I was on the local BBC this morning, having been invited to discuss the merits or otherwise of corporal punishment. There were three of us in the studio – one was a retired teacher (Opposed to it) , a Human Rights Lawyer (Opposed to it) and yours truly (In favour of it). I thought the discussion had balance and I was afforded the time to make my points, criticising the EU and UN to a presenter who had worked for the EU as it happens!
But earlier on this morning, I caught a debate on the BBC Radio 4 “Sunday” programme. There was an item on the war in Afghanistan and there were two guests discussing it. One opposed UK involvement in the war from the very beginning whilst the other opposed our involvement it following “the hideous mistakes” of Bush and Blair. There was a consensus that a criminal-prosecution based policy against Al Queda and the Taliban would have worked best. (The sort that led to /11) Unbelievable – poison dripping even in the religious hour.
Sue | 05.10.08 – 9:37 pm
sue – to put your mind at ease, when i was in catholic school, the teachers NEVER engaged in corporal punishment. it was a last resort.
hence the trip to the headmaster office. it was really an option of last resort. and it worked well.
i agree – just hitting kids is not the answer. it makes kids immune to violence and eventually the message does not get through. its a fine balancing act.
but without that last resort, we have kids with no idea of where the boundaries are.
that is all i am saying.
archduke
so – i oppose hitting chilfren there fore i am a “leftie?”
you defend the right to attack children?
I will not attack you personally or assume your persuasion because you were cained – i would guess,but not in public.
Go and fuck your self mate:-)) is that clear enough?
cameron | 05.10.08 – 9:44 pm |
very reasonable argument – you’ve won me over.
“Our society has created a generation of moronic adults. We worship trash, reward idleness and selfishness and substitute hope and aspiration for inebriation, celebrityhood and material possessions.
Change that first. Don’t advocate smacking.”
totally agree. dismantling the welfare state should be the start.
stopping all immigration should be the second part – why are there millions unemployed when Poles can get jobs? thats not right , is it?
cameron | 05.10.08 – 9:44 pm
yeah. thanks for the reasonable argument. i can see that you have a way with words in terms of argueing your position.
i’m sure the oxford-english dictionary will be looking to you for new phrases in the english language and its development.
They might even turn to him for a new spelling or two…
How to lose an argument in one easy lesson.
always amazes me how the left leave the fingerprint of swearing. gives the game away.
even though i am an irish republican, have i ever sworn at david vance, who is an ulster unionist , and vehemently opposed to my way of thinking?
and the reason why? because we are both not of the left.
i could have a pint with David Vance, and fundementally disagree with him – but on all the major stuff – Jefferson, bill of rights, 1776, america – we both agree. and all of those things are fundemental to freedom in this world.
The leftist doublethink in evidence here is sickening.
whitewineliberal:
Don’t have a view on whether or not [CP] was successful.
and then:
I consider the issue an anachronism and wouldn’t want to see a return
So, you’re against it regardless of whether it’s effective. How very ‘liberal’ of you.
What was the rate of ‘exclusion’ in the 70s/80s? What is it now?
The aptly-named ‘eh?’ is so full of it, it’s difficult to know where to begin:
But will caning a 15yr old woman by a male teacher make things better, if so can you tell me how.
So now a 15 year old schoolchild is a ‘woman’, and canings are only carried out by men, and is required to make ‘things’ better, not just classroom discipline. You should probably look up ‘strawman’ in your picture dictionary before entering into another debate.
When they said society has never been better, can any of you tell me when people have ever been so well off, so well educated, etc etc.
So abolition of CP is now responsible for economic progress and higher education standards, but wait, what’s this:
Maybe we do have illiteracy level that are horrendous but that is much better than only a few elite being educated.
Whoops! Higher education standards plus ‘horrendous’ illiteracy levels? And praise for ‘levelling down’, to boot.
All children are not feral youth, the good kids never get a mention.
The argument is about whether CP protects the good kids from the bad ones. That’s kinda the point – whether the benefits outweigh the costs. As with everything.
