Examples of the Pussy Pass in Action
Here are several incredible examples of the pussy pass, sexist chivalry on display in our criminal justice system.
Firstly, this female ‘professional caregiver’ was employed to look after a 4-month-old baby at the baby’s family home. The father returned unexpectedly to find the nanny had gone out leaving the baby alone and unprotected. The father waited there all morning, for 2 hours and 20 minutes, before the nanny returned. The nanny subsequently apologized publicly but was full of excuses that simply showed she deliberately left her post intending from the outset to stay away for the significant time it would take to complete a number of items of personal business. After sentencing she showed her level of contemplation and remorse by stating “I don’t want to say any more about it”. The maximum penalty for the crime of ‘Abandoning a Child Under 6′ is 7 years’ imprisonment, but this nanny was convicted of ‘leaving a child unsupervised’, presumably section 10B of the Summary Offences Act 1981, for which the maximum penalty is a $2000 fine. Even assuming the lesser charge was appropriate, this woman received a fine of $200, one tenth of the maximum fine available, the same as you would be fined if you drive your car when its registration/licence fee has expired. Surely this woman’s offence was at the top end of this offending because of the duration that she abandoned the child with aggravating factors including the fact that she was employed as a professional caregiver and the young, totally dependent age of the baby? Ok, if a caregiver had left a 9yo child for a couple of hours with a phone number and instructions for dealing with emergencies, one could accept that as being at one-tenth of the maximum gravity of an offence of this kind, but what, other than the female gender of this offender, made her sentence so lenient?
How do our Courts treat men for the same offence? This man was fined $1200 for leaving his children in a truck for 30 minutes, when he left the truck intending to be gone for only 5 minutes. This man was fined $750 for leaving a baby in a car outside a pokie bar while he went in to gamble; no information was available about the duration he left the baby, but he said he was filling in time while waiting until his partner finished work.
Another pussy pass this week was given to Dale Wickham who was sentenced to 12 months’ home detention for killing her husband. She was charged with murder and the jury rejected her claim that she killed her husband in self-defence, but it still found her guilty of manslaughter rather than murder. The partial defence of provocation was no longer available, so the jury must have found a way of believing that she did not intend to kill him. But hang on, she went to her (separate) bedroom to get a loaded shotgun, came back into the room where her husband was, pointed it at him at close range and, at some stage after taking the safety catch off, shot and killed him. Initially she told police that she had killed him ‘because he had tried to throttle me again’ and she had ‘had enough’. Well, this throttling was alleged to have happened a short time earlier and she had already called the police, so surely her statement was an admission that the killing was done as a consequence for her husband’s alleged misbehaviour? That’s murder not manslaughter. The jury’s decision appears to have been an act of compassionate chivalry that no man in similar circumstances could ever expect. And even then, 12 months’ home detention for manslaughter?! A man could expect a similar level of punishment for illegally storing a loaded shotgun contrary to the Arms Act (um, why wasn’t she charged for that?) and simply pointing it at someone. Wake up men, wake up people! Our legal system is trivializing the killing of men by women using any disproportionate force.
The third pussy pass this week is simply and utterly beyond belief. A 23yo woman, Jessica Louise Jane Bollen, participated with two male co-offenders in a crime spree along the length of the West Coast of the South Island. They had together hatched a plan to do this whilst in Tauranga and travelled all the way to the West Coast to carry it out. They broke into numerous vehicles and stole items of value, and into a lodge where they stole tourists’ suitcases. When their car was searched Ms Bollen’s travel bag contained cameras and other stolen items. She lied to police, claiming she was a hitchhiker who had been picked up locally, then she changed her lies to claim she had been an ‘unwilling member of the group’ who did not take part in the thefts and did not know how the items (which just happened to coincide with her keen hobby of photography) came to be in her bag. In Court, she then claimed that she had been scared of one of her travel companions and had been unable to ‘escape’ from him! Yeah right, all the way from Tauranga, on the Cook Strait ferry and down to the southern West Coast there was simply no opportunity for her to ‘escape’. Her claims were highly inconsistent with the admission made by the younger of the two co-offenders who had been dealt with in the Youth Court. The other co-offender had already been imprisoned. So was this adult woman held accountable for her thievery? Certainly not! She was discharged without conviction, leaving her able to resume work as a certified security guard and still realize her ambition of becoming a policewoman. Don’t believe me? Here it is.
How much are men to endure of this nonsense?
Incredible!
That’s outrageous!
Leaving a 4 month old baby unattended for two and a half hours and getting a $200 fine!
Also –
In relation to Dale Wickham’s murdering her husband the judge Justice Rebecca Ellis said a sentence of imprisonment would severely exacerbate her multiple sclerosis.
Holy shit! I’ve known men in prison on kidney dialysis 4 times a day! Did they get home detention? yeah right – they’re male – disposable.
And the woman discharged without conviction after going on a lengthy theft spree then turning on the crocodile tears and making an uncorroborated accusation against a co-thief!
Comment by Skeptik — Sat 25th December 2010 @ 12:50 am
Note that although Dale Wickham clearly killed her husband in what can be described as a domestic violence incident, anyone citing a figure for ‘men murdered by their female partners’ for the year would not include this death, since it was the result of manslaughter.
This may be topical with regard to claims made elsewhere that only 3 men were murdered by their partners in the entire period 2000-2004.
Comment by rc — Sat 25th December 2010 @ 7:24 pm
Wow a very strong example of what I call ‘the genderisation of partner violence’. It certainly shows how statistics can show a picture very different to what is actually happening. I am new to this website and I am earning lots.
Comment by Phil267 — Sun 26th December 2010 @ 8:47 pm
Sorry it should read ‘learning’ lots.
Comment by Phil267 — Sun 26th December 2010 @ 8:48 pm
Welcome Phil267.
The ‘genderization of partner violence’ indeed.
Comment by Skeptik — Sun 26th December 2010 @ 8:50 pm
Sounds like it would be true since murder is not murder when it is performed by a woman. I’d hate to think what the 3 reported murders were? Perhaps they were mass murders which were downgraded…
Comment by noconfidence — Mon 27th December 2010 @ 8:41 pm
Yet another pussy pass –
Full report at – http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/4499497/Mum-leaves-baby-alone-in-van
Comment by Skeptik — Wed 29th December 2010 @ 2:40 pm
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…….
‘Hey Neville Robertson are you there?’ …… The [abuse removed by moderator] lover, Mr Neville Robertson is awaiting further instructions from his beloved [abuse removed by moderator] leader Helen Clark and also from ‘The ministry of [abuse removed by moderator] women’s affairs’ in Wellington
Comment by John Dutchie — Sat 1st January 2011 @ 10:24 am
As per a response in another thread …
With reference to http://www.msd.govt.nz/about-msd-and-our-work/publications-resources/research/learning-from-tragedy/index.html, quote:
‘Learning from Tragedy: Homicide within Families in New Zealand 2002-2006
This report provides the first complete picture of homicide within families in New Zealand. It found that there were 141 homicides perpetrated by a member of the victim’s family, intimate partner or ex-partner in New Zealand between 2002 and 2006 and that:
“¢Of the 141 deaths, 77 were couple-related homicides, 38 were child homicides and 26 were other family member homicides.
…
“¢More of the victims were female (88) than male (53), however the perpetrators were overwhelmingly male, with 121 perpetrators male and only 28 female.
…”
With reference to Learning from Tragedy: Homicide within Families in New Zealand 2002-2006 (available from the above link), Quote:
‘Couple-related homicides
There were 74 couple-related homicide events with 77 adult victims and 79 perpetrators in the five-year period between 2002 and 2006.
Seventy of the perpetrators were male and nine were female.
… .
Only two of the women perpetrators acted on their own; the remaining seven killed in association with a male or another female perpetrator. ‘
Note the gender bias – women perpetrators have diminished responsibility if they acted alongside male perpetrators.
No hint of diminished responsibility for male perpetrators acting alongside female perpetrators.
Comment by Back from the dead ... — Tue 4th January 2011 @ 7:46 am
“Young women are very vulnerable when they’re intoxicated – and men are bastards.” – Dr Paul Quigley, Wellington, emergency medicine specialist.
Quoted from Girls-lead-the-drunken-charge-to-A-E
Comment by Dr Paul Quigley — Sun 9th January 2011 @ 6:11 am
Dr Quigley’s employer is Capital and Coast DHB.
I have forwarded them my concerns
Dr Paul Quigley, Emergency specialist is quoted as saying in today’s Sunday Star Times;
“Young women are very vulnerable when they’re intoxicated – and men are bastards.”
Perhaps he meant’ “Young women and men are very vulnerable when they’re intoxicated – and some people are bastards.”
If this was not what he meant how can the hospital employ someone with such negative views about 50% of the population and such paternalistic views about the other 50% when they are young? This paternalistic attitude and sexism from a senior doctor worries me. I understood under the Hippocratic oath Dr’s are required to “In every house where I come I will enter only for the good of my patients,”. How can such sexist views be good for our society, our community and the patients Dr Quigley cares for be they sober or intoxicated?
I would appreciate a reply either from Dr Quigley or hospital management.
Allan Harvey
Comment by Allan — Sun 9th January 2011 @ 6:57 am
Happy New Year Allan. I’m enjoying to see some familiar names that haven’t been here for a wee while and especially those who are good advocates. 🙂
Comment by julie — Sun 9th January 2011 @ 8:47 am
Can any male attending Wellington Emergency expect to be treated with the same compassion as anybody else?
MR Quigley thinks they should go to a vet it seems.
His employer should be asked about their treatment of men if this is the attitude of senior staff.
Comment by gwallan — Sun 9th January 2011 @ 11:14 am
Below you will find the contact information for Capital & Coast District Health Board and National Health contacts.
Street Address
Wellington Hospital
Riddiford Street
Newtown
Wellington 6021
Postal Address
Wellington Hospital
Private Bag 7902
Wellington South
Contact Details
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For more information:
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Comment by gwallan — Sun 9th January 2011 @ 11:49 am
I’m sure the family of the man killed in Auckland trying to defend a female completely unknown to him will be somewhat disheartened to learn how highly his sacrifice is regarded. Since we’re all to be judged by the actions of an exceptional few, why not assume all men are selfless defenders of the innocent? The logic is identical.
Comment by rc — Sun 9th January 2011 @ 12:09 pm
But that would mean saying something positive about men! Can’t have that!
Comment by Scott B — Sun 9th January 2011 @ 12:15 pm
Taken today from The Spearhead website
Comment by Skeptik — Mon 10th January 2011 @ 11:18 am
Or if she is drunk (she isn’t responsible for her decisions) – doesn’t matter if the dude is drunk too (he is still responsible for his decision – and for hers too!!!!)
Comment by Drunk'n Charge — Mon 10th January 2011 @ 4:39 pm
Dear Allan,
Thank you for your message, which I received on 10 January, 2011 about Dr Paul Quigley’s comments as featured in the in the Sunday Star Times on 9 January 2011.
You are correct in assuming that Dr Quigley’s message has been misconstrued. I have spoken with Dr Quigley to clarify this and he has told me that the correct quote is “Young women can be very vulnerable when they’re intoxicated – and some men can be bastards.”
From time to time, people can be misquoted in media reports, and it is unfortunate that in this case it has had a negative impact.
Thank you for your comments and I hope this will allay your concerns.
Kind Regards
Izzi Brown
Communications Officer
Capital and Coast District Health Board
Comment by Allan — Tue 11th January 2011 @ 12:54 pm
Does that allay your concerns, Allan?
Comment by Hans Laven — Tue 11th January 2011 @ 1:11 pm
I strongly suspect busy Dr who is not well PR trained but wanting some publicity. I have heard the naval expression loose lips sink ships. Bit of airship biting the dust me thinks.
Far be it from me to call the man a lier but journalists these days take extensive notes or tape recordings. Probably Dr Quigley realised the follishness of his words and wishes to correct his quote as an afterthought.
Regards to you Hans, Allan.
Comment by Allan — Tue 11th January 2011 @ 2:54 pm
It’s funny in a way that I had similar discussion with Benjamin Easton on facebook where I said to him, “I fear there may be more men wanting women to abort these days than not abort – with 19 years of child support over their head …..”
It was like this 20 years ago because I was there and saw it and from the statistics this man shows I’d say it existed in the years he complains about too.
The young men on this site don’t seem to show what anti feminists want them to. Does that matter or is it all about some new ideology?
Comment by Julie — Wed 12th January 2011 @ 12:33 am
Allan, I have decided to be an advocate and have taken on a case regarding CYFS and a father [in a relationship and had his twins taken because they were hard to feed and the hospitals say “guilty until proven innocent”]. I think he will win because CYFS now agree the babies are hard to feed but once in the system, ….. you know. He had 1 supervised hour after weeks and he was there always while they were in hospital bottle feeding them etc. He’s just being a man and you know how bad that is when it comes to playing the game.
Anyways, I want to also take on a CS case but I’m not knowledgeable. Will you please supervise me, lol? I wont ask for much I promise for I’ll research lots.
Comment by Julie — Wed 12th January 2011 @ 12:56 am
I, for one, don’t believe them.
A little tale…
One of my sisters found herself in a relationship which was on the skids. She concocted a plan. She offered herself up as designated driver at a particular event. Kept his glass full all night. She later had sex with him while he was basically comatose. Her aim had been to get pregnant. She succeeded. His family, very catholic, made him marry her. Intriguingly she brags about this openly to this day AND does it in his presence.
I’ve never had the heart to tell my sister that she’s a rapist.
For me it begs several questions. I won’t go into those outside of mentioning the power and control aspects. For all the bleating from feminists about men who rape and their motivations this circumstance is just about the ultimate. My sister knew her getting pregnant would force a marriage. She also took complete and utter control of his parental destiny. Power and control in spades.
I will lay very short odds that there are many men who have seen something similar.
Alcohol facilitated rape is an act as easily engaged in by women as by men. Dr Quigley has not only demeaned men in general. He has also become an active agent in the marginalisation and denial of male victims.
Comment by gwallan — Wed 12th January 2011 @ 1:21 am
Oh, please.
