Beat Them With A Neutral Object
It appears that the sadistic megalomaniac James Dobson has decided that he’s going to throw his mighty moral weight around in politics and smite politicians who don’t toe the line:
James C. Dobson, the nation’s most influential evangelical leader, is threatening to put six potentially vulnerable Democratic senators “in the ‘bull’s-eye’ ” if they block conservative appointments to the Supreme Court.
In a letter his aides say is being sent to more than one million of his supporters, Dr. Dobson, the child psychologist and founder of the evangelical organization Focus on the Family, promises “a battle of enormous proportions from sea to shining sea” if President Bush fails to appoint “strict constructionist” jurists or if Democrats filibuster to block conservative nominees.
[…]
Dr. Dobson’s activities represent a new level of direct partisan engagement on his part. Unlike other conservative Christian leaders, Dr. Dobson owes his grass-roots following primarily to his partly clinical, partly biblical advice on matters like marriage and child-rearing. Before supporting Mr. Bush, he had never endorsed a presidential candidate.
This is a new level of partisan engagement? Geez, somebody buy the NY Times a Lexis subscription (or show them how to use Google at least.) Here’s a story from US News and World Report from 1998 written by Bush’s speechwriter Michael Gerson when he was a member of the liberal media:
On March 18, in the basement of the Capitol, 25 House Republicans met with psychologist James Dobson for some emotional venting. But this was not personal therapy; it concerned the fate of their party. Dobson, long on loyal radio listeners and short on patience, was threatening, in effect, to bring down the GOP unless it made conservative social issues, including abortion, a higher legislative priority. “If I go,” he has said, “I will do everything I can to take as many people with me as possible.”
[…]
Many Republicans are taking Dobson’s divorce threats very seriously. House Speaker Newt Gingrich has hosted several meetings with other House leaders to discuss Dobson’s specific demands, which include defunding Planned Parenthood, requiring parental consent for abortions, and eliminating the National Endowment for the Arts. House Majority Leader Dick Armey has asked subcommittee chairmen to explore how Dobson’s agenda could be advanced. But Dobson will not be easily appeased. Of the assurances he has been offered that his issues will be taken seriously, he says: “We’ve got to see the proof. . . . If they will not change, I will try to beat them this fall.”
Dr Dobson has been just a teensy weensy bit involved in partisan politics for a while now. And it seems that he has a habit of issuing threats. Now there’s a surprise.
It may be true that he has more clout that he used to because of the media’s greedy consumption of Ralph Reed’s disinformation campaign that evangelicals won the election for Bush with their concern for moral values. The SCLM might want to do a little bit of research on this freak before they annoint him as a political leader for our time, however. I wrote about Dobson’s proud (and profoundly pychotic) abuse of his weiner dog named Sigmund Freud earlier. He is just as twisted about the idea of spanking children:
Q:There is some controversy over whether a parent should spank with his or her hand or with some other object, such as a belt or paddle. What do you recommend?
A:I recommend a neutral object of some type. To those who disagree on this point, I’d encourage them to do what seems right. It is not a critical issue to me. The reason I suggest a switch or paddle is because the hand should be seen as an object of love — to hold, hug, pat, and caress. However, if you’re used to suddenly disciplining with the hand, your child may not know when she’s about to be swatted and can develop a pattern of flinching when you make an unexpected move. This is not a problem if you take the time to use a neutral object.
Q:On what part of the body would you administer a spanking?
A:It should be confined to the buttocks area, where permanent damage is very unlikely.
Q:It just seems barbaric to cause pain to a defenseless child. Tell me why you think it is healthy to spank him or her.
A:Corporal punishment, when used lovingly and properly, is beneficial to a child because it is in harmony with nature itself.
