Bashing kids about is a good idea!

When I was a wee sapling I told folk I was from Mars. There was a simple reason: I didn't want to "belong" to the human race. But it had another consequence. I could look at humans as an alien race. I could look at them with more compassion in a detached way.

David Lammy, former Labour Education Minister, has said that the law against hitting children should be repealed because it led to the London riots in 2011. See the Daily Mail's "Smacking ban led to riots".

Not only do I find the article funny I find it amazing reading the comments. The Daily Mail, Mr Lammy and most of the comment writers are so Neanderthal. These poor humans don't seem to be able to connect three logical thoughts. So often in these over simplified debates they can only deal with two ideas at a time. The fact is that hitting children should be illegal. It is not right to hit children.

I'll say that again: It is not right to hit children.

So what do you do if your child has grasped an electric fire which was not earthed and you can't grab them because you will get stuck to them? You hit them to knock them away from the fire. Ok so this is not a brilliant example but there are cases where you might hit a child to save them from harm. So hitting children is right! That's what these politicians, law makers, and probably 90% of the commentators don't get. It is not a simple case of "hitting children" being right or wrong. But all other things being equal it is true to say that simply "hitting children" is not a sensible, humane, beneficial, compassionate, productive, practical or even rational thing to do in general.

So if we start from basic principles it seems clear that hitting children is not a good idea. Mr Lammy goes on to say that parents are "no longer sovereign in their own homes" and that they live under constant fear that social workers will take away their children if they chastise them.

UH!? What?

Is it only me that sees the complete lunacy of that? If cuffing a child for stamping on another child's foot justifies the draconian Children Services stealing the child then it seems to me there is something very wrong. But it is because we live in this mind numbing authoritarian blame culture. There is no need to take any offensive action against a parent that smacks a child. But that doesn't equate to establishing in law that it is perfectly fine to smack children.

We are obsessed with trying to make rules that make us perfect. Well - that is not quite it. What is really going on is that some people want power over other people. The way they achieve it is to criticise others and justify their offensive action because the other person is 'to blame'. But what needs to happen is that the authorities start to act under the same rules as the ones they are pretending to try to uphold. They could start by being honest and accountable. But they are not.

If you want to see how the Children Services measure up to their own criticisms of other people check out the Children Services Abuse section on Toxic Drums. They are appallingly self contradictory. They clearly imagine themselves to be above the law. They are incredibly abusive and apparently not accountable.

Another funny thing about this article in the Daily Mail is that Mr Lammy is black (well to be correct he is sort of a dark shade of brown) and he quite reasonably makes the amusing point that the law specifies that any force that causes 'reddening of the skin' is prohibited. He goes on to point out the irrelevance of that to black (or brown) children. I can see South Park making a meal out of that. Black people should be allowed to hit children and middle class white people should not. Simples!

What I wish is that folk would stop this stupid attempt to justify abuse against others. The Children Services should be there to assist in difficult situations. They have all the potential of being a really benign organisation improving the social conditions in this country for children. But instead they are employed to go around terrorising both parents and children in some Gaddafi style attempt to keep order. And we know where that ends up!