The Extremes of Violence
On the one hand, there is the issue of whether parents may smack their children, and the attempts to legislate about that. Today the House of Lords have rejected an outright ban on smacking, which sounds more like a victory for common sense than for any reactionary or hidebound flog 'em brigade.
I'm not proud about having smacked our children when they were younger. I had a deal of anger in me back then (which maybe I've learned to live with better) and the stresses and strains of marriage and parenthood sometimes got the better of me. But though I now wish that I had found better ways of disciplining them, I'm pretty sure the motive for smacking was usually to reinforce our teaching about what was or was not correct behaviour in the family and society. And I hope it was always 'moderate'.
But the main problem is with any legislation that would be so difficult to enforce. Short of a 1984-ish kind of nightmare in which people denounce their neighbours, or children their parents - and then, what good is possibly served by the parents being locked up? - how could legislation work? The idea that laws influence social behaviour may appeal to legislators, but it's extremely naive.
And on the other hand, Slobodan Milosevic, surely one of the most evil men alive today, is likely to get off scot-free because he's not fit enough for his trial - which has already lasted two years - to continue. If it is abandoned now, the principle of innocent-until-proven-guilty will allow him to walk away, and presumably live out his last years in comfort, thanks to the millions he has plundered and no doubt salted away, like every other tyrant. Why the devil has the trial taken so long? It's supposed to procure justice for the victims of genocide, not jobs for life for the lawyers.
You can see why the psalmists so often cried to God for justice. I still can't pray Psalm 10 without thinking of how real and urgent it was at the time of the genocide Milosevic's Serbs were perpetrating:
Arise, O Lord God, and lift up thine hand: forget not the poor.
Wherefore should the wicked blaspheme God: while he doth say in his heart, Tush, thou God carest not for it.
Surely thou hast seen it: for thou beholdest ungodliness and wrong.
That thou mayest take the matter into thy hand: the poor committeth himself unto thee; for thou art the helper of the friendless.
Break thou the power of the ungodly and malicious: take away his ungodliness, and thou shalt find none.
I'm not proud about having smacked our children when they were younger. I had a deal of anger in me back then (which maybe I've learned to live with better) and the stresses and strains of marriage and parenthood sometimes got the better of me. But though I now wish that I had found better ways of disciplining them, I'm pretty sure the motive for smacking was usually to reinforce our teaching about what was or was not correct behaviour in the family and society. And I hope it was always 'moderate'.
But the main problem is with any legislation that would be so difficult to enforce. Short of a 1984-ish kind of nightmare in which people denounce their neighbours, or children their parents - and then, what good is possibly served by the parents being locked up? - how could legislation work? The idea that laws influence social behaviour may appeal to legislators, but it's extremely naive.
And on the other hand, Slobodan Milosevic, surely one of the most evil men alive today, is likely to get off scot-free because he's not fit enough for his trial - which has already lasted two years - to continue. If it is abandoned now, the principle of innocent-until-proven-guilty will allow him to walk away, and presumably live out his last years in comfort, thanks to the millions he has plundered and no doubt salted away, like every other tyrant. Why the devil has the trial taken so long? It's supposed to procure justice for the victims of genocide, not jobs for life for the lawyers.
You can see why the psalmists so often cried to God for justice. I still can't pray Psalm 10 without thinking of how real and urgent it was at the time of the genocide Milosevic's Serbs were perpetrating:
Arise, O Lord God, and lift up thine hand: forget not the poor.
Wherefore should the wicked blaspheme God: while he doth say in his heart, Tush, thou God carest not for it.
Surely thou hast seen it: for thou beholdest ungodliness and wrong.
That thou mayest take the matter into thy hand: the poor committeth himself unto thee; for thou art the helper of the friendless.
Break thou the power of the ungodly and malicious: take away his ungodliness, and thou shalt find none.
posted by Tony at 7/05/2004 07:12:00 pm
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