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.
arch duke. For a supposed irish man i am very surprised you didnt spot my gaelic quote. Hmm strange. Nil gael gagutsa?
Dear Jason,
Most of your posts seem smart and compassionate so I am surprised that you think that the only alternative to corporal punishment is a “softly-softly” approach.
Dealing with criminal behaviour and maladjusted kids takes a lot of effort and asks more of them than taking or fearing a beating.
“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?”
What an absurd extrapolation. It’s probably short skirts, nasty beat music and the end of the wind up gramophone what done it. It couldn’t be anything to do with materialism, junk food, glorification of violence, the dependency culture, mass immigration, booze, fags and drugs, now. That’s just coincidental obviously.
Smack everybody.
“Are none of you even prepared to admit a correlation between the breakdown of discipline and the increase in violence? ”
No. Lets go back to the fifties. The good old black and white days. Turn back the clocks. No rude words. No first names. Mister to you, young man. Sir. Seen and not heard. I’ll take my slipper to you young lady. Don’t answer back. The days before sex drugs and rock ‘n roll. A good spanking.
Why not cut off a few limbs and be done with it. Or just a light stoning. That’ll teach them!
There are programmes for ‘turning around” no hopers, but they are expensive and difficult to get right. And the trouble that established the downward path towards becoming feral probably started much earlier. Maybe a stint in the army.
I know, use them as cannon fodder. (Joke.)
We need:
More pay to attract better teachers. Smaller schools. Smaller classes. Sorry, but no multi culti classes who have to sign because they can’t speak Engrish.
I believe children should be helped to speak proper. Inarticulacy is a huge handicap. Everything follows on from that. How can you read and write if you can’t speak? How can you express yourself?
Encourage don’t punish.
Make Telly better. (Did anyone read Jeremy Clarkson today?) Improve the quality of the BBC !! Give ‘em something to aspire to.
Goodnight.
Warning. May contain sarcasm or irony.
psssst!
Wanna Larf!
How to save the BBC
We should be celebrating its success – yet the corporation is under attack from all sides, writes Polly Toynbee.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/oct/06/bbc.television1
Sorry, I know this is this is the wrong thread.
But that creep Justin Webb was taking his feed from Andrew Sullivan at Atlantic.
In his latest blog Sullivan continues to demand the birth certificate of Trig, the new baby. He has argued that Trig was Bristol’s child.
NOW THAT IS HOW LOW the Dem creeps get, with an echo-chamber not only from the US media but also from the BBC.
No body enjoys putting a woman over my knee and giving her a good spanking more them myself.
However I wholly confine my own sexual perversions to a locked bed room. Do you seriously trust your average school teacher to do the same, with your children?
I think it is a little sick, to say the least, to still be paying off sadistic school teachers with the right to inflict physical pain on impressionable children.
As still our child care homes remain thick with male and female wholly perverted, devil worshiping in some cases, child abusers.
Is it really beyond the intellect of the microchip generation to be able to educate children to the highest of standards without recourse to physical violence?
Of course it is not. These people are supposed to be expert highly trained experienced professionals. Which indeed the highest ranked educationalists are.
We do not get a crap education because we do not beat our off spring enough, and certainly not because we do not know how to do it far better.
We get a crap state and private educational system because a crap education is exactly what the establishment ordered for the vast majority of us and it is exactly what the establishment continues to get.
Except the very cream of the cream. Which the establishment identifies at the earliest age possible and then go about shaping their alloted destiny, for their own future purposes. Chaps like Boris Johnson being an example.
An above averagely educated citizen is however just one more potential danger to the establishment, unless swiftly controlled by other methods. Like deliberately created middle class debt poverty, resulting in both partners working all hours god sends, just to pay the basic bills.
Dont wonder why your own rulers hate and despise us all so very much. Just take it that they do for now. Later when you all grow up a little, my words will resonate with obvious truth, and you will realize you were indeed warned by at least someone.
What an absurd extrapolation. It’s probably short skirts, nasty beat music and the end of the wind up gramophone what done it. It couldn’t be anything to do with materialism, junk food, glorification of violence, the dependency culture, mass immigration, booze, fags and drugs, now. That’s just coincidental obviously.