Well, I’ll give you the doubt, lol. She divorced him immediately and he’s paying big time.
Here’s a recent story for me. This guy turned on me when it came to a feminist discussion and said I was feminised the most being a teen pregnancy.
Screw that! I am not buying it. All anti-feminism can go to hell now. If men aren’t interested in working for men, they go get stuffed.
With a tough of love, lol.
Comment by Julie — Wed 12th January 2011 @ 1:44 am
@Allan…
Thankyou for identifying the appropriate contact at the Capital and Coast District Health Board.
I have written to Ms Brown to present a slightly different perspective.
Comment by gwallan — Wed 12th January 2011 @ 3:39 am
No julie, she didn’t divorce him. They are still together.
He is a man. He accepted the fate and responsibilities forced upon him by others. However, he set very strict rules for her behaviour. Rules she doesn’t dare break. It’s a strange and sometimes strained marriage but one I do believe will survive even if only because he took back some control.
You have demonstrated something very unsavoury to me here julie. Something i didn’t expect of you. You have engaged in mockery and denial of something you could never understand.
Shame on you.
If my other post escapes moderation I suggest you read it.
Otherwise I will thank you to not engage me in conversation again.
Comment by gwallan — Wed 12th January 2011 @ 4:39 am
Hi Julie,
Flick me an e-mail to [email protected] and I wil send you my details.
Comment by Allan — Wed 12th January 2011 @ 6:28 am
Any woman who has sex purely to get pregnant without telling the male that that is her intention is a rapist.
Comment by Scott B — Wed 12th January 2011 @ 9:05 am
To Gwallan,
No Probs. I don’t moderate anything BTW.
Comment by julie — Wed 12th January 2011 @ 1:04 pm
@Scott…
The situation I cited is rape – legally – regardless of the pregnancy. Pregnancy and marriage was the motivation behind the rape. Bear in mind that my sister planned her action in advance. This was no spur of the moment act. No accident.
Without the rape and the pregnancy it caused that relationship was over and the young man concerned would have moved ahead to a totally different life. It didn’t matter what personal goals he had at the time. All say in his own future was taken away from him in that moment. Rape was used to achieve this. His own interests, wants and needs be buggered.
The reason I related the story was to demonstrate that women may have motivations for rape that won’t occur for men. And drugs or alcohol are enablers of rape that are available to both genders. It is quite relevant, if personal and anecdotal, to the comments made by Dr Quigley.
I have a slightly different view. If anything that’s more akin to the crime for which Julian Assange has been pursued – condomnless sex – even if several degrees worse.
Ultimately it devolves to consent. Consent to an act of sex is a gimme both legally and otherwise. Unfortunately, when it comes to the product of that act of sex only one gender has consent.
My view has long been that a pregnant women should be obliged to obtain the consent of the other party involved ie the father if she wishes to procede with a pregnancy. This is based as much on her obligation to the child produced as to that father. Even the UN recognises the child’s right to both parents. I have no doubt there would be far fewer deadbeat or delinquent fathers AND less domestic violence if men had some sense of control over their reproductive destiny.
It was only a few days ago that I wrote about how power is actually an obligation rather than a privilege. Notice how my brother-in-law had no say in the situation at all but still accepted his obligations. For decades feminists have demanded that men relinquish their privileges and power. But at no time have women demonstrated any willingness to relinquish their own powers in this area. Indeed the cry for more reproductive rights for women continues unabated. As we’ve seen demonstrated here even those women who claim to be sympathetic to mens’ concerns are not going to budge one inch on this one.
Meanwhile womens’ reproductive rights extend as far as being able to rape even boys, let alone adult men, with near impunity, deny them any say in their reproductive future AND collect money from them for decades with the assistance of the state. How cool is that? Is that not privilege?
Comment by gwallan — Wed 12th January 2011 @ 2:19 pm
Thank-you Allan, and done. I seriously wouldn’t mind some workshops on how to be advocates. It’s an uncovered area amongst mainstream groups and I reckon they’d be many wanting to know IMO.
Comment by julie — Wed 12th January 2011 @ 2:57 pm
@julie…
I asked you not to talk to me again but you clearly can’t help yourself.
Now you’re sending me emails as well?
I was not joking.
You’ve seen what I’ve have to say previously about victims being laughed at and denied. They should know better and so should you. You’ve proven yourself recently to be no better than those who treat victims in that way.
What in all the seven halls of hell makes you think I would want anything to do with you? EVER? Now piss off.
Comment by gwallan — Wed 12th January 2011 @ 4:02 pm
Email sweety – ONE email that said, “I’m checking to see if this is a real email address. Please let me know.”
Thanks for letting me know. How sad we have to cut ties in the future but so be it. If a man or woman comes to me wanting info I’ll direct them to you with a note we are enemies, lol.
Comment by Julie — Wed 12th January 2011 @ 4:27 pm
gwallan,
I see you too have been subjected to Julie’s e-mail stalking.
I notice also how she tries to shame you too condescendingly calling you ‘sweety’ and minimizing her behavior by saying she ONLY sent you one e mail.
That’s true, she only sent one e mail BUT if you hadn’t gone online at MENZ and said piss off, it could be more a lot than one e-mail.
It great to see you’ve put your foot down and publicly so too.
Julie, two words for you as I see you want to be an advocate for men’s rights …….. boundaries…….respect.
Comment by Skeptic — Wed 12th January 2011 @ 4:44 pm
I have been waiting for this moment. There isn’t anyone else to relate to you Skeptic i.e emails. But now you have the golden opportunity to destroy me.
This is my out and as much as it is going to hurt, it will be a blessing. And so the floor is yours.
Comment by Julie — Wed 12th January 2011 @ 4:57 pm
I’m not exactly thrilled with the situation.
Unfortunately I don’t believe she realises just how appalling was the post that set me off. It’s the stuff that burns bridges for victims.
julie and I have had good and bad times over the years. Previously the bad ones worked out OK. I view the “stalking” as attempts on her part to repair the damage. She just doesn’t seem to have a clue how to go about it. As a consequence she’s made it worse. Much worse.
julie wasn’t to know, of course, but that familiar, intimate language – eg sweety – isn’t received by me as simply condescending. Oh, that it were! It triggers powerful, physical, fearful reactions. It was part of the coaxing my aunt used when she wanted to avail herself of my seven and eight year old body. I’ve never since handled being addressed that way at all well.
Deeper and deeper in the hole.
Wanna know about fear? My quite overweight aunt smothered me. Not deliberately. She was just a lot bigger than a seven year old, on top, vigourous and oblivious to my almost suffocating. All my life I’ve experienced flashbacks and nightmares. The nightmares in particular are horrific. Imagine being compressed inside a motile, organic substance that even protrudes into your orifices, particularly your mouth. The only analogy I can draw is that of being digested alive. It’s accompanied by severe grinding of my teeth. I’d wake up with bits of teeth in my mouth(I have fewer than half of them left), blood all over my pillow from lacerating my tongue and the inside of my cheeks and a sense of terror like all the horror movies you’ve ever seen rolled into one. And then squared.
I’ve spent some time there today.
Thing is, there are plenty of victims, even among those I know, who had far worse experiences than I. My own mum is one of them. THIS is what drives me. This and the knowledge that I’m better connected politically and probably, sorry, do have a stronger personality than most other victims. It shouldn’t be left up to victims to do the things I need to do. But with hardly anybody else bothering or even caring it’s up to those of us with the ability and knowledge. The price of having that ability is the obligation to use it.
@julie…
You are not doing that on my behalf. You and I have different obligations, different things to do. Those things have not changed.
What has changed is that now I wouldn’t let a male victim anywhere near you. You are careless. You are not safe for them and you are not safe for me.
Comment by gwallan — Wed 12th January 2011 @ 7:39 pm
gwallan,
I’m sorry to hear of your ghastly horrific experiences.
Julie,
A chance for me to destroy you?
Oh my goodness – the melodramatic victim card!
This is your out eh?
Well, look.
More melodrama.
If you remain true to form I expect you’ll be posting here at MENZ again within …..
oh? let’s see now……..24 hours at the very latest.
You’ll be trying desperately to make light of your monumental screw up with comments appended with the statement “lol!” as though it’s some lightweighty fluffy faux pas.
No pussy pass here.
I’m cringing with embarrassment thinking about your carelessness right now, and like gwallan wouldn’t want you within a mile of a male victim.
Comment by Skeptik — Wed 12th January 2011 @ 9:35 pm
Don’t get me wrong men, – I am not available for referrals and I don’t blame you for not wanting to send me [rape] victims for I wouldn’t know what to do with them – I would want for them to be cared for well.
I am wanting to take on cases solely for the experience – as I didn’t go down the legal path in my own case – not in the FC and not when paying CS. [wish I had now]
When I have the experience, I will decide what to do with it.
Comment by julie — Thu 13th January 2011 @ 9:32 am
Wow!
You want referrals from men merely for the experience so you can practice on them!
I’m afraid gwallan was right to say you are not safe.
Do the decent and just thing and get some training first.
Men deserve that much.
Comment by Skeptic — Thu 13th January 2011 @ 12:40 pm
Skeptic, did you not read my comment?
Where does it say I want referrals?
I don’t have the people to take on the cases I need them to, I struggle to refer and so I’m learning it myself. If you have a problem with this, take it up with men.
Comment by Julie — Thu 13th January 2011 @ 1:26 pm
Skeptic, Gwallan does make a good point and that’s, “Let’s all keep ourselves safe from each other”.
That’s really important and I suggest we don’t ever comment to each other or contact each other offline. I am in 100% agreement to have my emails shown up on this site if I contact either of you. [that’s a good start to making you men feel safe].
Comment by Julie — Thu 13th January 2011 @ 1:45 pm
Julie,
Thanks for clarifying this statement “I am wanting to take on cases”.
I take it that doesn’t mean you want to take referrals.
It’s easy to set an filter on most e mail clients to block stalking / spam mail from unwanted sources.
I reserve the right to comment on anybody as I see fit.
I am a free man.
Comment by Skeptik — Thu 13th January 2011 @ 1:55 pm
I see you do. I don’t write posts much these days and when I do I don’t allow comment. I’ll make sure I continue this way.
Comment by Julie — Thu 13th January 2011 @ 2:05 pm
Julie, you say
Well, that’s your choice, and not one that wins much respect from me.
Wow! It reminds me of a lot of women in I’ve known in NZ.
They’re happy to spout their opinion but will run away at the first signs of feedback. It’s a form of control they put in place as they were afraid to get their entrenched views challenged.
Personally I’m happy for anyone to comment on my posts.
I’ve grown a lot through being OPENLY involved in conversations and vigorous debate.
Comment by Skeptik — Thu 13th January 2011 @ 6:36 pm
Hi Skeptic and others,
MENZ has a long tradition of open debate.
JohnP is passionate about being very tolerant of peoples views and their styles of action.
I think it is wonderful that Julie and others feel free to express themselves and don’t feel the need to conform to the labels of others.
I think it is great that you can feel free Skeptic but it seems you only do so when others fall silent. Some might call that bullying. It is possible to disagree and still hold another’s views as an alternative to ones own and allow them freedom as well as yourself.
I dropped off this site about 12 months ago and I see it seems little better as a tolerant forum.
I think it is great Julie wishes to explore activism and advocacy roles. I wish her well in those endeavors. It is what I have chosen to do and as part of that I choose to not get involved here. I find the debate and free thinking here to be stifled by people who choose to drive out any opinions that don’t suit their own views.
I was delighted to see Neville Robertson posting. While I don’t like a lot of his views and many of his conclusions I do accept he is a significant figure in DV research and policy implementation in this country. To have his contributions here was a gift to us all. For him to venture here presumably meant he was prepared to listen as much as his own preconception allowed him. I think it is disappointing that the ad homeniem arguments he faced will probably mean he is never back.
I have posted only a few times in the past 12 months and given the lack of tolerance that I see I suspect I will again post very infrequently. MENZ needs to be about debate and sharing of ideas not about enforcing the perceptions of one or two whenever they are challanged.
Allan
Comment by Allan — Thu 13th January 2011 @ 9:01 pm
Allan,
I think people are themselves responsible for falling silent.
That’s THEIR choice, which I respect, and won’t take the blame for.
I see them as free agents, grown adults in a democratic environment.
Not folks in need of someone self appointed as a savior such as yourself
Don’t fool yourself thinking for a moment that I’m going to join them just in deciding to leave MENZ either just because you happen to suggest I’m some kind of bully.
Pathetic and hypocritical too to see you suggesting such a label whilst waxing on about issuing ad hominem attacks like it’s some kind of sin in the same breath.
As you’ll be aware I have a very different view of Neville Robertson.
What you call a gift, I call a nuisance trying to stifle genuine debate with feminist propaganda.
Propaganda that wasn’t only refuted by me either, but by virtually EVERYBODY who responded to his postings.
So I think if you are going to try and single me out for special treatment that’s a bit weird.
I have accused Neville Robertson of several things, but here’s the rub, I presented EVIDENCE to back up the claims.
I’m not some vacuous simpleton issuing hollow name calling ad hominem, I’ve actually educated myself to the point where I’m able to give links to his own writings where folks can see for themselves his misandry and tax payer rorting.
I think that’s how deserve to be recognized, but if you think that’s bullying, tough.
I’m not about to be guilted into silence about such matters.
I have too much love of people to fall into that trap.
I’m glad you admit you presume he came to MENZ to listen, I can agree with you there because that’s all it is, a presumption.
Seeing as we don’t live inside his head I’m afraid we’ll never know the real motive for his turning up at MENZ.
However, let’s look at some of his actions whilst being on a MENZ thread.
In stark contrast to any presumptions I’m confident the FACT is that during his brief stint posting at MENZ he attacked the professional reputation of a well respected regular poster as misogynist, yet couldn’t back up the claim.
To this day he hasn’t retracted the slur and in the process he’s betrayed his own professional body’s code of ethics.
Now I don’t know about you, but I certainly wouldn’t be in a hurry to stand behind a guy like that.
I have such concern for the welfare of my fellow New Zealanders that until Mr (NZ is a patriarchy, harumph….1 in 4 women have been sexually assaulted, harumph ….) Robertson changes his tune to something male sensitive I’ll continue to critique him and portray him satirically too.
