Cindy Kiro is Moving On

Was Dr Kiro the Problem, or the Office Itself

We have posted recently on some of the characteristics of the Liberal Mind. Dr Cindy Kiro, the Commissioner for Children for most of the years of the previous Labour Government, has recently announced her retirement from the position. No doubt there will be a collective sigh of relief in many quarters.

In so many ways, Dr Kiro has been a walking epitome of the Liberal Mind. She conceived of her role and office as a spokesperson for children to be one of advocating the removal of restraints and controls, training and discipline which inhibit the natural and intrinsic goodness of children. Therefore, while families were sometimes good, they were certainly not necessary to the proper raising of children. They could be replaced at any time, and relatively easily, by the organs and committees of the State. All that was needed was more state funding to do the task.

True to the Liberal Mind, Kiro had only a one-dimensional, simplistic response to family violence, breakdown, and abuse: a massive increase in state regulation, control, and supervision of families to remove the conditions of abuse and create a conducive environment for rearing children. If only that were done, the intrinsic goodness of parents and children would shine forth.

Family Integrity has provided a trenchant summary of the symptoms of Kiro's incompetence, inconsistency, and naive superficiality.

Cindy Kiro’s term ending!

Herald on Sunday 25 January 2009

Controversial Children’s Commissioner Cindy Kiro will finish her five-year term in April. The Ministry of Social Development has advertised the high-profile role, with an annual salary of $195,100 . Critics have accused Kiro as being a toothless figurehead, but she has defended her record as an independent voice for children.

Family First Comment : Cindy Kiro has been openly hostile towards Family First, and in fact to any people who may have a Christian faith - no matter how qualified they are to speak up.

Apart from completely misrepresenting the facts in the smacking debate and mispresenting Family First’s position, last February she attempted to discredit the 300,000+ NZ’ers who had signed the petitions on the anti-smacking law by saying that previous generations of parents didn’t parent as positively and were less qualified in knowing how to raise their children than parents of today !!

We also would like to know why she was

- silent after the pathetic sentence handed down to the caregivers of Ngatikauri Ngati who abused the little 3 year old to death

- silent during the Trevor Mallard incident during the “It’s Never OK” Violence Campaign funded by the government.

- silent when the prostitution report from South Auckland was released last year highlighting the number of young teenagers prostituting themselves

- silent when Police refused to prosecute a 21 year old who got a 13 year old pregnant (after starting the relationship when she was 11)

- silent over the recent cancelling of the sentence for a woman who pleaded guilty to infanticide
- silent over the ultimate child abuse of abortion

….yet is more interested in the rights of children to be able to purchase spray cans of paint for the purposes of tagging, and wanting to monitor every child with a social worker as soon as they are born!!!

The problem is not just with Dr Kiro but with the office itself. Children’s interests are best served in the context of their own family . Government support for children must be through their families, not apart from families. Any office or structure which even appears to separate children from their parents and families will be destructive in the long run - no matter how well intentioned. Laws are already in place which protect children in seriously dysfunctional families.

If the National government is serious about doing away with unnecessary governmental spending , this would be a good place to start - rather than just cancelling a few conferences. So why are they advertising for a new Commissioner?????

The question is worthy of being put: Why have a Commissioner for Children at all? The assumption of an "independent" voice for children--that is, independent of their parents, or considering the needs of children outside of the context of family, is an oxymoron. Far better, we would suggest to change the Office to a Commission for Parents and Families. But better still do away with the Children's Commission and the Families Commission entirely.

At best they are an irresponsible and inevitably ineffectual waste of people's money. At worst, they inevitably undermine and suborn the institution of the Family itself to perpetual dependence upon the State.

Has the Nanny State Retired?

The Walls Now Have Far More Than Ears

Readers of this blog will know that we utterly oppose the relentless extension of the powers and prerogatives of the modern humanist state. We believe that the modern manifestation of state government is inherently evil. It is an idolatrous false religion. It represents a flagrant rebellion against the Living God. Consequently, it will be eventually broken and cast down.

Until Athenian religion is dis-empowered and neutered, however, we believe that the Nanny State--a construct which mushroomed in power, influence, and application under the nine years of the previous government--will not disappear. It will morph into other expressions and forms. The extension of Nanny State is unlikely to stop under the new government. Let us never forget that some of the greatest messianic arrogations in state power in recent New Zealand history have occurred or were commenced under National administrations (for example, the Resource Management Act, Occupational Safety and Health administrations, and CYFS. These three clusters of state activity alone account for a prodigious explosion of state interference, regulations, and controls over virtually every part of the private lives of citizens.)

