Family Integrity

Category: Referendum

  • U4L: The referendum is now upon us

    U4L: The referendum is now upon us


    Hi All,

    Over the past few months Unity for Liberty has chosen to remain silent concerning the referendum.

    There are a few simple reasons for this, firstly, the issue has been well represented by Family First and other prominent organizations and secondly, we wanted to know exactly what we are up against (It is now very clear, our Prime Minister and the rest of the anti-smackers are singing from the same song sheet: “Tell a lie long enough and everyone will start believing it”).

    The Prime Minister also referred to the Referendum question as something out of Dr Seuss. Should we remind him about the story of the Emperor’s invisible clothes, where those who were told that they could not see it were ignorant. In this case, if we don’t understand the how badly worded the question is, then we too must be ignorant.

    I am tired of having my intelligence insulted, ARE YOU?

    Here’s the problem with the question: for many years (and at tax payers expense) those with a political agenda for social engineering have been promoting the lie that a smack as part of good parental correction is assault. They realize that the referendum question undermines that untruth and it’s associated brainwashing.

    Clearly, attacking the wording of the question is just a disparate attempt to divert the focus away from real issue and create confusion. The real agenda was never about combating child abuse (since admitted by Sue Bradford),  but by confusing good parental correction as assault they are then able to (by law) remove Parental Authority away from the parent, thus, by default, that very same authority then goes to the “STATE”.

    The referendum question is not badly worded, it is only guilty of undermining the very heart of the uprising Socialist Ideology within New Zealand.

    Here’s our problem, mainstream New Zealand knows their mind on this issue, we just need to remind them to vote. Over the next few weeks, we need to provide a presence within our own local communities so to encourage folk to return their voting papers.

    We invite you to join with us and deliver as many pamphlets as possible within our own neighborhoods,  We will also be setting up tables again encouraging folk to vote.

    Go to “VOTE NO” for pamphlets and other information http://www.voteno.org.nz/

    Against all the odds, it was people power that brought us success with the petition, and with a little more effort we can also bring a successful and proper conclusion to the referendum.

    If anyone is unsure on how to reach your local community, please feel free to contact myself for encouragement.

    Thank You,
    Craig Hill
    021746113
    http://www.unityforliberty.net.nz

    Remember, “All that is necessary for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing“ (Edmund Burke 1729-1797)

  • No Defences Permitted for the Accused

    From:  http://www.mandm.org.nz/2009/06/no-defences-permitted-for-accused.html

    No Defences Permitted for the Accused

    In, The referendum campaign is underway, No Right Turn’s Idiot/Savant gives an excellent example of an argument we see coming up a lot in the debate around the upcoming referendum on smacking. In addition to trotting out the standard ad hominem, that everyone who supports the reinstatement of the old section 59 of the Crimes Act is a “child-beater,” I’d like to examine the emphasised part:

    Over the next month I expect to see a succession of unhinged press releases from the child-beaters claiming that the law somehow impinges on their religious freedom or has caused the widespread persecution of parents. It does nothing of the sort. What it has done is prevent parents who punch their children in the face or beat them with a soup ladle from claiming a defence of “reasonable force”. And that is unequivocally a Good Thing. The only people who oppose that are people who wish to abuse children in that way – and we should treat them with the contempt they deserve.

