BlueTear
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Posts posted by BlueTear
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If you're going to be a part of a nation, it's your job to fit in.
A zero-racism TV ad a few years back featured a Swedish comedian saying something I've considered food for thought (Roughly translated of course);
"I didn't flee Turkey to become Swedish. I fled Turkey so I could continue being a kurd".
It's easy enoug to apply to a fair few refugee's from all around the world. That being said, I definitely think it's beneficial for society as a whole to provide language classes in a common language, both to kids and to adult immigrants. I'm just a bit hesitant whether a law involving citizenship is really the best solution.
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I always tried to avoid doing schoolwork at home. Not only do I find it easier to concentrate in a library rather than at home, it also means that when I do get home, I know I can relax and just drop everything.
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To reuse an old Mark Twain quote; "Lies, damned lies and statistics".
First of all, I'd like to point out that over the past decade, reported property related crimes such as theft have decreased by around 20%, while violence related reports have gone up - though the US still manages a higher homocide rate.
The article you link to also has a second page, where it is noted that the most likely reason for these differences involve a more effective policing and justice system in the US than elsewhere. Living here, I happen to know our police force is generally considered understaffed, a situation that will deteriorate over the next few years due to retirements, and has steadily been going downhill for years the past few years as well (we had a population "boom" in the '40's and as their retiring we're finding ourselves in all kinds of interesting socio-economic issues)
SUPERIOR POLICING does little good without a commitment from the justice system to keep violent thugs off the streets. The United States has the longest prison sentences in the Western world. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics and its counterparts in other countries, a convicted armed robber can expect to serve about four and a half years behind bars in the United States, a little over two years in Great Britain, a bit less in Germany, and less than 18 months in France. The United States imprisons nearly 700 out of 100,000 citizens as compared to about 125 in the U.K. and Canada, 100 in Germany, and about 60 in most of Scandinavia. Some of these countries may actually have fewer thugs than the United States, but those left unpunished do enormous damage.It strikes me that if we only lock up less than a tenth of as many the US does per 100 000 citizens and only manage a crime victimization rate 20% higher, we shouldn't really be complaining.
It also means you can't actually find any coorelation between upbringing methods and crime rates, since any difference could easily - and in my opinion more accurately - be attributed to issues with law enforcement.
As for the second source... The entire page is nothing but racists propaganda. Even if the numbers are true, it's worth noting that over the past years we've worked hard on making more women press charges as well as refining our laws to include stricter definitions of what constitutes a rape.
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My point is this. The burden of proof lies on you in this situation. I, along with many other people, were raised by getting spankings in very appropriate and controlled ways. If you are going to argue that this type of parenting method is ineffective, you need to prove that it is ineffective. Even this family psychologist, with all of her knowledge, needed some personal experience before she understood that not all kids are the same - and physical deterrence is in fact necessary at some points.
I live in a country where corporal punishment as a means to raise a child has been banned since 1979. Since it's a democracy, I'd say it's fair to say that even before that ban, most children did not recieve corporal punishments. Every member of my generation constitutes the result of an upbringing that did not involve corporal punishment. Every friend I have close to my own age, every person I meet close to my own age. All brought up without corporal punishment. So speaking of living examples, I feel my own nation over the past quarter of a century makes a pretty handy one.
In my opinion, influenced in large part by living where I live, corporal punishment does not need to be proven ineffective. If it is to be justified, it needs to be proved to be effective. See, it's easy to argue that there's lots and lots of people who have suffered no apparent long-term emotional trauma, as several people in this thread have testified. The answer to the question "Was I hurt by it?" is "No". Wrong question to ask yourself.
"Was I helped by it?". Inflicting physical pain - which we outlaw for any other situation - on a child is not, in my opinion, morally acceptable because the child grows up and says "I wasn't hurt by it". If it's going to be morally acceptable, it needs to be (scientifically proven) that the child in question was helped by it. For crying out loud, hurting children is not okay just because the pain, twenty years down the line, did not leave any obvious emotional scars! Ergo, I don't believe the burden of proof lies on proving it to be ineffecient - unless someone intends to argue that punishing a thief by cutting of his right arm is the right thing to do until it's been proven to be "ineffecient" - but on the other way around.
