Shorter Miranda Devine: your wacky non-traditional “family arrangements” enable paedophiles!
The insistence that all family arrangements are equally valid, and equally protective of children, has become a sacred shibboleth. This has been a disaster for children of the underclass.
Make no mistake, a culture which promotes excessive tolerance of family instability is a culture which turns a blind eye to paedophiles such as David Shane Whitby.
You couldn’t make this stuff up. Where to even begin? I could ask just how much she is seriously suggesting we can glean about children being at risk from, what, extra-marital relationships, based on the actions of one hardcore criminal (“the worst paedophile in Australia’s history”) who’ll undoubtedly go to jail for many years; or I could ask what precisely Miranda is saying we should do differently that would’ve actually helped his victims – but the flaws in her fatuous piece are so obvious that the real question isn’t “what was she thinking”, but what was Fairfax thinking in printing it?
52 Comments
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What was Fairfax thinking? Website hits. The equation is simple for Fairfax when it comes to Miranda – the madder she goes, the better they like it.
Which makes her ‘trashing the brand’ admonishments to Catherine Deveny all the more curious.
What precisely do you know about the child raising environment for the members of the under class in question Jeremy?
It is not the variations in the family structures that she is criticizing but the ephemeral nature of them in the underclass which often sees a whole series of different individuals coming and going from vulnerable children’s lives, It is a situation which gives those interested in abusing children ample opportunities to do so.
Do you really think that there is no such thing as a “bad or unhealthy”(for children) family structure?
Why am I not surprised that Iain is throwing out the same old ad hominem attacks?
Here we go again, Iain coming back to get a thrashing on the same subject he got a thrashing on a few weeks ago. Is he a masochist?
Why don’t you list the good and bad structures for us Iain, enlighten us.
“Underclass”!
WTF!?
And how about the serial peadophile enclaves to found in “Upperclass” private schools all around the country?
Name me three peadophiles in public schools over the last 10 years and I’ll show you five times more from the institutions of the ruling classes.
If you want to know who’s shoving their cocks up our children’s asses then look no further than the sanctuaries of power and privilege.
Miranda Devine? {Can’t have that statement about the person, thanks – Tobby}
Cheers
“Name me three peadophiles in public schools over the last 10 years”
Well, that isn’t going to happen, now … is it?
There is a bunch of very good reasons why rock spiders don’t often get named, whether they’re in public OR private halls of scholasticism. Because naming them very often (directly or indirectly) identifies their victims.
But if you want to go after the landed gentry who like a bit of tender booty – go and search about Adelaide’s “Family”, and a certain public house on South Terrace. If there were ever any files on that crowd they’re shredded, burned or otherwise long gone. I’m sure Adelaide’s not alone, though.
4#B.Tolputt
it is I who is unsurprised that you should misread my on topic and legitimate questions to the author of this piece as ad hominem attacks.
#5 gregb
As well as I can remember there has not been a post on the evils of kiddie fiddlers here in recent memory. All that I can think is that you are confused by the thread about Gay parenting because YOU mistakenly think that Gay parenting is some how more likely to be abusive. If that is the case YOUR negative views of Gay parents will not sit well with the gallery here
#6Johnny Come Lately
Really there is no need to list any family structures in any sort of hierarchy of virtue (which is the trap that you want me to fall into) all that we have to agree upon is that the all parents should put the welfare of their children first and foremost, which means that they don’t get on the drugs or the booze in front of the kids and they don’t treat the family home like a knocking shop with a succession of strange people who come and go from the lives of the children. Oh yeah and one final thing if a parent does want to go out on the town then they have to ensure that the person that they get to watch their children is both competent and trustworthy.
Really iain? So repeating your claims about Jeremy not knowing about child raising is not an attack on the person? That IS the definition of an ad hominem attack mate.
B.Tolputt
Do you understand that there is a difference between between asking a question and making a claim?