    Essentially Idiot/Savant here claims the parent in his example are guilty, apriori, and as such, when they go to trial, they should not be able to attempt to raise a defence. The problem is that the whole point of having a trial is to determine guilt or innocence. Even when it seems pretty obvious, trials are still necessary and the right to due process still applies. This right to due process includes, alongside the presumption of innocence, a right to raise a defence, no matter how stupid or implausible, and have the court assess it. The importance of this concept can be summed up by Blackstone’s Ratio, “Better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.”[1]
    Supporters of the anti-smacking law do not seem to get this. This ‘claiming a defence’ issue has been raised a lot ever since Sue Bradford first began promoting her bill to remove the old s59 defence, of reasonable force for the purposes of correction, from the Crimes Act. If you read the Vote Yes site, if you read the media releases and the articles and listen to the interviews you will hear it a lot.
    Of course what Idiot/Savant, Bradford, the Vote Yes people, et al miss is that there is a world of difference between claiming a defence and succeeding in doing so. The court is not stupid and the people making the determinations of guilt or innocence in our courts are normal, everyday people. If it is so obvious to all of us that hitting a child across the face with a soup ladle is child abuse, and it is obvious to all of us, a court, made up of people like us, is not going to rule that such an action is an example of reasonable force.
    The 34 reported cases on the old s59 are readily available in any law library and if you read them, instead of the media reports and politicians and websites and blogs, you will see time and time and time again child abusers failing in their attempts to raise the defence of reasonable force. The majority resulted in convictions and the few that did not were more often than not due to things like it not being proven who abused the child – which is terribly sad for the child, but you can’t just convict anyone so that you can chalk up a conviction! Wrongly decided cases are a fact of life. Just like doctors making mistakes on the operating table, just like us making driving errors. We should try very hard to ensure that these do not happen but to remove a defence entirely and risk the prosecution of the innocent is not the answer. Besides, some of the cases cited in the media as being wrongly decided were not even cases where s59 was raised, other defences like self-defences were in play… shall we remove self-defence as defence?

    The contempt for due process does not stop here; statements like Idiot/Savants that, “The only people who oppose that are people who wish to abuse children in that way,” show that he is willing to accuse anyone of being a supporter of child abuse because they support the right of an accused to a fair trial.

    Chilling. Basically once accused of something heinous, one should not be allowed to defend oneself and anyone who disagrees is morally on par with a child abuser.

    There is another patently obvious flaw in Idiot/Savant’s argument; removing the defence doesn’t just prevent people who seriously abuse children from raising the defence it also prevents the wrongly accused from being able to raise it. However, without defences there is no way of separating the two. I am not speaking here of those who can stand up in court and honestly state ‘I did not touch my child,’ such accused could plead ‘not guilty,’ I am speaking of those who end up in court for smacking their children, not hitting them with soup ladles across the face; I am speaking of those who with an open hand, lightly, smack a child on the bottom once, not out of anger or in the midst of rage but in response to disobedience on the part of child. Such people cannot plead not guilty if accused of assault, they have no legal defence if they end up before a court. To remove legal defences from people innocent of child abuse to ensure that the net catches everyone is wrong.

    Hat Tip: HalfDone
    [1] William Blackstone Commentaries on the Laws of England (Clarendon Press: Oxford, 1760).

  • CYFS probe traumatises family

    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10586993

    CYFS probe traumatises family

    4:00AM Tuesday Jul 28, 2009 By Simon Collins
    Erik was investigated by Child, Youth and Family Services after he smacked daughter Abigail.

    Erik was investigated by Child, Youth and Family Services after he smacked daughter Abigail.

    Your Views Have you changed your habits since the smacking law? Tell us your stories
    The Herald is running a week-long series on the smacking debate. To tell us your stories, go to the Your Views discussion. Or you can follow the debate on our facebook page.

    "After our poll on Saturday we're covering Monday what parents think: TUESDAY: Victims of the law WEDNESDAY: Children have their say THURSDAY: How teachers see it FRIDAY: The official view - police and CYFS SATURDAY: How will politicians respond