Nevertheless, without spending overly large amounts of time thrawling the internet for sources, let's blatantly steal some links from the Wikipedia article on the subject.
The American Academy of Pediatrics, "Guidance for effective discipline". Fast forward to section on corporal punishment, and quoting some interesting parts (though to be honest, the whole section is an interesting read)
Although spanking may immediately reduce or stop an undesired behavior, its effectiveness decreases with subsequent use. The only way to maintain the initial effect of spanking is to systematically increase the intensity with which it is delivered, which can quickly escalate into abuse. Thus, at best, spanking is only effective when used in selective infrequent situations.- Spanking and threats of spanking lead to altered parent-child relationships, making discipline substantially more difficult when physical punishment is no longer an option, such as with adolescents.
Spanking is no more effective as a long-term strategy than other approaches,18 and reliance on spanking as a discipline approach makes other discipline strategies less effective to use.19 Time-out and positive reinforcement of other behaviors are more difficult to implement and take longer to become effective when spanking has previously been a primary method of discipline.
A pattern of spanking may be sustained or increased. Because spanking may provide the parent some relief from anger, the likelihood that the parent will spank the child in the future is increased.20
Fancy that. I think we just found the main reason why people keep saying that being sent to their room didn't work.
I personally remember as a child being much more afraid of getting a spanking for breaking a rule than I would have been for losing privileges or going to my room. If I can personally testify that physical deterrence was more effective at a younger age then how can you say it is not?Because even assuming the following is true; 1) Your parents only inflicted physical pain on you when it is, without a doubt, possible to say that you'd earned it because of your own actions, not because of your parents negligence or emotional state at the time (A lack of patience due to a bad day at work soliciting a punishment not on the scale of the behaviour for example) 2) You genuinely learned from the experience, and you recieved no emotional scarring that impaired your development in any way, and I don't just mean apparent issues 3) Other methods of disciplining would not have created similar, the same or better results 4) You do not suffer from a loyalty conflict clouding your assessment of yourself.
Your statistical significance remains negligable, compared to the scale of studies on the subject, as well first hand experience in the countries were there exists, and has existed for quite a while, bans on corporal punishment.
I refer back to my statement on local legalities. Every child brought up within the past quarter of a century around here has never known it. Neighbouring nations, likewise.Getting them to understand why they should be avoided does not mean children are not going to break rules. I point once again to my example of my friend the family psychologist. It is my firm belief that you yourself don't know the necessary effectiveness of spanking because you yourself have never been in a situation that would require it.
With that kind of insight, I'll continue to argue that situations where spankings are the only effective means just won't arise.That's like asking when the exact time someone should be potty trained. The intellectual maturity of children varies and a good parent who is delivering spankings in a controlled and effective manner should have enough insight in their child's intellectual maturity to know when it's time to quit spanking.Pray tell, what idiot child would not adapt to this simple form of punishment?It's very easy to hide small entertainment electronics. Once a child figures out how you operate, they can break you down.
Disciplining a child is about their ability to, for a lack of a better word, adapt, willingness to pay attention to you, and mental schemes.
If you lecture them, they tune you out. If you try and take away their stuff, they hide it. If you ground them, they'll most likely have a plan. If you're soft, they twist you around and see what they can get out of it.
First of all, I continue to be amazed by the thought that the same idiot child wouldn't come to understand that no matter how much it hurts, pain is temporary (glory is forever) and some actions may very well be worth a spanking. The child is clever enough to outsmart you - an adult - on several fronts at once, to decieve you thoroughly and to manipulate you permanently, yet in the face of some physical pain, he or she cringes in terror and becomes compliant. [cabbage]. Once again, if he or she controls you so thoroughly, no amount of physical pain is going to allow you to reassert control.
And speaking of hiding small entertainment electronic's, if you're really paranoid about it, don't buy your child any electronic that cannot be equipped with a BIOS password, or keep it stored in a locked cabinet when not in use, or whatever. The "enemy" is a child of age, what, eight or below? If you can't outsmart that, then you truly are the second-most gulliable person on the planet.