My point was not “the fall of smacking resulted in a rise in violence” but more to question the assertion that smacking kids necessarily leads to a more violent society. Is the explosion of youth violence today caused by the fact that kids are being smacked? I don’t think so. Sure, there are a lot of reasons for the breakdown of morality in society, and I thoroughly believe that the whole counter-culture movement of the progressive left has been at its core since the late 60’s. Their intentions have always and will always be to invert established values for the sake of it.
No. Lets go back to the fifties. The good old black and white days. Turn back the clocks. No rude words. No first names. Mister to you, young man. Sir. Seen and not heard. I’ll take my slipper to you young lady. Don’t answer back. The days before sex drugs and rock ‘n roll. A good spanking.
Why not cut off a few limbs and be done with it. Or just a light stoning. That’ll teach them!
I’m not sure what you’re implying here. Do you mean to claim that crime and violence was as much of a problem in the 50’s as it is now? Since the early 60’s the number of homicides per million of population has more than doubled.
There are programmes for ‘turning around” no hopers, but they are expensive and difficult to get right. And the trouble that established the downward path towards becoming feral probably started much earlier. Maybe a stint in the army.
The problem with most attempts to “turn around” no-hopers these days is that they’re run by people who think all they need is “love and understanding” and perhaps a free African safari.
More pay to attract better teachers. Smaller schools. Smaller classes. Sorry, but no multi culti classes who have to sign because they can’t speak Engrish.
How about just enforcing better standards from the teachers we already have? I don’t really think smaller class sizes are everything…I remember seeing a documentary in the US about schools in poor parts of India where they have very few resources and large class sizes, and the kids were so well turned out, well behaved and eager to learn. I agree about no non-English classes. If you’re in an English speaking country there is no point educating you if you don’t speak the lingo you’re going to need to market yourself in the job market.
I believe children should be helped to speak proper. Inarticulacy is a huge handicap. Everything follows on from that. How can you read and write if you can’t speak? How can you express yourself?
Encourage don’t punish.
Agreed. The first priority should be for teachers to ban any use of IM and texting shorthand in class. I know a college lecturer here in the US who told me that half of the essays that are handed to her to mark are written in this lingo. Kids are growing up with no idea why it’s a good idea to communicate in standard English.
But yes, punish…life is all about action and consequence, and there are lessons to be learned from punishment in this respect.
Make Telly better. (Did anyone read Jeremy Clarkson today?) Improve the quality of the BBC !! Give ‘em something to aspire to.
Goodnight.
How about just ending the BBC – and in the process, explain to kids why it’s being ended, with an emphasis on teaching the principles of individual rights and the inherent wrong in forcing citizens to pay for a TV station they don’t necessarily want to watch. Sod it, let’s just make Ayn Rand part of the national curriculum.
Wanna Larf!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/ …bbc.television1
Lurker in a Burqua | 06.10.08 – 1:18 am | #
There is some wry amusement to be had that this ‘defence’ is penned by such an objective and respected commentator with a truly spectacular – especially of late – record of reflecting the mood of the nation… in a paper read by, well, a self-described ‘elite’ as reflected by its circulation and the unique way it is funded.
Shame no comments allowed.
From the first para on, it is a truly insightful piece based on what she ‘knows’ I think.
Taking a leaf from some on this blog, I am only surprised she does not end with a rallying cry of support using the inspiring words: “the trouble with you people…”
A clear endorsement from the author’s (now ex-, she is … ‘flighty’) favourite PM is all that is required to place such partisan, self-serving tripe in, if not nail the a coffin recently vacated in the politico-chatterati infirmament.
Sue | 05.10.08 – 10:17 pm |
‘This site has settled into its own cosy consensus.’
Some on this blog may agree with each other, possibly all the time. Haven’t seen it very often, mind. The title would suggest the original post would inspire a certain level of empathy gets inspired.
Some certainly do resort to ad hominem references and/or crude language that, no matter what, I find weakens their argument, no matter how well the rest may be put.
But be careful trying to include me in a cosy ‘you’ or ‘them’ in this manner, as it suggests a ‘we’ mindset that often explains a lot. If you mean it as a well-meant warning to a perceived ‘us’, fair enough, but that to me still infers a need for tribal belonging I do not want to be part of either.
