The Spanking Article
As you may know, there’s an article (number 67, I believe) in this year’s warrant to ask TM to vote to resolve that spanking children is bad.
I want to start by pointing out to anyone who read the story on this issue in today’s Globe NorthWest section, that I did not say what the article said I did. Somehow Mr. Joseph Tully’s remarks ended up with my name on them. The reporter has already apologized personally to me and says a correction will be run.
For the record, my position is almost exactly opposite to Mr. Tully’s. I do not think the article is appropriate for Town Meeting (especially a Representative Town Meeting, such as Arlington’s). As a TMM, I resent advocacy groups attempting to use TM a a prop in their PR stunts.
I’m also against the resolution on the merits. I believe the proponents are quite disingenous when they attempt to link all corporal punishment with criminal child abuse. I also believe the government already intrudes far too much in our personal lives and that encouraging further interference (even if only a “resolution”) is bad policy.
So for both of these reasons, I plan to vote against the resolution.
April 25th, 2006 at 07:44
Government has traditionally been a means to protect the weak, and to speak for basic human rights and values. Original government documents, such as the first government document, the Code of Hammurabi, as well as American documents such as the Mayflower Compact, The Declaration of Independence, and The Constitution and its Amendments, are designed to protect the otherwise defenseless, to promote the common good, to encourage equality and equal representation of the people. Children are people.
It is wrong to crush the good intentions of the people of Arlington. What does it say to vote against the basic human right to not be subjected needlessly to physical pain? What does it say to the children of Arlington, who will surely find out who voted against their need for protection from the proven harms of corporal punishment? These are the future voters of Arlington.
One also has to wonder what right Rich Carreiro has to re-name a warrant article? Article 67 is named Positive Parenting Resolution, not “Spanking Warrant”. Nor is this resolution a “PR stunt”; it is a resolution in the tradition of many resolutions in Arlington, to speak out in order to bring awareness and a betterment of society. Noble causes should be encouraged. For it is noble causes that are at the root of creating government in the first place: to work for the common good, for peace in society, for equality, and to protect the weak from the strong.