All this moral panic over the ‘underclass’ (why not come out and just call them the untermenschen?) always refuses to address the social, economic and cultural factors at play, and instead concentrates on supposed personal failings of the victims. After all the ‘underclass’ is an essential feature of every market capitalist society.Market capitalism’s prime raison d’etre is the concentration of wealth in as few hands as tolerable and the relative and absolute immiseration of the serfs. This project has gone into overdrive since the early 1970s when the global parasitic elite decided that they would no longer tolerate the rabble getting ideas above their station. The success in destroying the Soviet Union and converting India (certainly) and China (hopefully just for the purposes of short-term advantage) to the market capitalist model of ruthless, infinitely avaricious, oligarchy, led to another deepening of the tactics of union destruction, wage and conditions reduction, and the resultant inequality and impoverishment.And the latest and most intense phase yet is just unfolding in the countries affected by the financial crime and collapse of the latest few decades, where class hatred and warfare is visiting social devastation reminiscent of the Structural Adjustment Programs inflicted on the poor world for decades. Naturally, as people are reduced to disempowered, humiliated and impoverished serfdom, social pathologies arise. It being the mainstream media’s prime propaganda purpose to keep the rabble in line, the political and class realities that cause this suffering, while delivering riches beyond the dreams of Croesus to the predatory elite who own the media, must be hidden or simply denied. Better to abuse the victims,or smear those struggling to reverse this tide of hatred and sadistic, life-destroying, cruelty. And Devine is good at it, just like{removed – Tobby}
Of course I do Iain, I am not a simpleton. And, as such, I am also familiar with the concept of the rhetorical question. As well as the term “insinuation”. If you were not targeting Jeremy with the post in question, why bold the word “you”? He is not the subject, the implications of Miranda’s article are. By explicitly focusing on Jeremy rather than his arguments, you moved into ad hominem… no matter how you try to divert from that fact.
Don’t treat us like idiots, it is insulting.
Well, you’re not welcome Tobby.
Having said that, I understand how you wouldn’t want to have run-of-the-mill assholes like me critisicing uber-cunts like whom ever.
Uber-cunts like whomever always rule opinion don’t they?
Run-of-the-mill assholes like me make no fucking difference to public opinion, do we?
Bravo Mr. Ziegler, you win.
I’ve travelled two and a half times around the world to end up half an hour up the Picton road from you.
I’ve lived twice the years you have and been kicked out of some of the best Universities on this planet, only to be told that you’re too fucking scared of being sued by some unspecified stupid fucking bint to accept that I know when to be angry!
If you can’t sense the right time to light the torch of indignation, then you’ve got a problem.
If you’re too scared of litigation to be a proper journalist, then you’ve got a problem.
However, If you want to meet a coterie of old farts who have brought down governments, smuggled arms into Timor L’Este in favour of independance and generally kicked hard against the pricks, then email me and we’ll arrange a piss up.
You might not change your opinions but you will learn how useless it is to spare the feelings of paid shit-stirrers.
If, however, you want to gag well justified outrage, then carry on and shame on you.
Just don’t expect to get any kudos from run of the mill assholes like me.
Cheers
B.Tolputt
The problem with Jeremy’s argument is that he is erroneously suggesting a far wider social criticism in Divine’s piece than I think the actual text argues. Divine is not saying that every family structure apart from the traditional one is bad for children or puts them at risk from the sexual predators who would prey upon them. She is talking about a particular sort of circumstance that sadly has become more common in recent years. Sear’s argument is essentially one made entirely of straw and I think if he wants to defend the mothers who flippantly allow a succession of strangers into the lives of their children as the seek love and affection then he should explain what the basis of that defence is.
I think that no mother wants to see her children abused but some are broken vulnerable people who fall into being parents and a social environment that has no expectations of sensible behaviour probably does a disservice to the children that those are trying to raise. Now personally I think that it is a good thing that we no longer ostracise a woman for having children out of wedlock but I think that we as a society can still have the expectation that any mother should put the welfare of her children before personal gratification. I think that Jeremy wants to suggest that we should not even question the women who fail to meet this reasonable expectation because he thinks that anything goes and any sort of family arrangement is fine, when quite clearly some are very deficient in that most important aspect, which is providing a good environment for children.
Ian never lets his lame insults stand in the way of making an unconsidered illogical partisan point.
Don’t treat us like idiots, it is insulting.
To be fair to Iain, I don’t think he realises that this is what he’s doing. He considers his arguments to be quite erudite.
But what about Nanny State interfering in people’s lives?
