certian social circles I just assumed that all the ‘proper ways to x your wife/children’ with the overtly xtian overtones were just scensters using dobbs to legalize fetish play, and that once they came through would all come out of the closet and confront him with teh ghey and teh kink and tell him thank you for all your work to make ghammorah come to furition.
but yha. seriously skeezy.
Mike in NC
Can these be called "enhanced parenting techniques" instead of spanking/beating?
Corner Stone
I’m really curious what Hoekstra’s sockpuppet Joe Klein has to "report" on this in the next edition of Time.
Corner Stone
I’ve wanted to physically assault several Republicans, but luckily have refrained as yet.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
Mike in NC FTW!
Yukoner
Eric U.
This is so true. Unless you don’t want to avoid violence, "spare the rod and spoil the child" and all that.
But I think most parents who whack their kids do it because they have not clued in to the relentless need to get off your butt and deal with things long before your nerves get frayed and you "deal" with the situation by making it worse.
NR
Has anyone ever read "An Encounter" by James Joyce? A lot of these Christian conservatives sound disturbing like the old man in that story.
Xanthippas
I’m going to try to avoid going off on an anti-spanking diatribe here, but there are pretty much two reasons most people spank. The first is that they’re lazy or not-very-smart parents who’ve never bothered to read one parenting book in their lives and who sincerely believe that the best way to deal with troublesome children is to mostly ignore them until they get out of hand and then smack ’em to try and bring them back into line. That this doesn’t actually work doesn’t seem to alter their perceptions of the effectiveness of this disciplinary tool. These people are morons, but some of them can be educated.
The second are mostly right-wing authoritarians of the Christian and secular variety who sincerely believe that it is their job to demonstrate their authority and will over their children, and that is a child’s job to submit and do things in their parent’s image. So it’s no surprise that home-schoolers, who are generally (at least down here in Texas) right-wing, authoritarian Christians who are scared of their kids hanging out with gays, getting knocked up or learning about evolution, would jump all over this. These people are generally unpleasant, and no amount of parenting books or classes could possibly sway them to do anything other than smack their kids as they see fit.
Now of course there are some people who are not morons or authoritarians who spank their kids. I think they’re wrong, but generally those type resort to spanking only as a last resort, so they’re at least making an effort.
Cyrus
@Alabama Blue Dot:
Fixed.
Fighting for the right to spank kids is peurile low-hanging fruit (not that there’s anything wrong with that, of course!), but I’m a little surprised no one else has mentioned that reason yet. I see three motivations for this amendment: trying to find or make a wedge issue for political gain, and completely unfounded fears that some liberal in some federal agency thinks teaching kids Christianity is actionable child abuse, and creating a much broader version of conscience clause legislation.
RememberNovember
Those who need to resort to violence to solve their childrens issues were most likely smacked around themselves, and they say to themselves "I turned out ok"….for a future abuser,maybe.
Being whacked on the backside does leave lasting psychological scars.
Sorry but if they get you so worked up that you want to kick puppies then you are the loser. That said I think we need to do some responsible bitch-slapping in Washington.
Mnemosyne
@South of I-10:
That’s the thing, though. A quick swat on the butt to get attention when the kid is trying to run into a busy street or through a parking lot isn’t the same thing as spanking, at least the way these guys define it. In fact, they’d probably say you were a wuss.
The problem with spanking is that it teaches kids that you can get other people to do what you want by hitting them. It’s essentially the same thing my nephew learned from watching his father beat his mother, but on a smaller scale.
It’s pretty hard to tell your kid, "Don’t hit your brother!" if you’re spanking at the drop of a hat.
Jay C.
Isn’t that the "American Way"??
Xanthippas
Heh.
Bellwetherman
It’s a surrogate proposal. Republicans would like to propose an amendment banning gay marriage, but they’re afraid that might backfire.
Sad_Dem
So they applaud the Taliban for publishing a video of a girl being flogged for appearing in public with a man not her husband?
Yukoner
I think the whole spanking issue is contentious in large part because there are so many gradations in both what is done (from regular beatings with a belt all the way to the quick swat across the butt) and the motivations of the parent doing it (from enforcing God’s will by breaking the child’s stubborn will through needing to get a three year old’s attention in a potentially dangerous situation).
I understand where the absolute no spanking argument comes from, the act of disciplining children and spanking in particular is a classic slippery slope. But I just cannot get that absolute about it both for the situations like South of I-10’s and for other common situations (can I grab hold of my 5 year old son and haul him to his room for example, something I certainly cannot do to an adult who is misbehaving).
