child abuse and society

Discussion in 'Human Science' started by Rita, Mar 18, 2013.

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  1. Stoniphi obscurely fossiliferous Valued Senior Member

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    That depends on the person wielding the belt and why they are doing that.

    My mother often beat me with a belt when she got into a rage. She used the buckle end and would beat me until she ran out of energy. The buckle left bloody welts all over my body. When I went to school and got dressed for physical education the other boys would ask me how I got all those bruises and scabs all over my body from head to toe. I would tell them that my mother had beat me up again. I told the teachers and school councilors too, but in those days nobody did anything about that kind of thing.

    Many adults express their anger and frustration by 'spanking' (beating) their children when they have an excuse to do so. I am extremely strong and am an expert in martial arts. If I hit something it may well break. If I hit a person I could kill or permanently injure them. I do not wish to harm anyone - especially my dear son - so I did not hit him and do not hit people (except as part of martial arts practice). In psychology classes at university they taught us that "punishment only rewards the punisher". I would say that 'right actions' reward the parent. I am very proud that I broke the chain of abuse in my family.

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    What we call "proactive parental involvement" prevents all kinds of problems for all parties involved. That is what I did, there was never a need to punish my son. He is 21 and just finishing his 3rd year of university. He is a fine, responsible young man, I am very proud of him and cherish every minute I get to spend with him.
     
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  3. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    You must be from my generation, grade school in the 1950s. By the 1970s they were cracking down on child abuse.

    Isn't that something that martial arts training instills in you? Once you're capable of protecting yourself and no longer have to worry about bullies, doesn't that confidence and lack of fear instill a sense of peace and serenity?

    Although I have never studied the martial arts (they were not widely taught in the 1950s) I often recommend that parents have their children study them if there is the slightest sense of difficulties at school. Not only does it give a kid the ability to defend himself against, larger, stronger bullies, but it changes his attitude to one of pride and confidence so they think twice about picking on him. Bullies don't just pick on the physically weak, but the emotionally weak. Even the physically weak might muster up some adrenaline and poke his eye out with a pencil.

    Frankly I wish the schools would make it part of the general curriculum. It would also help children defend themselves against abusive parents and other elders.

    Child abuse is much more prevalent than we ever guessed. I don't believe that it's really much more widespread than it was sixty years ago. It's just no longer protected by a shroud of secrecy: adults sticking up for each other, even the assholes.

    If Arauca had ever stood up at a PTA meeting and announced proudly that he was abusing his sons by striking them with a belt, five other parents would have called the cops. And sat on him till they arrived.
     
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  5. Stoniphi obscurely fossiliferous Valued Senior Member

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    Yeah, you and I are 2 of the....most mature members here, Frag. :itold: You got me by a couple of years though, but yes, elementary school in the '50's really sucked. So did high school in the '60's.

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    You are correct, martial arts can give you self confidence and peace of mind. There are a few idiots who recognize that and attack you for it though. After having been in the ring 3 times with a world kickboxing champion and not been knocked out or have bones broken I must admit a significant amount of self esteem and self confidence. Also makes beating up some untrained fool so easy that such does not interest me at all. The last time someone actually attempted to fight with me I ended up backing up while blocking his punches and warning him that he was going to hurt himself. He was furious that he could not touch me, finally quit when he got winded enough and left, cursing at me.

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    I called the cops and filed a complaint.

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    These days when confronted I just pull out my little pepper spray thingie and point it at the miscreant, tell them they are frightening me, to quit assaulting me and to go away . That has worked every time thus far, most recently about 2 weeks ago.
     
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  7. Trooper Secular Sanity Valued Senior Member

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    “If God is dead our standards are man-made. No standards hold authority beyond the force with which it is imposed. There is something vulgar in the heart of man. It is always with us. It may appear as early humor, innocent, beguiling. We may ignore it, particularly if we are fortunate and privileged, may treat it as a bit of disorder in an otherwise elegant room. Oh we see it, we say, but should not dwell on it. To what purpose? The beauty of the room is more striking and more important. We lie: the house which contains the elegant room with its little disorder contains also a back room where blood flows, where screams sound in the night. Where is that room? we ask. We've never seen it. How fortunate. How very fortunate not to know the back room of our own house. But we must not boast of such ignorance; the newspapers diagram it every day.”
    ~ Wheelis

