Spanking Controversy Pt II

A pat on the butt is at least 4 things to a child;

1. Most importantly, it is a withdrawal of love or at least a threat of such withdrawal. 

That's a scary thing to a child whose life literally depends on primary care givers.

2. It is a threat of greater violence to come, if they don't blindly (obediently) follow the adult's wishes and whims.

3. It is a shutting down and discouragement of rational discussion. A lesson that frustration justifies force. A lesson that rational discourse and search for compromise is only useful up to the point when impatience calls for forceful "action".

4. It is a lesson that they don't need to learn their boundaries, because someone else will always be there to swat them when they go too far. They learn the opposite of self-control and empathy for others. By stopping wild behavior with irrational hitting, future wild behavior is reinforced. And they learn to self-attack instead of self-control. The seeds of self-hatred are sown.

Children should be taught to control their behavior using their own intelligence and judgment. Children should not be taught to "be obedient".  Obedience is a large part of what is wrong with the world.

I'd rather err on the side of being "too gentle" and "too reasonable" than making the mistake of teaching children that force and threats of force are acceptable options for settling disputes and misunderstandings.

I know the argument, "children are hard to reason with, so you have to use a bit of force for their own good and safety". Then why don't we give a little whack to a retarded person to get them to respond to our wishes or reasoning? For his own good. Why don't we use a little whack for grandma when she is acting a little crazy? For her own good. How about a little whack from your boss when you resist or hesitate to follow his confusing orders?

If it's proper and useful for you to swat a child to "get his attention", why don't we encourage kids to swat us when they want something and we won't listen? Why is it okay for us, but wrong for them? Kids get the message that we don't know we're sending: It's right for us because we're bigger, smarter, stronger, and richer than them. So, because kids get this lesson, they grow up and start to use force and manipulative bullying behavior as soon as they get bigger, smarter, stronger, and richer. 

Why, when kids are expressing frustration, anger, impatience, or disrespect - why is it okay for us to swat them instead of spending time figuring out the causes of their negative feelings? Why can't they "paddle" us when we are angry, frustrated, etc? If the argument is that we are responsible for the children and they are not responsible for us, that is so very correct. And that responsibility dictates that we act with all the intelligence, love, and respect we can muster. And when we are at our wits end we ought to blame ourselves, not the child. 

Children do not choose to have you as a parent, you are the one who chose to have a child. There is absolutely no ground to stand on when culture says, "children should honor and love their parents". Baloney. You can't command true love and respect. Like anyone else, parents have to earn love and respect. The reasonable and moral rule is the exact opposite of what is commonly taught. Parents have an obligation to love, respect, and care for their children until the age when they can take care of themselves. Because the parents chose the child, the child did not choose the parents. Parents have no excuse that they are "too tired" or "too busy" to learn how to give proper care and love to their children. Kids are busy too. They are busy learning about life. What's more important, your trip to the grocery store, your phone call conversation, ... or your child's healthy mental development? You owe your child your time and patience, not the other way around. I repeat; you chose them, they didn't choose you.

"I don't have time to use logic and love, it's easier to give a quick little swat". This is weird reasoning. If you get to have the excuse that you are too busy, too tired, too distracted, etc., to take time to carefully figure out the root of a child's bad behavior, then you have no right blaming a child for anything they do. They also are tired, busy, distracted, ... If it's a good excuse for you, then why not for them? AND it's not their fault; it's your fault if they never were given the tools and training and EXAMPLE of how to act differently. 

It's barbaric to blame children for their lack of understanding and patience. You are responsible for everything they have learned, for better or worse (even if they learned it from cartoons, movies, daycare, school, or "popular culture").

Popular Culture is the last place to go for this kind of knowledge. Popular Culture is a purveyor of mistakes, lies, and made-up crap. (The biggest lie is that we ought to revere culture and never question the "wisdom" it passes down.) You have to see what actual evidence has been found and studied.

Emotional Physical Development Of Children Who Get Paddled

The ideas that I am encouraging here are inspired by Stefan Molyneux at FreeDomainRadio.com

Spanking Controversy Pt I

A friend of mine defended spanking on her Facebook page, so I had to reply.

She wrote back to me after I said, "all spanking is wrong, period".

okay I can tell your really serious about this and....maybe I shouldn't have said the word spanking, is swatting on the butt a spanking??guess it depends on one's definition..I think a swat when all else fails doesn't hurt and it gets my grandson's attention...

