The sickening story of the young child being tortured a few days ago is obviously going to see people trying to make sense of the travesty by fitting it into their world view. And of course, if that view ends up being attack on another's view then we get a long blog thread that seems to end up way off topic.
So I see over on the Kiwiblog thread of this that the inevitable claim from the left is that the right are sick bastards for seeing links to welfare dependency and a whole host of other issues and making political hay from this.
That might be a fair comment if it weren't for the fact that many on the left were guilty of much worse - equating a smack with child abuse and using no end of similar stories to 'prove' that smacking needed to be outlawed.
If people are going to map the above story to welfare dependency, race, lack of Christian values, neighbourly disinterest, declining morals, the education system, liberalization or whatever, I think they are entitled to, and the debate can be made. People want to figure oput the problem and solve it.
It seems most of us on the right, and I dare say a few on the left have not been convinced Sue Bradford's social engineering efforts were well placed to prevent this sort of thing. And given that she would have no doubt used this sad story as fodder for her own political gain, I think that argument being made from those on Kiwiblog trying to make it falls resoundingly flat.
I for one, welcome theories and welcome suggestions on how to fix this. In amongst all of the rhetoric and posturing we might just learn something.
Related Link: Abuse of child sickening
Related Link: The grate debate
So I see over on the Kiwiblog thread of this that the inevitable claim from the left is that the right are sick bastards for seeing links to welfare dependency and a whole host of other issues and making political hay from this.
That might be a fair comment if it weren't for the fact that many on the left were guilty of much worse - equating a smack with child abuse and using no end of similar stories to 'prove' that smacking needed to be outlawed.
If people are going to map the above story to welfare dependency, race, lack of Christian values, neighbourly disinterest, declining morals, the education system, liberalization or whatever, I think they are entitled to, and the debate can be made. People want to figure oput the problem and solve it.
It seems most of us on the right, and I dare say a few on the left have not been convinced Sue Bradford's social engineering efforts were well placed to prevent this sort of thing. And given that she would have no doubt used this sad story as fodder for her own political gain, I think that argument being made from those on Kiwiblog trying to make it falls resoundingly flat.
I for one, welcome theories and welcome suggestions on how to fix this. In amongst all of the rhetoric and posturing we might just learn something.
Related Link: Abuse of child sickening
Related Link: The grate debate