    Come away O human child!
    To the waters and the wild
    With a faery, hand in hand,
    For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.
    ~Yeats


    We insulate ourselves with personal happiness in a world of injustice. Thumbing through history, with the privilege of hindsight, we judge those before us as having unexamined convictions, which at times, may have been mistaken as good. Day after day, we avoid the glances of those who are used and objectified, telling ourselves that we are powerless to make change. How naïve we are, thinking that with science the modern man knows it all, that even in the face of indeterminacy, certainty is obtainable, that the laws of physics will stand to modify our behavior, and diminish what we traditionally call evil. With age, our biases only disguise our egocentric morality. We hug trees instead of children. Rational persuasion doesn't always work. Pacifism is a fallacy, Fraggle.

    I was a bit taken aback by your comment. My youngest son, after receiving an offer to play college football, decided to join the Marines. I never spanked my children, and he has never harmed anything or anyone. He’s a great kid. His high school graduation ceremony will be bittersweet.
     
    Last edited: Apr 5, 2013
  8. Ophiolite Valued Senior Member

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    Outstanding post Trooper. Eloquent, powerful and true.
     
  9. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    It's a position. The U.S. has been under the control of people who love violence for far too long. They pursued our illegal and unconstitutional participation in Vietnam's civil war for years after it became obvious that there was nothing to be gained by supporting a corrupt government that was hated by its own people. All they did was kill lots of Vietnamese civilians (not to mention American soldiers) just out of anger and frustration--oh yeah and because it made lots of money for the so-called "defense" plants. I lived in L.A. in those days and our entire economy was based on profits for the warmonger corporations, with a bit of a contribution from the entertainment industry.

    They made the war longer, and made the country even poorer when it ended, with so much of its land sterilized.

    Iraq was a war of opportunity, and also a way to distract Americans so they wouldn't figure out that 9/11 was a production of the Saudis, traitor George Bush's buddies in the energy industry.

    And now we've got the goddamned NRA telling us, with a straight face, that the solution to the problem of too many goddamned guns is MORE GODDAMNED GUNS! A week or so ago, right here in the Washington region, a family recently bought a house in one of those tracts where they all look alike. Their teenage son sneaked out to a party because he was grounded. His friends drove him home, but he was drunk and had them drop him off at the wrong address because it looked just like his house. He climbed up and sneaked through the window in the upper hallway that just happened to be unlocked just like in his own house. The owner saw him and they both wondered why the other person was in the wrong house. The difference is that he was an innocent unarmed kid, but the owner was a gun-totin' Redneck asshole. He shot the kid dead, for the crime of being drunk and confused.

    Yes, I am a pacifist. I think all people who like guns should be sent off to a different planet where they can shoot each other until there's only one left, and since he won't have a mate he won't be able to reproduce.

    And don't get me started on Israel, the Bully Of The Middle East, who our government considers to be our 51st state.

    I'll adopt a more nuanced pragmatic policy when our shit-for-brains government stops supporting violence at home and overseas.

    But apparently he's eager to do so. The f***ing Marines? Those guys are stone-cold killers. You obviously did something very wrong.

    "Great" people do not want to kill other people's children, parents and spouses.

    I bet you can hardly wait for him to tell you how exhilarating it is to kill. You're a bloody failure as a father.
     
  10. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    And some of them are some of the most honorable people I've ever met.

    I would under the right circumstances. If I were facing someone else's child or parent or spouse, and they had a knife out? And he was trying to kill me or someone I loved? Then I'd do whatever I could to stop him, up to and including killing him. Not because I am a "stone cold killer" but because I prefer to not see innocent people killed by violence - even if it takes violence to stop it. It would not make me great, it would just make me alive.

    Totally uncalled for. You are attacking him personally rather than discussing the topic, and as such are showing a lack of ability to argue rationally.
     
  11. Trooper Secular Sanity Valued Senior Member

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    Genocide...Oh I see, as long as it’s for a cause that you believe in. Hmm…you’re not really a pacifist then, are you? You’re a hypocrite.

    Steven Pinker argues that enforcement dramatically reduces the level of warfare and violence compared to the ancestral environment. Whenever the state breaks down, which can be very locally such as in poor areas of a city, humans again organize in groups for protection and aggression and concepts such as violent revenge and protecting honor again become extremely important.

    It happens frequently. A friend of mine found a drunk sleeping on her couch. On another occasion, a friend of mine blew off a man’s arm with a shotgun after telling him numerous times to not come any closer. There are certain risks associated with drinking too much.