Oh I see, it’s OK when right-wing trollumnists suggest interfering in someone else’s life?
quantize
Just what in particular is wrong with my argument?
Mondo
I give respect or derision where it is deserved.
Holden Back
Its not about the nanny state, which I abhor as much as you do, but it is about not giving social approval to behaviour that puts children in harms way.
Iain, So what’s you preferred method of disciplining these offenders, then?
OK Iain, I know you mean well, and you just want us to think of the children. So just ignore all those people who keep being nasty to you, and tell me this: Just waht exactly would you do about this problem, in practical terms? Or has everything that needs to be done already been done by Miranda’s little article?
Iain? Are you there?
Bloods05 So the underclass reads the SMH, now? Snigger.
Bloods 05
I am not sure of what the answer is to protect all children in these circumstances but pretending that its OK for any mother to “party on” without criticism as Jeremy is trying to do does not help.
The best way to modify undesirable social behaviour is to make such a behaviour less socially acceptable, it has been done with smoking and driving a car while drunk so perhaps we need to do something similar for this issue. Miranda’s article does at least alert us to the existence of the problem and knowing about any problem is the first step towards solving it as far as I’m concerned.
“pretending that its OK for any mother to “party on” without criticism as Jeremy is trying to do does not help. “
We keep Iain here for teh lulz.
Right. Then let’s make damned sure we stamp that stuff out.
Let’s not give approval for kids going to church … because it puts them in harms way.
Let’s not give approval for kids going to kindy … because it puts them in harms way.
Let’s not give approval for kids going to school … because it puts them in harms way.
Let’s not give approval for kids being left alone with doctors …
Let’s not give approval for kids being left alone with other family members …
Wrapping kids in cotton wool in some misguided attempt to protect them from the ‘baddies’ doesn’t work. Figuring out and addressing what made the ‘baddies’ bad does.
So nobody has ever placed any social pressure on poor parenting and drug-use by single mothers prior to Miranda’s article? The woman’s a trail-blazing, investigative reportersaint!
Or a cheap, shallow senasationalist hack, I can’t decide which.
Somebody, help me out?
Actually more than anything I think that You should keep children away from the Green Party if their antecedents in Germany are anything to go by
LacqueredStudio #26
You don’t actually have kids do you?
Whether Lacquered Studio has children is irrelevant.
To make a similarly silly point, many paedophiles DO have children.
So, the mere act of having children renders one an instant expert? Just knock a woman up and your arguments about children/child-raising automatically get extra cred? Please get over yourself.
“More than anything”? This is your solution? For a while I thought you may have had some sort of a point Iain. I don’t any more.
“Actually more than anything I think that You should keep children away from the Green Party”
As I said, for teh lulz.
Fred P
having children certainly won’t make you an expert but it can do a good job of focusing your mind on the right priorities as parents.
Flippant nonsense like Lacquered Studio #26 demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of what we all need to do to protect children. Its not about wrapping kids in “cotton wool” but it is about lessening the risk as much as we can by doing things like background checks on those who work with kids and teaching parents how to structure their lives so they can both protect their precious children and have a fulfilling life as well.
So Jeremy
are you suggesting that the De Spiegel piece is not true? That the Greens in Germany did not have a passing flirtation with paedophile activists from with in and outside the party?
Jeremy.
Re comments 25 and 33.
Wouldn’t us mere peons be called up for a useless, baseless insult that adds absolutely nothing to the conversation if we had posted that??
(But great to see you have stumbled upon yet another silly, kiddy internet phrase and couldn’t wait to try it. Twice!)
Iain Hall:
Petty.
How on Earth are you going to backhand me … when I have kids of my own (which I will) and still hold the same views I do now (which I will)?
What then? Are you ready to bet that I’m suddenly going to think broken families are a recipe for paedophiles? Because I’ve got an armload of anecdotal examples to the contrary right behind me, chief.
I know you like to look at the world as it appears from within your cloistered, rural picket fence. But should you ever venture beyond that into the ‘real world’, you’d probably be morally offended at how the institution of the nuclear family has frog-all to do with good parenting.
Some people are child abusers. Some of them are straight, some of them are gay. Some of them are married, some of them are single. Some of them are religious, some of them are not.
