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posted by CoolHand on Monday January 23 2017, @08:11PM   Printer-friendly
from the nothing-funny-down-this-road dept.

Russia is inching towards utopian equality by considering a law that would decriminalize domestic violence:

The amendment would make "moderate" violence within families an administrative rather than criminal offence, punishable by a fine rather than a jail sentence. [...] The law was drafted by Yelena Mizulina, an ultra-conservative MP who was also behind the controversial Russian law banning "gay propaganda". She told parliament that "in Russian traditional families, the relationship between parents and their children is built on authority and power". She said it was ridiculous that people could be branded criminals "for a slap".

The Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament, is due to hear the bill in a second reading next week, after passing it on the first reading by 386 votes to one. It needs to pass three readings in the Duma before it is moved to parliament's upper house, and then requires the signature of the president, Vladimir Putin.

[...] The amendment would decriminalise any violence that does not cause serious medical harm, which is defined as requiring hospital treatment. Beatings that leave bruises, scratches or bleeding but do not leave lasting negative health effects such as broken bones or concussion will no longer be criminal. If there is a second beating within a year, however, the case can be made a criminal one.


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  • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday January 24 2017, @06:50AM

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday January 24 2017, @06:50AM (#457980) Journal

    You're obviously not even trying here. Kicking a 3 or 4 year old kid across the room with your steel toed boots can never be considered anything other than abuse. Whacking his fingers, or swatting his butt doesn't come anywhere near the level of violence of having your head batted into a door frame with a fist.

    If you can't understand the difference, then you're not much brighter than the guy who whips the kid with the buckle end of his belt.

    Next up, you'll be telling me that scolding the kid for misconduct is nothing more than verbal abuse.

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  • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday January 24 2017, @07:02AM

    by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Tuesday January 24 2017, @07:02AM (#457984) Journal

    Sorry Runaway, but he got you good. Every single attack landed. You can't dodge, because you've been effectively shadow-sewn to the wall.

    Are you an improvement on your father? Yes. Do you have a ways to go? Also yes. But the things you do cannot be taken back. Ever. Especially, as several posters have pointed out, if you do them to a kid whose brain is still wiring up big chunks of its low-level social processing architecture. Lord knows my sister and I could tell you a few things about that...

    So, what are the criteria for when "corporal punishment" becomes "abuse?" Are you measuring it simply by what immediate harm is done to the child's body, or are you taking into account the more subtle but much longer-lasting damage done to his or her mental development?

    --
    I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
    • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday January 24 2017, @07:18AM

      by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday January 24 2017, @07:18AM (#457988) Journal

      Lemme understand this. You're saying that swatting a toddler's bottom cause permanent damage to his brain and/or mental development. So - if a toddler falls and bumps his head on the floor, is he permanently damaged? What do you do then, throw him away and try again? This is making damned near zero sense.

      Maybe in YOUR eyes, "he got me good".

      Criteria, you ask? Lasting physical harm pretty much separates disciplinary corporal punishment from physical abuse. Of course, heaping verbal and psychological abuse on top of a mild spanking obviously crosses the line. Ask the kid. He knows whether an authority figure means ill or good to him. If he hides from Daddy at every opportunity, you know it's abuse. If he runs to Daddy for hugs and kisses when Daddy gets home from work, then it's probably not abuse, no matter what tinted glasses you are looking at the world through.

      • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday January 24 2017, @07:36AM

        by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Tuesday January 24 2017, @07:36AM (#457994) Journal

        > Lemme understand this. You're saying that swatting a toddler's bottom cause permanent damage to his brain and/or mental development.

        Unfortunately, this seems to be the case. Boys especially seem rather fragile; they mature slower than girls and this society's insistence on "toughening them up" is doing them no favors.

        > So - if a toddler falls and bumps his head on the floor, is he permanently damaged?

        In some cases yes, but you're committing a category error here: the floor didn't start hitting the kid upside the head, he FELL. That is an accident. What is being discussed here is deliberate, purposeful infliction of pain. Forget what the exact purpose is: imagine if some 40 foot tall giant you essentially think is God physically harmed you. You don't know why. Its ways are beyond you. You trusted it. It cares for you. What the hell would you think?

        > What do you do then, throw him away and try again? This is making damned near zero sense.

        You've got abandonment fear too, of course. No surprise there, and no, I'm not mocking you for that. No, a good parent does the precise opposite: FIX IT, as far as possible. You can't truly undo something like that, but you can 1) not do it again, 2) fucking educate yourself about developmental neurobiology, and 3) maybe apply the golden rule for once in your life. Engage with the kid. Figure out how s/he ticks. In just about every possible case, corporal punishment is lighting a furnace to burn a hair.

        > Maybe in YOUR eyes, "he got me good".

        How about in the eyes of the entire scientific community since before Disco?

        > Criteria, you ask? Lasting physical harm pretty much separates disciplinary corporal punishment from physical abuse.

        So you really are that ignorant :/ Entirely predictable, but sad just the same.

        > Of course, heaping verbal and psychological abuse on top of a mild spanking obviously crosses the line.

        What you fail to see is that in nearly all cases, hitting a kid IS psychological abuse. It's not the initial pain that's the problem, unless it's doing enough damage that THAT adds its own trauma; you're messing with a fragile, plastic, and underdeveloped sensorium here. This stuff gets laid down at a level below rational, conscious thought, and it seeps into every layer above it.

        > Ask the kid. He knows whether an authority figure means ill or good to him. If he hides from Daddy at every opportunity, you know it's abuse.
        > If he runs to Daddy for hugs and kisses when Daddy gets home from work, then it's probably not abuse, no matter what tinted glasses you are looking at the world through.

        So you've never studied attachment styles? You're describing ambivalent or incomplete attachments here. Stop pigeonholing little kids as miniature adults; from a biological, neurological, and moral standpoint, it's completely wrong. The younger they are the less rational and more naive they are; do you seriously expect them to fathom an adult mind, to truly be able to tell an adult's intentions toward them? Hell, other adults half the time can't tell how an adult's mind really works.

        You've exposed a lot about yourself on this thread you probably didn't mean to, and as unlikely as it sounds, I feel sorry for you rather than hating you. At the same time, despite not having kids of my own for obvious reasons, I can't just let stuff like this pass. You can't undo what was done to you, but you can break the cycle.

        --
        I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 24 2017, @08:21AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 24 2017, @08:21AM (#458005)

        I remember an incident from when my baby was little, about 14 months; she had recently started walking. We let her have the run of the house, baby proofing most things. Up until that point, I had never gotten mad at her. One evening, I had my laptop out on the couch. She came over and pressed a few keys on it. Startled, I gave her a very cross look in the heat of the moment. Her face scrunched up, and she started bawling. After that, she would give the laptop a sidelong glance when she passed by bouncing along, but never touched it again. Broke my heart every time she did that. And this was a kid that would fall and scrape her knees, elbows, while out and about, but would just get up and continue doing whatever she was doing, no tears.

        That's when it really struck home to me that it wasn't the physical pain that got her attention, it was the emotional shock of her trusted person, me, being cross at her.

        • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday January 24 2017, @10:29AM

          by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday January 24 2017, @10:29AM (#458029) Journal

          Noted. Somewhere in my writing up above, I should have mentioned that some children never, or almost never, need a paddling. A single angry look, or a word, is all that is needed. Then, there are those headstrong little tykes, who learn to push buttons, and manage to manipulate one or the other - sometimes both - parents almost before they learn to talk.

          Every child is an individual, they learn differently, each presents his own challenges.