Consider the purpose of minor pain in a child’s life and how he learns from it. Suppose 2-year-old Peter pulls on a tablecloth and with it comes a vase of roses that cracks him between the eyes. From this pain, he learns that it is dangerous to pull on the tablecloth unless he knows what sits on it. When he touches a hot stove, he quickly learns that heat must be respected. The same lesson is learned when he pulls the doggy’s tail and promptly gets a neat row of teeth marks across the back of his hand, or when he climbs out of his high chair when Mom isn’t looking and discovers all about gravity.
During the childhood years, he typically accumulates minor bumps, bruises, scratches, and burns, each one teaching him about life’s boundaries. Do these experiences make him a violent person? No! The pain associated with these events teaches him to avoid making the same mistakes again. God created this mechanism as a valuable vehicle for instruction.
When a parent administers a reasonable spanking in response to willful disobedience, a similar nonverbal message is being given to the child…I recall my good friends Art and Ginger Shingler, who had four beautiful children whom I loved. One of them went through a testy period where he was just “asking for it.” The conflict came to a head in a restaurant, when the boy continued doing everything he could to be bratty. Finally, Art took him to the parking lot for an overdue spanking. A woman passerby observed the event and became irate. She chided the father for “abusing” his son and said she intended to call the police. With that, the child stopped crying and said to his father, “What’s wrong with that woman, Dad?” He understood the discipline even if his rescuer did not.
Q:How long do you think a child should be allowed to cry after being spanked? Is there a limit?
A:Yes, I believe there should be a limit. As long as the tears represent a genuine release of emotion, they should be permitted to fall. But crying quickly changes from inner sobbing to an expression of protest aimed at punishing the enemy. Real crying usually lasts two minutes or less but may continue for five. After that point, the child is merely complaining, and the change can be recognized in the tone and intensity of his voice. I would require him to stop the protest crying, usually by offering him a little more of whatever caused the original tears.
I don’t believe in hitting kids but I know that there are many decent people who do. However, I think that we can all agree that Dobson’s rationales for it are pretty horrifying. Use a “neutral” object so your kids won’t flinch when you raise your hand? Spank on the butt so you will be less like to cause permanent damage? Parental discipline is like falling out of your high chair and hitting your head? The kid who wonders what’s wrong with the woman who is complaining about his public beating is assumed to be “understanding the discipline?”
There are so many disturbing aspects to Dobson’s childrearing advice that I think Tipper ought to be agitating that his books carry a warning label. It’s not so much what he recommends that parents do, it’s his reasoning and his tone. All this “asking for it” and “offering him a little bit more of it.” The Biblical stuff is the least of it — it’s his sadistic phrasing that creeps me out. (See the story about the dog. Jayzuz.)
There are those who claim that Focus on the Family is something of a cult. Sounds right to me. And it’s no surprise that an arrogant cult leader is running in the highest circles of this government, is it? After all, half the Republican Party is owned by Sun Myung Moon.
And they call us weird…
Update: speaking of weird
Q:I’m curious about the scary “baby” Satan was carrying in one scene of The Passion of the Christ. What was Mel Gibson trying to say by using that disturbing imagery?
A: Many people are talking about the “ugly baby” in The Passion. As Jesus is being severely scourged, Satan passes through the crowd holding a demonic-looking “child” in his arms. What does it mean? Perhaps the best explanation comes from Mel Gibson himself. In a recent interview, Gibson said of the unsettling scene:
“…it’s evil distorting what’s good. What is more tender and beautiful than a mother and a child? So the Devil takes that and distorts it just a little bit. Instead of a normal mother and child you have an androgynous figure holding a 40-year-old ‘baby’ with hair on his back. It is weird, it is shocking, it’s almost too much–just like turning Jesus over to continue scourging him on his chest is shocking and almost too much, which is the exact moment when this appearance of the Devil and the baby takes place.”
For our part, we feel this scene captures, as do so many moments in this film, the intensity of the cosmic battle between God and Satan. It illustrates even beyond what we may have previously envisioned the eerie, warped and perverted nature of our enemy.
Hoo boy.