The Fraudulent Case Against Corporal Punishment

With the smacking referendum looming, both sides are squaring up.

Here's my old friend Barbara Faithfull's latest contribution to the debate.

The Fraudulent Case Against Corporal Punishment

The anti-corporal punishment lobbyists operate dishonestly, because they lie about their true motive and are aided and abetted in this by the news media.

Why does the New Zealand news media mislead by not disclosing that it is really United Nations-backed leftist ideology that drives anti-corporal punishment activism? Why are these activists given an easy ride and never confronted about their true motivation? Clearly, because if this was revealed their campaign opposing all corporal punishment would collapse.

For just on thirty years (most of that time as secretary of the now-defunct Credo Society Incorporated) I have observed and monitored a leftist push to have corporal punishment outlawed in NZ, first in the school and now in the home. Along with this have been (largely successful) similar moves to undermine other forms of traditional authority, such as in the Church, Police force and other institutions of society.

I have always found the people opposing corporal punishment to be leftist aligned, and pleading a most noble and plausible cause : the “fighting of violence”. As far back as 1980 the Auckland Feminist Teachers had formed Campaign Against Violence in Education (CAVE) to lobby against school corporal punishment. A leading figure in all of that was lesbian activist Maryan Street, nowadays a Labour list Member of Parliament.

A present day campaign figurehead is Green MP Sue Bradford, who also happens to be a Maoist Communist, but it would be rare indeed to have that unpalatable fact acknowledged. All we ever hear is devious and emotive claptrap from such people about “caring” for our children, “treasuring” them and “seeking a violence-free society” etc. Yet not many years ago Bradford herself was front page news as she battled with police in violent protests! Talk about hypocrisy!

Nor can the media plead ignorance of the above facts, which are there for all to see on the web. A simple Google search of United Nation’s Global Initiative to End All Corporal Punishment of Children (and by the year 2009!) and all is revealed.

So we have a plethora of carping “advocates”, lobby groups and trendy-sounding agencies pushing the UN anti-corporal punishment line with their fraudulent bleatings about even light smacking being “violence”. This results in the media portraying them as being so noble minded and humanitarian, when in reality they are no more than covert and sycophantic agents of the UN.

According to the NZ Herald of 15th June 2009 they embody the “Yes Vote Coalition” which, in anticipation of an August Government referendum on the issue, is gearing up to defend the current anti-corporal punishment legislation from challenge. Coalition members named there are as follows:-

Deborah Morris-Travers, Yes Vote Coalition spokeswoman (and former extreme left Alliance cabinet minister); Dr. Hone Kaa, chairman of Te Kahui Mana Ririki; Barnadoes; Plunket; Unicef; Save The Children; Women’s Refuge; Parent Centres. Also of course the Children’s Commissioner etc.

So let’s have an opening of this Pandora’s Box : some open and honest media handling of this hot potatoe issue for a change. After all, the NZ public is entitled to informed debate – the wider picture - instead of the charade that has been presented to date, which has been reduced simplistically to the narrow question of whether or not to smack.. If not, the news media can hardly complain if it is accused of biased coverage of the issue.

16th June 2009

Small correction-I think Deborah Morris was actually NZ First-but she certainly was/is pretty far left.

For my take on Maryan Street, socialism and corporal punishment go here.