So please … stop trying to profile ‘bad people’ in terms of who’s a single parent and how many people they sleep with.
“Wouldn’t us mere peons be called up for a useless, baseless insult that adds absolutely nothing to the conversation if we had posted that?? “
True – we probably should moderate Iain’s outrageous misrepresentations and offensive slurs a bit more rigorously.
PS I think you got your numbers wrong – obviously you meant comments 24 and 28.
No, Jeremy. I got my numbers right.
And it would be nice to see you, as a moderator of this blog, taking seriously the same rules we must adhere to. Not ridiculing them.
Oh, right. Well, you are being very foolish then. Iain gave a ridiculous misrepresentation of my post, which was so far beneath contempt and such a waste of everyone’s time that readers might well wonder why we published it. I tried to make a joke of it, rather than getting stuck into someone who apparently has great difficulty comprehending basic English.
Likewise Mr Hall’s staggeringly offensive and ridiculous attempt to try to smear Greens as having some association with paedophiles.
You can’t debate rationally with someone who’ll say such hateful, stupid things. All you can do is make a joke of it.
As for what you do with some patronising idiot who wants to tell us how to moderate our blog… well. I guess you’d point out that questions about moderation decisions can be emailed to the blog owners, and are off-topic as far as the subjects of posts are concerned. Your comments, for example, do not in any way address the topic of Miranda’s article or my critique of it – you’re lucky we approved them.
I suggest you limit your future contributions here to the actual subjects being discussed.
LacqueredStudio
No Kids Yet just as I thought
You know I reckon that you should actually talk to a few parents and then you will discover that there is a substantive change in the way that you see the world once you have to care and nurture a real child of your own.
Cite your evidence then, but for every example that you cite I am sure that cases to the contrary can easily be found I know my fare share of Broken families that actually still work to protect their children and I dips me lid to those parents who do a good job despite the adversity of their circumstances but the common factor of those who succeed is that they all put the welfare of their children ahead of personal gratification.
Around me in my immediate community there are just as many variations of the family as there are where you live and I am not morally offended by any of them.
So? I don’t doubt any of that what Miranda is talking about is how a particular scumbag was able to exploit children with a particular domestic situation for his own evil gratification, not just once but many times (120 charges laid). It is not unreasonable for anyone to look at how he was able to abuse for so long and to consider way that such behaviour could be made more difficult in the future.
I really don’t care how many people anyone sleeps with that is their business, but I do think that as a society we have a right to say that if you are a parent that you are responsible for the safety of your children and if your need to get your leg over puts your kids at risk then you should change the way that you go about getting laid. Divine is saying , and I agree with her, that we have developed an “anything goes” attitude to sex and parenting and these examples of abuse are a good reason to rethink that. Responsible single parents have a justified reticence about entering into new relationships or even casual liaisons because they understand that children need stability in their lives. Surely you can appreciate that?
Jeremy
I cited the Der Spiegal piece because it is true that embryonic Prototype Greens party in Germany had a very clear and public flirtation with paedophiles some of whom very publicly advocated for their vice. You may want to deny this is the case but a far better argument for you to put would be to point out that the Australian Greens are in fact entirely autonomous and that they would not under any circumstances endorse such a thing.
Instead you have just tried to insult and belittle me which just makes you the lesser man.
Iain:
Hi, Iain. I am your counterexample. I have two children, my progressive views have not changed since their birth, and you are full of shit.
Your bigoted views are all and entirely your own, and you can’t lay the blame at your children’s feet.
Oh, and as for your ridiculous attempt to smear the Greens: the embryonic Prototype Democratic Party in America had a very clear and public association with slaveowners. Therefore… Natasha Stott-Despoya is associated with slavery?
No, really, my grade two daughter would fail with that ‘logic’.
What unmitigated gibberish Ian, {removed comment about the person – Tobby}
LOL! Only in iain’s mind would an “embryonic Prototype Greens party in Germany” have anything to do with a convicted pedophile in NSW. In fact I think his comment is a perfect illustration of the irrational fear that columnists like Devine feed with their ludicrous generalisations about people.
What Jeremy said @ 25!
