Judges should be angry and irrational

Thrilling news today for the unemployment figures. The Labour Dept can reduce the unemployed totals by 10,000 if the Sunday Star Times story can be believed. 10,000 people in NZ are apparently on the run from the law. These people are wanted by police for murder, sexual assault, robbery, and, generally, failure to show up in court. But the good news is that being on the run, they presumably aren't working because then it wouold be easy to track them down. So thrilling news for the unemployment figures, which should exclude criminals from the totals, just as they exclude people in prison and others not in productive employment (such as politicians?).

The story that caught my eye this week though is far more significant. A judge thinks premeditated action is worse than an anger response as he criminalizes a mother for asking her husband to smack their child after several other non-physical disciplinary techniques had failed. Given that the judge thought the pre-meditation was worse than a smack in anger, this shows he just doesn't get the fundamental concept that anger has no place in discipline, and conflating child abuse with child discipline is one of the major flaws in the anti-smacking argument.

Let's apply the judge's own logic to his job: Every time the judge dishes out punishment, he believes he should be angry and irrational rather than considered and thoughtful.

That explains the severity of the punishment these parents got:

Yes, reasoned discipline is such a heinous crime that these parents had their children taken away from them, the mother lost her job, and was of course found guilty of child abuse. If only we treated murders and rapists as harshly. Then again, maybe we would if they showed up for trial. They are on the run to evade irrational judges, whilst good parents foolishly think that mild physical discipline would at worst, result on a smack on the hand show up for the court case. Instead the judiciary exacts the most excruciating mental torture by using techniques such as job loss, countless interviews from police and government agencies, and stretching the trial out over 18 months.

Image found at Sarah, Maid of Albion