Tuesday 31 August 2010

Tormenting children for fun and profit.

Marmalade Sandwich has an interesting tale.

There was once a man who was arrested and charged with being a child-chasing pervert. He was convicted but didn't go to jail. So we might surmise that whatever he did wasn't considered all that serious. However, he was convicted in 2005, during the heyday of mad judges and insane Labour lawmaking when the more serious the offence, the more likely the perpetrator was to get a ticking off and compensation.

So we have no real idea of the seriousness of his original offence. Instead of jail he was given an order that forbade him from being anywhere near young girls. The trick cyclist in charge of his case said he was a low risk of re-offending. And, indeed, he hasn't.

He has gone to jail for 14 months because he now has a friend who has young sisters. He has done nothing at all to those girls, and is not accused of doing anything at all to any others. All he did was be in the same room as them. Not even alone.

Five years without reoffending is a pretty good stretch. It leads me to consider that the original offence was a one-off and that he is not a natural-born filthy pervert. However, the simple act of being within sight of a young girl has breached his court order and he is now in jail for 14 months for doing nothing more than disobeying orders.

When he committed a real offence, no jail. When he disobeyed orders without committing or attempting to commit any actual offence, or even showed evidence that he was conspiring to commit an offence, jail. Fair?

He disobeyed the State. He must suffer.

The State, on the other hand, is happy to use threats of tormenting your children to extort money from you.

Rab has a real-life example. I reproduce the letter he received without permission because it's late and he'll probably be a bit miffed if I turn up at his place and shout through the letterbox with a megaphone. People are funny that way.

Dear Parents/Carers,

Playtime For Pakistan

As you will know from media coverage millions of children in Pakistan have lost their homes and have no food or clean drinking water due to recent flooding. On the afternoon of Thursday 2 September we are offering an extra playtime to encourage our pupils to bring a donation for this appeal. Thank you for your support.

Regards

Blah Blah
Head Teacher


Let's play.


As you will know from media coverage millions of children in Pakistan have lost their homes and have no food or clean drinking water due to recent flooding.

Only children? I had the impression the adults were in a similar situation. Or was it only orphanages in that flood zone? This is emotive use of 'cheeeldren' in standard Righteous format. They know we adults will consider other adults capable of dealing with problems and they know their little charges will think the same way. In order to get the pupils to pressure their parents into paying up, they convey the impression that only children are affected and there are no adults out there doing a thing to help. It is a cynical and heartless ploy, but then that's what the Righteous are like.

On the afternoon of Thursday 2 September we are offering an extra playtime to encourage our pupils to bring a donation for this appeal.

Those who bring in money get an extra playtime. Those who don't? Well, they'll be in class but not learning anything. That might give them an unfair elitist advantage over their classmates and anyway, the lack of playtime is a punishment for not extorting money from their parents. It is not supposed to be pleasant.

Thank you for your support.

Sounds like something the Kray twins might sign off with. Pay up or your child gets stigmatised.

This is not encouraging charity. This is demanding money with menaces. Deep menaces because it's not just for one playtime. Children are vicious things and will treat non-conformism very roughly indeed. Especially with their new State-sponsored indoctrination.

Not contributing to Pakistan? Then you must be racist. You must be a Nazi. Those children will be tormented both by teachers and by other pupils over this. Never mind that Pakistan is a nuclear-armed country and we are currently up to our eyes in so much debt we aren't sure we'll be keeping our own weapons. No, that's not likely to feature in school-propagated 'knowledge'.

So, if you commit an offence and get sent away with orders, never commit the offence again but disobey your orders, you go to jail.

If you work for the State you can torment children to your heart's content and there will be no accountability to worry about.

This isn't Orwell's 1984. This is worse.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Who exactly are all those mugs who have contributed – what is it so far, £40-odd million? - to the flood appeal? I don’t dispute their good intentions, and indeed their generosity of spirit – wasn’t this the country which recently burned an effigy of our own Prime Minister after he dared to pass comment on the fact that there might be a few “bad sorts” lurking there? I’m no fan of his, but even I found that a pretty offensive over-reaction to one tactless sentence. But do these people honestly believe that a single penny of their hard-earned money is going to reach Mr & Mrs Homeless and their children?? After all the debacle over the funds donated for the Boxing Day tsunami – most of which still hasn’t re-appeared from the black hole it vanished into, and none of which, even after almost four years (I think - or is it three? Anyway, it's long enough), has assisted the most devastated people there – so where’s it all gone?

People in this country may be kind and well-meaning, but sadly they’re also gullible fools with short memories. Perfect targets, in other words, for unscrupulous people to make fortunes out of with a few heartstring-tugging photos and a couple of well-paid “celebs” reading appeals on the radio in a serious, “please care” tone of voice.

Angry Exile said...

As Grumpy Old Twat pointed out not long ago, Pakistan can afford nuclear weapons and a space program. It's not racist to question why they now need money. Did they waste all they had on these big ticket items? If so, that wasn't terribly bright of them and their citizens should bear that in mind. If not then Pakistan should be having appeals to donate money to the UK, which recently suffered a 13 year unnatural disaster leaving it noe 4 trillion worse off with fuck all to show for it. Odd that nobody seems interested in any whip rounds for that.

JuliaM said...

"Who exactly are all those mugs who have contributed – what is it so far, £40-odd million? - to the flood appeal?"

I don't know ANYONE who has put so much as a few coppers in a tin - even the usual bleeding hearts who can't pass a collecting tin for anything without rummaging in their pocket for loose change have been silent on this one.

Which has been rather telling.

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