- Spanking and threats of spanking lead to altered parent-child relationships, making discipline substantially more difficult when physical punishment is no longer an option, such as with adolescents.
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My parents tried both. They'd take privileges away first, and that wouldn't work in the long run. The spanking would. Calling it "cheap parenting" by comparing it to animals isn't really a good analogy, because you don't explain how it's cheap. You just say it is, and throw the example of an animal in there. The last time I checked, humans were animals too, and unless you've radically restructured your belief system you're a moral relativist who doesn't believe in an objective standard of morality so throwing the whole "animals don't have morals" is irrelevant as humans don't either.
I don't see what is so wrong with physical pain when you've exhausted other options?
First of all, I fail to see how moral relativism excludes human morality. In fact, I'd say it's more of the opposite; I aknowledge a myriad of moral codes who - objectively - are pretty much the same. I then also aknowledge that the "justness" of each of these individual codes can never be mesured objectively except by an observer completely untainted by moral and ethical codes, which in reality means just about no one. So, I'll cheerfully hug my subjective sets of morals and ethics and I'll call them just, and I'll fight, kill and if neccesary, die to defend them.
Even though, biologically, we are animals.
Second of all, I'll clarify why I think it's cheap parenting:
When is your child old enough to grasp these oh-so-complex questions like... "Don't walk into the road!"? A dog, a smart dog, reaches the intellectual level of a human three year old. What might a three year old do that would warrant a spanking? I'll stick with the whole walk into the road theme cause if I was a parent, it would scare the hell out of _me_.
When is the lesson, and by that I mean the ensuing physical pain, not the result of my own neglience as a parent? "Walking into the road will kill you." It is not a complex moral question that an adult, or even an 8 year old, will have trouble grasping. So if the kid still does it, at this age, then obviously I havn't quite managed to explain to the child why I don't want him to do this.
Yes, as he grows older, he will undoubtly figure this out for himself. Yes, the older he gets, the easier it will be for him to understand my explanations of it. But isn't it my job to judge when he is ready to do that, as a parent? Shouldn't I judge when my child is able to walk with me next to a road without stepping into it to watch a really cool puddle of water? And is the child stepping into that puddle his fault, or my fault?
Don't get me wrong, I do think people - including children - should be held accountable for their actions. But at the same time, I firmly believe that at such a young age, it's up to the parent to create the frames in which these actions can be taken, and to lead by example. If Bobby pushes Jane of a monkey bar so Jane breaks her arm, you - as a parent - already missed something somewhere along the way. I'd say the concept of "sharing" for starters. And quite frankly, I honestly don't think no amount of physical pain is going to make Bobby grasp the concept of "sharing". Yes, it will make him grasp that pushing Jane of the monkey bar was a Bad ThingÃÆââââ¬Ã¾Ãââ, and as he gets older he'll probably be able to figure out the whole sharing thing as well. But is he being punished due to his shortcomings as a kid too young to tie his own shoelaces, or because you - as an adult parent who gets to vote in who rules the country - was unable to teach your child to wait for his turn before exposing him to a situation in which that knowledge was required of him?
And that's what makes it cheap. You inflict physical pain on your child. It is temporary, it does not lead you to question your own actions or inactions, it focuses on providing the child with a negative experience to keep him from doing something. As you expressed it yourself, it's a "final solution", something to do when nothing else helps.
1. That parents do not use both methods of punishment. You assume spanking and taking away privileges are mutually exclusive, which by the given examples above, are not.I do this for two reasons; 1) The repeatedly stated ineffeciency of seinding people to their rooms in this thread. I do not advocate physical pain as a deterent but most of the people who did argued that sending them to their rooms, time-out's and whatnot, were ineffectual.
2) If they are used in combination, how do you know it's the physical pain creating having impact? How do you tell that if you were to remove physical pain from the equation, you wouldn't reach the same, similar or better results? Correct me if I'm wrong, but so far, the only reference to a real psychological study in this entire thread comes from the third poster refering to a psychiatrist speaking against spanking, saying it to be ineffectual in the long-term?