The Dobson et al. crowd who offer clinical how to instructions and boast about beating their teenagers and dogs deserve nothing but contempt. Parents who follow a pattern of ignoring their children until things are way out of hand and then spanking/hitting/whacking them (usually in anger) to try and get them back in line are in serious need of correction themselves.
But there is one quite common form of parenting that offers lots of ammunition to the pro-spanking side of the argument. Parents who do not create and enforce reasonable limits for their little angels, usually treating them as miniture adults on one level (let’s try to have a 30 minute rational discussion with a two year old about behaviour shall we?), while chirping unenforced reprimands in some situations and constantly appealing to a not-yet-existing or highly rudimentary moral/ethincal sense with long-winded lectures on morality and ethics drive me crazy. Can I spank these parents?
jl
I posted some language from the UN declaration on the previous post on this topic. There is specific language permitting continuance of parental discipline in accordance with ‘local customs’. If spanking is a local custom, looks like you can still spank.
Most of the specific rights of the child that sound scary to brutal abusive parents, like ‘the right to be heard’ are specifically in the context of formal legal proceedings. So… might be a problem with shunting a 13 year old into an adult trial without adequate representation, but that is about courts.
I do not believe there are local customs to try to beat a dachshund with a belt during during its housebreaking, so I think Dobson still has to worry.
Did the worms at Politico even read the thing? This is Politico marketing itself to the nut jobs. They are going soft Beck, and are either tools to the wingnut crowd, or figure there is a buck to be made with stupid stories like this.
kay
@jl:
Exactly. And, it isn’t about spanking, so of course the language of the UN treaty doesn’t matter a whit.
It’s about finding an issue to rile up the base and scare them, and parental rights are a familiar rant on the right. It has as much to do with "spanking" as Bachman’s daily rants have to do with currency.
You do have to wonder why Politico obediently prints this nonsense.
I heard this a month while on a long drive listening to Christian radio. It was fascinating, in a fringe way. Why is it being presented as something substantive and real? 70 GOP House members wasted time on this? That’s what’s scandalous.
Martian Buddy
@ Rick Taylor:
What would they say? Their answer to the economy is more tax cuts, more deregulation, wiping out our rudimentary social safety net, and instituting a spending freeze. They’ve painted themselves into a corner with the two wars since their position up until now has been "stay the course." As for the climate, it’s an issue they have little credibility on, especially when the Bush-era Department of the Interior scandals start hitting the headlines. They can’t even pursue the traditional conservative law-and-order spiel thanks to the blatantly partisan antics (and, judging from the Stevens case, gross incompetence) of the Bush Department of Justice.
So, yeah, they’re basically down to spanking and teabagging — which sounds like a fun date, but not much of a political platform.
LD50
To be fair, they do have too much free time these days.
Martin Gifford
My observation is
1. Some parents are naturals in that they know how to give the right amount of attention to the child then they lovingly ask the child to come to them and the child happily does.
2. Other parents are cluesless and take kids to stimulating environments like shopping centres, then expect the kids to sit quietly while the parent talks to another parent or gives another parent’s kid attention, and when the kid naturally gets distracted, the parent screams and hits.
3. Spanking says more about the parent than the child.
4. It’s so easy for parents to get a power thrill from spanking. They obey authority figures all day then get to spank children at night.
5. Their should be compulsory parent training.
The fact that it is a hot issue for the spankers (it always gets a large response in online polls) proves that they have some unresolved emotional issue around it.
John
perfect. My wife was raised by fundamentalist baptists who were taught it was a moral obligation to spank. It was a really important part of her upbringing. Really taught her the value of not making mistakes, not making mommy or daddy sad, and wearing long sleeves and pants when they got a little out of control.
Aaron
I think people tend to lump Christians into a large category of fundamentalist freaks. But there are fringe attitudes in all spectrums of life. I know Christians who would lay down their lives for their kids faster than you could blink, yet they will spank in order to help that same child learn right from wrong. Maybe there’s a better way than spanking. But on the other hand, maybe they get the job done. Judging them all as one is stereotyping and not very open-minded.
Mayken
@MikeJ: That would be in the UN Treaty they are so against. Gods forbid we sign onto a treaty every other member of the UN (except Zimbabwe and gee, there’s a great crowd to be in!) to prevent child abuse and enshrine the human rights of children.
I hate the wingers. Hate, is in fact, probably not a strong enough word.
**sigh**
Mayken
@TenguPhule: Actually, I’ll bet on “they think that there aren’t any really abusive parents out there” – back when my former mother-in-law was getting indoctrinated by the Southern Baptists, she told me it wasn’t possible for a man to abuse his wife or his children because God gave men dominion over them. The religious wrong – they really are frightening people.