oops. sorry.

oh well. i still think its easier to reply to points in turn tho'.

Iain

i think we can simply summarise thus :

On first appearances, Cameron seemed a nice enough guy.

It then turned out that perhaps he wasn't actually all that nice a bloke, he had some odd ways about him, that made him less likeable.

The fact that he might not have been as nice a guy as he first appeared after all [i]doesn't[/quote] make him some sort of monster who would beat up women and children, as widely suggested here.

Hope that clears everything up.

Iain

Did you ever readdress that one directly?

Is it widely suggested?

You're just making all this up as you go along, you ridiculous pedant.

i don't get exactly what you mean by that tho'.

his *anti-abuse stance* isn't that strong? so he's to some degree in favour of child abuse? you say you weren't implying that sort of thing, and then you say something like that.

and you talk about *passion*. what should someone do to show they are *passionate about the cause*?

you talk about his *lack of compassion* - he was asked about views on *smacking* in the diary room. and he made some comment off the top of his head. should he have broken down in tears and made some emotional and insightful comment about the plight of children. to prove he really had compassion?


i don't know about you, but i hardly hear anything about Cameron - he did his bit in the Post and this CiN thing - generally having his 15 minutes of fame thing - no big deal really i wouldn't have thought.


didn't someone else mention earlier the charity work Cameron had done in South Africa? does that count?

Iain

I used to be an RNMH (registered nurse mental handicap) and have seen first hand the consequences of abuse....lives ruined as a result of extreme physical violence . Ofcourse I abhor that . I know there are effective ways of modifying behaviour without resorting to physical punishments therefore I personally don’t see the need for smacking. However I do know people who have spanked their kids and I wouldn’t go so far as to say they have abused their kids and place them in the same category as the people who give their kids fractures.

I am of the generation where the 'belt' was still allowed in schools and I received it twice, once for talking in class and once for larking around with another girl after the bell had gone(we were supposed to be standing in line).Times have changed and any professional striking a child in their care nowadays would lose their job . But change comes slowly where parents are concerned because we learn our parenting skills by and large from our own parents .Behaviour repeats itself through successive generations.Its a proven fact that people who abuse were often abused themselves. At the other end of the scale people who smack were often smacked themselves and their attitude is often that it did them no harm and so they think it does no harm to smack…and so the cycle goes on….

I think the chief harm in a smack is not the long term effect of the smack itself but that in some cases if a parent is solely reliant on smacking for discipline and cannot control their child by other means ever increasing levels of degree of force are required to bring about the same effect and in extreme cases a situation of violence can occur. There is a very high risk that the behaviour will repeat in the next generation as a child by and large learns its behaviour from its parent. So you end up with a cycle of abuse.

I think that smacking children is still quite commonplace in our society .

In BB2 Josh, Paul and (I think) Dean agreed with smacking. If memory seves me well they all said they had been smacked as children. The only one I remember being against smacking was Brian , and he said he had never been smacked as a child. I think Steph also agreed with smacking.

I'm not saying that because people think that smacking is right that it is right. I'm just saying that it is still part of the social norm in our society. In my childhood I think all my schoolfriends knew what it was like to be smacked. Nowadays many parents don't smack and believe it is wrong but just as many do smack and think it does no harm. We are now at the stage where it is questioned.

Cam himself didn't think it should be illegal but thought there was a case for a law to delimit what was and was not acceptable.

I think the problem in the current law is what constitutes 'reasonable' chastisement...where does chastisement end and abuse begin.

My personal wish would be for parenting skills to be taught in schools so that children learn how to modify behaviour without needing to resort to physical means.

I don't consider myself to have been abused because I was smacked as a child and I would never tell people that I was abused , simply that I was smacked, as abuse is an emotive term which conjures up images of children being thrown across rooms.

I don't think it follows that the parents in this country who do smack don't love their children and are bad people who don't care about children's welfare. They have as much right to raise money for childrens' charities as anyone.

Cam hasn't been invited onto CinN as champion of children's rights any more than any of the other celebs (and I bet there's plenty of them who don't think smacking is wrong) . He is there simply because as winner of BB he can still pull a crowd.

As I've said else where he has a proven trackrecord of charitable acts long before BB - his work at the orphanage, giving of his time for the boys brigade/youth groups etc.If there should now be some knock on effect towards benefiiting his image then that is not in itself a reason not to do it. Media events such as CinN, Live Aid etc do do a lot of good, even if the celebs taking part find it helps their image.
People should help others if they get the chance.

exactly.

i expect ben will just roll his eyes tho'.

very good piont tho - a lot of us may have been smacked as a child, but i doubt many would consider it *abuse*.

i think its far too easy, and quite wrong to say *smacking = abuse* when clearly it isn't necessarily abuse at all.