    I’m worried, frightened, and extremely sad. I’m praying to a god that I don’t believe in, hoping that never happens. I've been crying all week. I’m not a warmonger, Fraggle. I’m a mother.

    Good. I agree.

    Thanks! I feel the same way.

    “Pacifism is generally considered to be a morally unassailable position to take with respect to human violence. The worst that is said of it, generally, is that it is a difficult position to maintain in practice. It is almost never branded as flagrantly immoral, which I believe it is. While it can seem noble enough when the stakes are low, pacifism is ultimately nothing more than a willingness to die, and to let others die, at the pleasure of the world’s thugs. It should be enough to note that a single sociopath, armed with nothing more than a knife, could exterminate a city full of pacifists. There is no doubt that such sociopaths exist, and they are generally better armed.” ~Sam Harris
     
    Last edited: Apr 5, 2013
  12. Bells Staff Member

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    One that is rarely sustained and thus, people view it as a fallacy. For example, you claim to be a pacifist, yet you advocate:

    Yes, I am a pacifist. I think all people who like guns should be sent off to a different planet where they can shoot each other until there's only one left, and since he won't have a mate he won't be able to reproduce.


    A pacifist rejects all forms of war and violence. A pacifist does not encourage or hope that others will go and kill each other until there is only one left because of an ideological difference.

    Wow.. Really?

    Pacifists aren't supposed to advocate mass killings and genocide based on an ideological difference either.

    You don't know why he wants to join the Marines. So it is a bit presumptuous to be claiming it is because he wants to go and kill people.

    That is uncalled for and very unfair and downright rude and offensive.
     
  13. Rita Registered Member

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    Whoo Fraggle Rock I really respected you. Please, to do not make this in the past tense. Your words are important and these are not words of peace. They are very hurtful words.

    Next thought, my daughter has a state job involving the care of children, and that makes her a mandatory reporter. Even she is not on duty, if she sees someone mistreating a child in a grocery store, she is suppose to report it. She just completed a training on this subject and is a bit unnerved about all the behaviors she is suppose to report. Protecting children is a good thing, but a police state is not a good thing. When I was a child, I was taught what makes the US good and worth defending, is we did not report each other to authorities as NAZI Germany did, and here we are, doing the same thing. This is unnerving.
     
  14. Rita Registered Member

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    Beating a child as you report it is abuse. I am in favor of a pop on the bottom to get a child's attention, but this is rarely my choice of action, even with dealing with very active and challenging grandsons. But then I am grandma, and I get to take misbehaving children home. Also, we avoid problems by keeping a child in a stroller or on a leash, until the child learns to stop when told to stop. Today, teaching children to stop, is done by playing a game with them. I think we have improved on how we raise children. I like the practice of saying "good job" because then a child learns what is right and expected.

    When I was young I tried to use spanking to keep my son off stairs and out of the street and it just didn't work. Little children do not put together their action and the spanking, so we have to use fences and restrains to protect them.
     
  15. Rita Registered Member

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    duplicate
     
    Last edited: Apr 6, 2013
  16. Rita Registered Member

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    I want my grandsons to have martial arts training for the self discipline and confidence.
     
  17. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    There's nothing honorable about stomping into somebody else's country and killing the people who live there. The U.S. hasn't participated in a genuine defensive or existential war since WWII. Okay, at the time of the Korean War many people thought that the communists would take over all of east Asia and somehow that would be a defensive or existential issue for us; they were hoodwinked by the military-industrial complex into believing that, but I suppose they can be forgiven. But every military adventure we've been in since then was just about politics and profits. (Except Grenada, and who remembers that?) The only Americans who can claim both that they killed other human beings but nonetheless were honorable are older than me. From our criminal participation in Vietnam's civil war, forward to today's equally criminal War On Islam, the best any of our paid professional killers (generally referred to as "soldiers") could say about themselves is that they were duped. Others were simply desperate for a paycheck, and some were just bullies who appreciated being paid for violence. There was no honor in what they did.

    Well sure. I have stipulated many times that the primary rule of civilization is: You may never kill another human being except under direct threat of death or serious violence; in other words, the other guy seceded from civiliation first. The reason for this is that if we all had to divert much of our attention and other resources to protecting ourselves against each other, the surplus productivity that makes civilization work would be dissipated, and we'd all be back in the Stone Age anyway.

