Galloism wrote:The Three Palins wrote:
Corporal punishment without due process of law is abuse. It is cruel and creepy.
I know that's hard to argue against. If it was soft or weak, I would have qualified it.
To the subjects of authority, punishment sucks. It wouldn't be punishment otherwise.
Your last sentence is key to this whole thing. Parents are authorities, authorized as such by law, with certain limits in capacity. They generally are granted, either explicitly or implicitly, certain powers of state and guardianship over those in their charge:
1) Corporal punishment
2) Detention
3) Medical decision making
4) Forced education
5) Forced food choices
6) Forced labor (IE, clean your room)
7) Restrictions on travel
Restrictions on speech, right to protest
9) Restrictions on armaments (you can’t have a gun while I’m around)
To just name a few. Now, parents are subject to higher legal authorities (city, county, state, federal) in how they administer the powers the state has granted them, and they can have their authority removed if they abuse it and the state catches it, but these are all powers granted to them by the state in this instance.
None of those powers are granted without qualification.
Just as no State can punish without abiding by Due Process, I don't see how any State can delegate, assign or whatprocess, their power to parents. Over other citizens. Without also ensuring Due Process.
To little arms, little Americans! Make puny punching motions for your rights! Topple the tottering Grandma State with a ruthless bite to the ankle!
Children cannot be protected by the Federal government ... other than by an attempted statute which forces the Supreme Court to grant rights to them directly. Or prevents some kinds of discrimination against them specifically as children.
It is up to each state, to create their own model of Due Process for children. Go.
The biggest issue is who reports. Adults are assumed to be responsible enough, that they will report serious crimes if they see them. Of course they don't, and excessive sentences play a role in that, but even if there was nothing more on the line than an embarrassing visit from police, most adults still wouldn't report crimes happening right before their eyes. The perp will suffer enough, from what me and everyone else here can do to harm their interests, over the next few years. They think.
But to my point, the child's experience of approaching adult strangers, and telling them a story, is probably "do you have a mother or father we could talk to about this?" To design a system of reporting crimes against children, we should certainly make it easy for them, but not in any way rely on reports from child victims, to scale the problem.