I participate, of my own free will, on a free and open forum. I have nothing to do with it save my occasional posting, and no endorsement of some extreme views is implied simply by being in proximity.
Jason,
Thanks for your reply. Not at all the sneers and ridicule I anticipated. I was going to say, having been challenged to put forward some suggestions – set out my manifesto for change (and hope) so to speak – that I wasn’t forced to do so. I could have scurried away and hid.
One thing I would add – as the Irishman said to the traveller asking for directions. “If I were you I wouldn’t start from here”
You asked:
“Do you mean to claim that crime and violence was as much of a problem in the 50’s as it is now?”
Jason of course not.
But smacking has nothing to do with any of that. Surely.
My Let’s go back to the fifties remark was supposed to be a reminder of some of the things we have escaped from. Onwards and upwards.
The problem with people who run rehabilitation programmes is similar to that of school teachers – they’re under valued, under paid, under trained under funded and many other unders. Smaller classes may not be everything, but they help.
Incidentally, I went to a social gathering on Saturday with some middle class lefties. Really nice people. And I mean that most sincerely folks. But their lives had sadly been blighted by the Guardian.
A very intelligent creative extremely talented lady I spoke to told me she had applied for a post as a classroom assistant but had been turned down. Some box she didn’t tick. Shame though, but there you go. Big school, large classes, skill and judgment removed from the headteacher no doubt, and decisions reduced to conformity to a prescribed formula. The Labour government says “No.”
I put forward a few of my suggestions in a hostile environment – now I’m requesting some details about how your plea for physical chastisement would be implemented.
The cane? The ruler? Bend over the headmaster’s knee?
And for big boys and girls. Flogging, lashing, clip round the ear’ole? What?
The only one to benefit from any of that would be the one who ‘did the honours’ – if they had sadistic tendencies. Which they would need.
Mind you there are some people who could do with a slap. People who work as middle east editors for a start, and some of those sixth century advocates of Sharia in Britain. A few lashes wouldn’t go amiss.
There is, of course, more:
A genuine, fundamental shift in attitude is required
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/oct/06/bbc.television
No need to fight fire with fire any more
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/oct/06/bbc.television2
The BBC can be an open source for all of UK plc
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/oct/06/bbc.television.open.source
At least there is some stirring… and questions being posed… closer to home, and without, surely, any chance of ‘you are not with us… so you must be… are against us… and you’re ‘ists, too, so muhrhh!’
Mind you, look what happened after a few mildly critical pieces about Dear Leader.
Peter | Homepage | 06.10.08 – 8:00 am
(Your earlier post. )
Is this a ‘Not in My Name’ type of thing? Good for you.
But I was referring to the private conversation sort of things that go on between two or three people which get increasingly more extreme, and sometimes ridiculous, and if anyone pops up and dares to disagree howls of abuse and personal attacks ensue.
It undermines debate and marginalises the whole lot of “us”
I know. There IS no US.
Sue | 06.10.08 – 9:58 am | #
‘Fair ’nuff. I wasn’t sure; so just wanted to clarify.
I am just seeing a lot of ‘you lot’ from a few who post here without being aware of the irony of their inclusion simply by being on this blog. I do know it would serve the interests of some to bundle the whole by the LCD of a few.
I think this forum has some smart cookies, whose posts I enjoy, and often value. It has some smart, rather ‘rough-hewn’ cookies, who can still offer worthy insights, but whose manner of sharing I often find unfortunate.
And then there are a few others, who I ignore.
If I agree with a post, I will (well… might, if it is an area that interest me) say so, and where. Ditto in the negative. I tend just to leave the silly stuff alone and ignore it. Doesn’t mean I like it or endorse it, mind.
There’s free speech thread that’s sort of relevant around there somewhere at the ‘mo.
For sensible debate that’s within the rules, the floor is open. For the rest, there’s Master.. moderation:)
FWIW, I agree. Escalating personal spats are distracting and I’d like to see them moved off thread at least if such a technique is possible. Again it’s tricky to ‘police’, unless they really are engaging a schoolyard ‘Yer…yer’ shove-fest with no other content of value to the discussion at hand.