As always with leftists, emotion trumps reason every time. No wonder you like the BBC so much.
because they want to overthrow our free society and replace it with a Marxist totalitarian one.
archduke, what free society? Collectivism sits quite nicely with the free market in Britian. Didn’t you know that everything is the fault and duty of the state, if the streets are dirty the council clean them, if people are sick the state treats them, and if they are out of work the state gives them pocket money. The infantilisation of the electorate in Britain does not equal a free society, the only choices open to a British citizen now, is shopping and sex, everything else is looked after by the state.
That is why the British national character is different from what it used to be, there was a time when difference and dissent were tolerated and embraced. Not now. And this site is reflective of the deep malaise within British society. Different opinions are not tolerated, the holder of an opinion that is different is mocked, name called and bullied in to conformity, same as it is in the wider society.
If British children have it within their power to put adults under curfew after dark a cane in school won’t remedy it. Violence begets violence, at impressionable ages its monkey see monkey do, so lets engage in a little britishness, lets put the blame on state schools. It’s always somebody elses fault, usually the states.
Lets lambast Britain….feel free. And anyone who dares dissent and put in a little positive perspective – bully them into conformity or shut them up. It’s one of the last great choices left in Britian you may as well exercise it….
No wonder Britain is in the state its in, and yet the simple of mind think its a free society under threat from marxists…
oops – sorry – i shouldnt speak for Mr Vance – he might throw in “English monarchy”.. and yes – thats a few ales down the pub and major disagreement…
but what fun that would be.
leftists seem to have no fun in argument. they are zombies – looking for a Marxian Utopia which they will never get.
So now a 15 year old schoolchild is a ‘woman’, and canings are only carried out by men, and is required to make ‘things’ better, not just classroom discipline. You should probably look up ‘strawman’ in your picture dictionary before entering into another debate.
NO a 15yr old female was the example in dv’s debate.
The argument is about whether CP protects the good kids from the bad ones. That’s kinda the point – whether the benefits outweigh the costs. As with everything.
no, the argument is about corporal punishment in schools.
Whoops! Higher education standards plus ‘horrendous’ illiteracy levels? And praise for ‘levelling down’, to boot.
Show me where I praised it for being levelled down?
Calm down boys. All i said was i didn’t agree with david. Yet this has rendered me a limp-wristed, islington bar frequenting, hampstead toilet dwelling, friend of feral youths. And a Twat as well. Although I am occasionally a bit of the latter, I think a bit of proportion might be in order. I live in a very rough bit of the UK btw. But more violence meted out on children really will solve very little.
“And this site is reflective of the deep malaise within British society. Different opinions are not tolerated, the holder of an opinion that is different is mocked, name called and bullied in to conformity, same as it is in the wider society.”
explain please.
i have yet to encounter mockery on this site for going on 4 years now.
you do understand that Mr Vance is a full on Orange Sash Unionist? so ask yourself – why the hell is an Irish Republican like me on his site having a debate?
whitewineliberal | 05.10.08 – 10:04 pm
good point . its getting heated. i think we should stay civil and move onto other threads.
fair enough.
As always with leftists, emotion trumps reason every time.
Haven’t you ever heard of Hume? Didn’t he say that reason is a slave of the passions…..
margaret thatcher , releasing those council homes to countless working class people so that they can buy them was not based on emotion. it was based on calculated reason.
home owners will look after their homes, which results in better neighbourhoods which results in lower crime.
that is not emotion – that is right wing logic in its purest form. and it worked.
and socialists to this day will never EVER admit that it worked.
i have an uncle in law who sold his former council home for 150k a few years ago. he is now on the Costas.
and he thanks Maggie from breaking him out of that cycle of dependency.
“Different opinions are not tolerated, the holder of an opinion that is different is mocked, name called and bullied in to conformity,..”
I have not been posting recently because on I am ambivalent about the main subjects under discussion. Maybe they’re above my pay grade. The intricacies of capitalism, the Obamessiah phenomenon, Palin and McCain with their curiously familial wide jaws, etc. I loathe the Obamania phenomenon but I can’t help thinking there is an element of “my enemy’s enemy” in outpourings of adulation over Sarah Palin.