What should Jerusalem do? We are not amongst those who believe that we should man the barricades and organise politically. Such things are far too premature. The Church is too weak, too compromised, too deformed. It is far more important that we concentrate on the vital and foundational things which today are beneath the radar screen. Let us mention two obvious examples: firstly, how many churches today have teachers and pulpits which remain profoundly ignorant of the Word of God? The majority. Even amongst so-called Bible believing churches, we are facing a profound ignorance of the Bible itself. Secondly, how many Christian families struggle to find a decent Christian school to which they can send their children, let alone at a cost they can afford? The vast majority.

Yet, history would teach us that we will not have reformation, we will not see Athens metaphorically disembowelled, until we have accomplished these things. And the accomplishment of these basic things will take lifetimes. So, it is important not to get distracted, not to remove our focus from the things which really matter.

But at the same time, we must be alert to the need to do what we can to keep below the radar screen, and to run interference on Nanny State and its supporting ideologies. MandM recently commented upon, and provided a link to Kiwipolemicist, who posted a blog on the national database of blood samples of everyone--collected and centrally stored since 1969. This has been done without our knowledge or consent. Both posts provide examples of how the creative and inventive minds of Athens have already started to turn their attention to the uses which may be made of this database.

Alarmist? Well, the enormous extension of state power and interference in the lives of ordinary people in New Zealand is no fiction. It has actually occurred. Moreover, the dynamic of further radical extensions is obvious to anyone who would open their eyes. It runs like this: "we are faced with serious problems of (fill in the blank--disease, crime, child abuse, drug addiction, illiteracy, obesity, global warming, hate crimes, etc). Contrary to our best efforts, these problems are becoming worse. Therefore, we need special measures, powers, rules and regulations, to solve the problem . . ." "Yes, yes," the people chanted. "Special powers are what you need."

An apt case in point is provided by the illustrious Cindy Kiro, who, faced with the scourge of child abuse, has called for a national database of children and the repeated monitoring of all homes of all identified as being potentially at risk. This is something the government desperately wanted to do--but was hindered by issues of cost.

Now, let's push the scenario one step further: let's say that DNA research is successful in identifying gene patterns which can be statistically correlated to anti-social and sociopathic behaviour. This would mean that a subset of families "at risk" could be quickly identified off the national DNA database, thereby reducing the cost of Kiro's screening to something eminently acceptable.

So, take the opportunity to request removal of your DNA from the national DNA database while you have the opportunity. Kiwipolemicist provides the official form to allow you to achieve this. Or, simply click the following link. You can remove your children's data if they are under sixteen. Otherwise, they will need to do it on their own account. If you are under 40, your DNA will be on the database.

Let's keep below the radar screen of megalomaniac state government.

The S-Files

Dr Cindy Kiro: The Ex-Nihilo Creator of Human Rights

Contra Celsum has nominated Dr Cindy Kiro, Children's Commissioner for an S-Award.

Citation:

Dr Cindy Kiro has argued before the parliamentary law and order committee considering the anti-tagging and graffiti bill that the bill will adversely affect young people under eighteen. The good doctor is nothing if not profoundly insightful. If you are under eighteen and you are a tagger, we guess it is pretty much right on the nail to argue that the bill will adversely affect you. We are sure the interests of the taggers are being properly defended by their Commissioner.

What is far more difficult to accept is that we, the people, have to pay Dr Kiro's salary. Yes, we actually have to pay for this kind of scintillating social commentary. It is really far too valuable not to have to pay, after all.

But Dr Kiro went on to argue that for some people, graffiti and tagging was a legitimate art form. It provided a sense of community and reflected an expression-based culture. (NZ Herald, 10th April, 2008)

So, let's get this straight. If a group of people think something is a legitimate art form, the rest of the community should make room for it. In a Clockwork Orange world, some people think violent sado-masochistic torture is a legitimate art form. Should we tolerate that too? Violent serial sociopaths have a consistent tendency to see themselves as artists. Would Kiro have us respect their art as well?

One wonders what Dr Kiro means when she uses the adjective “legitimate” art form. Is she claiming that some people think that graffiti is a genuine art form? Or is she claiming that the act of painting graffiti and despoiling people's property should be lawful (that is, not a criminal act because it is a genuine art form? )

If the former (graffiti is a genuine art form), one is left scratching one's head at the relevance of her submission. For surely, if some people regard graffiti as a genuine art form they are absolutely free to hold the opinion and view. Moreover, they can create and express their art to their heart's content—as long as they do it on their own property. Who can object to that? We imagine that everyone on the parliamentary committee would want to defend a person's rights of free expression in that regard. How could this be construed as adversely affecting young people under age eighteen?