    A father says his family were left traumatised and his elder daughter tearful after Child, Youth and Family Services investigated a smack. Parents Erik and Lisa toured the world for years with the Christian theatre group Covenant Players, presenting plays to schools and church groups on themes such as self-esteem, peer pressure, resolving conflict, bullying and addiction. "Before we had children, I read a number of books on strong-willed children by [Christian author Dr James] Dobson and others," says Erik. "In the back of my mind there was the suspicion that those children were not being raised right, that if they had loving parents who were consistent with their discipline, they would turn out to be good kids. Erik said he and Lisa had never had any problems with their elder daughter, who will soon be 13. "And then we had Abigail." Abigail, now 10, "from day one has known exactly what she wanted and been very insistent on getting it". "She will no doubt make a fantastic leader one day," her father said. But right now she's a challenge. "There are times when my wife and I are at our absolute wit's end." Last November, they took her to a child mental health service to get help. Health workers noted a bruise on her back that had been caused by tripping over a vacuum cleaner. Two days later, Abigail had what her father calls "a massive meltdown, banging her bunk against the wall and calling my wife evil". "I said, 'Either your behaviour stops or you're going to get a smack'," he said. "She started kicking at me. I grabbed hold of her ankle and smacked her bottom." Two of his fingers went above the line of her belt, leaving red marks on her back. The smack worked. She stopped kicking and was soon apologetic. But the mental health service was about to give her a full medical examination. Lisa told a nurse about the red marks and the smack. A few days later, at 3pm on a Friday, CYFS staff rang. They had received a claim of abuse and they wanted the children out of the house while they investigated. The parents protested, but were told they had no option. They found friends to take the two girls for the weekend. On the Monday, CYFS spoke to the older daughter at school and left her in tears. Late that afternoon, social workers visited the family, realised there had been a mix-up between the red marks and the bruise from the vacuum cleaner, and closed the case. Far from protecting the children, CYFS made things worse, Erik says. "Abigail went round locking the doors one night because she was afraid someone was going to come and take us. Our eldest would wake up at all different hours and had trouble going to sleep." Erik himself had to take leave from work, complaining to CYFS: "I am angry, have difficulty completing simple tasks, have several times come close to bursting into tears and at least once have actually done so." * CYFS will respond on Friday. Read Big News on this: http://big-news.blogspot.com/2009/07/cyf-boss-apologies-after-parents-go.html

  • DEATH OF THE ADULT – THE IMPACT OF POP CULTURE ON MODERN SOCIETY AND THE REPEAL OF S59

    http://docs.google.com/gview?a=v&pid=gmail&attid=0.1&thid=122aa520f2a4cb0d&mt=application%2Fpdf