I replied:

Yes, I am serious about this. I doubt if any other topic is more serious. Wars, depressions, murders, rapes, all criminal behavior and social problems in the "adult" world stem from negative experiences in childhood. You look at a jerk in the bar or an idiot co-worker, you are seeing the scars of childhood. You look at wars and corporate greed, you are seeing the effect of a long causal chain that starts with the evils inflicted on children who grow up with dark shadows in their brains. 

When we look at ourselves and the times we disappoint ourselves, we are looking at our own scars from things we learned in childhood. NOT just things consciously taught and not just from parents, but from peers, teachers, baby-sitters, books, movies, and TV. It's a cultural meme that we are up against, and it's permanently etched on our brains. We need to raise a new generation that is free of the "might makes right" meme.

The Institute for Psychohistory

http://www.psychohistory.com/

The Psychohistory website examines the childhood experiences of evil tyrants and war-mongers throughout history. Guess what? From Stalin to Hitler to Pol Pot to Saddam Hussein, from the World Wars to the modern-day Mid-East wars, ... all have deep roots traced back to culturally-approved aggression towards children. We need to evolve beyond this horror.

I have no argument with the short-term "usefulness" of using a swat to get a kid's attention. We know that this works in the short run. But what are the long-term consequences? Are we teaching the child to be even more sneaky and evil? 

Are we teaching the child to swat other children who don't fill their desires? 

Are we teaching children that utility (convenience and usefulness) trumps morality?

Utilitarian arguments replacing moral arguments is how we get all kind of horrors and atrocities throughout history and throughout our present world.

If you read up on this, you'll find that the research numbers on adult violence rooted in childhood trauma DOES NOT find a distinct line between actual "beating" and "light paddling". The line is blurry. You're making a huge presumption to declare that light paddling doesn't hurt, when the research actually points in the other direction. Yes, children are more likely to grow into violent criminals if they experience more violent abuse at a younger age, but there is a fuzzy line dividing "light paddling" and "violent abuse".

If a swat doesn't hurt, why don't we use swats on our husbands, wives, friends, and co-workers? Is it because we can reason with adults? So, if a living creature has a problem with reasoning, we need to resort to swats? What do animal trainers say about swats? What about dealing with brain-damaged adults, or demented and forgetful oldsters? Should we hit them to "guide them" or "get their attention" when they are disobedient or troublesome?

You and I are in no position to have an opinion on this until we study into it quite deeply. I'm just getting started myself. I suggest that you read up on this, and trace the roots of this cultural attitude that says "swatting children is harmless". We also need to track down some good research that has studied into the long term effects of using force on children.

These same arguments have been going on for centuries. It used to be okay to slap or do whatever to someone of lower class. Slowly, we started to recognize that no person has any right to use any aggression against others, except when lives and property are directly threatened. First the lower classes had their rights recognized, then slaves, then women, and now we're working on recognizing children's rights. Funny "strange" that the most helpless humans are the last to be liberated and have culture recognize their right to be respected not threatened. "The husband by the old law, might give his wife moderate correction . . . in the same moderation that a man is allowed to correct his apprentices or children."

Spanking Leads To Child Aggression And Anxiety, Regardless Of Cultural Norm

10 Reasons Not to Hit Your Child | Ask Dr. Sears

Cities are Cesspools of Socialism?

I got a fiery reply to my offhand Facebook comment that "Cities are cesspools of socialism". I thought I would share my rejoinder.

I wasn't judging city people, I was judging city government. I'm a happy anarchist, looking forward to the day when humans live in a voluntary society based on non-violence, creativity, and free association. (Not that I think I'll see it in my lifetime, but maybe my children's children's children.) I don't put all city people in one basket, and I don't put all small town people in the same basket. There are great people no matter where you go. There also are nasty, brutish, bitter people in every city and every small town. There are opportunities in big cities that are unavailable in small towns, but there are opportunities in small towns that aren't available in big cities.

The US dollar is on the verge of hyper-inflation and possible meltdown. And cities will quickly become disaster areas when food service, water, sewage, trash service, police, fire, and electricity become unreliable because the politics and money that keep all of that running become unstable. I study economics, history, science, politics, and philosophy enough to know that the US empire cannot continue. The more politicians keep propping it up with wars, taxes, laws, cops, jails, guns, bombs, and debt, the harder it will fall. And state and city governments will fall as well. We won't be immune out here in the woods, but we're not totally dependent on government largesse, the way a city is. That's all I was talking about.