2. You also assume that children who are at a young age are able to grasp difficult moral and ethical concepts that people much older than them sometimes have trouble grasping. You might notice that spanking children only lasts so long. Why is that? Because spanking is used as a deterrent only when children are too young to be able to clearly reason through ethical dilemmas. When children grow older and more competent, then other forms of parenting develop.Hey, I'm not putting a four year old into a situation where he has to chose whether to eat meat for lunch, even though the meat arguably as a mother who arguably misses her child and the child is definitely - without argument - dead so that little Tommy could have a steak. Nor do I believe most spankings involve failure to comprehened the moral and ethical standards of capital punishment. It is the ethical dilemma's on the scale of "Don't wake your little brother" or "Don't walk into traffic". Both of which you should, as a parent, be quite able to provide your child with an at least sketchy idea of why they are to be avoided. Though the latter might provide some difficulty if you've parked your child infront of the wrong cartoons one time too many.
On top of that, there's the question of how you define "too young". When should a child be able to understand for himself that pushing Jane of a monkey bar is a really stupid thing to do? In my sincere opinion; Around the same time your child is old enough to be able to push someone off a monkey bar when you're not close enough to stop him. Someone in this thread said it's "individual" which I just call a nicer way of saying it's a parental judgement call that the parents of Bobby clearly failed to make.
With a quick spanking and a lecture, Bobby knows why he was punished. Sometimes physical means is the easiest way to get into the heads of children- and we have proof for what, centuries? Look at how children were back then, a century ago, and look at brats nowadays, after the hippies age.Oh, [cabbage]. How on earth would physical pain magically manifest itself into an "aha, so THAT's why I was punished!". It's the lecture, not the pain. And if your kid spends so much energy evading his punishment and actually succeds; 1) You fail. Seriously. You are clearly able to think of all kinds of devious evasive tactics now, but once you become a parent these are suddenly forgotten and you become the second most gulliable person on the planet. ut some actual effort into it - and at this point, I'll once again refer back to what I said about cheap parenting. 2) If he wants to evade it so much he clearly isn't seeing why he deserves it in the first place, which should be your real concern. And quite frankly, if that's the case, I don't think he'll be able to learn something from physical pain either. But hey, once you've inflicted your physical pain on the child, he has been Punished and you need not concern yourself with whether he actually understood why, as opposed to if you send him to his room?
I'd continue, but I have bus to catch and unfortunetely, chances are I won't be seeing an internet able computer til next saturday. So if you guys could just keep this alive til then without adding ten pages... =P
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I'd like to suggest a new, and clearly completely groundbreaking, idea.
Rather than repeatedly stating the ineffeciency of sending kids to their rooms doesn't work, because there's computers, TV's, toys and gameboy's in there that the child can entertain him or herself with, why not, you know, take these things away from your child?
Maybe I'm going out on a limb here, just maybe, but it strikes me as exceptionally stupid to say that a punishment is ineffective because "he has a TV". Well, where I live, TV's do not magically materialize out of thing air. Usually, the aquiring, and subsequent placement of said TV in little Timmy's room, requires the active action of a parent.
If your little brat of a child can't behave properly, how about *gasp* not letting him watch TV, sit infront of the computer or handle a gameboy? TV is - contrary to what appears to be a popular belief in this thread - not a human right, and the removal of the privilege of watching TV can not possibly be labeled more inhumane than inflicting physical pain.
So, let's abandon this whole "sending them to their room's doesn't work, there's all kinds of nifty toys there" idea, because those toys are a privilege you - as a parent - supplied in the first case, and if you're not strong enough to take these privileges away, you ain't gonna un-spoil your child with a smackdown, that's for sure. And please, try to remember; TV is not a human right.
In my honest opinion, physical pain as a deterent is 'cheap parenting'. Rather than going out of your way to explain to little Bobby that pushing Jane like that was a friggin stupid thing to do, and why, making him apologize and mean it once he's understood what he's done, removing a few of Bobby's privilege's - which has the added benefit of hopefully convincing him that they are just that, privilege's, not rights - you inflict a temporary discomfort and then decide that he has been sufficiently "punished". And like all animals, he has learned not to perform action A, because it results in response B, which is painful. Thus, we avoid action A. Here's a thought; You help your child develop a moral and ethical standard by actually evoking a sense of empathy, rather than raising him the way you'd raise a dog? Bad dog, don't pee inside! Okay, not gonna pee inside, 'cause it causes discomfort. Clever animals that. They're a bit lacking on morals and ethics, but hey...