    DEATH OF THE ADULT – THE IMPACT OF POP CULTURE ON MODERN SOCIETY AND THE REPEAL OF S59
    KEAH? – HOW DID THAT HAPPEN? WHEN GOOD BECAME BAD!
    By Stephen Dol NZCBC, Research Analyst.
    stephen.dol@thinkingezy.co.nz
    Michael Jackson sung the song “Bad”, which really meant “Good”. That’s confusing and so is the opposition to the referendum. To clarify this it is important to highlight two separate issues in the debate – 1) dysfunctional violent abuse and 2) the purpose of authority within a family to govern and when necessary, enforce. The confusion has been created by the violent abuse lobby who have merged the assumption that physical discipline to correct boundary and  behaviour encroachments is dysfunctional violent abuse, which it is not.
    The question is…
    Let’s use the dictionary definition for abuse i.e. “to treat badly”. The question then becomes “Is physical discipline bad treatment of a child”. To answer this we need to assess the outcome, i.e. how well will a child who is loved and  disciplined transition into adulthood as a responsible balanced citizen? and what is the effect of a smack on this transition? The outcome shows the violent abuse theory to be out of kilter with reality, regarding boundaries and behaviour development, in caring homes. Why? Because till now, too many kids coming from these homes are succeeding in life. To spurn the collective wisdom and observations of hundreds of generations of families is to say that they got it wrong. This is crazy talk.
    The ugly picture
    What constitutes abuse, are cases such as Nia Glassie, the Kahui twins and similar reports. There is no question about these delinquent, evil and wicked cruelties and they must be dealt with. But this is not what the authority to govern in a family is about and the examples given are tactical manipulation because they muddy relatively clear waters.
    Our beloved schools
    What ever the view you take, the school system is the best recent example of what happens when the authority to govern is removed from the governing body. This happened in the 1980’s and almost 30 years later we are clearly seeing the effect of that change. The DomPost (24 June 2009) reported in the article “Mother punches school head”, that there were 6995 violent incidents this last year by students in schools, of which 815 were inflicted on teachers, (part of the governing body). On top of this there is no account for the daily foul gestures, verbal, manipulative, behavioural and psychological abuses. The report went on to say, “…fortunately these events are relatively  infrequent”. I don’t know about you, but 41 acts of violence per school day (5 directed at teachers) is not infrequent. The mechanisms for dealing with it are toothless (ask your teenage college kids or other students, I did. They think it is a joke). In today’s pop culture, violence in schools seems to be considered normal and par for the course of being a teacher. The estimated cost of this abuse to the tax payer, is $6.2m per year in ACC claims and medical costs (this does not account for expenses associated with the violence such as lost teaching time, counselling and time wasted dealing with the problem or the families who are unable to control their kids). This rouses no reaction, disgust or shame from the “yes” vote referendum campaigners, yet we are asked to shoulder this burden, every year without complaint. Is this right?
    A parking lot at home
    Worse than this, the school experience has been permanently embed in law with regard to family governance and that is discouraging and outrageous. We can expect in due course that the school experience will park itself in our homes, as the tweenies, twitters and tweeties enjoy the protection of the enforcement arm of the law to freely in some cases, turn their violence on their parents. In others to roam unrestrained in their anti social behaviours. Why? Because central government does not appreciate the effect of what has happened as a result of usurping the support the families need for authority in order to govern and enforce. Parents have a responsibility at times to enforce good behaviour in and outside their homes. The government would never dream of taking away such authority from the police and the far stronger measures of enforcement, such as pepper spray, handcuffs, tasers, riot gear, the AOS, etc. That is the real world we live in, but at the back of my head I hear the shout about alternative discipline advice. The problem is, on its own, it is not working at school and it isn’t working at home.
    The death that ended the war
    Violent abuse is a real issue. The attempt to address it however, is directed at the wrong cause. It is a social issue that has gained momentum on the back of the Culture Wars of the 1960’s & 70’s.  The DomPost (02 June 2009) reported in the article “A death (Michael Jackson) that ended the great war”, that it is now considered a war won by popular culture and its associated values.  What is popular culture? – among many other things it is: “I disregard authority; I have the rights; don’t restrain me in any way whatsoever; promises are for breaking; commitment is a big word;
    and what defines a family anyway? ”What it ought to be is: “Respect for order by respecting authority; acknowledging my responsibilities; restraining my base desires for the good of the community; making honourable commitments; action not intent; and reinforcing family structure”. The drinking age debate and the associated property, violence and sex crimes (reported DomPost 13 July 2009, “Dark side – Girls night out”) is just one of many examples of the cultural confusions we have inherited from this “victory”. The “safe everything” message is another.
    The cultural abuse instrument
    So, what about the abuse? The Cultural Revolution has become the abusive instrument (bad treatment of others) because of what it stands for and what it promotes, what it sows and what it then reaps – and that issue is not being accosted. On this basis (yes even in the absence of smacking), the issue that is trying to be addressed (abuse) is self defeated by pop cultures new moral baseline and that will go on unabated until we stop and take stock of what has happened. I suspect it will be with us for some time to come – till society can bear it no more.
    “Do as I say not as I do”
    As for the detractors of the referendum, there isn’t much to say really except, it is not enough to, “Do as I say and not as I do”. Pop culture will turn a blind eye to behaviours regarding leadership and consistency. Bill Clinton is the classic pop culture politician who demonstrated his cock up and avoidance through technicalities in his embarrassing string of public denials. Such world views make it necessary to adhere to the “Do as I say” adage. But true public leaders, in all facets of life must lead by example. Too many bear the opposite hallmark, and so they credibly can’t. By the next election numerous will have fallen – it has already begun. Not getting caught doesn’t make the erosion any less cancerous.
    Muted criticism and deflating support
    Finally John Key responded to the referendum question, leading up to the last election, by saying and I quote, “That National’s view on S59 was clear but the issue for us in this case is about democracy – the right of the people of New Zealand to be heard whether or not politicians like what they are being told. Helen Clark has again demonstrated arrogance with her use of a technicality to not let New Zealanders have a say on the matter”. The question now is, has John Key been poisoned by the same political wine and become drunk too, with that power? He stood shoulder to shoulder with the detractors, to mute the descent and deliberately deflating the support for the referendum by saying “We don’t plan to change anything anyway”. How discouraging for confidence in the democratic process of this country. The recent folic acid in bread reports demonstrates how stupefied and impotent central government has become. The government can’t even resist the demands of another country. They have been hijacked by cretins who are more interested in bureaucratic participation in the meddling of foreign nations in our affairs, than they are in the interests of the people they govern.
    Let Right be Done
    Now we all have to decide and choose. I have said before “Let Right Be Done”. It needs to happen now. It’s time to start the process of taking back our country from this new breed of Monarchy and Lords. – It seems that “No” might still be in fashion after all.