"I would prefer a socialistic approach to a capitalistic one, don't you concur?"

I prefer a sociable approach. And socialism is anti-social and violent. I prefer freedom. I don't like politicians pointing guns at my head or threatening to do so.

"After all, if we lived in a communist or socialist country, all of its citizens would be provided for. All would have gainful employment, shelter, food and clothing."

That's what the promise says, but history, logic, and morality say otherwise. I don't mind you living in a socialist society if you choose, but please let me choose to opt out. Socialism and communism are no problem until they use guns to force everyone to conform to their system.

"Instead we live in a capitalistic Republic where profits are put ahead of people."

The "capitalist republic" we live in is a fiction. Both of those words are filled with false premises. The word "republic" is a fiction because I supposedly have "representatives" but they are under no legal or contractual obligation to actually represent my wishes or needs. All government is a fiction in that way; We are obligated to the state, but the state is not obligated to us. The word "capitalist" is also a fiction, because Karl Marx misused the word when he coined it. All "capital" refers to is the tools you use to provide your product or service. So "capitalism" refers to a business which puts money from profits back into its tools and buildings in order to improve products and services. We don't live in a "capitalist" system. The right word is "mercantilism". Mercantilism is a system where politicians take money by force from some of the people and give it to their preferred big donor corporations. A mercantilist system syphons money from the less politically-connected "little guys" in order to fund fat cat politically well-connected donors.

My Political Roots

My political roots are anti-intervention and anti-big-central-government.

My old-school conservative parents gave me that attitude. But I took it to its simple and logical conclusions.

In studying history and politics, I finally found that you can't draw a line and say "this part of government is okay to have intervention and big centralized power, and this other part is not okay." You pull the string, and the whole ball of yarn comes undone. The more you look into the history of political meddling, the more you find out that everything the government does is NOT good for morality and NOT good for business. Even so-called "just" wars. Even well-intentioned programs like welfare, the park service, anti-drug laws, consumer protection laws, and public utility monopolies.

Warfare: I was taught the old-school conservative idea that trade was the best way to exert influence on foreign countries. The US should be beacon of freedom and prosperity that leads other nations by shining example, and not by threats and intimidation.

War should be a last resort, and for defense only.

Welfare: Same with domestic government programs;

The more the government can keep it's hands off voluntary human associations,

the more we will have maximum prosperity and benevolent social arrangements.

Welfare should be a last resort, a safety net for those in most dire need.

I found out that the Warfare/Welfare State excuses for foreign and domestic intervention as a "last resort" could be stretched and stretched, until just about anything goes as far as domestic meddling and foreign meddling by the US government.

Everything I ever studied about the history of these "last resorts" led to the conclusion that the "problems" which necessitated more warfare and more welfare were problems created by past government warfare and welfare. The small interventions always created more and more conflict, until the government jumped in, claiming that it was intervening as a last resort. Government always claims that it has no other option but to jump in and interfere. For the good of "the people" of course.

This all boils down to my favorite quote from the beloved Harry Browne, master of the libertarian soundbite; "The government is good at one thing. It knows how to break your legs, and then hand you a crutch and say, See, - if it weren't for the government, you wouldn't be able to walk."

Slavery, Government, Capitalism, and What Really Matters

Misleading questions with misleading answers.

There is a debate where one side focuses on the fact that business owners used chattel slavery to make money, while the other side focuses on the fact that without government support, slavery could not have been as profitable as it was.

In reply to a writers quip, "Libertarians would love to lay slavery at the feet of government precisely because slavery is a sin of capitalism", I gave this answer:

Libertarians don't need to "lay slavery at the feet of government". We lay slavery at the feet of aggressive individuals. "Government" is a collective term whose definition is slippery. The guilt of any crime is "laid at the feet" of individuals, not collections of individuals.

Instead of spending time arguing over words like "slavery", "government", and "capitalism", let's get down to the basics. I think a lot of confusion is stirred up when we frame the libertarian agenda as "anti-government". Libertarians are largely anti-government, but that's not a core principle. The core libertarian principle is non-initiation of force. Libertarians are against the "first use" of "non-defensive" force against person or property.

The Non-Aggression Principle is the root of all libertarian principles. When any individual (whether in a group or singly) uses aggressive force, libertarians are against it.

