Monday Teeny Poll
By Glinda
Last week, I wanted to know if you felt the attack on a child due to the color of his hair and skin should be prosecuted as a hate crime. Twenty five percent of you felt that it should be, while fifty one percent said that the kids were just being stupd, not necessarily perpetrating a hate crime. Usually, although it depends on state law, a person has to be in a protected class in order for a crime to be classified as a hate crime, and currently red-haired people aren’t in that category.
A while ago, Teeny Manolo’s superfantastic class factotum asked a question in the comments of a post I wrote on children choosing vegetarianism. It was so thought-provoking, I thought I would pass it along.
November 30th, 2009 at 8:01 am
I must have missed that post in the holiday bustle, but I did have to comment:
“a person has to be in a protected class in order for a crime to be classified as a hate crime”
This is one of the two primary problems with hate crimes. The idea that certain classes of people are more ‘protected’ than others is wholly and completely incompatible with a free and equal society. The American notion is that all people, regardless of birth, are equal before the law. Our greatest failings in history have been when our laws have not reflected this. To create protected classes does not end discrimination, it perpetuates it.
The other issue is that of special categories of hate. To beat a person is a hateful act to begin with. To categorize it as a “hate crime” requires one to understand the motive of the perpetrator. By definition, increasing punishment due to motive means that we are punishing someone for their thoughts. This is also wholly incompatible with a free society. We punish people because of their actions, not their thoughts. To do otherwise is to give up all notion of freedom.
The moment we declare that we are willing to lay down the notions of free thought, free speech and equality for some people because we don’t like the way they think, we open the door for everyone to lose it.
November 30th, 2009 at 10:01 pm
yes, i do know someone that will make additional different food for her picky kid, and then complains that the picky kid won’t eat anything different. in her case, she’s created her own problem.
December 1st, 2009 at 1:55 am
We just had a picky kid visit us for Thanksgiving and it was flipping annoying and I was not even the one making the extra meals. By caving to him she was creating her own problem but did not have the firmness necessary to stand up to him and get him to eat a bigger variety of food.
I have a picky kid and he has to eat a bite of everything on his plate after that he is free to get down from the table but will not get extra snacks or anything like that. I know this is a phase because his older brother is a great eater and will give most anything a try.
December 1st, 2009 at 1:50 pm
My general attitude is, “Sometimes I make your favorite. Sometimes I make MY favorite. Whatever it is, you need to eat.” That said, I do make exceptions for allergies (no poultry for my husband, for example, and we have a severely lactose-intolerant friend). I also try to get a variety of things on the table so that it is rare that there is NOTHING that is pleasing.
December 1st, 2009 at 2:32 pm
I willingly accommodate food allergies because sheesh, it’s not your fault you’re lactose intolerant, but if I buy expensive Lactaid for your nine-day visit so you have something for your morning cereal and coffee, then by golly, you better not skip lunch (“We don’t eat lunch”) and then fill up on my $25/lb Carr Valley cheese at 5:00 when you want “just a little snack” with your cocktail or four.
December 2nd, 2009 at 5:30 pm
I do not and will not make extra meals — the only exception I can see is for food allergies. I lived with a family for two years in which the husband was allergic to wheat, soy, tomatoes, and onions, and had additional sensitivities that would flare up unless he was kept on a careful rotation diet. His wife often made him a separate meal and I completely understood.
However, in the case of picky kids… when you cave to them, they turn into picky adults. And I have to say, there is nothing more annoying than a grown man sitting as a guest at your dinner table and very carefully picking apart your carefully created meal, throwing half of it away, (including most of the meat, and we were POOR. You do NOT throw away the meat), and then an hour later into the evening, asking if anyone wants to run down to the local hole-in-the-wall Chinese place with him for some takeout. Oh, and he usually had a book at the table too. /smack
December 4th, 2009 at 2:57 pm
What counts as separate? Does letting the child eat plain spaghetti (setting it aside) instead of spaghetti-with-sauce count as “separate?” What if mom’s having grilled cheese, dad’s having pasta, and you let the kid pick a peanut butter sandwich since everyone else is doing their own thing? If 6 out of 7 nights a week you make the kid eat the same dinner as everyone else, is it okay to let things slide on the 7th? If you set out 6 items and let the kid only eat 2 of them, are you over-indulging their picky palate? I don’t know.
@class factotum and @KESW: That’s not “picky eating.” That’s just plain rude.
December 6th, 2009 at 12:07 pm
Marvel, don’t even get me started. This “snack” with “cocktails” was before the full meal (roasted chicken, steak, etc) that I prepared each night. When I went to bed at 9 after cleaning up, exhausted, they complained to my husband that I was rude. Even though they didn’t want my company. And then I got the “Oh you don’t need to go through all that trouble for US” routine. But if I hadn’t, I would have gotten the, “She didn’t even make us SUPPER.” Sometimes you can’t win.
But I digress.
December 7th, 2009 at 9:29 pm
Picky adults like that annoy me to the point of almost making me wish I’d made their “favorite” food, so I could spike it with strychnine. There was one woman who used to be part of a large group that came over to my house once a week for a games night. No matter what I prepared, she was “allergic” to it and sighed like a martyr on the cross all night. I finally cornered her and she admitted she could eat Black Forest Cake, so I went out and bought one for the next game night, from a good bakery, spending $25 I really couldn’t afford.
She walked in, saw the cake, and said, “I brought home-made pie! Who wants some?”
It was a great pleasure to drop her and find out later that, after having had two boys, she no longer had time to be “allergic” to anything at all. Funny, that.