The Radio Equalizer: Brian Maloney

30 November 2007

Talkers Pounce On Massachusetts Anti-Spanking Proposal

A SPANKING GOOD TOPIC

Talkers Seize Upon Latest Mass Moonbat Madness







Thanks to its firm desire to remain America's ultimate pariah state, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts has once again proven itself a target- rich environment for talk radio hosts.

And with a new proposal to ban spanking by parents even in private homes, talkers around the country are having a field day at the latest Bay State silliness.

In an interview with the bill's sponsor, WTKK talker Michael Graham captured a particularly choice moment, according to the Boston Herald's Jessica Heslam:


The spanking controversy has dominated Boston talk radio for two days, but don’t ask the lawmaker behind a proposed spanking ban whether he spanked his own children.

Lexington Rep. Jay Kaufman, a Democrat, went on WTKK (96.9 FM) host Michael Graham’s show this morning to talk about his bill to ban corporal punishment, which would make it illegal for parents to spank their kids at home or in public.

When Graham asked him whether he spanked his own children, Kaufman got angry. “It’s none of your damn business,” Kaufman snapped.



And ABC News featured an interview with fellow Boston talker Howie Carr:


State Rep. Jay Kaufman, who sponsored the bill, said, "If today's hearing, and the attention this bill has gotten, can prevent one injury to a child, this attention will have been well placed."

A nurse named Kathleen Wolf actually wrote the bill.

"I can remember being 10 years old and thinking, 'what is going on here? What are these people doing?'" Wolf said. "How can this be allowed to happen?"

She and others see corporal punishment as child abuse.

Child psychologist Theresa Whitehurst said, "When a husband does it to a wife, the very same act is considered domestic violence. And when you hit a child, what's the difference?"

Today, Boston talk radio took the idea to the woodshed.

"The listeners are pretty much appalled," WRKO Radio host Howie Carr said. "Once again, Massachusetts cements its reputation as the craziest state in the union! What are you going to do? Are you going to have cameras in houses? Are you going to have 5-year-old kids testifying against their parents? It's absurd."


It's one thing for a parent to decide not to spank their children. Plenty of parents have. But it may be quite another for the government to outright ban the practice. Massachusetts would be the first state in the nation to do it. But it wouldn't be the first place in the world.


What stinks about ABC's tone in the piece is the indirect suggestion that blue states such as Massachusetts are somehow more "enlightened" by being first in the nation to put forward a boneheaded idea. "Progressive" Californians have the same annoying habit, often comparing their proposals to those already in place inside Europe's political fringes.


Meanwhile, the American left is busy bashing Bill O'Reilly over this very subject:


Bill O'Reilly believes parents should have the right to hit their kids and objects to a bill introduced in Massachusetts that makes hitting a child unlawful claiming it's all a secular progressive plot to take authority away from parents. Dr. Theresa Whitehurst, author of How Would Jesus Raise Your Child did an excellent job defending the bill despite BOR's incidence that fanny swats are an effective parenting tool.

Dr. Whitehurst explained that this proposed bill introduces a " standard of non-violence" but O'Reilly was not convinced bringing in the " 1984" reference and even calling it unconstitutional.

He used his wise, big daddy approach with Whitehurst saying, " Every kid is different. Some kids need a swat on the fanny."

Whitehurst explained to O'Reilly that with the current laws as long as there are no marks left on the child, parents can hit their kids noting that many kids are traumatized by parental spanking.


In the end, this proposal will probably go the way of an earlier one by idiotic State Senator Jarett Barrios, the Cambridge Democrat who in 2006 tried to ban fluff sandwiches (a long New England childhood tradition) from being served in local schools.

In the meantime, however, still further damage has been done to the Bay State's already- sagging public image. Isn't one- party rule wonderful?


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9 Comments:

  • This bill had nothing to do with one-party rule. Even if the Mass. legislature were split 50/50, a single legislator could introduce such a bill (which NO ONE expects to be passed).

    The real shame here is that talk radio and talk TV spent so much time on a total non-issue.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 30 November, 2007 10:56  

  • "Even if the Mass. legislature were split 50/50, a single legislator could introduce such a bill (which NO ONE expects to be passed)."

    Exactly, and just another neocon agitprop issue that amounts to absolutely nothing, to distract America from the essential problems that conservatism's failed policies have dumped in the left's lap to clean up.

    FWIW, it's virtually impossible to bring up children without discipline.

    By Blogger hashfanatic, at 01 December, 2007 00:40  

  • anonymous said: spent so much time on a total non-issue.

    Having the government tell us how to raise our children is not a non-issue to most Americans. The USA is enough of a nanny-state already.

    By Blogger The Benson Report, at 01 December, 2007 14:47  

  • Benson-Hurst, there is zero possibility of this very unenforceable idea going forth, so this is only an issue to desperate neocons watching their world float away...

    More blatantly partisan hackery (at a time when Americans have stood up and loudly and clearly stated they are DONE with it, and you...)

    By all means, proceed!

    Gives me more time to work on my game plan without you and your little cabal underfoot...

    By Blogger hashfanatic, at 01 December, 2007 18:50  

  • Hash Lover said: there is zero possibility of this very unenforceable idea going forth

    Ahh, this is where you are wrong again. People said the same thing about homosexual marriage in Massachusetts and look what happened.

    By Blogger The Benson Report, at 01 December, 2007 22:00  

  • The difference is that marriage equality for all American adults is a laudable gain for society, and undisciplined, unruly children are not.

    By Blogger hashfanatic, at 03 December, 2007 15:51  

  • Hash, step away from the thesaurus. Did you really just denounce partisanship? Are you so stoned that you forgot that your first post on this topic was an unprovoked anti-conservative non sequitur? Just wondering. Smoke up.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 04 December, 2007 16:56  

  • Every state needs to pass a spanking law. Why any adult feels that he/she needs to hit a child is beyond me. I think that we must be a crazy society. A society that says it's o.k. to hit a little person but not a big one. Are we just a nation of cowardly people that beat up on vulnerable children in the name of "discipline"? We are indeed, a sick people.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 21 January, 2008 20:54  

  • Ask yourself why a father who spanked a child of six doesn't spank the same child when he is sixteen. The reason is that, by that age, the child can fight back. People who spank children are cowards, pure and simple. Spanking is not about "discipline". It is about the parent's inability to control their own emotion.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 27 February, 2008 16:14  

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