But when someone says such things on this site it brings on howls of derision, intimidating remarks and insults. Like twat, prat, and even the anagramatic ‘part’
This site has settled into its own cosy consensus. No wonder it has alienated our critics in the same way that the BBC’s impenetrable mindset has alienated us. (I know. There IS no US.)
I don’t expect anyone will like this, but I fear the assumed consensus coming from the opposite end of the political spectrum has become a mirror image of the Beeboid lefty consensus we abhor.
Taking cover.
whitewineliberal: Don’t come that crap. You’ve never seen a Council Estate in your life, just like fatty Toynbee.
Taking cover.
Sue | 05.10.08 – 10:17 pm |
so what are your polical beliefs?
Sue, I don’t perceive a great deal of ‘adulation’ over Governor Palin. What I see is contempt for the despicable tactics of the BBC (and others) in playing the man and not the ball, if you will pardon the sporting analogy. It is also noteable that hose sticking the biggest knives into Governor Palin are those of the feminist persuasion.
Most of the comment has been about the false analogies, principle one being she knows nothing about foreign policy, when no previous VP or POTUS has know anything about the subject prior to taking the oath. Clinton, give me a break a Governor of a small hick state with a smart lawyer for a wife.
A new offense committed by Beeboids and lefties has been given a guilty verdict here. Unanimously. The crime they are guilty of is “Being Arts Graduates.”
Deciding on meeja studies as the subject of your uni. course might mean you have chosen to do a ‘doss’ degree. Getting qualifications for talking at length about Eastenders does not sound meretricious. If that is what a media studies degree entails, obviously it doesn’t bestow the knowhow to preside over science and technology issues. But being an arts graduate is not in itself a crime.
Misunderestimating the value of the arts altogether is a common failing of techies and maths geniuses, and I regret to say, some posters on here. All geek and no visual intelligence makes Jack a dull and stupid boy.
When I beheld a straggly-haired, wispy-bearded, bottle-bespectacled geek sporting half-mast flares, wrinkled grey woollen socks and sandals making disparaging comments about someone who hadn’t experienced the ‘real world’ it stopped me in my tracks.
Before everyone tells me “if you don’t like it you know what you can do,” I want to just add that I have certainly noticed the increasingly blatant lefty bias of the BBC.
sue sounds like a beeboid to me. just because we disagree we are all nazi types.
which is typicical of the left – first you smear and smear and smear some more,.. and then you give an opinion.
those of us on the freedom loving right just give an opinion. we dont have a reason to smear.
guys,guys,and gals even – sorry for the swearing – but i do not like being called a leftie – i may have grown up in the labour heartlands of south yorkshire on a very nice council estate – but i take the issue of corporal punishment very seriously – it should not reflect on my back ground or political persuasion that i disagree with child beating.
tha mi sgith……….
i did an arts degree and i was a waste of time. full of lefties who never had a clue..
next question.
cameron | 05.10.08 – 10:37 pm
is mise le meas, but you have not said that you are conservative.
i am a member of the conservative party yes.
“Misunderestimating the value of the arts altogether is a common failing of techies and maths geniuses,”
if you dont see beauty in the quantum world, you need to read another book.
sorry – but the scientists are getting a lot of art right now. thank you very much…
its called “smashing atoms together”…
cameron | 05.10.08 – 10:43 pm
same here. but gave up with cameron did his green agenda.
never rejoined.
too pro Eu for my liking.
So archduke do tell us of your irish republican credentials and your conservative beliefs?
Aren’t they diametrically opposed? Isn’t Irish republicanism socialist, surely it doesn’t mean only the absence of monarchy!!
Sue | 05.10.08 – 10:17 pm |
I loathe the Obamania phenomenon but I can’t help thinking there is an element of “my enemy’s enemy” in outpourings of adulation over Sarah Palin.
