Friday 25 December 2009

Where's the praise from tough-on-crime types?

You'd think that a phalanx of fundamentalist religious zealots and tough-on-crime attention mongers politicians would rush to publicly applaud the actions of this mother.

An Ohio woman who asked that police be called after she caught her 6-year-old daughter shoplifting a package of stickers said Wednesday that she was just trying to teach the girl a lesson early in life.

Diane Lyons said she doesn't believe she overreacted when she discovered the girl, Shiane, had taken the $3.11 package of stickers used to make temporary tattoos. Lyons' 10-year-old daughter told her about the theft.

Chief Ronald Yeager of the Carrollton Police Department in eastern Ohio arrived at the Discount Drug Mart Dec. 15 and took the girl to the police station in his cruiser [...]

Perhaps the awkward fact that the mom asked about a $30. reward for turning in a shoplifter and that she doesn't belong to any visible minority groups rightwingers enjoy trashing, just about dampened any good spin somebody might get from flogging this "news" item.

Update: On the topic of different parenting styles, Andrew Sullivan reminds us of what has been said about $arah in that regard, by Levi Johnston. Wonder if he'll have to wait for Bristol to get away from her mother's control before he gets a chance to see his son again?

2 comments:

deBeauxOs said...

Here's the correct link for the Andrew Sullivan piece.

tdwebste said...

The Economist covers "Canada's criminal-justice policy" quite well in the latest issue, Dec 19 - Jan 1.

...when the crime rate is at a 30 year low and both the rate and the severity of reported crime has been dropping..

.... Stephen Harper .... introducing a series of bills that will put more people in prison for longer and make it harder for convicts to win early release.

... A third of the 63 bills introduced in the House of Commons in the past year have dealt with some aspect of criminal justice, and more are on the way. Despite complaints that a similar, purely punitive approach has not worked in the United States, and that piecemeal change will clog up the justice system and leave taxpayers with a larger bill, the government has not deviated.

... The lack of public debate on the get-tough policy is being interpreted by the government as a show of support.

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Harper is blind to good sense and is determined to follow his own illogical plans.

Harper is not listening to the murmurs of discontent. He is not following the path of good sense expressed by many advisers.

What kind of a man does not listen to what others have learned through hard experience? What kind of a man interprets non-violent discontent as support? What kind of a man does not submit to reason and only hears after voices are raised in anger and waits for violent discontent/rebellion.

All those who submit to such a man will not be heard and will be subjected by him.

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