#43 Catsidhe
Who is talking about “progressive political views” here? certainly not me. My argument is simply that when you have kids we re-prioritize our lives to put them before our own personal needs and desires I bet that you would not go out on the piss and chasing a root if it meant that your kids were not being adequately cared for any more than I would. And I also expect that were you a single parent you would be quite careful about bringing home any one from the pub for a quickie either.
I don’t know where you got that from
I am willing to bet that the early Democrats are clearly denounced by their antecedents for their clearly wrong views about slavery and in any case the Australian democrats have never claimed the same sort of familial relationship that the Australian greens have done with their European antecedents.
My comment about the greens was meant to demonstrate that the ‘anything goes” argument put by Jeremy is a nonsense because the proof is demonstrated by what happened when the German Greens tried to live that ideal . read the Der Spiegel piece I linked to and then tell me if you think that it is irrelevant to the discussion here.
#44 quantize
Personal attacks eh? hardly surprised
Did YOU read the Der Spiegel piece I linked to? I expect not knowing you.
Oh, my fault, Iain. I rather assumed that when you were gibbering about how ‘you’re all progressives now, but when you have children it’s different’, you were trying to make a point about how parents agree with you or something.
It’s entirely my fault for assuming that there was the slightest element of sense at the root of your logorrhoeia.
Aha, and now we see you putting words into our mouths.
When did anyone say ‘anything goes’? Except for you, as a strawman you could bravely knock down, of course.
No-one thinks that ‘anything goes’ is a good thing, but then, neither do we automatically assume that all gay people are the sort to abuse their children or drag home random people from the pub to shag while getting drunk and abusing their children. Indeed, I would rather imagine that gay parents are somewhat less likely to do that than straight parents.
Or have you changed your mind on gay marriage and gay people as parents?
Paedophilia is a problem, which is not restricted to ‘bad parenting’, whatever definition you put on it. (Except insofar as that paedophilia is by definition bad.) You bring in comments about how only parents could possibly be qualified to have an opinion on this, and heavily imply that the fact of being a parent would make someone agree with you. You are wrong, and I say that as someone who, by your own argument, is qualified to have an opinion on the matter.
And again with the attempt to libel the Australian Green party. Why should the now repudiated actions of a party of the same name in another country have anything to do with the here and now? Please tell me how the modern Australian Greens bear any responsibility for the actions — long since repudiated by all involved — of the German Green party?
Please, I’m fascinated to see how many logical errors per sentence you can make in your fevered attempts to square the circle.
This is the ultimate FAIL of all Ian’s logic, he desperately foams over shards of disparate information gleaned from quite literally unconnected sources as some kind of ‘proof’ of an overarching political ‘character’. But it’s only the invention of a mind so politically blinkered he is unable to contribute anything useful but partisan gibberish. By your own ‘logic’ Ironbar Tuckey would have us describing the coalition as neo-nazi’s. It’s ludicrous.
It’s an embarrassing and sad failure of intelligence, nothing less. I can’t imagine the kind of blinkered ego that somehow finds victory in continually having it’s arse handed to itself repeatedly here.
Stick to the latte shtick Ian, you’re better when you’re sniping because your ‘arguments’ only embarrass you.
#47 Catsidhe
My comment about what Lacquered Studio said was addressed entirely to him and specifically about his rather naive belief that wanting to protect children is to “wrap them in cotton wool” I wanted to make the very sensible point that when you become a parent then the safety of your (and by extension all) children ceases to be something about which you are so willing to be so dismissive about.
Oh yeah??? Pot meet the kettle
In the first instance Jeremy implies it by attributing a more general social criticism that Miranda Divine is making in her piece and then various people on this thread have run with Jeremy’s misreading.
Just re read the comments above.
I make no mention of Gay parents so why are you trying to drag that in to the argument?
NO but that is Off topic here as far as I can tell.
Would you act as the mothers that Divine alludes to in her piece?
some how I doubt it.
Do you think that what those mothers did is in anyway defensible?
I doubt that you do.
So what is your beef either with what Miranda or I are arguing then?
The link to the German Greens was to demonstrate all that is “progressive” is not alway by definition “good” as so many of you lefties seem to think.
#48 quantize
An ad Homonym argument which does not even address the topic yet strangely (well not really strange for this site)it goes unquestioned by the moderators
See above response
See above response
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