You say some may call that bullying.
Call me a bully all you like but judging by the amount of people who joined me in critiquing Mr Robertson recently I’d say phooeeee, looks like common sense rather than bullying to me.
Hey, by the way I’m wondering are you the same Allan who stated on MENZ a while back you were taking payments for supervising men who’d been shafted by the family courts being sent to you for supervised ‘access’ with their kids?
You know, supervised access based ONLY on what an accusing woman said of them, not based on any actual corroborating PROOF?
If you are indeed the same Allan, are you still getting payments / donations for doing so?
Face it Allan,
the Men’s Rights Movement is a political movement seeking change to empower oppressed men (and by extension society at large), and I think it’s fair to say politics is a tough business sometimes requiring a thick hide.
As such from time to time vigorous debate on how to empower NZ men ensues.
I think that’s healthy, but recognize not everyone is up for it.
If you CHOOSE to bow out of debate and only turn up here intermittently, I won’t allow myself to feel bad about your choice, nor encourage anyone else to either.
Comment by Skeptik — Thu 13th January 2011 @ 11:31 pm
Hi Skeptic,
You discussed above the word presumption and how we can’t know what goes on inside someone elses head. No matter how “shafted” someone feels by the need for supervised contact I ask myself some questions.
Is it good for their kids to have contact with both parents?
Is it better for kids to experience supervised contact or no contact at all for months or maybe years?
If someone wants to pay me to supervise contact are they willing buyers of my services?
Do I care if “proof” exists of their crimes, do their kids care?
If proof is absent or present does that make contact between a parent and their children better, worse, right, wrong or it it just contact with people who have a bond with each other that is strengthened by nurturing?
Why do men, women and grandparents want to use my services if they are inherently being shafted and exploited?
How come I get payments and donations from people when I spend time doing this work?
Is accepting money for time I could be doing other stuff in immoral?
How come I get elected to a leadership position despite my crimes of offering supervised contact and changeovers, or the offence I cause to some who post on MENZ?
Skeptic,if you are ever passing my way drop in and we could share a coffee and you can be better informed. Alternatively rock along to a UoF meeting sometime and see the work we do.
Before you ask I’m also the Allan Harvey who dared suggest on MENZ that Feminism is not neccesarily a dirty word and that I believe having fewer social expectations on me and my kids can be liberating. Might you ever consider that view is what I think inside my own head and that I presume to be happy with that thought (at least at this time). Even if others find it clashes with their own thoughts I can be relaxed about that and accept we might be different. It might be our backgrounds, our prior experience, our reading, our world view que sera sera perhaps we might just think differently. I would be happy to debate such things but I suspect “vigorous debate” might make me feel bullied and I might prefer to work with those who appreciate my time more than those who want me to conform to their perspectives of world.
Comment by Allan — Fri 14th January 2011 @ 8:45 am
I don’t know how important debate is, but I know NZ is made up of allot of people and they all have a right to be represented in it……Somewhere along the way I suspect people will work together and respect what others needs are. [fingers and toes crossed]
Anyways, I see allot of good being done by men for men and I commend Alan for what he DOES. I don’t think there should be an issue with those that empower men in society and give them opportunities through funding, in fact, I’m grateful they do and I’m sure the men that receive the benefits are also. There are projects in the pipeline in all men’s groups and you can’t stop the progress.
……..Plus…
Enlightening young men to older men’s experiences is not a bad thing either, heck our primary, intermediate and high schools are full of older women’s negative experiences teaching young girls how bad boys are – how many parents are sick of the word vagina being spoken in their home, lol and how many are pulling their children out and home schooling because of the fear of men? These women have worked their way up passionately and want to change situations they were in. Soooo, why can’t men do the same? What’s wrong with empowering young men by educating them?
………
Anyhoo, I think because the men’s movement is as diverse as the women’s movement, there’s going to be clashes as there is in the women’s movement and it’s just a matter of giving respect where it’s due and understand there’s many roads to the top of the mountain and accountability is a must.
Other than that, I look forward to one day seeing a site where advocates, activists and antifeminists all feel welcome and appreciated whether extremists or moderates.
Comment by julie — Fri 14th January 2011 @ 10:37 am
I’m not suprised after taking a sabbatical that on returning to MENZ I see that the same behaviours that where prevalent when I began my sabbatical.
Allan, who does sterling work for kids and dads, sums it up well.
Regards
Scrap
Comment by Scrap_The_CSA — Fri 14th January 2011 @ 11:22 am
Allan,
I’m glad you have the integrity to announce who you actually are vis a vis supervising men sent by courts for supervised ‘access’ to their kids.
I think it’s important that folks who come to MENZ know who you are and what you stand for.
A response to your post is in order.
For a start I think you’re minimizing and trying to misrepresent me terribly.
Notice I didn’t say men merely ‘feeling’ shafted by the false allegations that result in their being forced to only be able to see their kids in a supervised ‘access’ center or not see them at all for months / years / never (Hobson’s choice).
No, I spoke LITERALLY of men that ARE shafted by uncorroborated mere allegations that render them being treated as guilty until proven innocent.
Some turn up here at MENZ from time to time.
I have questions I ask myself too.
Two can play that game.
How come some folks would elect a person who pockets money from those under extreme duress to a position of representing fathers in some organization?
Then again how come there are idiots and tyrants both around the world and throughout history who actually ruled by popular mandate?
How can the prison-like environment of supervised ‘access’ centers be so glibly and thoroughly glossed over?
How can somebody not see that feminism as it actually manifests subjects people to massive increased social expectations rather than lessening social expectations?
Then again how did folks support apartheid and blacks not having the vote in USA for so many decades?
I won’t take up the offer of a coffee and chat Allan.
I’ve seen and heard enough to realize that whilst you might do some good work you are just another part of the larger feminist apparatus. As Pink Floyd would say ‘another brick in the wall’
Engaging in vigorous debate you might ‘feel bullied’ as you put it.
But that’s just an underhand way of implying I’m actually a bully which is a cowards way of defending yourself from criticism. You choose the victim role so easily like feminists do.
Any valid criticism then get branded as ‘bullying’ as the victim card get played in order to garner sympathy.
Ironically in it’s own way that’s an attempt at emotional bullying in itself.
But after decades of experience with feminists that’s exactly what I’ve come to expect.
Minimizing, distorting, projection, transference and victim identification.
All the classic hallmarks.
No pussy pass for the women who falsely accuse the innocent men who end up having to endure the indignity of being forced to pay to see their kids again either.
That’s if those men make it beyond suicidality induced by such contact with our feminist family ‘courts’ and social services in the first place mind you.
Comment by Skeptik — Fri 14th January 2011 @ 11:46 am
You miss sooooo much of men’s reality. From one man’s experience I learned men have to agree to terrible terms in the supervised rooms. They have to sign they won’t tell their children they love them, they won’t ask how their children are doing – in fact, they can’t even hug them and they sign they won’t.
How much does that make Alan special by understanding they have emotional connections to their children and they want to know they are OK or not and let their children know they are willing to be there for them.
You don’t know what it’s like for parents dealing with the FC/CYFS and you don’t help any parent by saying someone understanding shouldn’t offer their services.
If Alan stops taking the money because you say he’s wrong, many families will suffer even more. Is that what you want?
Comment by Julie — Fri 14th January 2011 @ 12:22 pm
Julie,
Wow!
Thanks for the words of revelation about the extent of one man’s oppression under supervised access.
Please ask him to come online at MENZ and share his experience.
Actually if Allan and his feminist ilk stop taking men’s misery money then they opt out of oppressing men.
I see you’re trying to force me into the same hobson’s choice the feminists who run the supervised access system offer men. Damned if you agree and damned if you don’t.
The biggest victims in the whole sad sorry fucked up mess – the kids socially engineered into fatherlessness.
What I’d like to see Allan doing is to refocus his energy on overcoming the system which results in men merely accused of violence WITH NO CORROBORATING EVIDENCE ending up being forced to undergo supervised access in the first place.
That would require some sacrifice on his part mind you.
No power over such men.
No supervision office in which he can invite me for a chat over coffee.
Reduced income.
Your patently wrong to say I don’t know what it’s like for parently dealing with family ‘courts’ CYFS.
Why you choose to misrepresent me with such comments is anybody’s guess.
I’ve walked away from organizations myself once I realized they were involved in feminist rorts.
It’s a simple matter of principle – honoring men and families.
You either feed the corrupt regime by engaging in it or you withdraw and starve it.
Comment by Skeptic — Fri 14th January 2011 @ 12:53 pm
I’ve already brought everyone to this site. There’s a clash because people want to be heard themselves and people that suffer or want to change things get pushed aside.
You as a good advocate want to teach and share information. I don’t think you have the time to care for people and so they make comment and are never remembered. Just don;t dog us that follow through their lives. Be grateful that you can be political and someone else picks up the pieces.
Comment by Julie — Fri 14th January 2011 @ 1:31 pm
Julie,
Your dismissiveness of my efforts makes no sense to me.
You’ve obviously forgotten I’ve been at the coal face of men’s issues since long before you were even aware of such.
Several decades in fact.
unlike you I don’t make a distinction between what I do politically online and elsewhere and what others who you describe as following through on folks lives.
If such a statement were true you’d be saying all political activist and politicians DON’T follow through on peoples lives, whereas in fact their political activity IS precisely that.
It just takes a different form that’s all – as you’re so fond of telling people yourself there are many roles in the men’s rights movement.
Also claiming I have no time to care for people is a ridiculous claim to make.
Count the time I’ve put into posting at MENZ alone, which isn’t all I do advocating for men’s human rights either.
But what do you know?
Apparently so quick to judge, so slow to listen.
No pussy pass here either.
Comment by Skeptik — Fri 14th January 2011 @ 2:04 pm
Skeptic,
I don’t for one minute think bad of you. But you’d think you could see the same for others since you know so much.
It’s not like I asked for your blood, just a little gratification which shouldn’t be hard since you walked the walk.
What do I know?
Ha, where should I start?
Let’s see, it’s not about your rights, it’s about helping the community. It’s NZ for-goodness sake not bloody America.
Comment by Julie — Fri 14th January 2011 @ 3:05 pm
Julie,
You say.
Actually Julie getting human rights for men DOES help the community overall. So again no need for distinctions between the two there.
That’s something I and some others here at MENZ have been at pains to explain for along time now.
When MEN are oppressed, SOCIETY AT LARGE suffers.
Plus many of the same feminist human rights abuses of men that exist in USA also exist in NZ. So in a sense there’s no need to differentiate the two there either. I know this because I’m regularly in contact with USA men and widely read on men’s issues in USA too.
If it weren’t the case many of the same feminist human rights abuses of men that exist in USA also exist in NZI think there would be little need for a website like MENZ in it’s current form.
Instead I guess it would be full of stuff about motoring, technology and gadgets, fashion tips for guys and rugby discussion, but clearly it’s much more political than that.
Comment by Skeptik — Fri 14th January 2011 @ 3:25 pm
Skeptic, I have decided that if I can’t talk to Gwallan, I can’t talk to you. Do what you do and just leave me alone.
Comment by Julie — Fri 14th January 2011 @ 3:45 pm
Skeptic
I hold credentials that I cannot publish here; but can safely say, I do not believe you have any idea what it is truly like to rise above anger; rise above false accusation; and accept the humbling experience of only seeing you children under terms of supervised contact.
You will criticise me; but if you truly knew my history, you would be floored.
Don’t ask or challenge me; I simply will not diclose details on this forum.
However i can safely report that like many men, I had a choice: Submit to supervised contact; or risk not seeing my children till they are beyond the reach of family court.
I chose to see them, however humiliating or denigrating it was.
Oh you’ll say I should have fought it out in family court.
I did. I now have unsupervised contact.
In the meantime; and whether or not I ever acheived unsupervised contact, I am glad I humbled myself.
I will never have to look at my children and explain why I gave up, and walked away.
Or why, no matter how corrupt certain systems may be; how wrong or politically correct or femist family court is, I did the very best I could for my children, supervised contact notwithstanding.
I will never denigrate my ex to my children; they will work out the truth for themselves in due course.
What Allan does (and others like him), is help people who – perhaps naively – believe that irregardless of their own personal ignominy and sense of injustice, they have a role in their children’s lives.
To me, and no doubt to others, these people matter.
You may feel it is better to battle the system – and I agree, that is a battle that has to be fought.
In the mean time, to me, it is paramount to have an ongoing face-to-face relationship with my children.
The alternative was to not see my children again – at least until they were 16 – and then only if they wanted to.
If that were to be the case, there is no battle with unjust systems anymore.
Comment by One man's perspective — Fri 14th January 2011 @ 9:55 pm
OMP,
I don’t think you know me or my life story well enough to make claims about my character.
It’s ridiculous to say I’d be floored if I knew your history.
We’ll never know seeing as you’re such an enigma.
I’m glad you got to see your kids (if indeed you’re a genuine poster with a truthful account and not some fem put up).
If i assume for a moment you’re genuine then I think –
So you got to see your kids.
How fine and dandy for you.
The trouble is I fear that in perpetuating the system by playing along and paying for your reaming other men AND CHILDREN get shafted.
I can only call that self centered, short sighted and uncivil.
Comment by Skeptik — Sat 15th January 2011 @ 12:25 am
Skeptik;
I have watched this forum long enough to see that you carry a lot of anger and resentment about your situation.
You may disagree; but that is how you come across.
In one short post, rahter than accept my opinion, you have:
immediately resorted to denigrating me by (1) suggesting i am a liar (not truthful); and (2) that I am possibly some feminist put-up.
dismissed my battles and relationship with my children (that’s “dandy”)
And finally you appear to suggest that mny approach, and acceptance of supervised contact (as opposed to an ‘it’s got to be unsupervised, or not at all’ position) as self centered, short sighted and uncivil.
I have sat back and watched this approach taken against opther postesrs, time and time again.
All and all, if you could only see how your approach to reasoned discussion comes across.
If for no other reason, I shall no longer respond to any of your posts.