Iain

Hi Disnae

When I made my original post in response to Iain’s comments, I did not want to be drawn into the Big Brother or anti-Cameron debate. I simply picked up on the ‘*getting the belt* never really did anyone that much harm’ comment and took issue with it.

My point wasn’t to define what did and did not constitute abuse. You’re right. Abuse is an emotive term and does conjure up distressing physical images. However, as I’m sure you’re aware, abuse does not always take the physical form.

It some situations, the constantly reinforced threat of physical violence can have a detrimental and long lasting effect, more so when the threats were actioned on a previous occasion.

Simply *getting the belt* is not always that simple.

A comedian once said ‘I never use physical punishment, mental cruelty is far more effective’

It got a lot of laughs, but there was an element of truth there too.

What's really laughable about this is that the thread was never even about child abuse before you stuck your oar in.

of course all of that is fair comment.

but equally, as disnae said - i think we can all distinguish between a child being spanked, and *abuse*.

and seeing as Cameron was only really referring to being spanked, it seemed OTT to automatically blur that distinction, and use it to take a cheap shot at Cameron.

Iain

all due respect ben, but thats total BS.

go back and read the first page - Alrightmate's post about how inappropriate Cameron is.

*Is he taking his belt with him?*

*he isn't really that bothered if children get the belt, let alone a good hiding.*

*It wasn't more than a couple of years ago we saw an ad campaign on TV higlighting the abuse of children. The one where characters on childrens bedroom posters, and childrens toys and whatnot, are shown covering up their ears and eyes when their parent's are knocking seven bells out of thir kids, just out of camera shot.*

*This guy is hardly that much on the side that speaks out against physical abuse against children.
If we go by what we already know,..he leans more to the side that believes in giving kids a good leathering.*

*lying through his back teeth that he really cares about such serious issues.*

all that because Cameron made a remark about how it might be acceptable to smack children in some circumstances?

you don't think that little tirade was a bit, well, melodramatic and unnecessary?

Iain

That is my original point. Those who administer the punishment see their actions (cause) as being on the 'right' side of the permissable line. What they cannot forsee, is the consequence (effect) of that action might have in the long term, hence my taking issue with 'simply getting the belt...'

And no, I'm not saying that all of those who were subjected to physical punishment will bear mental scars, but equally, there are those who do.

So whilst it may not always do 'that much harm', sometimes it does.

Again, my point wasn't in relation to Cameron Stout or BB. At no point did I refer to either.

thats true of course. when i said *that much harm* it was to distinguish between getting spanked and *abuse*.

as has been pointed out, most kids get spanked, but not many would reasonably cite it as abuse.

also - I was mainly responding to Alrightmate. i still think its unreasonable to grab hold of a comment about spanking and then start talking about someone thinking its OK to beat a child black and blue.

Iain

I gathered you were addressing two posts in one. Just wanted to clarify.
Another slow Monday?

must be....

Iain

From experience, Iain, I think your posts are in general total unnecessary BS.

thats as well maybe - but don't let it stop you from answering my question a few posts above....

Iain

How do you know that's not what's meant...are you a mind reader? Don't you agree it could be possible that's what he meant?

the point isn't that he may have meant it - the point is that it seemed unreasonable to start jumping to such extreme conclusions on the back of a single comment.

i think its fair to say that most people wouldn't think it was OK to beat children black and blue. despite all that you think of Cameron, do you think it particularly likely that he might?

Iain

I think it's likely he thinks it might be unlikely that it's possible that maybe its a possibility that maybe he might think that it would be not impossible and unlikely as to be a possibility and more likely to nevertheless not disproved that an actuality like that and in no way dissimilar to that posited as a likelihood or a plausible and not out of character suggestion that maybe this was a non proven but therefore ongoing possibility that he may or then again may not be given to either persuasion as yet unidentified that could conceivably be deemed in either respect a likely or causal or in otherwise preordained...:sleep:

or to summarise - I doubt Cameron thinks its OK to beat children black and blue any more than you or I do.

Iain

:yawn: Has anybody out there got a bone!

I probably think he's more capable of it than you do Iain...But then I tend to believe one smack of a child is as bad as an all out assault.....you simply have different standards...and back some odd people who clearly are undersaerving of your passionate defense...what's next..."Do we know that Bush is a warmongering idiot"?....

Charitable act? You mean the charitable act of taking a ten day holiday to visit the couple (who run an orphanage in Burundi) whom he hadn't seen since their wedding, at which he was their best man?

good analogy mes....

of course a smack isn't the same as an *all out assault*.

now you're just being silly.

Iain