Comments on: Suffer Little Children

By: MacDoctor

MacDoctor — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 07:09:17 +0000

Katherine: Bit confused as to how removing the DPB will end poverty

We are talking about child abuse, not poverty, Katherine. The DPB, though originally a well intentioned attempt to make it possible for women to escape abusive relationships, quickly became a way of life for many. Most solo mums are keen to escape the poverty trap of the DPB and make something of themselves. Unfortunately a significant minority use the DPB as a lifestyle, moving from one poor relationship to another. These are the ones who have by far the highest rate of child abuse. reducing DPB to a limited support vehicle (as originally intended) would stop this dreadful incentive with minimal downside to the mums looking to move out of DPB as soon as possible.

Not sure if there are places one can go for drug addiction help that won’t get you arrested.

Actually, there are plenty of places you can access rehab without involving the law. My point is that, as soon as an addict or alcoholic offends, s/he should be given no choice but to attend some form of rehab. This will never be as successful as voluntary rehab, but it is certainly better than leaving them unsupported in a prison environment designed to pander to their addictions.

By: Katherine

Katherine — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 00:31:35 +0000

Bit confused as to how removing the DPB will end poverty…

And I sort-of disagree about the rehab: it’s a lot easier for people with addictions to ask for help if they know they won’t be criminalised for it and have their children taken away. Not sure if there are places one can go for drug addiction help that won’t get you arrested.

By: Andrew W

Andrew W — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 18:10:02 +0000

Now I could be way off with the above theory, but if I’m right I think it explains why the problem of a persistent underclass that is never effectively addressed remains, it’s dirty laundry that those involved don’t want to air, which means few in wider society are aware of it, and if people do become aware of it, there’s no obvious political up-side to addressing it.
For lefties the ideological solution is to give them money, and the mind boggles at the potential political cost to a right wing politician who claims that many poor Maori condemn themselves and their children to poverty by alienating themselves from society and therefore success in society, because of their own rabidly racist attitudes, what exactly would he present as evidence, and what solution is there that he could he propose that would be politically acceptable?

So for all intents and purposes it’s a problem with no immediate solution.

By: MacDoctor

MacDoctor — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 06:29:22 +0000

KP: When you’ve worked in hospitals have you had the sense that the ED door is a revolving one?

More like motorised…

By: Kiwi Polemicist

Kiwi Polemicist — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 12:03:46 +0000

MacD, I’m more or less with Ed.

I believe that the ’causes’ you have listed are not etiologies but symptoms of the same disease.

It’s a spiritual disease called welfarism, and the etiology/cause is universal welfare. It pays the people most unsuited to parenthood to have babies. Also, it is nigh impossible to sustain the self-destructive lifestyle that many people do without welfare removing the need to work.

Then there’s the fact the ‘free’ health care patches them up so that they can go and do the same thing again. When you’ve worked in hospitals have you had the sense that the ED door is a revolving one?

More detail here:
http://kiwipolemicist.wordpress.com/2008/08/26/slices-of-life-from-auckland-hospital/
Kiwi Polemicist´s last blog ..• So-called abused children to go onto database