Speaking of terrorism, I caught a clip of Sarah Palin on Obama’s association with Bill Ayers:
Palin: Evidently there’s been a lot of interest in what I read lately. Well, I was reading today a copy of the New York Times. And I was really interested to read in there about Barack Obama’s friends from Chicago. Turns out one of his earliest supporters is a man who, according to the New York Times, was a domestic terrorist and part of a group that, quote, “Launched a campaign of bombings that would target the Pentagon and the US capital…”
Don’t you just love this woman.
I never taught or studied in a British school. What punishments, if any, are allowed?
“I believe children should be helped to speak proper”
eh? do you maen properly?
deegee | 06.10.08 – 12:36 pm |
As far as I am aware – none.
eh? do you maen properly?
Jon | 06.10.08 – 7:19 pm
eh? do you maen mean?
(Good grief. My attempt at irony too subtle for you Jon?)
At school one day when I was twelve I was playing tennis during break with three friends and the game was so exciting we carried on playing after the bell had rung and everyone was back in class. We each got a traditional and powerful six of the best from the headmaster. My backside was every colour of the rainbow for weeks.
People throw up their hands in horror at this story, saying that a headmaster who treated a pupil like that these days would be charged with child abuse and shoved in the slammer.
This is probably true for many Western societies paralysed by political correctness but I disagree with the principle, not the principal. I was not permanently physically scarred and certainly not mentally affected. Children are much stronger than adults give them credit for. All the four of us had to do was to steel ourselves not to cry from the pain. To have thus humiliated ourselves in front of our friends would have been a far worse punishment than the actual caning.
Funny thing is, we never played tennis during school hours again, so the discipline worked.
Bryan,
I bet you were fundamentally a good boy though.
And I think your punishment certainly did not fit the ‘crime.’
(The crime of enjoying something.)
But you say it did the trick. That’s probably because you were fundamentally a good boy and eager to please.
Or were you a hooligan /lout /thug /disruptive resentful illiterate unloved glue-sniffing vandal?
Can’t wait to know. If you were I retract all my above posts.
I thought this blog was supposed to be about BBC bias. It isn’t.
Perhaps there is some way to allow people their rants, but to put them in a separate column, called ‘ Aaarrghh !!’ And I notice that still nobody has much idea what to actually DO about the BBC’s blatant bias…other than to moan about it on this blog. Clearly therapeutic, but ineffective. Anybody out there got any cunning plans ?
Clearly therapeutic, but ineffective. Anybody out there got any cunning plans ?
DC | 07.10.08 – 2:10 pm
Aaaarghh!
A good spanking for each rant?
You’re quite right. It’s so easy to just get chatting.
In the olden days the occasional BBC spokesperson would join in – now it’s just impotent moaning. Theraputic though.
This is probably true for many Western societies paralysed by political correctness but I disagree with the principle, not the principal.
Bryan | 07.10.08 – 11:19 am |
I was in Rome a couple of years ago and, through ignorance, rented a flat in a pretty down at heal neighbourhood.
Having lived in London I was somewhat aghast at the tower blocks, rubbish strewn streets and gangs of ‘feral kids’ wandering around. What the hell had I let myself in for?
I was also somewhat worried about leaving my car in a public car park that in would not looked out of place in the worst inner cities in Britain.
But guess what. After 10pm the ‘feral kids’ went home for dinner and didn’t come back until the next evening. The car sat in a public place with nothing but a flier stuck to the windscreen. After Midnight the place was as quiet as a village.
So what’s wrong with Britain that the same depravation breeds a completely different society? It’s not, just the BBC, so what is it?
Sue | 07.10.08 – 2:08 pm,
I must say I like your sense of humour. And you are right, I was fundamentally a good kid. Still am. Dunno about being that eager to please, though.
So I guess your point of view is that if I were a hooligan /lout /thug /disruptive resentful illiterate unloved glue-sniffing vandal such punishment would have exacerbated my condition?
The Cattle Prod of Destiny 07.10.08 – 11:22 pm
So what’s wrong with Britain that the same depravation breeds a completely different society? It’s not, just the BBC, so what is it?
Dunno, I’m speculating, but it could be that there are plenty baseball bats distributed among the general Italian public and they ain’t paralysed by leftie PC.
That would put a bit of a damper on the kids getting riotous.
Just had another thought. (It happens sometimes.)
Could be that the Italians are more close-knit and therefore their society would be less likely to implode as a result of rampaging youth. Would people be more likely to come to your assistance if you were attacked in Rome or in London?