    © July 2009, Stephen Dol. All rights reserved.
    You are free to disseminate this document provided it is cited in context and due credit is given to the author.

  • (dis)Honest to God: How Not to Argue about the Smacking Referendum

    FROM:
    and

    (dis)Honest to God: How Not to Argue about the Smacking Referendum

    Dr. Glenn Peoples responds to liberal Ian Harris.

    Liberal Ian Harris displays dishonesty and nastiness toward Christian parents. Ian Harris tells us (“Honest to God,” Dominion Post, [Dominion Post. Saturday July 11, 2009. Page B5], reproduced at the YesVote website at /http://yesvote.org.nz/2009/07/17/the-bibles-harsh-view-rejected) that we should reject the “harsh views” on child rearing found in the Bible.

    ( <<< Click on image to view full size)

    Mr Harris, unfortunately, joins many of those who promote the criminalisation of good parents by muddying the waters. He notes, for example, that someone who defends the right to use physical discipline also believes that children (like adults) are sinners. He then announces that since “progressive” Christians (by which he seems to mean those who no longer accept Christian theology) realise that this is based on an antiquated view, we should likewise reject the right to use physical discipline and we should criminalise those who do.

    It is difficult to interact charitably with those who support the ban on smacking if this is the contorted way they are going to reason about the subject. Whether or not one thinks the theology held by some supporters of the right to use physical discipline is correct is quite a different matter from whether or not one thinks they ought to be made into criminals, surely!

    Unfortunately again, Mr Harris attempts to use his platform as a mouthpiece of liberal (what he calls “progressive) Christianity to give credence to scientific claims that are obviously subject to great dispute. He makes the sweeping claim that this nebulous thing called “modern research” (while he cites no actual studies) shows that although corporal punishment does help bring about short-term compliance, it does not help a child to “internalise positive values for the longer term.”

    I am constantly bemused by the way in which conservative religious spokespeople are ridiculed even when they do cite research, but obvious nonsense like this can be peddled by the liberal voices without so much as a single scholarly citation, and nobody is expected to bat an eyelid.

    But even if what Mr Harris says is correct, the implication is that corporal punishment in and of itself has short term benefits and no long term ill effects. Hardly something to be prosecuting people for! The reality is that the effects he cites are perfectly compatible with the good of corporal punishment. Such punishment usually is administered to children when they are not willing to reason or reflect on the long term consequences of their actions. It is for when children are being unruly and unwilling to listen. Circumstances in which they are willing to do so are the circumstances under which corporal punishment is less necessary (meaning that the older a child becomes, the less frequent a smack will become). None of this gives the careful reader any reason to think that the occasional smack is immoral, much less worthy of criminal prosecution.

    Bereft of compelling moral or scientifically grounded arguments, Mr Harris turns instead to arousing prejudice against the religious convictions of those who disagree with him about child discipline. Unable to find anything strong enough in what all Christians consider their holy book, he reaches into the book of Ecclesiasticus (part of the so-called “apocryphal” writings that did not make up part of the Hebrew canon) to find the claim that “he who loves his son will whip him often.”