Comment by One man's perspective — Sat 15th January 2011 @ 7:02 am
Skeptik;
I have watched this forum long enough to see that you carry a lot of anger and resentment about your situation.
You may disagree; but that is how you come across.
In one short post, rahter than accept my opinion, you have:
immediately resorted to denigrating me by (1) suggesting i am a liar (not truthful); and (2) that I am possibly some feminist put-up.
dismissed my battles and relationship with my children (that’s “dandy”)
And finally you appear to suggest that mny approach, and acceptance of supervised contact (as opposed to an ‘it’s got to be unsupervised, or not at all’ position) as self centered, short sighted and uncivil.
I have sat back and watched this approach taken against opther posters, time and time again.
All and all, if you could only see how your approach to reasoned discussion comes across.
If for no other reason, I shall no longer respond to any of your posts.
Comment by One man's perspective — Sat 15th January 2011 @ 7:03 am
Coincidentally; I am not an enigma.
I stated that I hold credentials that I cannot publish here; and that I simply will not diclose details on this forum.
If you wish to share stories, offline, face to face, in a civilised and pleasant manner, then I am more than willing.
Comment by One man's perspective — Sat 15th January 2011 @ 7:07 am
To this reader, Skeptic’s discussion comes across as fresh, dogged, well-reasoned and exceedingly welcome. He is saying what needs to be said, even if it may offend some sensibilities – and it’s not as if the views he opposes don’t already have massive exposure in the media and in society in general.
You chose your online moniker well.
Comment by rc — Sat 15th January 2011 @ 8:10 am
Thanks rc,
And there goes another one who can’t stand up to well reasoned debate.
Off to play the victim instead of listening.
I think it’s entirely reasonable to say OMP may be a liar and some feminist put up since he won’t reveal his/her real identity.
I didn’t refer to his/her “battles and relationship with his/her children” only to the outcome as being “dandy”.
I think I’ve shared my views ONLINE in a civilized manner.
I see no need therefore to meet face to face with OMP.
I prefer the openness of discussion on a forum which others can witness.
I stand by everything I said.
I expect if I were to buckle to institutionalized blackmail and pay a supervisor to oversee me spending time with my kids, know for a fact I was only there based on a false accusation WITHOUT CORROBORATING EVIDENCE AND DUE PROCESS OF CIVILIZED LAW, then I would achieve several things –
Short term I’d get to see my kid/s and would be hugely relieved.
At the same time however, I’d also be very worried that I’d been set up to appear dangerous to my kid/s – an attitude the kid/s would sooner or later pick up on and would damage their relationship with me.
Longer term having gone along with the institutionalized blackmail I would have fed a system thus aiding the perpetuation of this tyranny and the continued defathering process in NZ.
Indeed given the broad links and communications between feminist judiciary and social workers globally these days I expect I’d be feeding a leviathan of proportions way beyond only NZ.
Comment by Skeptik — Sat 15th January 2011 @ 12:47 pm
Yes I agree rc. Skeptik’s “approach to reasoned debate” was in fact developing a reasoned opinion in reply. The labels of “self-centred, short-sighted and uncivil” were perhaps harsh and unempathic, but the terms applied to behavioural choices, not a person. Skeptik is correct in pointing out that men who capitulate are in fact colluding with injustice. Ironically, it is fathers’ love and concern for their children that is being exploited by the system. The lawmakers and Courts know that fathers will endure great hardship to protect their children and their relationship with their children, so the system can conveniently give in to unreasonable feminist demands to subject fathers to all manner of humiliation, unfairness and state violence. It is very much like starving a slave to get him to do increasingly horrible things for food; the slave owner knows that the survival instinct and hunger drive are likely to override the slave’s moral codes and self-respect.
I acknowledge the difficulty of the choice facing fathers when relegated to fortnightly supervised contact with their children on the basis of often flimsy allegations driven by ulterior motives. I respect that many fathers choose to play along with the system no matter how stupid and child-abusive that system may be. However, I think it desirable that insight such as that afforded by Skeptik’s analysis be included in their decision-making.
Although it’s unlikely that fathers will stop allowing themselves to be played like fish, it’s also true that if fathers revolted en masse then the current abusive system would not be able to cope or continue for long. For one thing, the tens of thousands of children who lost their relationship with fathers would become increasingly angry and demand change. While I understand most fathers’ choice to play along and I respect Allan’s priority on harm reduction for individuals, unfortunatey it remains true that in submitting, men are colluding big time with state child abuse.
Lastly, political debate is hard and gritty. Participants have often mobilized politically due to deep concern, frustration and anger. The same went for feminism in its earlier forms. Those who can’t stand the heat might consider staying out of the kitchen.
Comment by Hans Laven — Sun 16th January 2011 @ 10:01 am
Hans,
Thank you for the acknowledgment and picking up on my threads of thought.
I particularly like the analogy you make of a slave being driven by hunger to do more and more despicable things in order to get food.
Incidentally I recently watched a movie called ‘Unthinkable” which in it’s own way illustrated that kind of Hobson’s choice process very clearly.
Also it’s refreshing to see someone else calling the current system what I too think it is – ‘state child abuse’.
Which leads me onto thinking of other recent historical instances of state child abuse with clear parrallels to what we see happening in modern day New Zealand.
Here I’m thinking of Australia’s stolen / lost generations.
I expect in years to come there will be a social phenomenon similar to the rising up of the stolen generation who I understand eventually got at least a public apology from the Kevin Rudd government.
I was in Australia at the time that apology was issued and can attest to it’s being like the lifting of a dark cloud which hung over the nation which could then move further ahead.
I offer that borrowed term as a shorthand to describe the many many thousands of children defathered in NZ and elsewhere feminism prevails.
I think we can speak very clearly and honestly now of our own stolen generations lost to things such as we witness in NZ and describe here at MENZ.
The thought occurred yesterday as I watched a historical documentary that as we speak out at MENZ and tell it how it is we leave a very worthwhile historical archive from which future generations can hopefully learn about the great struggle for men’s human rights during the time of oppressive state feminism – a hot kitchen to be in indeed.
Comment by Skeptik — Sun 16th January 2011 @ 4:04 pm
Hear, hear Skeptik. I am quite sure the generation of children stolen by feminist laws from their fathers will one day be acknowledged and apologized to. What’s incredible is the blindness of those who applaud the Australian reconciliation yet fail to see an analagous process happening right before our eyes, this time on gender rather than racial grounds.
Comment by Hans Laven — Mon 17th January 2011 @ 9:53 am
Hi Skeptic, Hans and others,
When it comes to individuals and individual families I’m totally into collusion. I feel the results are too tragic if we don’t seek to address fatherlessness case by case.
A recent UK newspaper piece describes the situation well.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1346603/Britains-fatherless-families-1-5-children-lose-touch-parent.html
One in 5 children permanently loosing contact with their parent within three years of separation! This rate of loosing fathers is in my view critical. Every child saved from perceiving Dad as “that F**ing looser” by which mum labels them repeatedly is a small victory which I delight in. Far too many children only have mum’s perceptions of dad no matter how much their fathers felt they were “doing the right thing for the kids”. By offering supervised contact I try to do my bit for a small number of cases. That is one approach I take.
I also totally accept that the political issue is a much bigger (and more important) picture. Politicians are not to be trusted and it is a bruising business. Political goals are about sound bites, election cycles, majority views and lower taxes. Long term consequences of fatherlessness such as school failure, poor relationship choices, welfare dependency all sound good but political actions are often short term, election cycle focused. They miss the big picture that as a society we do not support families and that unless we promote parenting by both mum and dad after separation we are on a slippery slope.
I am not interested in the dirt of politics but I’m certainly not put off that it is hard work. I do know that it takes hours to write letters and submissions, that lobbying requires preparation and follow-up, that every select committee needs my best foot forward approach. That is the commitment I make to changing the system with a second approach.
There are other strategies such as Skeptic and others advocate. At this time they are not for me and that is my personal choice. You make your own choices and take whatever actions you wish.
I am interested in the analogies to anti-apartheid action and anti-slavery action. A key group in both campaigns were largely conservative but determined church people. I suppose that label suits me in this campaign. Winning political change often requires a multi-pronged approach and I’m more than relaxed that others are more radical than I. Personally I think there is strength in meeting were our paths cross. In some campaigns I have been in the extreme heat of the kitchen and stoking the fires. At this time that does not fit my circumstances or that of my children but it does not mean I’m out to disown those who are in the heat of a campaign.
I’m not sure why Skeptic seems so keen to reject that proposal as some sort of contamination?
Comment by Allan — Mon 17th January 2011 @ 3:32 pm
Let’s see now,
Shall I get a job as a Supervisor in an ‘access’ supervision center for men sent by the courts supposedly of committing acts of violence WITHOUT TRAIL AND DUE PROCESS OF LAW, WITHOUT ANY CORROBORATING FORENSIC EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER, BUT MERELY ON THE SAY SO OF SOME WOMAN?
Shall I take the job knowing full well that to do so legitimizes a system of corruption leading to further institutionalized fatherlessness? Hmmmmmmmm……
Shall I go a step further and accept the bribes (euphemistically referred to as fees) men are forced to pay to see their own kids? Hmmmmmmmm.
Shall I then in surroundings some men who’ve attended supervised ‘access’ call prison-like enjoy exerting power and control over the lives of those bribed supervisees? Hmmmmmm.
Shall I then go online and referencing a Daily Mail article hand wring about institutionalized fatherlessless whilst deciding I have no part in it whilst lionizing misandric uber-feminists like Neville Robertson, feminism as a reasonable social movement?
Shall I then offer an olive branch to ‘radicals’ saying let’s buddy up to defeat the problem of fatherlessness together.
Thinks for a nanosecond……….
NO.
Most emphatically No!
I like to sleep at nights.
I’d sooner snog Helen Clarke after she’d eaten a garlic lunch for three days running.
Comment by Skeptic — Mon 17th January 2011 @ 4:36 pm
Me thinks with the benefit of history.
Early anti-slavery advocates kept slaves and inproved conditions. Some in the underground railways had servants who appeared as slaves to help keep the railway working. Early prison reformers visited prisons. Groups like Prison Fellowship and PARS are some of our leading prison reform groups largely funded by corrections. The first mental assylums were run by church groups as models and then as examples of something more progressive. In the UK reforming workers rights advocates ran companies that employed those whose conditions they sought to reform. Look at the history of reformers like wilberforce, fry, cadbury and rowntree to name a few.
I’m more than happy to snog Helen if I thought it would serve the cause.
Allan
Comment by Allan — Mon 17th January 2011 @ 4:47 pm
So if I get this right, if you are falsely accused of something in family court, which seems par for the course, you should never admit to being violent, and should never submit to supervised contact. You should instead take a stand, and accept that you are never going to see your kids.
Doesn’t that just mean that all the more women will claim you are violent irregardless of whether you are or not, thereby ensuring they win by default?
If you refuse to be supervised, haven’t they won?
How does that overload the system, and force eventual change?
Comment by Steve — Mon 17th January 2011 @ 6:59 pm
To Allan: Don’t forget Schindler in WWII, who employed the jews making defective gun cartridges …
Comment by Steve — Mon 17th January 2011 @ 7:01 pm
Actually Steve,
being falsely accused of domestic violence and ending up forced to undergo the needlessly humiliating supervised ‘access’ to your kids only plays into the hands of those who wish to demonize fathers.
PLUS you’re actually paying your goaler for shafting you to boot!
Talk about forced servitude and shaming.
A great way to give the kids the impression you’re a scary nasty man.
And no need to even mention all the more women.
As it is already there’s nothing whatsoever disincentivizing ALL THE MORE women from bringing about false accusations of domestic violence WITH TOTAL IMPUNITY.
AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND …..AD infinitum………
So you have no guarantees of seeing your kids ever again on a regular basis anyway.
It seems to be working out for falsely accusing women very well so far judging from the hundreds of thousands of defathered NZ kids.
Don’t be so cock sure about overloading the system by buying into it either.
I think of it this way.
Seeing as you mention Jews there’s the fact that after the mass shootings and hangings and burying Jews and Gypseys in mass graves proved too ‘inefficient’ the Nazis moved onto another system and built the gas chambers of such horrific places as Auschwitz and Dakau.
The point is, yYES you may very well overload the current misandric system, only to find it gets replaced with an even more ‘efficient’ one.
That might sound over the top to you.
But then again if you’d said to me a few decades back that in a country as supposedly modern and enlightened as NZ men would under NZ LAW be treated to a system of gender apartheit I would have scoffed at you and called you a nutter for thinking so.
Ah yes, the modern day socialist gender feminists have surely learnt a lot from earlier socialists including nazis and refined it into an Orwellian soft totalitarian state.
They even have many men believing their doublespeak.
Now we’re expected to believe that corrupt supervised ‘access’ is good!
That more of us should feed ourselves into the mincing machine in order to ‘overwhelm it’!
“From where Winston stood it was just possible to read, picked out on its white face in elegant lettering, the three slogans of the Party:
WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.”
Comment by Skeptic — Mon 17th January 2011 @ 8:12 pm
Skeptic,
I suggest you visit a supervised contact centre sometime. You can even carry my big bunch of keys if you wish.
No one is forced to come, parents and kids do it because that is a decision they make.
Often professionally supervised contact is now paid for by the Family Court. That is a good development.
Forced servitude and sham maybe, or an opportunity for kids and parents to spend time together.
Again that is a choice people make.
The kids normally have no idea that a parent is ‘scary or nasty’ and the whole purpose of contact is to dispel such ideas.
‘Needlessly humiliating’, maybe but none of my clients have ever told me that.
I try very hard to make it a positive experience for all
I have a small agency, I currently have just one client. He is delighted with the service, his daughter is too young to speak but she clearly enjoys his company.
In 7 years doing this work I have only ever had moans from 2 parents and those moans came long after when they had chosen the course you advocate Skeptic. One now has not seen his 4 children for 5 years and the other has had no contact for 4 years.
