#21
I agree with all of the above!! Discipline is lacking in many households, and children need to learn barriers early. But I believe, and my children are (most of the time!) evidence that parents do not need to be cruel, or violent, or fearsome, to gain respect and good behaviour from their children. The only thing a battering (and what is the cane, or a smack, or a wallop, except a battering?) teaches is that the bully wins, and that's not a lesson I want my kids to learn. I am not one who says that smacking should be a crime - I do not see what criminalising it would achieve - but I do think we need to re-evaluate how we view children. Cameron is right ( shoot me now, for Gods sake!) when he says we are too cautious to offend - too sensitive to risk saying it like it is. We need to be brave, to lead by example, to cherish and nurture our young people, and be honest with them. Too right, we need to discipline children, but our definitions of discipline seem to be at odds. I remember only too well the whack from the nuns crucifix when I was at school - often for nothing at all. It taught me nothing except that fairness does not just happen, that being good does not bring its own rewards, and that nuns are a breed apart....!! To lead by example we need to know what example we want to set - I don't want mine to be that violence is ok, or that killing people legally is acceptable.
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
#22
Hold on a second....
Who has said that corporal punishment should be anything but a last resort. 20 years ago Clive Hyde when head at Barton used the cane sparringly, usually in cases of bullying. Just that rare instance of caning kept the lid on problems in what was and is a tough school. He warned me, when caning was abolished a couple of years before he retired, that school discipline would get worse and he was totally tight.
What is important is that it is available for use when necessary.
As for capital punishment, well we will never agree on that one. I would rather a hundred murderers and drug dealers get hung than one decent child get stabbed to death. With modern DNA evidence and a careful review of the evidence as a final part of the appeal process I believe that you can avoid hanging the innocent. My idea would be that the sentence would be commuted to life (meaning life behind bars) in cases where the evidence did not match a very high level. We can learn from some of the mistakes of the past. Once again I believe that just a very few hangings would yield a benefit that would out of proportion and many young lives would be saved.
#23
Please just check out Death Row in USA, where appeals can extend the agony of the death sentence for decades, adding the sadistic touch of getting within minutes or hours of the sentence being carried out before another commutation. It is beyond imagination.
Guest 675- Registered: 30 Jun 2008
- Posts: 1,610
#24
Barry, are we to understand that you would have hung the Bulger (is that the right spelling?) murderers, 8 and 9 when they committed the murder? Most stabbings of young people are by young people so you do not appear to have a lower age limit to your enthusiasm for judicial slaughter. I do agree that we should learn from the mistakes of the past and right up there at the top of the list should be that any killing, judicial or otherwise, is demeaning to civilised society.
Politics, it seems to me, for years, or all too long, has been concerned with right or left instead of right or wrong.
Richard Armour
Guest 674- Registered: 25 Jun 2008
- Posts: 3,391
#25
The hanging judge (BAZ) is back, society has a big problem, the jails are full so judges etc have no where to send people, knife attacks in london becoming very serious issue.
Teachers unable to deal with children effectivly for fear of compensaton claims
parents same (well those ones that want to deal with them)
list is endless, to many do gooders
but hanging????? no thats not the answer
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
#26
Bern - you are right that the process in the USA can be far too long. Justice to be justice needs to be swifter than that. The system can be speedier while being fair. The death sentence loses much of its deterrance effect when you have a process drawn out over 10 or more years.
Chris - The Bulger murders were horriific but even so clearly there needs to be account taken of age. I am not convinced, however, that these murderers have been adequately delt with though, given their age the death penalty would not be approriate.
Keith - We have the whole issue of our 'broken society', of which the knife issue is a part, and IDS has brought out a paper on that and is an acknowledged expert. We have seen no similar work done by the Labour Party, having had 11 years in power they have a good share of the responsibility for the state we are in. All we see from them is piecemeal fire fighting...
The Conservatives have recognised the problem and are developing policies, based on the IDS paper, to address this in Government. David Cameron's recent speech on personal responsibility and the need for straight speaking are all part of the approach towards this.
DT1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 15 Apr 2008
- Posts: 1,116
#27
I agree with the piece by DC, but all it seems to do is highlight no more than we already know. We do seem to be developing dysfunctional elements within our society, but that is just society evolving. Yes maybe this is not the way we would like but we must address current problems with solutions that are up to date, not just revert back to the past. I know so many people with the 'it never did me any harm' attitude and this may be true, but it's no longer 1954 and physically punishing young people would probably have the opposite effect in our current situation.
Many people (young and old) have indeed forgotten, or don't know, what is good, bad, right and wrong. This is of course down to their engagement with society (family, education etc) but then these ideas are really hard to conceptualise as they rely on a consensus of views. We can all talk about ethics and morality, but these are the product of a collective consciousness, not the other way around. Righteousness was easy to teach all the time everybody believed in a god, but making sense of why to do the 'right thing' in an age of masses of information, concerned with fact rather than belief is slightly harder. Bringing individualist attitudes into the equation and shared elements of existence (both physical and spiritual) and ethics have less and less meaning.
I do however believe that humans have evolved because of an innate sense of synergy, understanding that more is achieved in groups than as individuals. Even babies have a desire to please others and have achievements recognised. Even the most disruptive of young people, from the toughest of personal backgrounds display this trait. The fact is many of them are already the product of physical discipline and a quick 'birching' would have little or no effect. Corporal punishment does no more than confuse the idea of morality, punishing wrong with wrong.
I'm not saying this whole positive discipline is any good, because it isn't, but caning, smacking and birching is just like the way they train mice to negotiate mazes by giving them an electric shock when they go wrong. What humans possess that mice and animals do not is Reason and this is what should be exploited. People should do the right thing because it is the righteous thing to do, not because they are scared of the consequence, teaching this is far harder. Of course this requires far more commitment and I noticed this a couple of days ago in town: queuing in a shop my son (3) was trying touch some food in a display cabinet I had to move his hand and tell him that it wasn't his, and we weren't buying it and so it wasn't ours to touch, and if he kept touching it he would have to home early. The woman in front had the same problem seconds later and just slapped the hand of her child, which at face value, instantly had the same effect as my minute monologue. Physical punishment is just an easy option and we really do have a problem with society if we lose the ability to reason.
The IDS report is a piece of rhetoric that misses so many issues, presenting an oversimplified and frankly, at times patronising, view of society. And remember everyone "there's no such thing as society" (I know you think I do a disservice to Mrs. T using this Barry, but it really is a quote about individualism, denying the importance of shared values)
Sorry if this all a little 'pretentious' but it's hard to talk about this sort of stuff without getting a little esoteric.
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
#28
You have too great a faith in people's capacity to accept 'reason' and wanting to do the 'right thing' DT.
Try using 'reason' to a bullet headed rascist thug and he will laugh at you while kicking your head in!
One problem we have are nice middle class people assuming that everyone will respond to what they and their children respond to. That is simply not the case.
DT1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 15 Apr 2008
- Posts: 1,116
#29
I take it you are refering to IDS when talking about nice middle class people making assumptions.
#30
I don't think anyone with sense would suggest that opening a rational debate with the cyclepath holding a knife to your throat or a gun to your head is a good idea (and I speak as one who knows....!), but that AT SOME POINT reason has to be a factor, and that rational people sometimes have to make decisions of a humane nature about irrational people. that doesn't constitute a reason to murder them.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
#31
this argument seems to have gone away from the original point.
we were discussing justice and solutions.
i fail to see how reactions to yobs in a one to one situation with no notice is relevant to the debate.
we are all reactionary in an alley way.