    But not only has Mr Harris strayed into literature that the so-called “fundamentalists” (most of whom would identify as conservative Protestants) that he attacks do not even regard to be part of the Bible at all, he has clearly sought out the most extreme translation of the verse that he can find. He conjures up grizzly pictures of leering parents towering, horsewhip in hand, over the broken and bleeding bodies of little children with misleading language like this.

    But just a few minutes research would dispel this attempt. The New American translation reads, “He who loves his son chastises him often.” The Douay Rheims translation (the Catholic Bible, which does include this book as part of the canon) reads “He that loveth his son, frequently chastiseth him.” The old King James version, the one that “fundamentalists” are most likely to read if they read this book at all, reads “He that loveth his son causeth him oft to feel the rod.” Of course, because it’s a metaphor for physical discipline that’s probably still too much for Mr Harris, but needless to say, it robs him of his “whipping” bogeyman.

    After the rhetorical debris is stripped away, all that’s really left is a string of namecalling and fearful language. He calls the views of his opponents “repugnant.” He calls them “fundamentalists” with “antiquated” views that are opposed to “progressive” thought. But where’s the actual substance? Like much of the rhetorical fireworks that is being leveled at those who want the law changed to a common sense view that refuses to place thousands of good parents in the criminal category, Ian Harris offers more heat than light, and manifests just the sort of shallowness and bias that this debate could do without.

    Glenn Peoples

    Dr Peoples’ specialist area of research is the role of religious convictions in public life. He runs New Zealand’s top philosophy and theology podcast, Say Hello to my Little Friend.

  • Family Integrity #464 — McCoskrie Meeting invitation

    Family Integrity #464 — McCoskrie Meeting invitation

    See below.

    Craig & Barbara Smith

    https://mail.google.com/a/hef.org.nz/?ui=2&ik=ab0eb6de71&view=att&th=1228704fdcc4a095&attid=0.1&disp=inline&zw

  • Family Integrity #462 — Dennis Morris-Traveller returns for 2nd interview on Youtube

    Family Integrity #462 — Dennis Morris-Traveller returns for 2nd interview on Youtube.
    You’ll love these interviews!

    Craig Smith

    Family Integrity

    Greetings

    Dennis Morris-Traveller of Baanaadoze, and spokesperson for the Yes Vote campaign re the upcoming referendum, returns for a second enlightening and entertaining interview with host Renton Maclachlan.

    The topic is the much publicized ‘Ambiguity of the question’ – ‘Should a smack as part of good parental correction be a criminal offence in New Zealand?’

    See at:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdWFP-tIsfE

    If you like it, tell others about it. Pass the link or this email on…

    ———————————————————————

    The 1st Interview:

    Dennis’s first  interview which teases out bullet points on the Yes Vote website Home page, can be found at:


    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfrwuBxc5w8

    For some of the controversy generated by the first interview, see:

    http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/communities/kapi-mana-news/2549421/Youtube-video-seen-as-desperate-Barnardos

    http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO0906/S00274.htm

    ———————————————————————

    ALSO… two other informative videos on the referendum issue:

    ‘The NZ ‘anti-correction law’ – ‘What it says!’

    |http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxiYobjbeO4

    The aim is to remove any confusion people may have about the law. Clear, concise, and unemotional, it puts the issues plainly.

    ———————————————————————-

    ‘The NZ ‘anti-correction law’ – ‘Why correction is needed.’

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsnT8ul2f28

    Concise, fast paced, in your face yet unemotional. An analysis of the worldviews behind both the old and the new Section 59s.

    Includes discussion of the ideas of Drs Brian Edwards, Lloyd Geering, Richard Dawkins, William Provine.

    With thanks

    Renton  Maclachlan

  • Police in Christchurch on Smacking

    Keep listening – it is less than 1 minute

    Police on smacking.mp3 (audio/mpeg) 144K

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  • Bev Adair Explains the Referendum in 90 Seconds

    Maori child-abuse advocate Bev Adair speaks on the upcoming referendum – must see!