The last family who graduated from using my service did so just because that made it easier for mum. There were no orders at all . His final comments to me were, that using my service made it easier for everyone and while he was initially a skeptic he was delighted to have meet me. I’m happy with those comments and maybe if another skeptic wanted to take up an offer of coffee he might learn something as well. Bring George Orwell with you if you wish and we could even do some reading while we rattle the keys.
Academia taught me that understanding and acceptance are not synonomous. We can trade quoites if you wish but I prefer to understand myself as it helps me stand clearly in my own thinking.
Comment by Allan — Tue 18th January 2011 @ 7:45 am
Allan,
I’ve seen supervision centers with my own eyes so no need to visit one.
I’m glad when fathers get reunited with their kids.
Of course some children are initially too young to understand why their fathers are deemed dangerous.
Later on in life it’s often different as questions usually surface. COST
You say supervised fathers aren’t forced to go to supervision but have a choice.
Bullshit.
Like I said before Hobson’s choice. COST
Then there’s the social stigma of being forced to attend as supervisee which will undoubtedly see many tongues wagging “no smoke without fire’. COST
Then there’s the impression given to society at large of there being more male violence than there actually is which regenerates the needless hysteria over and over again. COST
Then there’s the cost to the taxpayer of setting up and running a supervision center. COST
I doubt a crushed parent would report to you the deep humiliation of being wrongly accused and under your power and control. COST
I prefer to hear from such parents first hand too, rather than get your mere impressions, but somehow doubt many would be forthcoming as it means having to peal off a scab to once again revisit a raw wound. COST
I think overall you make too light of a horrifying ordeal which is a shame. COST
I’ve encountered guys in NZ who’ve privately shared the pain of such and my heart goes out to them.
I’m not interested in sharing coffee and biscuits which comes from taxpayers money either. COST
” To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle”.
George Orwell.
Comment by Skeptik — Tue 18th January 2011 @ 10:54 am
Julie,
you say –
And therein lies our profound difference.
For to me the greater political good IS my sense of family.
My family is SOCIETY, not just a little biological unit.
Comment by Skeptic — Tue 18th January 2011 @ 12:51 pm
Ah yes Ben takes that view as well.
I think that is sad when ones children are sacrificed for a cause willingly.
Mandela spent 27 years incarerated and away from his family but he had little choice in the matter. His colleagues in the ANC made sure that his children and grandchildren were as well supported as possible. Unfortunately in the NZ Mens movement we have a few who just abandon their children and there is not people about who can suport them in the same maner as Mbeki and Mandela’s colleagues were able to.
I’m pleased you have visited some supervised contact centres Skeptic but I suspect any centre that is like you describe is not offering the quality of service such centres now provide. Centres are not govt funded and mine has been established totally from my own resources.
Comment by Allan — Tue 18th January 2011 @ 1:06 pm
It’s interesting how different we all are. I struggled with Benjamin’s thinking and still do.
But I figure he comes from a family tree of fathers who left women and children to fight in some war as did my ex’s family tree going back generations.
My grandfather was part of WWII but he won’t talk about it. His son and grandsons and greatgrandsons have no interest in signing up for war.
Strange alright.
Comment by Julie — Tue 18th January 2011 @ 3:14 pm
Allan,
You’re misguiding people and even contradicting yourself now.
The logic is loopy beyond belief.
But thanks for supplying it, as it just goes to show folks reading here at MENZ the kind of thinking that sadly passes for ethical in so much of NZ these days.
In one breath you say that supervised access centers aren’t government funded, yet in the next breath go on about the ‘family’ ‘court’ PAYING for clients to visit such places. Duh! Last time I heard the family ‘court’ was WHOLLY taxpayer funded.
Are you now saying the ‘family’ ‘court’ has been privatized?
Then there’s this from as recent as 2008 – The NZ association of supervised access centers.
Scroll down the page and you’ll come to a link of full list of 21 supervision centers.
All are at least partly funded by the taxpayer – either directly from government and/or indirectly from family court and ALSO you should note from the taxpayers themselves – bribees.
It makes a mockery of your bullshit idea that NO access centers are taxpayer funded.
Keep going man.
Hoist in your own petard.
Comment by Skeptic — Tue 18th January 2011 @ 4:14 pm
Skeptic,
No centre I know of is Govt funded. Most contract their services on a case by case basis. The Family Court, CYFS, Corrections, MSD, may fund the contracts awarded. In my mind that does not make them Govt funded, they are service providers for government agencies. That may lack logic but like health care providers (eg your GP) which may have Govt contracts the service is 100% independent.
Personally I don’t bother with such bureaucracy and all my funding comes from user clients, the parents themselves or private sponsors. Almost all services are charity run as such services normally loose money and are subsidised by other income streams such as donations. There are a few individuals on the list who have a passion about ensuring children maintain contact with their family members no matter the circumstances.
I am a member of Aotearoa New Zealand Association of Supervised Children’s Contact Services, that you refer to above, as it has done a great job of professionalising the service. Before this organisation existed, and for the majority of supervisors who are not members, services were extremely variable and some quite unprofessional. Despite Judge Boshier’s Practice Note much supervised contact is informal and provided by organisations who are not members of the association.
http://www.justice.govt.nz/courts/family-court/practice-and-procedure/practice-notes/childrens-supervised-contact
One of the reasons I joined is to be influential in the development of the association. I do a few cases of supervision because people ask for my services and that is a requirement for my membership.
Comment by Allan — Tue 18th January 2011 @ 5:06 pm
Allan,
Thanks for stating in greater detail what I was saying.
Whatever way it’s spun with political doublespeak it still amounts to the taxpaying stumping up.
A complete rort when one considers that MEN are so often sent for anger management ans supervised access WITHOUT DUE PROCESS of LAW, but simply on the UNCORROBORATED HERESAY of women.
You can rationalize that all you wish.
You can call left, right and up, down, but it remains abundantly clear to myself and others the corruption runs deep and wide in misandric NZ.
You either feed the beast or starve it.
It’s not rocket science.
Comment by Skeptik — Tue 18th January 2011 @ 5:54 pm
Skeptic – and to a lesser degree, Allan, the argument is not about who funds supervised access. That is largely immaterial – although it can no doubt be a killer for fathers who have to pay.
And yes, Skeptic, I actually agree with some of what you say (mainly about feminists commandeering family court, and using it to fund their existence and industry).
But to those fathers who end up not seeing their kids because they do refuse supervised contact, that surely does more harm to the kids long term than seeing their fathers for however many months under a supervised regime.
Change is needed; but I do not believe it will be forced by fathers refusing to see their children. Those fathers are putting their own needs first (as are mothers who make false allegations in the first place).
Family Courts need to see supervised access as a very limited solution – maybe three months maximum. The standard of proof in family court in regard to allegations of violence, both sexual and physical, needs to be raised. Hearsay, allegations etc are just not cutting it.
Societal attitudes need to change, to expose the violence committed by women (whether physical or not). Stereotype of violent men need dismatling, so that there is no presumption of guilt in family court.
Lobbying is needed to change unjust systems. Facts on the evidence of detriment caused to children by false allegations and supervised contact needs to be put to judges and the government. Again and again and again.
Lies need to be exposed. Women caught making false allegations need to be punished.
Allan is probably on the right path – seeking to force change from within, rather than carrying some massive chip on his shoulder over the circumstances that he encountered.
Skeptic, I am presuming that you have children, and do not see them, because you were directed to submit to supervised access, and/or undertake a anti-violence programme.
I have children, I did submit to supervised access, completed a anti-violence programme, and do see my children reasonably freely. I sleep easy at night, knnowing that I did everything in my power for them.
I will never accept that men who simply refuse to see their children if or when allegations of violence are bandied around, and courts direct supervised contact (which is usually only until a violence programme is completed), will effect this change.
Comment by Steve — Tue 18th January 2011 @ 6:35 pm
Ps., I see this forum is meant to be about ‘pussy passes’
How about Woman hid dead baby from flatmates . Note the bit about “Defence lawyer Philippa Sullivan said she would be applying for a discharge without conviction”
The same day, there is this article Prosecution over severing puppy’s ears . “The offender could face up to five years imprisonment or a $100,000 fine if convicted. ”
Seems a dead baby is worth a discharge without conviction, whereas cutting a puppy’s ears (it survived) is worth maybe 5 years jail. Something is screwed up – is it because the baby’s mother is female?
Comment by Steve — Tue 18th January 2011 @ 6:43 pm
Nicely written.
I am a fan of Angry Harry who has been a main online leader. He says after men’s awareness, they’ll start building groups in mainstream [that’s funded]. I wonder whether NZ is already at this stage?
I also don’t think funding is an issue. Lots of men in NZ have government contracts and they make profit from it too.
Comment by Julie — Tue 18th January 2011 @ 7:31 pm
[presumably still-born]
Comment by Steve — Tue 18th January 2011 @ 7:37 pm
Steve,
I agree that societal attitudes need to change.
Also that the family ‘court’ needs to start being a real court where due process of law takes place, and real proof of violence is needed before it issues orders of one sort or another.
Yes, there needs to be real and substantial penalties for perjuring women.
However, thereafter we part company as I see you have presumed an awful lot about my circumstances and my view on matters when the fact is you don’t know me that well.
I have never advocated fathers simply walk away from their children despite the Hobson’s choice offered by unethical family ‘court’ issued orders to undertake supervised ‘access’.
No,I merely left the issue of what fathers bound by such Jim Crow feminist laws could do open to folks imagination.
Interestingly NO – ONE appears to have responded showing the imagination to offer an alternative.
Indeed thereafter you and Allan have been beating the drum of ‘walking away never to see the kids again’ as you jumped to the conclusion that stitched up fathers either attend corrupt supervision or walk away never to see their kids again.
Comment by Skeptik — Tue 18th January 2011 @ 7:58 pm
My apologies. I presumed that when ‘OMP’ stated:
”
I had a choice: Submit to supervised contact; or risk not seeing my children till they are beyond the reach of family court.
I chose to see them, however humiliating or denigrating it was.
Oh you’ll say I should have fought it out in family court.
I did. I now have unsupervised contact.
”
and you responded
”
So you got to see your kids.
How fine and dandy for you.
The trouble is I fear that in perpetuating the system by playing along and paying for your reaming other men AND CHILDREN get shafted.
I can only call that self centered, short sighted and uncivil.
”
that you were taking a contrary position to his deference to supervised contact; in other words, that you felt he should not have seen his children under those circumstances (accepted contact on the terms of supervised access). I have clearly misunderstood your words.
Also, yes, I made a presumption about your circumstances of contact between you and you children. You are right. I do not know you. Feel free to introduce yourself.
Interestingly, everybody in every walk of life makes assumptions about other people, based on what those people choose to present. What I said was a presumption based not on any succinct summary providecd by you; nor even a detailed analysis of everything you have ever published. It was a natural conclusion that I drew up based on your apparent total opposition to supervised contact, and the way you have expressed your opposing view to those who have said anything in support of it.
It might be wrong in part or in total; but that is the impression your contributions give.
I have read back through this topic, and it appears to me that you are particularly focussed in primarily dismissing other peoples opinions and situations. You have done that to Neville Anderson; to Julie; to Allen; to One Man’s Perspective, and now also to me.
Comment by Steve — Tue 18th January 2011 @ 8:19 pm
And coincidentally, although you appear to have dismissed my view, I wrote
”
Family Courts need to see supervised access as a very limited solution – maybe three months maximum. The standard of proof in family court in regard to allegations of violence, both sexual and physical, needs to be raised. Hearsay, allegations etc are just not cutting it.
Societal attitudes need to change, to expose the violence committed by women (whether physical or not). Stereotype of violent men need dismatling, so that there is no presumption of guilt in family court.
Lobbying is needed to change unjust systems. Facts on the evidence of detriment caused to children by false allegations and supervised contact needs to be put to judges and the government. Again and again and again.
Lies need to be exposed. Women caught making false allegations need to be punished.
”
That starts to offer an alternative, along the lines of what you have dismissed by saying
”
Interestingly NO – ONE appears to have responded showing the imagination to offer an alternative.
”
If you wish reasoned debate here, then simply dismissing other people’s opinions is not an effective tool.
Comment by Steve — Tue 18th January 2011 @ 8:22 pm
Yes, that and because the baby was only a boy child. The poor dear was worried that her partner might find out about the birth of another man’s child and so she kept his birth secret. We only have her word that the child was stillborn. Considering the circumstances, I’m very suspicious.
Comment by Wayne — Tue 18th January 2011 @ 8:29 pm
And anonimity?
Comment by Steve — Tue 18th January 2011 @ 8:47 pm
I concede I am ignorant; but how did she keep her preganancy secret from her partner?
Comment by Steve — Tue 18th January 2011 @ 8:48 pm
Steve,
If you reread what I wrote a while ago you’ll see I haven’t dismissed your views on certain matters.
Steve,
I agree that societal attitudes need to change.
Also that the family ‘court’ needs to start being a real court where due process of law takes place, and real proof of violence is needed before it issues orders of one sort or another.
Yes, there needs to be real and substantial penalties for perjuring women.
Even so I accept that I’ve been dismissive of the views of several people here at MENZ.
I don’t see anything wrong with that as I’m not here to be an acquiescent milksop, but to engage in informed mature and frank debate.
Comment by Skeptik — Tue 18th January 2011 @ 8:50 pm
Julie,
I believe you’re doing Angry Harry a grave disservice saying he’s an advocate of Men’s rights going mainstream by getting funding from Government.
That’s only partly true.
I think if you read and listen more closely to the man you’ll find he thinks that women are the ones who clamor for more and more dependency on government.
What he advocates for is more equitable distribution of welfare TO INCLUDE MEN and MUCH LESS government dependency overall period.
Why would he advocate LESS government dependency?
Simple.
Because he who pays the piper calls the tune.
A lot of us don’t need government telling us how to live and taxing us to the hilt for the journey in the process.
Comment by Skeptik — Tue 18th January 2011 @ 9:03 pm
Yes Steve,
I like others who post here at MENZ choose anonymity.
Much preferable to yet again going through a death by a million cuts from feminists in NZ.
You’ll get to discover, if you stick around I’m very forthcoming with what my values are and why.