Sure, there’s something to that, but that’s no excuse to tolerate the BBC’s lies, smears, and personal insults, is there? Or to accept the deliberate misrepresentation of a Presidential candidate’s personal politics, sitting on stories, simply parroting Leftist websites, and waiting until The NY Times reports something before informing the public? I would think it would matter even if one doesn’t think Sarah Palin is a brilliant superstar, or that this election truly is about defeating George Bush. The bias of the BBC on the US elections is pretty plain, regardless of who one supports.
It’s no fault of anyone here that the BBC has spent more time on unsubstantiated rumors about Republican candidates than about a certain recent conference in Birmingham. Sometimes it really is “events, dear boy.” Er…girl. Sorry.
But when someone says such things on this site it brings on howls of derision, intimidating remarks and insults. Like twat, prat, and even the anagramatic ‘part’
This site has settled into its own cosy consensus. No wonder it has alienated our critics in the same way that the BBC’s impenetrable mindset has alienated us. (I know. There IS no US.)
Fair points, IMHO.
“…but gave up with cameron did his green agenda.”
It must be difficult to live with the elite without some of their ideas to stick.
I personally think it is just opptunism.
i’m aghast at the ignorance on here…
google “fianna fail” or “fine gael”.
kindly come to the table with some better knowledge in future.
jeez…
eh?:Haven’t you ever heard of Hume? Didn’t he say that reason is a slave of the passions…..
1. You cannot appeal to authority when there is a conflict of opinion among experts, even granting that Hume was an expert in anything but his own philosophy.
2. I fail to see any interpretation of ‘reason is a slave of the passions’ which would support your emotional anti-CP case, or anything else.
3. Sorry about the tone of my previous post – I succumbed to provocation.
whitewineliberal:
But more violence meted out on children really will solve very little.
Once more the bold assertion. Have you even thought about it? Looked at the evidence? Weighed the arguments for and against? Is your opinion based on an understanding of child psychology, or is this just your emotional gut-reaction?
The claim is that CP deters antisocial behaviour among children towards their peers, that it provides teachers with the threat of humiliation as a means to protect the timid, weedy kids from the egotistical bullies. Granting a few provisos, that seems reasonable, doesn’t it?
I make no claims either way. I just know a bad argument when I see one.
Aren’t they diametrically opposed? Isn’t Irish republicanism socialist, surely it doesn’t mean only the absence of monarchy!!
eh? | 05.10.08 – 10:48 pm
they arent . the irish republican movement was a coalition of right and left in order to get the british out of the country.
same deal happened in america in 1776.
afterwards , the movement splintered.
“The claim is that CP deters antisocial behaviour among children towards their peers, that it provides teachers with the threat of humiliation as a means to protect the timid, weedy kids from the egotistical bullies”
wow – thank god somebody is able to stand for me.,..
that is EXACTLY what happened to me. the bullies were getting me into their “gang” and the cane stopped it.
sorry folks, its very un-PC , but it worked.
i was one of the weaker kids. the ones that were bullied..
CP sorted it out. forever.
Oh I see archduke, from your comments about orange sashism I thought perhaps you were a irish republican of a different school…..
The point then about the drink in the boozer and the debates on here was mute.
kindly come to the table with some better knowledge in future.
Yeah I’m a thick paddy 🙂
cheers for the good debate.
CP works on the ‘good’ kids not on the ‘bad’ ones. In that respect it has little to commend it.
Kids will always act up, it’s part of their nature and has to be both encouraged and controlled. Kids need to flex their muscles to learn how to live in the adult world. However, if the good kids have nothing to stop them crossing boundaries, if there is nothing but the next boundary with no way point, you get the chaos that state schools have become today.
Discipline needs to be restored in schools so that teachers can teach instead of acting like, ineffectual, gaolers. This cannot be achieved with ‘soft’ measures and, as such, will probably never be achieved until we face the fact that we have betrayed our children by failing to give them sanctions for crossing boundaries.
It will take far more that the return of CP to get future generations back on track.
archduke | 05.10.08 – 10:38 pm
“i did an arts degree and i was a waste of time” .