    I have no problem with that and almost any non-Buddhist pacifist would agree. But that is not what our soldiers, sailors and Marines are doing. They are actually making us all less safe.
    • A. If they had simply been directed to attack Saudi Arabia after 9/11 instead of Iraq and Afghanistan, the source of funding for virtually all of the world's anti-American terrorist organizations would be cut off. Instead, after the traitor George Bush ordered them to attack countries that had nothing to do with 9/11 (except that Osama was hiding in Afghanistan because the chaos that we created there during the chess game we called the Cold War made it an easy place to hide), even people in "moderate" Muslim nations like Malaysia and Bangladesh are sending a fraction of their pitiful income to these organizations because they (quite reasonably) see America as the Great Satan who is out to eradicate Islam.
    • B. The Pentagon has taken on a life of its own with virtually no accountability. They need a war to justify their colossal funding and their huge staff of killers, technicians and administrators. This is bureaucracy at its worst. In order to keep their own empires growing, they're killing Muslims who have no beef with us, and killing YOUR children. Now they've even found a way to reduce the American body count while increasing the toll of innocents killed: drones. For every legitimate target killed by a drone, thirty non-combatants are also killed. This defies any concept of "collateral damage" and we have to go back to the nuking of Hiroshima for a parallel. And we wonder why the world hates us?
    If you don't like to see innocent people killed by violence, do something about the assholes who use drones like they were a videogame. More than 90% of their victims are innocent people.

    I hereby apologize because from the rhetoric (not to mention the screen name!) I assumed that Trooper was a father. It is a father's duty to teach his children right from wrong, and any father whose child volunteers to be a paid professional killer has failed in that duty. But it turns out that Trooper is a mother and I'm sorry I slandered her. A mother's job is to weep when her children go off in the wrong direction, and she is doing her job.

    I read a report a year or two ago from a journalist who had managed to track down a dozen or so young men in the Middle East who were members of terrorist organizations, but had defected and gone back to honorable, peaceful lives. When she asked them why, every single one said it was because his mother had managed to track him down and he realized that he was shaming her.

    I have no intention of shooting them myself. But if they're dedicated to guns and killing, I don't see why letting them kill each other would not be a whole lot better than allowing them to mingle with us, killing ten thousand of us every year. (If you count suicides too, guns now kill more Americans than road accidents. What a disgusting milestone.)

    Unfortunately (at least from this perspective), one of the effects of the Information Revolution is empowerment to the citizen at the expense of traditional ruling organizations losing power: governments, churches, corporations, schools, the media, even communities. The spread of literacy, the availability of instant worldwide communication, the increase in prosperity, and most importantly the ease of travel, make it difficult to "keep people in line," whether that line is subservience or morality.

    Every risk that is a manifestation of a disagreement or confrontation between two or more people is escalated beyond the point of reason by the availability of guns.

    I most abjectly apologize for my comment. As I noted above, I thought you were a father. You've done your best and you're still doing what a good mother is supposed to do. Might I ask how your son's father fits into this scenario? Where was he when the boy decided to dedicate his life to dishonorable violence in the service of a megalomaniacal government?

    He's using the stereotypical Buddhist pacifist as a straw man for all of us. The people who protest a despotic government's mistreatment by burning themselves to death. That pretty much fails the "reasonable man" test. As I noted, I use the "civilized man" test: The rules of civilization apply to its members: the people who have agreed to abide by them. If someone decides to throw them off (for example by killing for any reason except self defense), then he is no longer a member of civilization, so we are under no obligation to apply our rules to him.

    Yes of course, war makes the application of this rule messy. Every soldier on both sides believes that he is defending his people from annihilation by uncivilized men, because that's the way their officers have brainwashed them. Fortunately World War II, which killed about 3% of the entire planet's population, seems to have scared the shit out of the human race and the practice has been waning steadily. With every passing decade, the number of people killed by government violence decreases. Of course the fact that the next war will be fought in cyberspace helps too.

    But it's not over an ideological difference. These people are uncivilized, and therefore a threat to civilization. Individually and collectively, we have a right to protect ourselves against their madness.