Comment by Skeptik — Tue 18th January 2011 @ 9:08 pm
Skeptic, it’s difficult to know what to think just now since the past 5 years have been about getting the government, universities [research], government departments, the councils, media and community groups involved.
Everyday I learn more of what’s out there and what’s going on. I think it’s a positive achievement for you and others.
……I guess after empowering men, you’ll have created a need for less government.
Comment by Julie — Tue 18th January 2011 @ 11:15 pm
skeptic – I chose that same anonymity, and you dismissed me by:
– Labelling me an enigma (‘We’ll never know seeing as you’re such an enigma’) and
– calling me a liar (‘if indeed you’re a genuine poster with a truthful account and not some fem put up’).
rather than accept I have differing views from you.
My reasons for wanting anonymity are pretty well the same as yours, and yet to you, because you know nothing about me, you are outright dimissive.
I went a step further, and offered to share my history with you (offline). You were not even remotely interested.
Comment by One man's perspective — Wed 19th January 2011 @ 5:23 am
I’m not aware of that information being available. I guess she could have had a weight issue or her partner could be visually impaired. I imagine the answer to your question is simply “she was/is dishonest”.
Comment by Wayne — Wed 19th January 2011 @ 8:15 am
Man ditches woman and begins a new relationship. The jilted woman allegedly took revenge by wrecking the New Zealand man’s apartment and threatening him with a knife when she caught him having sex with his new girlfriend, All three get arrested….
NZer in Dubai jail after caught in bed with new girlfriend
Comment by Wayne — Wed 19th January 2011 @ 11:13 am
That’s funny.
Comment by Julie — Wed 19th January 2011 @ 11:22 am
Actually OMP,
no need to get your knickers in a bunch.
I did call you an enigma because you said you’re qualified yet not how.
I’ve shared MUCH more than that about myself, but not my actual name.
Also I refute calling you a liar.
I simply said “for all I’m to know”.
For all I’m to know you might be just about anyone including a liar.
Comment by Skeptik — Wed 19th January 2011 @ 11:47 am
I don’t see how being caged with a woman who was threatening another with a knife is amusing.
Sick yes.
Sad yes.
Funny, no.
Comment by Skeptik — Wed 19th January 2011 @ 11:55 am
It is funny that the 2 women have been placed in the same cell and it’s not likely the police are going to say, “OK you two, battle it out!”
I’ve seen best friends develop from this sort of situation. But then, I could be wrong.
What would 2 men in the same situation do?
Comment by Julie — Wed 19th January 2011 @ 12:19 pm
The I must have misread the words
You went on so say
Which has the distinct concurrence to your earlier aspirtion that I might be not genuine, not truthful, and perhaps some feminist put up.
Both of these statements are clearly intended to cast doubt on my honesty.
Please don’t back track. Your words are on record here.
Comment by One man's perspective — Thu 20th January 2011 @ 4:46 pm
Finally, I guess i could work back and read though all historical posts you have ever made, in order to identify everything you have disclosed about yourself.
I do not intend doing that. I simply do not have the time.
Comment by One man's perspective — Thu 20th January 2011 @ 4:49 pm
Hi OMP,
Skeptic is an enigma and he chooses to be that.
I have been around in fathers issues for 10 years and now most people. No one knows of Skeptic, that is his choice. JohnP is very clear he welcomes all comers, maybe Skeptic is some sort of person who just gets their thrills by being negative and mysterious. Who knows, who cares.
I have largely given up with MENZ and have just visted again as someone alerted me to a post. As teacher this is my slow part of the year. From next week I will probably dissapear again as there is little point in participating when it appears to be blokes having a go at other blokes or the few women who dare raise their heads such as Julie.
Some people here are well known and easily contactable if people have a need of their services. For example Julie, Hans, Scrap, Steve, Jim B Warrior, Axe Murderer all have lineage, history and we support each other despite our differences. I’m not sure why Skeptic is so secret squirell but that is clearly his choice, Que sera.
Comment by Allan — Thu 20th January 2011 @ 6:12 pm
OMP,
Thanks for quoting me which reaffirms what I’ve been saying all along.
Clearly Allan has forgotten I’ve already explained to him and others why I and some others choose anonymity to remain safe from feminist inspired harm.
That he has again tried to misrepresent me proves the point and gives me further reason to remain writing under a nom de plume.
A trackback through the many hundreds of postings I’ve put in over the years at MENZ will clearly enunciate who I am according to my values.
I don’t think my actual identity is of any consequence as long as my message resonates with readers as intelligent and accurate to their own wisdom.
Clearly from the amount of support I get on this website it does.
I think the fetish with putting a face to my nom de plume is probably so I can be subject to punishment for breaking the rules of feminist conduct – speaking out firmly on the side of men’s rights.
Sadly it’s what I’ve come to expect from being involved at the coal face of advocacy for Men’s Rights in NZ for several decades.
“If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”
– George Orwell
Comment by Skeptic — Thu 20th January 2011 @ 8:04 pm
Coal face of advocacy is it, Skeptic AND for several decades. Sounds like Craig Jackson to me.
Craig has been around for about 30 years but I certainly don’t have that length of lineage.
From what I do recall Skeptic you trained as a teacher but didn’t practice. All within my time as an activist if I recall which is just a tad under 10 years. First memories I have of you here on MENZ are about 2006 or 2007. There is no problems with you choosing to be anonymous but I don’t recall what rationale you have ever given for that other because that is what you wish.
Comment by Allan — Thu 20th January 2011 @ 10:50 pm
Skeptic said
I quoted you, in order to refute your denial that you called me a liar.
True, you did not use the word ‘liar’. You used the words
and
These both appear intent to imply that I am – well, lying.
I am an uneducated man (not some ‘fem put up’); I really can’t be assed with the semantics of language.
Yes; I quoted you, explicitly the above texts. You then included the comment
I take that to mean that the comments I quoted; explicitly where you question my integrity – that is, suggest i am lying, are confirmed? Do i take this to mean that you are confirming your dispersions of my integrity?
You also comment
From what ‘Allan’ wrote, that would be some 5 years of posts, in order to learn your story. As I have already stated,
Coincidentally, I don’t understand why you then appear concerned regarding your identity. I have never asked for it.
So; rather than hide behind enigmatic comments and references, if you would like newcomers like me to know atleast in summary format your history, you can share it, to us, here and now.
If not, please don’t call me an enigma; that is the pot calling the kettle black.
All in all, I find your approach well, bullying and abusive really.
Good day.
Comment by One man's perspective — Fri 21st January 2011 @ 8:13 pm
OMP,
you say –
Well, no I don’t need to do your homework for you.
I didn’t sign up to be your servant.
You can’t be bothered looking through MENZ archives.
OK. I can’t be bothered drumming up a resume for you.
Stick around though and I think you’ll probably find like otheres here that I’m one tough, dogged, brutally honest, very strong advocate for men in NZ attaining a raft of human rights they’re currently denied.
The point is OMP I don’t just write for your sake.
Many people know me by my views expressed regularly over the days, weeks, months and years here at MENZ because they bother to read what I write.
True they don’t know my personal identity as I write under a nom de plume, but like I said that shouldn’t matter (and apparently doesn’t) as long as my message resonates with their own wisdom.
So I suggest you calm yourself and stick around a while longer.
You’ll get to know me values wise soon enough that way.
One thing you’ll learn about me is I give as good as I get.
You reckon I’m a bully eh?
Pfffffft. Whatever.
I reckon that’s a pathetic accusation designed to garner support for yourself as some kind of victim of that mysterious MRA who remains ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..a firm …………………………………………………………………………Skeptik.
Have an especially brilliant day.
Comment by Skeptik — Fri 21st January 2011 @ 8:41 pm
Skeptic: Sat 15th January 2011 at 12:47 pm
Skeptic: Wed 19th January 2011 at 11:47 am
Comment by One man's perspective — Fri 21st January 2011 @ 8:52 pm
If you are not prepared to share a little about yourself in a inenigmatic manner, then I am not sure how you can proclaim
You appear to purport that newcomers to a forum – or at least to this forum, should read back through 5 or more years of posts in order to familirise themselves about other posters – or at least you in particular. I suggest that is simply ludicrous. Even in this single thread, you have contradicted yourself. If I had the time, or the inclination, to read back through all your posts, how many more contradictions would I find? And then, given you appear to hide behind being inconclusive about your position (refer to other interchagnes you have had regarding whether men should see their kids supervised, vs. not at all), then what? Should I be reporting back regarding my interpretations about you, your history, you values and opinions, for confiormation? Others have done that – stated what they perceive of you, and rather than state your views, your position on an explicit matter, or any details about yourself, you dismiss them saying things such as ‘you don’t know me’ or ‘I never said this or that’.
If I start a new job, I am not expected to read back on all previous communications and listen in on all previous conversations, in order to know about who I am now working with. I engage in present day conversation in order to get to know people. No doubt that means people have to repeat themselves (I’ve lost count of how many times i have explained to people that I am divorced, and have children). I don’t reply to people, read back and find out for yourself.
So, all in all, you choose to obfuscate and bewilder. That is your choice.
But when, after my very first post, you come all guns blazing and accuse me of being a liar and enigmatic, well, you are nothing short of a bully.
Comment by One man's perspective — Fri 21st January 2011 @ 9:14 pm
Is there any way that I might be able to encourage you to change your channel so that the enjoyment of reading content relating to Men’s issues might not be crowded out by what appears to be a personal soap opera expanding over several days already?
Comment by Wayne — Fri 21st January 2011 @ 9:34 pm
OMP,
whoever you are.
I don’t think you know me well enough to make statements about my character.
I don’t know you well enough to tell whether you’re genuine or a hoax put up to justify the corrupt practice of taking money from taxpayers given the Hobson’s choice of seeing their kids under supervision.
It wouldn’t be the first time MENZ has received postings from feminist trolls.
I doubt it will be the last.
I couldn’t give a rat’s ass whether you think I’m a bully.
Join the chorus!
Your in some company!
I rest in the knowledge that some folks have actually taken the effort to read what I’ve written OVER A LONG PERIOD OF MANY YEARS here at MENZ, don’t have any problem with my anonymity, and resonate deeply with a lot of what I write.
I think you clearly don’t fit with those three criteria at the moment.
Indeed apparently arrogantly turn up at MENZ a few days ago waxing lyrical as though that’s enough to expect me to believe you’re genuine from the get go, then when I’m honest with you and say in effect “I’m not sure if you’re a genuine poster or not” turn around and want me to produce a personal resume for you.
Holy shit! Talk about self centered!
Comment by Skeptik — Fri 21st January 2011 @ 9:40 pm
Wayne,
My thoughts precisely.
I do see a relation to the thread.
As we’ve no real idea who OMP is apart from he/she/they claiming supervised access based on uncorroborated criminalization is OK, then it’s fair to remain skeptical about their identity and agenda.
Wouldn’t want to in any unsuspecting way give a pussy pass to a femmie troll posing as a supervised dad!
Comment by Skeptik — Fri 21st January 2011 @ 9:48 pm
A 17-year girl had sex with a boy of 12 …….
The law assumed “he doesn’t know about these things”, Judge Rea said , and it assumed that as an adult – albeit by just 24 hours – the girl was “supposed to know”.
Assistance rather than punishment was required, he said
Comment by Wayne — Fri 21st January 2011 @ 10:04 pm
Incredible. The article also mentioned that the “offence was initiated by the boy”. Would it be said the ‘offence was initiated by the girl’ if the genders were reversed. The article also talks about how it is usually older men grooming juveniles and describes it as being “really very little short of rape”. This shows that even when females commit crimes it is used to as propaganda to state how intrinsically more evil males are. This is also backed up by stating how the same judge gave a male offender 7 years in jail and that is in comparison to the offender in the article getting 9 months probationary supervision. I know of several females who have committed offences against males and they appear to be oblivious to the fact that they are offending, or that somehow it is not anywhere near as bad because they are female. It must be because of these messages we are bombarded with. The power of propaganda.
Comment by Phil267 — Sat 22nd January 2011 @ 9:00 am
I have also seen supervised access centres up close. I have done systematic observation of fathers and children attending there and I have spoken with supervising staff. The situation is constrained and unnatural for the fathers who are able to function only as playthings. Normal and meaningful paternal roles are prohibited including displays of affection, disciplinary action and monitoring of the child’s welfare outside the supervised centre. In my observations, everything a father did was likely to be seen and recorded in notes as suspicious or supporting preconceived notions of the father as dangerous to his children (although supervisors did not know anything about the background circumstances). The rules of engagement were poorly understood by the fathers but they were nevertheless expected to conform to them. When one child expressed a hope that he would one day be able to play at his father’s home, the father dared to say that he hoped for the same; that was considered a terrible crime in which the father was pressuring the child with his own wishes and this nearly led to suspension of supervised access. Another father, in blissful expression of affection at seeing his young daughter again, repeatedly kissed her with big, quick exaggerated kisses while cuddling her. This appeared in the notes as “possible grooming” and “inappropriate sexualized behaviour” according to staff who did not know that the untested allegations against him had nothing at all to do with sexual abuse. Those notes were then used against the father in Court to suggest that he may also be a latent child rapist even though this hadn’t been thought of before. Ridiculous but true.
It must be remembered that in some cases supervised contact is justified because fathers have behaved abusively or dangerously towards their children. Even then the misandrist philosophy underlying relevant law has largely prevented the supervision process from being sensible. And the majority of supervised access has been ordered on the basis of allegations that have not yet been tested (and of course never will be properly). The fundamental error in our law here is the assumption that it is ‘erring on the side of caution’ by allowing judges to restrict paternal relationships whenever allegations arise. In fact, the law causes guaranteed child abuse in all such cases in the hope of protecting children from a small possibility of abuse. It’s like intervening with surgery to remove organs at the first hint of a stomach ache, antibiotics at the first hint of a sniffle, or immediately demolishing a house as a possible P lab if a busybody neighbour suggests the tenants look suspicious.
