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Interestingly, I counted the phrase 'white trash' 22 times on on this thread. This tells us something about the quality of the argument made here in favor of 'the viewers' deciding the fate of some random girl who got spanked one day in America. Are they self-hating whites or racists of other ethnicities? Inquiring minds would certainly like to know. Clearly, they are not very clever given that they fail to support their view, whatever that may be, in any way other than calling the woman shown on the tape 'white trash', 'whore' or 'gypsy' or claiming that she was a shop-lifter. Okay, enough about 'white trash' or the mental capabilities of those making such 'arguments'.

I do not know whether spankings such as that shown on TV occur by the millions every day or by the hundreds of thousands but I would assume that it's lots of them in a country such as ours where statistics show dozens of murders being committed each days, not to mention rapes, assaults and other violent crimes. Of course, for those who call a woman they know very little about 'white trash' and 'whore', reality is only what the tube shows them that night and the important events of the day are those that their favorite talking (sometimes as empty as theirs) heads say they are. So... yes, they just can't pass the opportunity of believing that they are part of something bigger than they (very easy, just about anything is bigger than them, including my dog) and nurturing that fantasy to until it turns into obsession. It's something that has been noticed before in cases such as Elian's or Shandra's, to mention only 2 of many. In the case of Shandra it took 3,000 dead people and a number of large buildings collapsing to get them off this media-induced hysteria.

Of course, they don't realize that it's not like the evil totalitarian state taking over their lives, it's them demanding a totalitarian super-structure to regulate their empty lives and give them some anchor into the world beyond their beloved television set. I saw over 200 contributions to this thread and not only one made reference to the following sentence in the article at the top of this thread:

Ms. Gorman's sister, 31-year-old Margaret Daley, who authorities say was present at the time of the incident, was arrested and charged with failure to report child abuse.

Is anyone concerned that someone was charged with... WHAT? Were any facts established? Who decided that what was on that tape showed 'child abuse'? Of course, many on this thread already know it was. They already know the woman was 'a whore' and, of course, 'white trash'. Is anyone disturbed at all? I was discussing this with my wife this morning. It was light conversation but the general idea was - if you ever want to see me in jail all you need to do is spank the kids a little and then I'll be taken away for failure to report your crime to the authorities.

I am going to stop here, it's barbecue time but, I'm sure, there are many other sad aspects that could be discussed in relation to this thread.

If you want to discuss whether "failure to report child abuse" should be a crime, then philosophically I might be in tune with you because that's a slippery slope. But to call this a simple spanking is ludicrous. You can break the tape down with a microscope to try to prove otherwise if you want, I saw punching, shaking and hair pulling. That is not acceptable discipline for a child. Period. If you got worse when you were a child, that's your misfortune. And as far as whether anything has been proven or not ... is every fact in a case usually established at the time of an arrest? Under your scenario, no one should ever be arrested for anything. And as far as regulating our lives ... again, libertarianism is a silly concept that can not work in the real world. I'll stake my conservative credentials against anyone's, and if you want to read me out of the movement go ahead, and I've heard all the horror stories about foster care and social services, etc. ... but if it takes government regulation to prevent kids from being abused, then by God let's have, within limits and with oversight to make sure it works, government regulation!