The far left wants the government to raise your kids instead of you!
November 28th, 2007 | by admin |This is exactly why I can’t ever support Democrats, they have too many left-wing liberal loony tunes pushing this kind of stuff in their party. I mean seriously, why won’t so called moderate Democrats stand up against this kind of insanity? There aren’t many Joe Lieberman’s or Zell Miller’s in the Democratic party anymore.
Parents who spank their kids - even in their own homes - would be slapped by the long arm of the law under an Arlington nurse’s proposal to make Massachusetts the first state in the nation to outlaw corporal punishment.
Kathleen Wolf’s proposed legislation will be debated at a State House hearing tomorrow morning.
If signed into law, parents would be prohibited from forcefully laying a hand on any child under age 18 unless it was to wrest them from danger, lest they be charged with abuse or neglect.
Rep. Jay Kaufman, a Lexington Democrat, submitted the 61-year-old Wolf’s petition at her request, but is not taking a position for or against corporal punishment.
“He does recognize and understand the concern many would have on legislating parental rights,” said Sean Fitzgerald, Kaufman’s chief of staff, “but the problem is the boundary is often overstepped. The right to hit should never be the right to hurt.”
Charles Enloe, 45, of Plymouth, knows a little something about that. In 2005, he was infamously arrested and charged with assault with a dangerous weapon for taking a belt to his then 12-year-old son during an argument over homework.
The charges were later dropped and Enloe told the Herald yesterday the experience “didn’t change my views at all. I believe discipline starts at home. Are they going to start legislating that you can’t raise your voice to your kids? That you can’t tell them when to go to bed? We’ll be communists then.”
The state Supreme Judicial Court agreed in principle when it ruled in 1999 that parents can spank their kids provided they don’t threaten bodily injury.
Corporal punishment in the home is already illegal in Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Israel, Latvia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Romania, Sweden and the Ukraine.
In 1979, Sweden became the first country in the world to ban spanking. Anders Erickson, spokesman for the Embassy of Sweden in Washington, D.C., said in the 1960s 53 percent of Swedes backed corporal punishment of children. By the 1990s, that number was less than 10 percent.
“There are other ways and means to bring up children than to beat them,” Erickson said. “Much better ways.”
An ombudsman is available to children in Sweden to report allegations of corporal punishment. Parents face jail time if it’s found they’ve stepped out of line.
This is nonsense, let’s just hand our kids over to the government at birth. That would be much easier and would allow for more irresponsible sex too! Kill two birds with one stone, doesn’t that sound fantastic?
By Chris on Nov 28, 2007
Wait, what does this have to do with Democrats? The congressman who submitted the petition hasn’t even taken a position on the issue.
By Anonymous on Nov 28, 2007
Well, the guy who was arrested for assault is a real geanyus.
I had no idea that telling children when to go to bed has anything to do with socialism.
Spanking: OK when it’s done to teach and a parent really feels like that is the best way to teach.
Spanking: Not OK when the parent does it because they are angry or don’t like what the child did or didn’t do. That just teaches that the best way to respond when you don’t like something is to hit somebody weaker than you.
Usually there’s a better way to teach a lesson than physically. This law, however is pretty silly because enforcement would be ridiculously arbitrary and true enforcement would be impossible.