However, as long as we have laws that allow ordering of supervised access in such circumstances (ordering a modern stolen generation that one day we will look back on in horror), I would much rather such supervision were provided by people like Allan in private arrangements. The standard supervised access centres are too much like pre-1970’s psychiatric wards where anything a patient did would be interpreted as evidence of illness and anything short of total submission to the authority of ward staff would be punished. I would strongly advise any father relegated to supervised access to try to make private arrangements, and perhaps Allan could recommend other such providers outside Wellington. Until we get the law changed, it’s really important that we support Allan’s efforts; there’s always a chance that Courts will start to insist that only their own preferred gulags should be authorized to provide such supervision.
Comment by Hans Laven — Sat 22nd January 2011 @ 10:23 am
Yes, thanks for referring to this article which I also noticed. How is it that people intelligent enough to become judges could operate with so little awareness that their behaviour is blatantly sexist and misandrist? As Phil267 says, “The power of propaganda”.
Comment by Hans Laven — Sat 22nd January 2011 @ 10:41 am
OMP: It’s clear and perhaps understandable that you feel offended by Skeptik’s skepticism about you. However, I cannot agree with your claim that he called you a liar and a feminist troll. He raised those as hypothetical possibilities, and one must accept that for any unknown newcomer such possibility exists and it’s reasonable to remind ourselves of it. It’s your business how long you seek to defend your honour, and I may be somewhat hypocritical here because I certainly follow through in challenging those who subject me to abuse, but for me your self-defensiveness is excessive and is becoming tiresome. I welcome your further input into matters relevant to the MENZ mission.
Comment by Hans Laven — Sat 22nd January 2011 @ 10:57 am
Hi Hans and I agree with a lot of what you say above.
Hopefully professional centres now communicate very clearly what is and is not allowed and customise that based on their initial assessment processes and later observations.
I am recorded here on MENZ many years ago as decribing supervised contact as being like a zoo where the parent and children are the exhibts for others to observe. That is how it feels to many parents and to many children.
Wherever possible supervision should be at the contact parents home or familiar environment. Then it has a chance of being more normal.
I joined the assoctaion http://www.nzacsas.org.nz/ specifically to have an influence on policy, training and political representation.
Comment by Allan — Sat 22nd January 2011 @ 11:08 am
I would like to assure you that I am not a feminist troll. Last time i looked, I most certainly have the goods (although, trust me, I have considered having them removed, given that might improve my overall prospects in life and entitle me personally to some of the handouts our dear kind generous government is so keen to hand out to anyone wearing a dress).
It might be fair to say, insomuch as i do not know you or your character, and you equally do not know me or mine, perhaps the more mature approach would have been to respect my opinion and contribution, rather than launch into an outright and immediate assault on my integrity?
Although I’ve only posted recently, I have been enjoying much content on this site for a while. And your anonynity is not my concern. I am as equally anonymous as you. You never now! i might be live right next door to you!
However there really is no point continuing dialog with you. You are simply resoring to further abuse.
Good day.
(and that, Wayne, is it from me, at least in regard to anything Skeptic might have to say).
Comment by One man's perspective — Sat 22nd January 2011 @ 5:06 pm
No way!
Trust gets earnt, not dished out to Johny-come-lately unknowns however much they crave it.
Especially when they drop by all puffed up introducing themselves in line 1 with “I hold credentials”
(by the way whoopdeedoo! so do we all – it’s called life experience!)
and poetic emo language to support the idea that supervised access for fathers WITHOUT DUE PROCESS is somehow OK.
And you wonder why you’re suspected of being a feminist trolling the site supporting the systemic abuse of good dads, instead of automatically embraced as authentic.
Crikey! Get a grip!
I hope this is a wake up call for you and you realize that there are folks in the Men’s Rights movement who’ve learnt the hard way that all is not what it seems at first sight and it’s therefore sometimes wiser to remain a …………………………………………………………………………………….Skeptik.
Comment by Skeptik — Sat 22nd January 2011 @ 7:09 pm
Today in NZ yet another disgusting example of the pussy pass in action.
Comment by Skeptik — Wed 16th March 2011 @ 11:19 am
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/6306677/Nurse-sentenced-for-sex-with-teens
OK, time off because she offended when she was “disinhibited” by alcohol.
Oh, and her marriage had broken down.
And, had the boys been a year older no carnal crime would have been committed!
Finally, she had not sexually groomed the boys
All in all, just a year of home detention (her home, where she had invited the boys inside, rather than see them wandering the streets) punishment.
I mean, COME ON JUDGES! WAKE UP.
NOT ONE of these excuses would have washed, had the sexes been reversed.
Comment by Pussy Passive — Tue 24th January 2012 @ 6:20 pm
The European Parliament has backed calls for quotas to put more women into company boardrooms, and parliaments if member states are deemed too slow to act. The EU Commission wants the proportion of female board members at big companies to rise to 40% by 2020, from the current average of 12%. The Euro MPs in Strasbourg also called for EU-wide measures to boost female representation in politics. The Commission has said it may legislate to make quotas compulsory.
Comment by Down Under — Wed 14th March 2012 @ 7:41 am
Perhaps they could ensure that more women than men go down mines, fight fires, go to war……
BTW. Did you read the article about the american soldier who killed afgan civilians. The headlines were that he killed 16 people, ‘mostly women and children’. In fact he killed 9 children, 3 women, and 4 men.
4 men that obviously don’t count. The families of those men dont count either. They will be without a breadwinner, as Afganistan is a patrichichal society.
Comment by JS — Wed 14th March 2012 @ 4:32 pm
When is rape not rape?
A Man, 36, coerces an eleven year old friend of his daughter’s to repeatedly have sex with him. He gets her pregnant, so that at age 12, she gives birth to his child. Nothing particulalrly new here. Apparently this sort of thing has gone on for years.
The girl, “didn’t want anything to happen but felt powerless to stop.” Despite the girl’s protestations, the man removed her shirt, jeans and underwear, then had sex with her[the court heard]. Though the man was given name suppression, Judge Connell said it was a close-run thing and “the public should be aware he could well be a predator in terms of this sexual offending”. A veritable predatory pedophile!
What sentence should be given? Repeated rape? Male power and domination; innocent defenceless young girl, not even a teenager yet? Predatory sexual monster; Ruined a young girls life, education, her life career prospects severely diminished. “At her young age it could skew her sexual and emotional development, as well as her personal identity”. Get the bastard off the street!
What sentence, I hear you all cry? Ten, twenty years jail with ten years extended supervision thereafter?
Except this time, the young mother at twelve, is in fact a father.
Auckland boy a father at 12
I wait with bated breath to see a sentence of , oh I don’t know, maybe 12 months supervision? After all, the child will need a mother, won’t it?
Comment by CourtWatch — Sat 15th June 2013 @ 3:33 pm
There have been cases like this before were women have abused young boys to get the DPB.
The IRD was even deducting child-support from one boy’s paper-round money because he was the father.
This boy might be the victim but he could still end up paying child support.
Comment by Down Under — Sat 15th June 2013 @ 3:54 pm
You’d be right about that. And certainly, no court in this country is ever likely to award custody of a child to a 12yo boy (with or without strong familial support), so he’ll certainly be the victim there too. Child taken away without any real consideration of his paternal rights. At least for young mothers, they usually retain custody of his children (at least familial custody).
Welcome to the real world, mr 12yo boy. You can be raped repeatedly, and still be the assumed aggressor in terms of family court, custody and child support tax.
Comment by CourtWatch — Sat 15th June 2013 @ 3:58 pm
haha.
What you don’t all realise is that society in general, and judges in specific, will always view those of us dressed in pink, as sweeter and therefore less worthy of judgement and harsh penalty! get used to it!
Comment by Pretty In Pink — Sat 15th June 2013 @ 6:52 pm
PIP,
haha.
What you don’t realize is that more and more men are going John Galt and ghosting, so avoiding being compromised by vindictive women in the first place. Get used to it.
Comment by Skeptic — Sat 15th June 2013 @ 10:58 pm
One more ….
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/8852046/Home-D-for-womans-sex-abuse-of-boy-13
Comment by golfa — Sun 30th June 2013 @ 10:13 pm
#133: This offender has permanent name suppression; why? Because of her gender. Publishing her name would not identify the boy she offended against to whom she was not related. The church people who know her will already know the circumstances and the identity of the victim, so nothing was to be gained by suppressing her name. And of course by suppressing her name she will find it easy to board with some new unsuspecting family with a nice adolescent boy for her to molest.
Another interesting thing is that the full title of the offence was unclear, the article referring only to ‘sexual connection with a young person’. This is likely to refer either to the crime “Sexual Conduct with Young Person Under 16′ for which the maximum penalty is 10 years imprisonment, or ‘Sexual Violation by Unlawful Sexual Connection’ for which the maximum imprisonment is 20 years. Most contact sexual offences by males are now categorized as ‘sexual violation’ because almost any touching of a female’s genitalia is considered to be penetration. If this female offender performed oral sex on the boy then her offence would be ‘sexual violation’. The Crimes Act states the following:
So it is rare for any male to avoid prison for sexual violation offences. Yet despite the judge for this female offender acknowledging aggravating features being the large age difference, the abuse of trust and the degree of psychological harm said to be caused to the victim, this female offender was given pussy passes all round including not having to pay a paltry $200 reparation because she was of ‘modest means’.
Note also the woman’s lack of self-responsibility for her behaviour by claiming the offence “just happened”; no lady, YOU did it. And the defence counsel’s comments portraying the offender as a victim by claiming the offending “totally devastated” her and blaming it on how she was treated as a child. Typical fare when females offend, whereas if such things were said about a male offender in similar circumstances this would have earned cynical retort from the judge and increased the penalty.
On the other hand, 10 months home detention is still probably excessive for these particular crimes regardless of whether a male or female committed them. If a male offender in exactly the same circumstances were given the same penalty that may well be a reasonable response and discouragement against repeating the behaviour. But no male could ever expect that. The reason even gentle sexual misbehaviour is now subject to huge penalties, greater even than for killing or permanently maiming someone through deliberate violence, is because the feminists demanded it. Of course it’s appropriate to have laws against unwanted or unconsented sexual behaviour and if the offending involved threats, violence or physical injury then it’s fair to impose harsh punishment. However, the politics of sexual criminality have long been mainly about feminist power, repressing men and sullying their sexual instincts. The current case is entirely consistent with the law’s underlying gender politics; when the offending is by a female against a male the draconian penalties specified are conveniently ignored.
Comment by Man X Norton — Mon 1st July 2013 @ 9:51 am
And another ….
http://home.nzcity.co.nz/news/article.aspx?id=175471
Despite running her Father down in a vehicle and killing him, the Judge said her “actions were excessive”. Wow ! Is that all ?
Comment by golfa — Mon 14th October 2013 @ 8:49 pm
Protester charged with sexual assault for kissing police officer (Italy)
A decision to prosecute can be made maliciously or in the impulse of the moment, (just the same as any crime!) Women may be on the receiving end, maybe less often?
Comment by MurrayBacon — Mon 16th December 2013 @ 4:00 pm
@Murray (#136) – I cannot believe the world has come to this! Since when has a kiss become “sexual assault”? I can’t see the police officer “resisting” so I imagine that kiss was in all probability received in the manner in which it was no doubt intended. In this particular instance I have complete sympathy for the woman involved; I cannot see one iota of malicious intent there. Now if she had kneed him in the groin there might be an issue; but a kiss, never! Leave her alone!
Comment by Bruce S — Mon 16th December 2013 @ 8:40 pm
Dear Bruce, you are being too kind to the lady.
An Italian woman has been charged with sexual assault for kissing the helmet of a police officer during a protest.
…..
She also licked her fingers and touched the officer’s mouth. [This is potentially a medical assault, in terms of hazarding the officer on the receiving end of the body fluids gift. mcb]
Her actions were seen by many as a gesture of peace.
However, it has now emerged that police have charged her with “sexual violence” and “offence to a public official” over the incident.
Franco Maccari, the secretary general of the Italian police officers’ union, said De Chiffre’s actions were inappropriate, the Huffington Post reported.
“If I kissed her on the mouth, wouldn’t it be a violation?” Maccari said in an interview with Italy’s Radio24. “If a police officer had kissed a random protester, the third world war would have burst.”
De Chiffre earlier said her actions were meant to be an act of defiance.
She reportedly told Italian media she would rather be prosecuted than have her gesture misinterpreted as an act of peace.
Man bites dog?
Comment by Murray Bacon — Sun 30th March 2014 @ 8:22 pm
Bride gets 30 years for killing husband
Comment by Murray Bacon — Sun 30th March 2014 @ 8:33 pm
hmmmm I can see both sides but I’m gonna side with Bruce on this one. If she had kissed his lips or groped him then fine, I mean that’s what we’re told is sexual harassment etc but she kissed his helmet. Get a grip world and relax a little! If we all start saying this is assault etc then we’re just as bad as the feminists.
Comment by Scott B — Sun 30th March 2014 @ 8:43 pm
There are various types of diseases that can be transmitted through saliva. These include the common cold, flu, upper respiratory infection, meningitis, bacterial meningitis, mononucleosis, Epstein-Barr virus, cold sores, cytomegalovirus, molluscum contagiosum, hepatitis B, chronic hepatitis B, and polio.
STOP BEING A PUSSY PASS ENABLER.
Reverse the gender, a Male protester who did same action against a Female Official would have been, harshly physically restrained, perhaps a bit of a beat, then hung, drawn & quartered by the Justice System.
Comment by Paul Catton — Sun 30th March 2014 @ 10:04 pm
Sure, low risk of serious outcome, but ask any nurse about how seriously needle injuries are taken and you will find that nurses are trained to be very careful not to prick themelf with needles that contain patients blood. If they do, there is a careful follow up of tests and observation, running over about 6 – 12 months, depending on what diseases the patient had or may have had.
The costs resulting from a needle injury with no disease transmission are in the low thousands and where disease transmission has occurred, may (with low probability) run to hundreds of thousands $ and even to low millions.
Hospitals have the knowledge to manage risk intelligently, as understanding risk is part of medical practitioner’s and researcher’s training.
Notice that the Italian Police charged the lady with sexual assault, where it was really a medical injury assault. Maybe they have only one thing on their minds?
