Posts by Russell Brown
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
The dominant fuckwit tendency on Your Views has already convinced itself that Mason didn't punch his kid in the face after all (no bruises! see!). And a notorious public fool writes:
Chuck Bird (Papakura)
The media has not done a very good job of reporting the facts in this case. I have not read that witnesses took the stand and were cross-examined. I have heard on the radio that they did not take the stand. I understand there was no evidence of any injury.Contrary to the opinion of the Herald a light smack is assault as is pulling a child's hair or flicking an ear. If there was compelling evidence that Jimmy Mason punched his son in the face I doubt if the jury would have taken nine hours to convict him. The laws need clarification. Let us hope that John Boscawen's bill gets drawn in the ballot soon.
How far distanced from reality can these people get? Yes, there were witnesses to the assault, yes they took the stand. And for goodness sake, Mason told a police officer he'd hit his little boy in the face and it was no one else's business.
-
The main witness was a just-off-duty police officer.
I think the officer arrived shortly after the punch was thrown, when Mason was still ranting and raving. The principal witnesses to the assault were a schoolteacher and her teenage son.
So yeah, there could conceivably have been a greater willingness to step in and speak up.
That was certainly indicated in the research on the It's Not OK campaign: a surprising large group of people surveyed said they'd taken action on the basis of their awareness of the campaign. And, of course, the police have said that the increase in reported family violence is a consequence of a greater willingness to report.
-
He and Garth McVicar are obviously on speed-dial for the nation's journalists, and what they say doesn't matter.
They're on speed-dial precisely because they will always instantly give a quote, even when they have no idea what they're taking about. So yes, no shame at all.
-
You are conflating the existence of a defence with the legality of a specific action. They are not the same.
And a key point here is that had that defence not been available to the "Timaru Lady", with her riding crop, she may have been restrained from then doing some awful things that I can't associate with her on account of a suppression order. (As Dave C would doubtless remind me.)
The pro-smackers championed her case long and loud. And that case turned out to be the most compelling argument you could hope to make against their ideas.
-
To me, it's almost irrelevant: marriage should be about love.
Oh Emma, clearly you've learned nothing from The Maxim Insititute's Amanda McGrail:
Marriage itself is not a human right. It's an institution and it's not about whether you love somebody or not ...
-
That's what she said today. I had understood Dave to be suggesting that at other times Bradford had said the amendment to section 59 was about reducing violence against children.
In the long term, yes. But I don't think she claimed it would immediately reduce violence against children, or that that would be a realistic aim.
Almost without exception, the parents championed by the pro-smackers turn out, when the case reaches court, to have significant problems with anger, which they're acting out with violence. If they get helped with that as a result of coming to court, then that's good thing.
Bob McCoskrie' role in all this is particularly distasteful. He made a media hero out of the "Timaru Lady", who we now know to be a violent and seriously troubled person whose children are not safe with her.
-
Sorry, I get and respect where you're coming from but there's faint undertone of complacency that makes me nervous and eventually hits a tipping point where it becomes dangerous. Oh, its just going to happen when the mean people drop dead... I just hope they get a move on, because I'm not getting any younger.
Fair enough too. I noted in 2004 that these things do happen, but they don't happen overnight ...
In 1978, Victoria University's Richard Bowman set out to do what no one had yet done in New Zealand - or Australia, for that matter - survey ordinary New Zealanders on their views regarding homosexuality.
Nearly 500 people were surveyed, in the inner suburbs of Wellington, and in Hamilton. The results stood in stark contrast to what had gone on in Parliament in the preceding years. In 1976, Parliament had shunned a bid to decriminalise homosexual acts. In 1977, it ruled homosexuals out of protection under the Human Rights Act.
Members of Parliament presumably considered themselves to be standing up for social order. But Bowman found that three quarters of his subjects thought homosexual acts should be removed from the Crimes Act. It took MPs eight years and a good deal of struggle to catch up with the public mood.
Furthermore, 80% of the people surveyed said the Human Rights Act should be extended to offer protection on the basis of sexual orientation. That took 14 years!
But Bowman's topline number was the one: 94% of the survey - in 1978, remember - believed that what consenting adults did together was their own business. On issues of choice and morality, the change in society typically takes place long before the change in the statutes.
It's worth noting that protection under the Human Rights Act was eventually instituted by a National government.
-
You're not always going to get it 110% right, but another thing adults are supposed to do is own their shit.
Indeed. And it's not always easy. But Mason's lack of insight into what he did is quite troubling. He complained at the time that police weighed up whether it was safe to send his children home with him. It seems it was a reasonable question given his state of mind.
-
lil' p ...
with all there is for us to freely consider regarding such, the prize ever higher every year for s/he who can truly meet the plain criiteria for isolation of such a 'virus', i'm flippergusted that RB is willing to play so fast and loose (flippnatly) with such confusion of science with mere cultural arteifacts!
¿Que?
-
Craig, I am unaware of Mallard ever pontificating about traditional family values. That's where Rankin's hypocrisy lies, which has nothing to do with merely being in public office.
Yes, my view of the hypocrisy element relates wholly to her and her organisation's rhetoric in the media over the past few years, rather than the Families Commission job. I just think she'd be crap at that.
I'll just duck for cover now.
Last ←Newer Page 1 … 1612 1613 1614 1615 1616 … 2279 Older→ First