If the latter, Dr Kiro must have lost any moral compass she once might have had. It would seem that Dr Kiro really is arguing that despoiling people's property should be accepted as a lawful act by the community because it is a genuine art form.

But it gets worse. In her submission, Dr Kiro urged that the bill should be amended to balance appropriately the rights of property owners against the rights of young people. As we have argued above, there is absolutely no way the current bill traduces the rights of anyone to graffiti their own property if they wish to do so. What Dr Kiro is arguing is that a certain group of young people, who are genuine artists (in their own eyes), apparently have a right to graffiti and despoil other people's property—a right warranted because they are “artists”—and that the community should respect their rights.

Dr Kiro is apparently an expert on rights (in her own eyes). She sees them here. She sees them there. She sees them everywhere. She can even create them out of thin air.

Well how's this, Dr Kiro. We, the people, have rights too. We have a right not to be afflicted with such monumental stupidity from our public servants. Please respect our rights, sit down, cease, and desist from egregious, asinine behaviour.

Dr Cindy Kiro—S-Award Class II for behaviour that is Stupid, Short Sighted and Stupefied.

Lies, Damned Lies and Bureaucrats

Cindy Kiro's World of Half Truths and False Gods

“Violence breeds violence”, has become Cindy Kiro's new mantra as she seeks to defend the recent law banning smacking. She has at her fingertips, no doubt, countless examples and case studies of families where children were thrashed and abused when young. Then, in adulthood, those children subsequently went on to acts of violence, lawlessness, and degenerate behaviour, including violent abuse of their own children.

Kiro is right. We didn't need the sociological evidence or case studies to know that children grow up to walk in the footsteps of their parents. Parents who inflict uncontrolled, enraged violence on their children will produce children who are, either smashed in spirit and will as adults, or are equally lawless and violent as adults in their turn. But ironically this is also why Kiro is also completely wrong—or more to the point, naïve and simplistic.

She is only doing what all bureaucrats are forced into when they administer laws and regulations that are unjust and immoral: focus on superficial externalities that can be controlled and measured and administered. Since governments cannot change hearts and minds they are reduced to play acting with mere externalities. But they do so at at our peril—since the long and ignoble history of such hubris is that the problems only become worse, much worse.

As a result of Kiro's half truths, now institutionalised into the New Zealand legal fabric where smacking a child for the purpose of training and correction has become a crime, expect a torrent of societal violence to pour down in the next thirty years. Of course by that time Kiro will be long forgotten, as will Helen Clark and Sue Bradford, except perhaps for their respective parts in a government to which historians are likely to attach the sobriquet of being the most corrupt and corruptible in New Zealand's history.

But they will have been replaced with other, equally deluded, Athenian idolaters. Socialists all. Humanists all. Destroyers all.

Why am I so confident of this outcome—painful though it is to contemplate? Because Kiro is both right and wrong. She is right about the intergenerational connection with respect to violence (and the intergenerational connection of just about everything else—which is, of course, the way the Living God has made the world of men to operate and so it is and always will be the norm.) However, she is completely simplistic as to her definition of violence. Violence incorporates force of whatever kind—whether physical, verbal, emotional, or psychological.

There are two kinds of family violence—and they are worlds apart. Kiro has failed to discern this, or has deliberately decided to ignore it. The first is where forcible correction is administered to children by parents who are training and correcting their children, for the children's sake, so as to change their hearts, minds, and wills. The second is where parents are disciplining their children for their own (the parents') sake, out of anger, frustration, and selfishness. As stated above, these two are worlds apart. The outward actions may appear the same, but they are as different as water to hydrochloric acid.

In the case of the former—where discipline is for the sake of training the children—the rules and regulations of the home are clearly thought through and articulated to the children. Breaking the rules brings consistent juridical consequences, until the child is trained out of that behaviour. Discipline is never done in anger, annoyance, frustration, impatience, or temper. The voice is never raised. Regardless of the emotional stresses upon the parents, they too regard themselves as under discipline, and so control themselves to administer correction faithfully, fairly, and always for the sake of the child's wellbeing. In this context discipline is never retributive. It is always and only corrective. When the behaviour changes, the discipline ceases—or moves on to other issues.

