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Anti Smacking Hysteria

Wednesday 28 October 2009, 12:20PM

By J. James

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Colin Craig, a man with money is funding a march down Queen Street in Auckland to protest the ‘anti smacking law’. He hopes that it will be the biggest march in NZzzzz history.

I hope its not

 

I hope that people like Colin Craig would wake up and realise there is NO such thing as an anti smacking law, and the referendum that confused so many people like the issue itself was designed to an agenda that has nothing to do with protecting children from the abuse of adults around them -  but  everything to do with protecting the adults from the consequences of abusing children.

This is what section 59 was repealed for – it gave abusive adults a ‘reasonable force clause’ to hide behind. Most parents know that a smack on the bum or hand is NOT force, and yet children were being beaten black and blue by adults with sticks and hoses and getting off abuse/assault charges because of section 59. Sue Bradford to her credit saw the insanity of that in the cold hard and shameful light of NZ chronic abuse statistics and rightly repealed it.

How it became an anti smacking law that would target parents everywhere is a matter of media sensationalism and Christian groups whose belief in gods punishment being usurped by the state is a eye opener in how unthinking people can become hysterical over something that is basically – to be polite - incorrect

The amount of mis-information and hysteria surrounding this issue has been an eye opener proving that intelligence is no substitute for consciousness. The media has sensationalised the issue and gullible people every where have rallied round a cause that is not really a cause at all.

Smacking is NOT a criminal offence – where are all the police officers, CYPS people, Lawyers and the like who know this – where are their voices in this - are they drowned out by the hysteria that assuredly surrounds this issue.

Why are so many confused by the repeal of this section of our law?

I am a mother of three grown adults, and grandmother to 3 under 7 and I have never had to smack any of them – I was proud of Sue Bradford for standing up for the children of Aotearoa and repealing a law that clearly gave adults protection for the consequences of their abusive nature. I was proud that I lived in a country that saw the insanity of that clause and wanted to protect children like it protected adults and animals and I am shocked that a large proportion of seemingly intelligent people have got it so terribly wrong.

Its an eye opener as to how so many can simply jump on a bandwagon without fully comprehending the facts and make something out of nothing in such a hysterical way

What will this march accomplish?

There is NO anti smacking law – only an old law that was repealed? Will the march force the reinstatement of that law so that abusive adults can once again beat their kids and hide behind the reasonable force clause?

What?

John Key refused to acknowledge the 87.4 voices that signed the erroneously worded referendum because he knows the truth of the matter – and doesn’t buy into the hysteria.

The referendum was so worded that its surprising it wasn’t 100% of voters who chose to sign it – it shows however that there are 12.6% of voters that at leas have some idea of the how to think for themselves without buying into the hysteria that surround this issue


Symbolically however – there is a more esoteric aspect to this – It is one of changing/shifting ages of ‘man’ more commonly known as astrological ages of time each age represents a sign and last about 2,150 - 25,860 years. – read more here 

As we move from one age to another history shows us marked changes in major belief systems – this time is no different – The Indigenous spiritual cultures of the world are telling us that we as a humanity are moving from one age which is the current age of control and domination into one where partnership, cooperation and community will be paramount – the signs are emerging everywhere. Thus Sue Bradford shows us the age to come by repealing section 59 ( a partnership way) and the over reaction to this illustrates quite dramatically the power of the current age/paradigm of control and domination to hold on tight to its ways and means even if those ways have been fraught with violence and fear.
Read more on the partnership way here
 

Simply - the playing out of so much rage over the idea you can no longer hit your child is the old way of being in the world, its resisting change on every level without fully understanding what that change actually is and its affected highly intelligent people from all walks of life.

From the Partnership web site -

Contrasting Models: Partnership and Domination

The following is a simplified version of Riane Eisler’s two contrasting models for organizing human relationships: partnership and dominator. It combines charts prepared by Riane Eisler for books such as The Power of Partnership and those prepared by David Korten (who uses Eisler’s work as the framework for his book The Great Turning)

Underlying the many differences in societies, both cross-culturally and through history, are two basic cultural configurations: the domination model and the partnership model. Unlike conventional categories, the partnership and domination models take into full account the most foundational human relations, without which none of us would be here: the relations between the female and male halves of humanity and between them and their daughters and sons.

The last three hundred years have produced a strong movement toward partnership. One tradition of domination after another has been challenged – from despotic kings to child abuse. However, most families and relationships lie somewhere between the dominator and partnership poles. We need to move along the spectrum in the partnership direction in order to heal and empower all our relationships.

The following is a simplified version of Riane Eisler’s two contrasting models for organizing human relationships: partnership and dominator. It combines charts prepared by Riane Eisler for books such as The Power of Partnership and those prepared by David Korten (who uses Eisler’s work as the framework for his book The Great Turning)
 

Dominator Model

* Humans are flawed and dangerous
* Difference is equated to superiority or inferiority
* Power is used to control and destroy; hierarchies of domination
* Men are dominant
* Masculinity is equated with control, fear and violence
* Competition means “winners or losers”
* People cooperate to dominate & control
* Large gaps between haves and have-nots
* Nature is depleted and polluted
* Morality of control and coercion

Partnership model

* Difference is valued and encouraged
* Power is used to empower and nurture; hierarchies of actualization
* Women and men are equally valued
* Men and women can be nonviolent, empathetic and caring
* Competition means striving for excellence
* People cooperate for benefit of all
* Economic structures are equitable and just
* Nature’s life-support is highly valued
* Morality of caring and respect
 

The Partnership model is the way of the future - the anti smacking brigade has it wrong - and will enable, with their protests, the reinstatement of a repressive dominator law if those law makers crumble to the pressure. 

Toward a Progressive Family Values Agenda

A progressive agenda on family relations should be based on a common principle: the transformation from domination to partnership as the model for personal, social, economic, and political relations. A progressive agenda on family relations will embrace and reflect the core teachings that are at the heart of both religious traditions and humanist philosophy. Some guidelines for this agenda would include:

1. Focus on the rights of children to have a fair opportunity to grow up healthy and thrive, including the right to shelter, nutrition and health care, freedom from violence, and a clean environment.

2. Promote equality between women and men.

3. Support all families, whether children are parented by a man and woman, a single parent, or two parents of the same sex.

4. Promote an economic vision where the drive for productivity does not overshadow the value of having parents spend time with their children.

5. Support parents with policies such as a living wage, paid parental leave, high quality childcare, and preschool education for all children.

6. Protect reproductive freedom and show that the only way to prevent abortions is to provide family planning and sex education, as do other nations with much lower abortion rates.

7. Provide education for healthy, nonviolent family relations and parenting for both boys and girls, as offered by Nordic nations, which have much lower crime rates, prosperous economies, longer life spans, and regularly rate at the top of the U.N. Human Development Reports.

8. Promote real education reform that includes small classrooms and small schools where every child has individual support and attention.

9. Take a stand against corporate practices that harm children – from toxic dumps and other forms of environmental pollution to marketing unhealthy food and drinks – and recognize that we must address global warming and other environmental problems that threaten our children's future.

10. Make ratification of United Nations conventions to protect women and children a top priority.

11. Take a strong stand against intimate violence – the violence against women and children in families and other intimate relations that is a mainspring for learning to use violence to impose one's will on others.

To achieve these goals progressives must reclaim and redefine family values.