On top of that, I have to wonder, how long does it take for a child of average intelligence to figure out that some actions are worth temporary discomfort and pain, because hey, said discomfort can then be endured in front of a computer or a TV because you've "already been punished enough"?
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I've said from my first post - it is prejudiced discrimination, it is sexist. I didn't say they should be rules against male rape counsellors, I said that it is understandable when they are not employed because the majority of their patients wouldn't be able to trust them.
You said the discrimination was "neccesary" which I call complete and utter [cabbage]. Go ahead, don't hire the incompetant councelors who can't make their patients talk to them, but that's a different matter. Yes, there might even be a coorelation between individual patients ability to open up to people based on their sex, but what the hell, there's a coorelation between an individual patients ability to open up to people with certain hairstyles, hair colours, voice, mannerism, age, skin colour and what-have-you.
This does not mean that the guy isn't the best rape counselor you'll ever meet. It doesn't even mean he isn't going to be a better counselor than a woman.
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It's got nothing to do with his competency. It is purely to do with the women who have just been raped and are going to be at the point in their lives where they are least likely to be able to trust/open up to a man.
So a male counselor _able_ to make a female victim open up is less suitable for the job than a female counselor _unable_ to make a female victim open up, is less qualified for the job because he happends to be male?
... how is this not prejudiced discrimination, where your sex is more important than your competence?
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No, I am saying it is understandable if a man is denied such a job based on his gender alone. I said in certain circumstances that sexism is necessary - there might just happen to be a clinic where the women don't mind it. There might not be a rule against it in theory but there may well be one in practice.
So the fact that he can be competant enough to overcome the fact that he due to accident of birth happends to be male isn't even a factor?
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I think it has a lot to do with the genre of game. In many turn based strategy games, sequels were they've improved the graphics can ruin the downright ruin the gameplay and controls; For example, although it's prettier, it makes it harder to gain a clear view of what's going on, thus decreasing gameplay. A simpler, uglier, graphical solutation could - and does in some cases - make the game better.
In an MMORPG, the concern with scaled up graphics can instead be system requirements. I had to run my graphics with a troubleshooting option enabled to get the graphics down to a level my RAM could handle in SWG. WoW even chose not to go for the all-out graphical improvements - much the same way they did with Warcraft III - in order to improve playability. Allowing control customization via xml also makes the UI of WoW a significant improvement in gameplay.
MMORPG's also generally have more "content" than your average game, which means the gameplay is going to be bigger. I've never been a fan of single player RPG's or first person shooters, but in my opinion, graphics in those games are more important than in games with content on a scale of your average commercial MMORPG.
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Not at all. Islam and Judaism branched off from the same person - Abraham. Christianity was 4000 years later.
The three Abrahamic (... so I had trouble translating that...) religions originated in the following order; Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Islam did not branch of from Christianity although it shares the basic Abrahamic concepts.
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I'm not for the treating of woman as men. There is a difference. I don't think that women should be firefighter, police or allowed in the Army as soldiers. If I was trapped in a burning house/ being held up at knifepoint, I don't want a woman to come and rescue me. I want a man built like the hulk.
In pretty much all other areas, I think that woman and men should be equal. Not treated the same but equal.
How is not being allowed to chose a given profession because of your sex not sexist?
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I was about to ask the same question. Time outs don't work, the child doesn't learn from having to do nothing for 5 minutes. Taking away their toys doesn't work, children have amazing imaginations and will occupy themselves in some other manor. What else are you to do with them?
If pysical pain is such an effective detterant, why not use it to deter crime? Punish a thief with lashes to make sure he or she doesn't do it again?
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Yes, because unlike the age limits you gave examples of, marriage (especially in cultures that employ arranged marriages) is permanent. In terms of assault laws, that falls under hurting another person (though there are laws for self-defense).