    Even the person who doesn't really want to ever shoot anybody, but has a gun anyway, is an uncivilized asshole. That gun is 3 times as likely to be used to kill an innocent victim than to fight off an attacker or a mountain lion--either by the owner in confusion or anger (spouses being a common target), or by someone who steals it from him or wrestles it away in a struggle. It is also 3 times as likely to be used by the owner to commit suicide. That's six tragedies for every legitimate act of self defense.

    Every gun acquired by an American makes every one of us, statistically, a little bit less safe.

    If he decides to become a paid professional killer because it's the only job he can get because he didn't learn anything in school or because he can't get along with people, then I suppose you're right, but he's still worthy of denunciation for having made such a mess of his life that the only way he can fix it is to make a mess of the lives of a bunch of Muslims.

    I have already apologized, but only because I mistook her for a man. Every child should have both a mother-figure and a father-figure because they play vital but different roles. I have already cursed at Arauca for raising a son who volunteered to be a paid professional killer. That was his job and he didn't do it.
     
  18. Trooper Secular Sanity Valued Senior Member

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  19. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    Sorry, can't access streaming media on my office workstation. If your point is that deep down inside some of those two hundred thousand people are real sweetie pies (certainly your son

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    ), well sure, everybody's complicated. If you're lucky you never see their bad side.

    And of course I always hold leaders responsible for both the actions and attitudes of their subordinates. That's what leadership is all about after all. The U.S.A. has had dismally poor leadership since Ike left office.

    He's the man who warned us about the "military-industrial complex" and even coined that phrase. He was certainly right.

    Before that we had "Daddy Warbucks."
     
  20. arauca Banned Banned

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    Honestly How did you provoke your mother to belt you with a buckle ? I got bitten for things that I can say I deserved, for hitting my sister or getting into somebody's property,
     
  21. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    What makes you think that there was any provocation at all? My mother wasn't physically violent, but she flew off into screaming rages for no reason at all. She was just a horrible bitch. Sounds like Stony's mom was too.

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  22. arauca Banned Banned

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    I don't know every one knows his own history, In my family we were peaceful but kids from time to time get into disagreement and fight , or the older try to dominate the younger. So the parents are the mediators if words don't work then next approach is the belt or other form of punishment,
     
  23. Buddha12 Valued Senior Member

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    It is terrible to hear all of these stories about corporal punishment being administered to those who have stated so. I am very sorry that you all had to have that happen to you because I can relate to that as well. I too was "abused" by my father when he was drunk and came home in a stupor. He's first start out on my mom then find his way into my bedroom at 4 AM in the morning to yank me out of bed and take his belt to me until my butt and legs were black and blue. He had no reason other than being drunk to do this kind of thing and that's what was very disturbing to me and my mom.

    My mom couldn't let this continue so after about 6 to 8 months of the abuse she filed for divorce and he was kicked out of the house. He never was like that before he started drinking which he did with his new job as bartender at a local bar not far from where we resided. He found working there more to his liking than his regular job as a carpenter. All his "buddies" would come in and they would have a good time there and they would buy him drinks instead of tipping him many times. So after about 2 years of this he started to change as he was becoming a alcoholic, slowly but his changes were very stark and discomforting with mom and I. Then the abuse started and that was the final straw that my mom could take so off she went without him.

    I was about 7 then and didn't know what divorce was but soon realized that I wasn't going to see my own father again because he left and went overseas to work to avoid paying child support and alimony to mom. The good thing is that we were better off without him abusing us but we did miss him for we knew the way he could be when not drunk.

    I started working at 12 years old to help with the money to keep the house going and to buy myself stuff that I wanted and was on a early morning paper route at 4 AM then another afternoon paper route at 4 PM after school. We had an afternoon and early morning edition of the 2 newspapers there and I never told either one I worked for the other company. They were easy jobs and I made enough to have little things that were extras back then, candy, soda pop, pinball games etc. and threw in about 60% for the house payments and utilities.

    So abuse is very abundant from what I'm reading and again I'm sorry that those of you who also suffered had to go through that and I can empathize with you all very easily. But it seems that most of us have made our lives better and are doing OK as we still are around to discuss these matters. I learned one thing and that wasn't to drink alcohol very much for I knew the consequences of what could happen if I did and that was the only positive thing that came out of that problem. Also I would never hit a woman or , if I had a child , I wouldn't ever hit them either. I'd find other means of working out any disputes that might arise within the family unit. But alas I never had children and my wife left me for another man with more money than I had, I married the wrong woman so I blame myself for my error in judgment.
     
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