DPF quotes Laws, and adds some good comments of his own.
Michael Laws writes:
IF THERE is one thing that Friday’s anti-smacking referendum will never influence it is those morons who believe that a corrective smack on a child’s bottom constitutes child abuse.
Indeed equating that to child abuse, is like equating an unwanted kiss on the cheek to sexual assault.
The country has rejected this absurd correlation.
Yet a few people remain in denial. In their fantwasy world a differently worded referendum would have got a different result from the 88% who said no. They are wrong. You could have removed the word “good” and at best 1% to 2% difference I would say. What makes me say that? There have been over a dozen polls done by multiple companies on the smacking issue over the years. Almost all of them have 80%+ disagreeing with the law. The referendum result is entirely consistent with what NZers have been saying for the last two years,
Those who deny the legitimacy of the result, are quite simply bad losers.
As all the child beatings and deaths of 2009 prove, the anti-smacking legislation has failed. It hasn’t stopped one beating, one abuse, one death. And it never will. You can’t reason with drugged, drunk, violent parents, acting out their inadequacy, with an act of parliament. If you could, we would all be living in Utopia. …
This simple fact has escaped the intellectual grasp of the “Yes” campaigners. It seems self-evident to me indeed to the entire nation but not to the zealots whose faith blinds them to reason. As an air-blown kiss is not a prelude to rape, neither is a corrective smack a prelude to Nia Glassie.
Exactly. And all but a few zealots get this.
And as of yesterday, I have nothing but utter contempt for those said zelots.
Why?
Well, they are now complaining about Focus on the Family’s involvement. Outside the fact that no one cares, mostly because it’s a bit late to start complaining, this is the self same website which tried to use international pressure only days ago.
They’re also saying:
“It is time to stop squabbling about the right to smack children and get down to serious action to stop child abuse,” says the Yes Vote coalition spokesperson Deborah Morris-Travers.
“On this, there is no disagreement between Yes and No voters.
Well, that’s nice. After attacking good parents for months, they suddenly want to think about the real issue – child abuse. It doesn’t seem to occur to them that they might have been responsible for diverting a lot of resource from that exact same issue, to attack good parents instead.
At least they appear to have realised that they’ve lost the public and aren’t attacking them anymore… explicitly. Their banners are still up though.
But glancing through the updates, they’ve posted an exchange which shows their own supporters in an extraordinarily bad light – not only does he send angry messages, but he can’t even work out which side he’s on, even after being told he’s confused. Then, rather than telling him to calm down they say “Please take out your wrath on the VOTE NO people“. Way to prove you’re the peaceful option that’s running a “positive campaign”.
Oh yes, they actually said that – and once again, only 2 days earlier.
The Yes Vote ran a positive, constructive campaign that attracted the support of hundreds of organisations that deal daily with children and families…
Got that? A wrath-correct-direction-encouraging, positive, constructive campaign that attracted hundreds of organisations and almost no actual votes.
These people are so caught up in their own world they make the Taliban look consistent and sensible. I don’t think there’s a single statement on their entire website.
Makes you wonder how they keep their accounts the same way?
Goodness knows how they got 6% of the country to vote for their cause.
See also Yes Vote Fail 🙂
Something should go here, maybe later. 