Seems like you still are.
Calling me a Beeboiod. Ha!
Arthur Dent | 05.10.08 – 10:32 pm
and
David Preiser (USA) | Homepage | 05.10.08 – 10:49 pm
I agree with what both of you say about the BBC’s misrepresentation and selective and biased analysis.
I did start by saying I don’t feel I know enough about US politics to contribute my thoughts on the matter. I did WANT to like Sarah Palin more than I actually did, though, but I can’t help remembering the incredulity with which we greeted the news that B-movie star Ronald Reagan had been elected POTUS – and then there was all that stuff about the hanging chads and George Bush’s difficulty with the language etc.
So you never know how things will pan out, do you?
Sarah Palin has a very nice face but it’s hard to overlook aspects of her beliefs which seem poles apart from mine. But what do I know? Never believe what you read in the press, see on TV or read on the INTERNET!
archduke,
The sentiments are reciprocated. Diversity of opinion is fine by me – but it is HOW you do it that counts. The pint will be on me.
eh? | 05.10.08 – 7:14 pm | #
Running away with the notion that all kids are feral youth does not win an argument.
Great. Only I didn’t say that “all kids are feral youth”. Please do not distort my words for the convenience of your rebuttal.
When they said society has never been better, can any of you tell me when people have ever been so well off, so well educated, etc etc. That is what they meant.
Firstly, I did not say that kids are not better off materially than they were, if that is what you mean by “better off”. Of course they are. The trouble is, the left disagrees and holds that poverty is getting worse because they’ve decided to measure the gap between the richest and poorest and call that a “measure of poverty”.
Secondly, what basis at all do you have for claiming that kids have never been so well educated? I supervised a team of 16-18 year olds about 10 years ago and they didn’t know when WWII was fought. One of them said “er..dunno…60s? 70s?” They are NOT being taught basic facts and they are NOT being taught how to reason.
Like I said before, people have never been so well off yet so unhappy.
The kids who are growing up unhappy are the ones who are not being taught how to engage the world with rational minds. They’re frustrated because they’ve grown up with the impression that their emotions are all they need to get them through life. They don’t have the intellectual tools to live a happy, successful life. Instead they’re fed signals and messages that life is inherently unfair and thus hopeless. The implication they get from the progressives in the media and education is that their only hope is to join together as a collective and push for “social change”. They aren’t taught that the best kind of social change comes not from the actions of the collective acting as a unit, but as the sum total of a collection of individuals acting rationally toward their own end. In other words, the emphasis has shifted from personal responsibility and individualism to collective responsibility and the group dynamic.
Maybe we do have illiteracy level that are horrendous but that is much better than only a few elite being educated.
What era are you thinking of when you say “only a few elite being educated”? Are you suggesting that there has never been a time when education was pretty much universal and kids were coming out of school with a better ability to read and write than they do now? I’m in my mid 30’s, educated in the 70’s and 80’s when the progressives were I suppose just starting their campaign to ruin education. But I still had some damn good teachers who taught in the traditional style. Those teachers are few and far between now. If you ask me, there is too much emphasis on “group learning”. You look at classrooms now, they’re all sitting around octagonal tables and working in groups. The teachers pay less attention to the individual kids than they do to the progress of the group as a whole. The primary philosophy is “learning to work as a team”, when that should come second to developing as an individual. When a kid is slow to learn in a group it isn’t so visible because he or she is compensated by the rest of the group. The same goes for lazy kids who figure they’ll give 75% and let the other kids make up the difference. It’s the same reason why communism fails – lazy or slow individuals figure they can get the same results for less effort…at the expense of those who are prepared to give their all.
The cane won’t change anything, where is the evidence that violence works?
Where is the evidence that the softly-softly approach works? It’s been tried – kids are getting out of control.
All children are not feral youth, the good kids never get a mention.
No, not all children are feral youth. But far too many are. More than before. And the problem is not now confined to the most deprived areas. There are kids from privileged backgrounds acting in a feral manner. What does this say about the long standing myth that “bad behavior is the product of economic conditions”? It’s not looking good for this theory, is it?