In this case, violence does most certainly not breed violence. It breeds the very opposite. It produces peace, self-control, respect, and ultimately a productive member of the community.

In the case of the latter, discipline is erratic, mercurial, tempestuous, filled with anger and frustration. One day the parent/adult might ignore a child's actions because they are in a good mood. The next they explode and vent their wrath upon the little one for the self-same actions—because the child has done something to annoy them and they are in a bad, angry mood. In this context the violence is always retributive—it is a lawless act of retribution upon the child for the parent's perception of hurt and damage to them by the child.

People who are particularly uncontrolled and narcissistically self-absorbed will not stop from pouring our physical violence upon their children, regardless of what the law says. Moreover because blood is thicker than water, family groups will always move cover it up. The new law will have the unintended effect of driving the violence underground—so that its very existence in a family will have already placed that family into the orbit of the criminal underworld.

In the case of the less physically violent, emasculated metrosexuals, family violence amongst self-absorbed parents is more likely to take the equally destructive form of parental temper tantrums, screaming, biting and caustic words, sarcasm, ridicule, and bitterness poured out upon the children. While the bruises may not be physical, the home environment will be likely toxic in the extreme, leading to the destruction of the child's spirit. The consequence for the children will be growing up into one of two probable types: either the child will grow up mimicking the parents' lawless, uncontrolled outbursts of selfish petulance returning evil for evil upon the heads of their parents and anyone else who crosses them. Or, beaten and cowed, they will grow up broken and brooding—damaged beyond repair.

Either way, within two generations their line will have assumed a criminal mindset.

Governments and bureaucratic controls always focus upon outward behaviours, the tangible, the things that they believe can be subject to regulation, rules, bans, and controls. While statist governments aspire to the omnicompetence of deity, they lack just a few of the essential attributes. So their self-vaunted pride and vain boasting ends up focusing upon superficial externalities. What they promulgate ends up being naïve and simplistic in the extreme.

How about this for a novel approach. What would happen if Athens stood up and told the truth to its citizens? What would happen if the government admitted that it was utterly powerless and incompetent to control or change family life, and that any attempt to do so would make the problems many times worse? What would happen if the government told its citizens that each and every parent, each and every family had to sort it out and take responsibility for themselves?

We all know what would happen. The citizens would reject that government and vote another in its place. The people would regard acknowledged governmental incompetence and the need for self-accountability and self-responsibility as blasphemous. For both citizens and governments in Athens want a god. They need a god. To the modern man god is where the power is—which means the government.

So, the outlook for modern Athenian society is bleak. Its prescriptions for reformation and holiness within the human heart, mind, and soul are doomed to failure—regardless of the particular policy or government of the day. Its prescriptions will serve to make matters much worse. In the end, the only hope is to turn back to the Living God, Whom they have sneered at, ridiculed, derided, and mocked for many years

And what does God do in response? He laughs at them. Consider carefully the words of this Psalm which describe so clearly the dynamic of what is happening in these days in our nation—and what will be the outcome, in the days to come:

“Why are the nations in an uproar,
And the peoples devising a vain thing?
The kings of the earth take their stand,
And the rulers take counsel together
Against the Lord and against His Anointed”
'Let us tear their fetters apart,
And cast away their cords from us!'

“He Who sits in the heavens laughs,
The Lord scoffs at them.
Then He will speak to them in His anger
And terrify them in His fury . . .

“Now, therefore, O kings, show discernment
Take warning, O judges of the earth.
Worship the Lord with reverence,
And rejoice with trembling.
Do homage to the Son, lest He become angry, and you perish in the way,
For His wrath may soon be kindled.
How blessed are all who take refuge in Him.”

Psalm 2

So, there is an inevitability here. All will be made to bow before God. All mockery, ridicule, and sneering will cease. The only question is how it will cease. Either it will cease as Athenians hear the summons of God to repent and turn back, once again to kiss the feet of His beloved Son, or it will cease as His wrath is poured out upon them and the wretched city they have built.

And every day Jerusalem calls to Athenians, urging them to leave the Gomorrah of their vanity and the Sodom of their rebellion, and to enter the wide, cool, wholesome avenues of Jerusalem, where waters flow and fruit trees grow in rich unending abundance. Give up on your false prophets, your Cindy Kiros, and their rules, their regulations, their bans, and their false gods. Their city already lies desolate and barren. Return to God, own Him as your God, and be saved—while it is still today.