The goal of libertarianism is a peaceful and prosperous society based on individual liberty, property rights, and individual responsibility, instead of what we have now; a blood-soaked "might makes right" culture of dominance and force.

Fixing Government

Why is the wish to “fix government” so universal, and the wish to find an alternate system so rare? In my view, the alternative system is right under our noses. (hint: it starts with "Free" and ends with "Market")

This reluctance to search for what is right under our noses is what perpetuates the idiocy of big central government: it goes and goes, grows and grows... We keep searching for a way to make government work "the way it should work".

The hope that energizes this "political way of doing things" is that we can eventually find a way for "Representative Government" to work as a truly fair and just "representative" system. We've only been working on it since Greece 750BC. Just a few more years, and we'll get it right. How stupid are we??

I'm convinced it's not "stupidity", it's emotional blockage from being immersed in this idea through popular media, bad parenting, religion, education, and culture in general.

We have been taught from childhood that Representative Constitutional Democratic Central Government is the cat's meow. After we grow up, we see that things don't really work as well as we were led to believe. We see that all of our biggest problems can be traced back to government meddling.

Both Left and Right see this "broken system" clearly. But the solution is muddled by emotional thinking, which is not “thinking” at all. Each side is scared of the other side gaining power. But what both sides fear most is questioning the idea of “representative government”. They're happy to chop away at the branches of the problem, but they don't dare Strike the Root. That would require too much introspection and empathy.

Even after our political system lets us down so completely, we still can't bring ourselves to dare think about dumping the system. We feel like government is the framework of society.

Without government we would have no roads, no mail, no charity, no environmental protection, no protection from alien invaders, no communication, no protection from criminals, no recreational parks, no protection from greedy businessmen, no way to enforce private contracts. And on and on.

So, we spin our wheels trying to fix the system. We set up opposing parties, one that cares more about social justice and equality and another that cares more about protection and productivity (notice that liberal concerns are motherly and conservative concerns are fatherly).

One side blames the other side for every thing that is wrong in the world. This is just a foil to repress the consciousness of the answer under our noses. No conspiracy necessary. Our psychological block is so strong that we are blind to the big picture. We all grow up immersed in a culture of dominance - of "Might Makes Right".

"I have seen the enemy, and he is us".

The "let's try to fix it" foil has developed over the years to the point where both right and left actually admit that the answer lies under our noses. The Right asserts love for the free market and family values, the Left asserts love for community and charity. But it's a half-hearted assertion.

If they really had this great faith in community, charity, free markets, and family values, they would stop supporting the iron fist of the government, and let these things blossom on their own. Society would thrive without government programs "assisting" these natural and voluntary arrangements of mutual assistance.

The War on Immigrants

The war on immigrants is the same as any other war.

Governments use wars to distract from problems they have created at home. Riding on the wave of mob-hysteria created by their wars, they expand their power, wealth, and dominance.

War is the health of the state. Even if there seems to be good reasons for going to war, as in WWI & WWII, it's not worth the price we pay in lost freedom, wrecked lives, and ruined economies.

Americans fought the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812 to avoid the single-digit taxation from England. How is America's level of taxation now?

Americans fought WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, and the Cold War, in order to fight the spread of Socialism, Fascism, and Communism. How is America's level of Socialism, Fascism, and Communism now? Things get worse with every war and with every election cycle.

Every war, large or small, is used as an excuse to expand the dominance of the state and shrink the rights of individuals. War is just a way to get the populace riled up and running to their masters for protection. And the Spin-Doctors keep Waggin the Dog!

Strong borders will cost billions of dollars, and those billions will go to the usual military-industrial corporations, making those corporations more dominant in US policy-making.

Those corporations already own the big media, the Pentagon, the White House, big pharma, big politicians, etc. They get money from big-government programs like the "border war", the "drug war", the "war on climate change", the "War on Terror", and so on. And then they use that money to drum up new wars and worries - false flag operations, whatever it takes, ... Whatever they think they can get away with.

I suggest We Don't Get Fooled Again.

The R's & D's play "good cop, bad cop" in a sleazy display of Political Theater, and everyone lines up to cheer their team. No matter which side you are cheering for, big government and big corporations are always the winners, while tax-payers and basic human rights are always the losers.

Better to admit that Constitutional Representative government is a failed experiment, many times over. Let's start looking for ways to dismantle the biggest, most expensive government in the known universe.