Funny that the familycaught$ are so spectacularly incompetent at managing risk of child neglect, or child injury, or weighing evidence, which is also related to weighing risk or probability factors. Their training does touch on risk factors, but not in a meaningful manner, not in a way that would lead towards successful risk management. These people are simply irrelevant to the tasks of protecting children. The vacuum in their skills is filled by randomly chosen ideology.
As a result, the outcomes of their work is to inadvertently increase the risks that the children they deal with face. MurrayBacon – axe murderer.
Comment by Murray Bacon — Mon 31st March 2014 @ 10:37 am
Hi Murray; thank you for the follow up. Well that lady can kiss me any time; I admire her passion for the cause and more so her course of action. I just cannot see how this is wrong – probably because I spent too much time in “Latin flavored” countries where kissing is almost as ubiquitous as shaking hands in our somewhat more subdued culture.
Comment by Bruce S — Mon 31st March 2014 @ 2:22 pm
It seems to me, that our pussy pass enablers are saying man up and don’t be a victim. In this instance, the lady’s action exposed a sweet, innocent, italian policeman to a very small risk of a large number of extremely unpleasant outcomes. In the manner of psychological torture, the outcomes may not become clear, for even several years. All of this, without the informed consent of the policeman, prior to her medical assault on him.
(I got into a spot of bother, saying essentially the same thing, on another post! In this situation, there was not the small risk of a large number of possible, horrific outcomes. Paul’s list above is not complete and is only for starters.)
Maybe it is relevant that some police like to get in punches onto demonstrators, that don’t leave bruises and are given without judicial permission to assault? The lady’s response has made the most of her manipulative powers, in this rather unequal situation. Good media playing, but definitely unkind to the policeman.
Where the list of potential outcomes is very long and the risk of each quite small, but not negligible, thn it is very difficult for any judicial response to be proportional.
Unfortunately, in NZ, we have great difficulty with even straightforward situations being responded to by our judges proportionately. (And these problems are on top of evidence not being weighed competently either.)
When judge’s are influenced by their personal, illegal prejudices, then the justice system runs way of the proper tracks:
Disproportionate sentencing
Blackmailed Man Commits Suicide
Lets Prosecute Child Abductors
Comment by MurrayBacon — Mon 31st March 2014 @ 2:34 pm
Dear Bruce,
thank you for your challenges. Yes, I agree that our english culture is stiff (when it shouldn’t be and limp when it should be stiff), but lets look for an example of a very low probability outcome, but very severe – for example the possibility that the pilot of your aeroplane decides to suicide, while you are on his/her flight.
Highly unlikely, 0.3% of the causes of aeroplane crashes, so small that it isn’t worth doing anything at all about? Why then is there such a search going on for the wreckage?
It doesn’t sound as though the pilot warned the passengers before embarking, this flight will be programmed to crash into the sea, thousands of kilometres off the official flight path – who’s in for the ride, or who wants to get out now?
Or a dishy lady offers to kiss you intimately, but you notice that she has Hepatitus C tatooed on her neck, as a warning for those who can’t sense the virus intuitively? Does a sexy smile win over everything else? Besides you know the chance of transmission is under 50% and you are feeling very lucky, more than 50%!
Do you walk out onto a DOC viewing platform, 30 metres above a stony river bed, knowing that it isn’t engineer designed, built or checked and that 0.3% of all people killed in DOC reserves die by falling on such platforms? You know the view is spectacular, even more so when you have fallen half way down to the riverbed?
Your child comes home with a hypodermic syringe picked up in long grass. You see that they have accidentally pricked themself with the needle on the way home. You aren’t concerned, as only 0.5% of drug addicts have AIDs and another 1.5% have Hepatitus C. No concern, as you know that your child is in the other 97% of the population, at the moment???
Back to the stiffs, instead of being a 0.3% problem, this seems to affect maybe 50% of our population, so is perhaps more important than the 0.3% of plane crashes, or 0.3% of needle injuries? Lets warm up our culture and protect children from emotional neglect, which affects between 5 and 10% of our children quite seriously.
All I am trying to say, to make the best choices, we need to be informed by accurate evidence of risk factors, not opinionated, ideological guessed risk factors and we need to be informed prior to making our decisions. Temptation, well that is a whole new subject. There have been prosecutions, for deliberately infecting people with known diseases, so it is taken seriously, at least some of the time.
Comment by MurrayBacon — Mon 31st March 2014 @ 4:51 pm
Hi Murray; one could of course argue that without the “risk takers” we’d all still be sitting around dining on a putrid animal corpse somewhere in Africa? Maybe not a bad thing given the way things are turning out.
Off on a tangent but in relation to your astute observation of the justice system going off the rails; I would support you there. The following is in the USA; take a look at this and be mortified:
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/03/30/judge-probation-for-du-pont-heir-in-dghter-rpe-because-he-would-not-fare-well-in-prison/
Comment by Bruce S — Mon 31st March 2014 @ 7:11 pm
Dear Bruce
– when you say risk takers, are you meaning people who take profits when there is a gain to be had, but if there is a loss then they cannot be seen for dust and the losses are dropped onto other, not commercially astute parties (such as rate-payers and tax-payers)?
I don’t mind risk takers who gamble honestly and create, but I do mind one sided gamblers who drop dissters onto others with little warning.
The person who knows they have AIDs, but who deny it and have unprotected sex with naive people drunken on lust. I think I recall a german pop star who was jailed for knowingly infecting several men with AIDs. She didn’t want reality to cramp her style, though a prosecutor suggested her refusing to face the reality that she dropped onto these stupid men, was her form of indirect revenge?
She didn’t kill anyone within a year and a day, but she did wipe a couple of centuries off those men’s lives, plus considerable disability and loss of utility of life was imposed in addition to the loss of years of life. Not as charming a deal, as it initially looked. She was jailed for several years (more wasn’t needed?), but only after considerable harm was done.
Privacy was a cruel killer, just like the men’s lust.
Comment by MurrayBacon — Mon 31st March 2014 @ 9:26 pm
And another one today ….
http://home.nzcity.co.nz/news/article.aspx?id=184770
Comment by golfa — Wed 2nd April 2014 @ 6:54 pm
Axe murderers shouldn’t ask for pardon – MurrayBacon – axe murderer.
Comment by MurrayBacon — Wed 2nd April 2014 @ 7:09 pm
# 148: Oh come now golfa, MS Ramni Kumar’s fraud only involved $3.9 million. Have a heart and remember that women earn slightly less on average than men so should be shown lenience in minor crimes such as fraud and murdering members of the worthless male gender. Because she’s a female it’s obvious her offending can be nowhere near as serious as the $10,000 alleged worth of paua this man sold illegally for which he was jailed for four years, or this male burglar who stole $527.83 worth of stuff and was sentenced to 13 months jail, or this man who committed fraud broadly similar to that of Ramni Kumar (i.e, obtaining loans on false pretences) amounting to $2.3 million for which he was jailed for 2 years and 3 months, or this man who aided and abetted two companies in defrauding IRD out of (gasp) just over $65,000 and was imprisoned for 6 months, or this man who breached music copyright by copying and selling some $2 to $3 karaoke songs and was imprisoned for four months. Mmm, so we see here that a woman can avoid prison for dishonesty offending worth on average at least $3.5 million more than what lands a man in prison. That sounds reasonable doesn’t it? Or are you one of those misogynists we hear about? For the likes of you it’s time we brought in enlightened laws banning anyone from criticizing women or questioning feminist ideology, similar to what Saudi King Abdullah did recently.
To be fair though, home detention is a form of imprisonment and people often find it harder than being in jail, even though the losses overall are usually fewer.
Comment by Man X Norton — Wed 2nd April 2014 @ 10:18 pm
USA Woman gets life in prison in stiletto heel slaying
A jury has sentenced a U.S. woman to life in prison for killing her boyfriend by stabbing him at least 25 times in the face and head with the stiletto heel of her shoe.
….
Prosecutors say Trujillo attacked Andersson during an argument at his home after a night of drinking. Her attorney argued that Andersson, a professor and researcher at the University of Houston, attacked the 45-year-old Trujillo and that she defended herself with the only weapon available, her shoe.
……..
Comment by MurrayBacon — Sat 12th April 2014 @ 9:50 am
Murray (#151)
I can only suggest that ms trujillo file her appeal in New Zealand; that way she’ll be a shoe in for an acquittal.
Comment by Bruce S — Sat 12th April 2014 @ 2:48 pm
I could see a NZ caught giving an aquittal, I mean they will debate for days the custody of dogs. I would have no objections, as long as she was executed first in USA
Comment by MurrayBacon — Sat 12th April 2014 @ 3:30 pm
If executed first in the US then only her sole could file an appeal in NZ, but it will probably get some traction as long as she wears lace and gives a polished performance.
Comment by Man X Norton — Sat 12th April 2014 @ 7:00 pm
…are we bored yet? More “justice” dealt to the fairer sex in Napier this week.
Headline in Stuff(ed) reads:
…then the first sentence goes on….
So I’m thinking some scum ball out there needs to be castrated and then locked away for a very long time; then this:
Of course we all know if the coach had been a male; he’d have been dealt with just as clinically too. Fairness for all. For another dose of nausea – click here:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/hawkes-bay/9953683/Sports-coach-manipulated-girl
Comment by Bruce S — Thu 17th April 2014 @ 1:11 pm
Thanks for that Bruce S. In the Herald article about this case, note the pro-female bias throughout the saga.
Although “the relationship extended to physical touching” while Gemma Anne Carlisle had the 15yo girl sleeping with her in bed, the judge graciously decided there had been no sexual motivation on Ms Carlisle’s part! How chivalrous of him! Imagine how differently this would all have been described and judged if the offender had been male, all else being equal.
Gemma Anne Carlisle was sentenced to 10 months home detention. Compare that with a similar recent case in which a male coach had ‘a sexual encounter’ (i.e. some minor sexual behaviour probably not dissimilar) with a 15yo girl on ONE occasion. Unlike Gemma Anne Carlisle he did not psychologically manipulate her from the time she was aged 14 years. He also did not encourage her to self-harm or commit suicide. However, he was imprisoned for 2 years 4 months.
Far from being bored, it’s not often we are treated to such a clear comparison between two very similar cases so close in time, showing so starkly the institutional sexism in our justice system that routinely favours women and bashes men.
Comment by Man X Norton — Thu 17th April 2014 @ 11:20 pm
Nurse spied on her ex-husband’s girlfriend
NZ Newswire
May 17, 2014, 4:01 am
…………
Mrs S claimed it wasn’t voyeuristic and she only wanted to know where her ex-husband was living.
She was depressed and was taking anti-depressants at the time.
But Ms B told the tribunal she no longer had trust and confidence in the medical system.
The tribunal found Mrs S was well motivated and there was no misuse of information once it had been accessed.
“Above all, she was not attempting to obtain information for ulterior purposes or to benefit her personal position inappropriately,” the tribunal said.
Mrs S was censured, had her licence was suspended for five months and was told to pay $8000 in legal costs.
_______________________________________________________________________________
I wonder if the sentence will stick, or is for short term use only?
Comment by MurrayBacon — Sat 17th May 2014 @ 5:22 pm
Doctor four times over limit escapes conviction
From stuff(ed) again. Yep; we have a naughty doctor drinking way too much to be behind the wheel….but wait – let’s see what happened to the naughty doctor when the NZ justice system got hold of the case.
” Last updated 08:39, December 29 2014
A doctor living in Blenheim has been
Wendy Louise McDonald Florence, 50, appeared in the Blenheim District Court for sentencing on the charge last Monday, after driving with a blood-alcohol level of 326 milligrams of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood on September 8.
The legal limit at the time was 80mg, and is now 50mg.
Her lawyer Rob Harrison argued for a discharge without conviction on her behalf.
Florence was a qualified doctor in the United States, but had spent some time as a stay-at-home mother of her children in Blenheim, he said.
She intended to become a registered doctor in New Zealand, which would require a refresher course in the States, followed by a supervised training programme in New Zealand.
Harrison told the court his client had been a sober alcoholic for 10 years.
“If she has a conviction that’s a double whammy because if she gets back into the United States and gets her licence there, and then comes back to New Zealand [she] has to apply again here.”
If convicted, Florence would have to disclose the conviction to the medical council she was applying for a licence from, on top of her alcohol addiction, he said.
Medical Council of New Zealand communications manager George Symmes said a conviction would not necessarily stop a person being able to become a registered doctor in New Zealand.
Police prosecutor Sergeant Graham Single argued against a discharge without conviction.
Speaking to the Express on Wednesday, Single said the outcome was effectively “hiding” the offending from any medical council.
“[A conviction] doesn’t necessarily mean she can’t be a doctor . . . it [would] become harder for her because [medical councils] need to know you’re a sober and fit person to be a doctor.”
“If you give a discharge without conviction . . . the effect that has is that [Florence] can go to the medical profession and they say ‘do you have any convictions?’ and she can rightly stand up and say ‘no I don’t’.”
Medical councils wanted to know about problems faced by medical professionals, in order to give them the support they needed, he said.
“It’s just disappointing that people are still drinking and driving and doctors, like police officers, I guess should know better.”
Judge Peter Butler said he believed the consequences of a conviction for Florence would outweigh the gravity of her offending.
Florence was discharged without conviction, but was disqualified from driving for nine months.
She had been granted interim name suppression until Wednesday night to allow her lawyer to appeal a decision to lift suppression. No appeal was made.”
Link here:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/64515984/Doctor-four-times-over-limit-escapes-conviction
Even ignoring the fact that it was a woman (no suprise there); the real sick thing about this entire case is that it is precedent setting. I mean if no other road users were involved; does this mean the next time I get pulled over and fail a random breath test and no other road users have been “inconvenienced” then I can cite this case to get off? Hang on your honour; I’ll just put me skirt on!
Comment by Bruce S — Mon 29th December 2014 @ 2:35 pm
And another one ….
http://home.nzcity.co.nz/news/article.aspx?id=201793
The Father had custody. The Mother never returned the child after a weekend visit and was on the run for TWENTY YEARS. Jail sentence ? 21 months. Pffft.
Comment by golfa — Wed 11th February 2015 @ 7:24 am