Anti-Spanking Legislation

Today is a great day for celebration. California, give yourselves a pat on the back. You’re attempting to outlaw spankings and it’s high about time. The news came as a shock to those of us at the Locker Room as we prepared ourselves for our weekly Winona Wednesday pizza bagel fiesta… but it deserves an honorable mention since we haven’t covered the story as of yet.

California is currently still circulating their idea of a law around, but hopefully people concerned about the sanity of the legislation won’t interfere. Current drafts of the proposed law would have those who break the anti-spanking agenda to be penalized by their government. Who better to penalize those breaking the laws than the ones who were meant to enforce it? Who better? None better. And that’s why this is brilliant.

If passed, violators could be subjected to a $1000 fine. I’ve often said that a great way to eliminate stressors which cause violence among parents is to take away money from them. By lawfully relating the child to a one thousand dollar fine, you are sure to eliminate any potential child abuse that might arise in the home… especially when no one else is looking.

Or even in more extreme circumstances, the parents could be sentenced to spend up to a year in jail. Regardless of what conservatives may say, there is nothing better at keeping children safe than taking the parents out of the home. The truth is, people are products of their environment; not individuals with the ability to make choices. We can’t blame children for being born into bad environments, but we can blame guardians for bringing them into this world to begin with… as we damn well should.

Unfortunately, the legislation only applies to children below the age of four. Sure, these children are already protected against abuse due to current laws that are in place. But don’t let that fool you. Conservatives might believe there’s a difference between a swat on the behind and full-fledged abuse… but we know better. One minor swat on the backside of a child is damn near equal to a nuclear holocaust, and I’ll swear by that until my dying day. It's time we criminalize parents who don’t raise their children exactly the way we want them to.

When you boil down to it, children should be allowed to act freely and express themselves without consequences. Their actions, after all, don’t belong to them. They belong to the environment by which they were raised. If we hold them responsible for their environments, they might never understand that they are human beings who can’t help themselves when their socially constructed negative attributes rise to the surface.

Sure, you could argue that something more useful might be to offer courses in good parenting. But isn’t that a little ignorant? Aren’t we bypassing the real problem here?

That problem? The parents.

Personally, I don’t care what you say. There might theoretically be bigger problems to address rather than a law that likely isn’t needed, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t needed. After all, we’re preventing people from doing something they likely weren’t even doing in the first place. Consider this a pre-emptive attack on bad parenting, such as in that Tom Cruise movie where the police arrest the villains before they committed their heinous acts. And in the rare cases of finding someone who was violating this potential law who isn't breaking child abuse laws, we will have our day in court. Because that, more than anything, is exactly what must be done to save the children from learning from their parents. We must eliminate the parental preference.

Hopefully more states will wake up, smell the California coffee, and start getting tough on parents who are trying to discipline their kids the way they choose to. If we don’t nip this in the bud quickly, today’s children might just grow up to be tomorrow’s decision-makers. Noni knows, it’s a better idea to become a protestor than a decision-maker. The difference lies in the workload. Protestors don’t have to work to create change, after all. They just have to complain about it. And that, by Noni, is the American dream.

California? You’re living it early. Keep up the good work.