Discipline Your Child Go To Jail

Discipline Your Child Go To Jail

At a time when children are becoming out of control because of the lack of discipline, now a parent will go directly to jail without passing go and collecting the traditional $200 if their child is forced to endure any pain especially in connection with a disciplinary action. 

By de Andréa

September 27, 2012

Parents giving junior a swat on the bottom hard enough to help him remember that it’s not a good idea to poke a spoon handle into an electrical outlet, will now get the parent at least a year in jail as well as a fine.  Are you ready for that?  If you live in Delaware, you had better get ready!

What one must understand from the get go is this; this is not about the State protecting your child from “Child Abuse”.  It is instead about the infinite power and control of Government.  Bear in mind as you critique this that discipline is not abuse, on the other hand the lack of discipline is.  The lack of discipline should be a crime.  This just shows how upside-down we as a nation are becoming.  Good is bad and bad is good.  The government is surreptitiously and incrementally taking everything away, even your children.  The State is abusing your children… in the name of safety.

Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden says it is “paramount” to keep children safe.  But Biden’s new law, signed by Democrat Delaware Gov. Jack Markell Sept. 12, defines “pain,” as “physical injury”, any pain, even from a loving, caring swat – will earn a parent up to two years in jail plus a fine for disciplining their children.  This is one reason we shouldn’t let legislators play doctor.  They can’t even play lawyer.  Will this law prevent crime or will it create criminals.

According to a statement from the Home School Legal DefenseAssociation, which fought the proposal, the law previously permitted a parent to use force to punish a child for misconduct, but it held parents back from any action that caused – or was likely to cause – physical injury.  Got news for you Mr Biden pain does not and can not cause physical injury, a child running out into the street in front of a car can cause physical injury, and it is the injury that causes the pain. So physical injury defines pain, pain does not define physical injury.  Therefore if the child is disciplined to the point of physical injury then the parent should be prosecuted on the grounds of “physical injury”, not the resulting pain.  I would have fun with that in court!

But now, by defining pain as “physical injury” to include any “pain” a child reports feeling, spanking has become a crime in Delaware punishable by death, well… not execution but to put a parent in prison for disciplining his child may as well be death.  

HSLDA Special Counsel Dee Black’s statement said “the move made Delaware the first state in the nation to effectively outlaw corporal discipline of children by their parents.”  I don’t think that this is progress or something to be proud of, do you?

According to the new law; a parent causing pain, not necessarily injury, to a child who was 3 years of age or younger would be guilty of a class G felony and subject to two years in prison, Black noted.  “A parent causing ‘physical injury’ (e.g., pain) to a child who was 4 years of age but under age 18 would be guilty of a class A misdemeanor and subject to one year in prison.”  The law itself leaves no doubt, stating, “‘Physical injury’ to a child shall mean any impairment of physical condition ‘or pain’.”  Read DELAWARE STATE SENATE BILL NO. 234 here.

When he signed the law, Markell’s website said “all parents who cause any pain in the course of disciplining their children now are child abusers.  Creating a crime of child abuse will better tailor our laws to meet the needs of our children, especially infants and toddlers as well as children with developmental disabilities,” Senate Majority Leader Patricia Blevins, a Democrat, said in a statement.  “Our children rely on us to shield them from harm and hold those who hurt them accountable, and we continue to work together to live up to that expectation.”

Markell said.  “The problem for critics of the law is in the details”.  The law itself says, “Causing physical injury [pain] to a child will carry a maximum prison term of two years, and a maximum fine of $3,200.”

But with a definition of “pain” being synonymous with “physical injury” opponents contend there are consequences for parents who wish to continue to use traditional methods of discipline that have worked for thousands of years.

See the governor in action: Biden told WDEL news talk radio it was not his intention to crack down on parents.  “This will not do anything to interfere with a parent’s right or ability to parent as they see fit, but it also makes it clear that if you abuse a child [cause pain] in any way, shape or form, we’re going to have a statute that we’re going to be able to use to protect kids.”  [Or’, is it to control the parents].

David Anderson, at DelewarePolitics.net, said, “Don’t spank, or spank, it is none of my business or anyone else’s business.  I always noticed that the so-called studies that were against spanking included non-spanking activities with the fringe that brutalized children.  They take some child hit upside their arm with a bat while protecting their head and include them in a sample with one slapped on the rear with a paddle and pretended it was the same thing.  In fact,” he continued, “my progressive friends with their permissive ways may be the ones harming their children.  You don’t reason out with a two-year-old that you don’t touch the stove in the moment.  You slap their hands and then tell them why.”

THE BOTTOM LINE:  What I want to know is; are all the pediatricians going to end up in jail for causing pain to a child even though there was no physical injury?

de Andréa