I hope the slower of thinking get it, eh? Why don’t you help me out? Tell me the answer to the question you did not answer on the show. Where do you draw the line between discipline and abuse???
I think you have me mixed up with Mr. Vance.
“archduke:
i was one of the weaker kids. the ones that were bullied..
CP sorted it out. forever.
archduke | 05.10.08 – 10:56 pm
And now you’re the one that’s a bully?
Sarah Palin has a very nice face but it’s hard to overlook aspects of her beliefs which seem poles apart from mine
What have her looks to do with her abilities, she is not being elected as a bimbo.
Similarly, her beliefs may be poles apart from your own. Fine a subject for debate and engagement but not, as in the media and the BBC, a subject for vilification, scorn and derision.
Note Reagan, although he made his reputation as an actor was actually a very good POTUS.
Finally, wrt arts graduates; IMHO a good arts degree is a perfectly good basis for most jobs. Most of the criticism appears to be more about ‘noddy’ degrees the majority of whiich are in the arts rather than sciences. However, it is somewhat ludicrous for a specialist journalist in say science or economics to not have any training in their subject areas.
Jon | 05.10.08 – 8:51 pm | #
Actually an experiment was carried out recently – and the brightest children today struggled to do the GCE exams of the 50s and 60s.
I don’t doubt it! I was the second class to take the new GCSE exam after they phased out O-levels. Math was my subject and I loved looking at the old O-level math exams my teacher would give me. Lots of good old fashioned algebra and trigonometry.
I’ll never forget being given a sample GCSE paper in the run up to my math GCSE – it had questions like “Simon has ten quid. He buys a couple of tapes for 3.50 and a chocolate bar for 75p. How much does he have left?”
I hadn’t even seen questions like that since I was 6 years old. In fact I remember the whole class being shocked. The teacher wearily explained to us that it was all part of making sure the “less capable” kids didn’t feel left out. As in “Yay! Let’s ALL pass our exams!”
eh? | 05.10.08 – 9:59 pm | #
And for all the others here who think that the odd smack just creates a society of violent children….a question.
Was society MORE violent back in the day when smacks were commonplace, or LESS violent than it is now?
Are none of you even prepared to admit a correlation between the breakdown of discipline and the increase in violence?
Let’s face it, almost all of the “modern” problems which define the breakdown of today’s society – violence, drug abuse, teenage pregnancy epidemics etc – grew exponentially from the late 60’s onwards.
Jason
I think this was the research
“Another question involves two blocks of a similar size — one of brass, the other of plasticine. Which would displace the most water when dropped into a beaker? children are asked. Two years ago fewer than a fifth came up with the right answer.
In 1976 a third of boys and a quarter of girls scored highly in the tests overall; by 2004, the figures had plummeted to just 6% of boys and 5% of girls. These children were on average two to three years behind those who were tested in the mid-1990s. ”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/article721863.ece
Hi David,
Who paid for your transport and your time? Did you get some money from the BBC? If so, did you donate it?
The problem is – what is the answer to the “feral youth”. At least David has a solid solution, even if you don’t agree. But what do the “other side” in the debate put forward – more of the same – or nothing?
Arthur Dent | 05.10.08 – 11:34 pm
“What have her looks to do with her abilities, she is not being elected as a bimbo.”
Good. But you wouldn’t think so from a lot of ‘analysis’ which included personal remarks about her appearance.
“Note Reagan, although he made his reputation as an actor was actually a very good
POTUS.”
That was exactly my point.
“However, it is somewhat ludicrous for a specialist journalist in say science or economics to not have any training in their subject areas.”
So was that.
Have you misunderstood my entire post or what? Or is it because someone called me a Beeboid you have decided to misunderestimate everything I say?
Blimey.
Jon | 05.10.08 – 11:55 pm | #
You’d probably get better results showing them a block of hashish and a block of weed the same size and asking them which block they could get more joints out of.