Meh, it censors the word I wanted use. Assuming I know my crime-TV it's the american legal term for having sex with a minor, which depending on where you live and how old you are, means it is strictly illegal for you to consent to sex of someone of a certain age. I wasn't refering to assault, but rather the free choice who to have intercourse with. So as long as limitations on freedom are limited in time, they're okay? So what decides which time limitations are acceptable then, and which ones are "barbaric"?
As a purely theoretical example; Would arranged marriages with a "divorce option" coming into play after, say, three years be barbaric as well?
Prohibition of substances are too broad as some are banned for their actual risk, and some are banned due to political and social reasons.Which is just a fancy way to say that there is no logical reason why alcohol is legal when marijuana isn't. It's a little bit of freedom of choice taken away because someone decades ago had a burst of moral outrage. And today, it persists only due to... cultural traditations? Barbaric, that.
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It's a four disc install followed buy, by now, several gig patch download if you have discs. If you're downloading the lot of it.... *shudder*
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... did you install the game?
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My culture doesn't preach 'oh [cabbage], arranged marriage is wrong.' I developed this viewpoint on my own. Anyone who's not brainwashed into thinking so can clearly see the lack of freedom. Freedom is not something contained in one culture.
Solely to play devil's advocate:
Does laws along the lines of age limits on drinking, prohibitation of certain substances and the legal concept of statuatory rape limit freedom in a way that is detrimental? Does a parents legal gaurdianship of someone underage impede their freedom in a way that is harmful?
In other words; Is the loss of this freedom of deciding who to marry without exception a bad thing?
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Yes, but if religion were to be erradicated, over time the extremeists would stop having an excuse to hide behind. They wouldnt have been inspired to 'uphold the name of their faith' because there wouldnt have been one.
Then they'd hide behind political fronts, like communism, democracy, or downright nationalism ("Give us our country!") or whatever other inspring cause you might find where terrorism is perhaps the only way to actually fight for what you believe in.
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Like I've said, terrorism is a technique. A technique is a skill that is meant to be used in specific way for one or multiple purposes. If this was a weapon, you'll need a protection to shield off against it. However technology improves the weapon to improve the weapons and the shield at the same time. At the end, the act of terrorism is still there.
It's also why the act of spreading terror in this world will never be eradicated.
Exactly. It is not a political idealogy that can be defeated, it is not a set of culturual moral standards that can be replaced. It's a technique to wage a war, to reach a political goal. In purpose, it has more similarities to a propaganda action than it has to a battle.
Definitions of terrorism on the Web:* is defined by the US Department of Defense as "the unlawful use of -- or threatened use of -- force or violence against individuals or property to coerce or intimidate governments or societies, often to achieve political, religious, or ideological objectives."
That's amusingly ambivalent. So what the heck do you call it when it's lawful, whatever that means? Shock and Awe?
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So then if England, Russia, Japan, or any other world power were to be attacked what would it be classified as? Not terrorism since its only a silly and superstitious word stupid fat Americans have made, right? :roll:
Human nature is too imperfect for any true world peace to happen. Sure you might be able to have 1 or 2 years of "world peace" but then someone will come along and disrupt everything sending it all back into spiraling violence.
So terrorism is an attack against a state?
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What is terrorism?
Some of the responses in this thread really confuses me on that point, 'cause you or I missed something in what it terrorism really is.
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Are these different than the Iraqi civilians dying to Saddam's hands?
*shrug* Dead is dead, no matter the cause or reason as far as I'm concerned. ÃÆÃâÃâÃ
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That was poorly phrased on my part in an attempt to make the sentence concise. My point with that sentence was that multiple terror organizations existed before the invasion and the attacks against America were not centralized and some happened on American soil. Compared to now, attacks against America have been centralized in an area away from American soil.
So... The Iraqi civilians dying to these terrorist attacks that are being redirected from American soil are what exactly?
Too much censoring on TV?
in Off-Topic
Posted
How is censoring a TV show by removing parts of the audio and visuals a proper replacement for a parent saying "No Johnny, you can't watch this show, you're not old enough"?
(Besides which, censoring a curse word and leaving the imagery can in some movies be described as nothing but laughable)