Dunno, I’m just thinking out loud.
Hi Bryan,
So I guess your point of view is that if I were a (blah blah) such punishment would have exacerbated my condition?
Yes, actually it is along those lines.
Disruptive behaviour, defiance, attitude problems and the like come from somewhere. You might be able to suppress that behaviour with your slap bang wallop, but it won’t cure resentment, self loathing, anger, ‘thinking nothing of yourself.”
Pause for sneering and jeering.
Finished?
Do I hear cries of “Hug a hoodie” ? Thought so.
I do know something about this subject. I await derision and accusations of psycho-babble.
Did you hear the (Corporal punishment never did me any harm) email read out on R4 Today?
Quite funny.
” Taught me a lot. I’ll never run down another corridor again.”
Sue, you might not believe this, but I do take the point of view that it’s not good enough simply to whack somebody. A carrot and stick approach would be more productive for those who don’t have my great good nature. You have to at least hold out the hope to people of positive benefits if they change their behaviour.
This is why I don’t just criticise the BBC. I also praise them where I feel it’s due.
An example:
The gentle, doe-eyed Palestinians recently had yet another gruesome “work accident” in which what seemed to be an entire family and a few hangers-on were blown to pieces and the house they were in destroyed. The BBC, of course, faithfully reported the immediate accusations of Israeli involvement but made no effort to establish the truth. From other sources (and one can never rely on the BBC for info on what’s going on in these instances) it seemed that not only was Hamas not accusing Israel, the makings of Kassam rockets had been found in the wreckage. Took a day or two, but Hamas acknowledged it was a work accident.
Shift the scene to the Middle East page of the BBC News website. There I found a link to the incident, which baldly stated that Israel had been responsible for the killing. Clicking on the link accessed an article that made it clear that Hamas terrorists had managed to blow themselves and their family up without killing any Jews. (I’m not sure how many virgins, if any, they got in the afterlife for that blunder.)
I was livid because that was barefaced lying in order to pump out propaganda. Many people no doubt scanned that page without clicking on the contradictory linked article and would therefore have come away with the impression that the brutal Israelis were deliberately blowing up whole families yet again.
So I complained – to three different sources within the BBC, since one is seldom enough to get through their thick skin – and an hour or so later the blurb at the link was changed to reflect the fact, without any semantics or possibility of doubt, that the deaths were the fault of Hamas. Not only that, the blurb was prominently displayed on the Middle East page for a number of weeks. That is quite unusual, and whether or not my input had any impact on the BBC or whether others had complained or whether someone on the staff noticed the ‘error’, the BBC appeared to be going out of its way to correct it.
I wrote to thank them for their prompt action but also noted that nobody had responded to indicate that they had received my complaint and also that they had not corrected the error on their website, thereby allowing those who would not have noticed the correction to retain the original false impression.
So here’s the question: What carrot and stick method can be brought to bear on the loutish, juvenile propagandists at the BBC to get them to report fairly on the Arab-Israeli conflict? Or should they be classified as a hopeless case?
Sue | 06.10.08 – 10:15 pm |
Mine was a typing error not a grammatical one.
Jon:
Sue | 06.10.08 – 10:15 pm |
Mine was a typing error not a grammatical one.
Jon | 08.10.08 – 6:21 pm
How could you still think my mild attempt at humour ” taught to talk proper” was a grammatical error even after I attempted to point it out to you yesterday by attempting another spot of mild humour by teasing you over your typo and asking if my attempt at irony was too subtle which it obviously was. This will be my final attempt at getting you to understand this and no further correspondence will be entered into over the matter. All attempts to do so will be ignored.
Six mentions and variations of the word attempt so far. There goes another.
Bryan,
Of course I believe you. I didn’t have you down as one of the hang’em and flog’em brigade.
Pity the BBC didn’t have the manners to acknowledge your thank-you letter.
Obviously the carrot approach is not going to work there. Have to resort to the stick. But what stick?
Well, maybe your complaint did the trick who knows.
This thread is petering out – no good flogging a dead thread.
Sorry.
Sue, the only stick the BBC really understands is the withholding of the licence tax. If I lived in Britain, the last thing on earth I would do is pay the buggers for their propaganda.