Letters to the Editor
AJCalhoun
Published Letters: 964 Editor's Choice: 127
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Beat Me Daddy, Eight to the Bar
[Read the article: Spanking mad]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Ok, this is really interesting. The letter writers seem to be debating the relative merits vs demerits of spanking (or otherwise striking) one's own child, the benefits vs. risks of the practice, rather than addressing the question raised by Ms. Zimmerman, which was: Is it wise to make spanking illegal? I have my feelings - no, convictions - about spanking and other sorts of corporal punishment, and that part probably has to be included in the assessment of the proposed law, but really the issue is a legal one, not a moral one nor one of effectiveness. (We all know spanking is really rarely effective).
So. I am opposed to the striking of any child up to the point where said child is big enough to strike me first and maybe harder. That's not what we're talking about here, but if the thing becomes law it probably would pull that into its purview as well, taking away from some parents the right to self-defense. I've lived in California.
I'd rather see a law passed making parents pay attention to their children, speak firmly to them, and even physically restrain them when appropriate, because for every parent who longs to strangle his offspring there are ten who are totally intimidated by them.
I'm opposed to spanking because I am convinced that a) it isn't effective and b) it may have counterproductive outcomes that may not show up right away and may, in some cases, be serious. Yes, I did some grasping, shoving even once or twice slapped a hand in the raising of my kids. And my son still has an abnormal, maybe even pathological degree of respect for me. The girls got a lot less of it. But it was my son's mother who left the handprints on his face and the scars on his spirit, and I'd really rather punch her lights out.
That's against the law, though.
And it is the question of this proposed legislation that troubles me more than the potential for more children to be abused (and outright abuse is already illegal, yet it happens). Is spanking, in its simplest form, abuse? No. Is it stupid? I think so. Anything beyond a symbolic slap on the butt, however, begins to approach abuse - or worse, loss of control during a period of extreme frustration and maybe outright anger. So we have laws against abuse of minor children and laws against assault on adults, even when it is richly deserved.
Our government is already far too deeply involved in our lives, for better or worse. We have become a nation which uncritically accepts the supposed wisdom of the amateurs we elect to run our day-to-day municipal affairs for us, and we already have social services (some really good, some that suck, but that's a separate issue too) to interpose themselves between bad parents and helpless children.
If a law can be selectively abused it will be. Winston Churchill said "Create ten thousand rules and regulations and you destroy all respect for the law." You also destroy a peoples' will to think and reason for themselves, and you begin to put society through a blender so we all come out looking exactly the same.
Strike your child? At your own peril. But not because of the law, please, but because perhaps some day that child may be picking out your nursing home. Or maybe, just maybe, because it's wrong. But not illegal. Just wrong. As in stupid.
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Maybe Obama Knows Best
[Read the article: Barack Obama and the Springfield race riot]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]...at least in terms of what he ought or ought not to bring up in his speech, whether it be the Great Springfield Race Riot of 1908 or the idiots who keep referring to him as a "Muslim." The guy is a lot of things, but dumb is not one of them. I suspect he won't mention it, though, because I think maybe it would be wise to let the past rest in peace and not shackle ourselves to it any more than we already have. It is good to know where we've come from; it is not so good to live where we have left when it is for a sound reason that we moved on.
On the other hand, the discourse here, triggered by this article, has been fascinating. And yes, the Mason-Dixon line, were it extended across the midwest (and I think it should be dragged across the whole damn country personally, because then a lot of people would have to quit busting on the South with such gleeful abandon) it would run through Springfield. So naturally this makes those people assholes. It's that Southern climate. Same thing that keeps Central American nations politically unstable. All that snow and stuff. Uh huh.
You know, the deadliest race riot on record took place in Cincinnatti, Ohio, at the outset of the reconstruction period, kicking off a long age of rioting and lyncherdom in the United States, most of it occurring in the deep south, as the rubes tried to imitate the violent standard set by Ohioans. This wasn't the first Cicinnatti race riot, nor would it be the last, but it was the worst race riot in U.S. history in terms of lives lost. Post-Reconstruction, as we bacame enlightened, the phenomenon moved further into the more liberal northeast and midwest. Springfield's riot was only one of many in what some people would like to see as a Southern phenomenon.
Yeah, as a betting man only, I'd bet Obama leaves this sleeping dog lie. And wisely so.