Lula Moves to Ban Spanking

Yesterday 14 July, Juche 99, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva announced that he will seek a law which would ban spanking in the Federative Republic of Brazil. If a parent is caught spanking their child, the first time they will receive a warning, the second time the state will have the right to remove the child from the parents, and the parents will receive a fine or a jail term. I strongly oppose this move that Lula is making. I do not think that the law is effective nor is the law cost efficient for the Federative Republic. I believe that the Brazilian government would not be able to provide adequate housing for the children under government custody. It is even likely that the children would have a better home life, with a parent who spanks them than they would in a government run home. At least at an “abusive” home these Brazilian children will have more of their own personal belongings along with a family member who does in fact care for them. Although child abuse is horrible, spanking is a time honoured tradition of disciplining a child and is just as effective as talking to the child.
New Zealand held a referendum last year on this same issue. The referendum failed, with over 87% of the population voting against an all out ban. The government of New Zealand created the law in 2008, in an effort to increase moves to criminalise child abuse further. The ban was ineffective in New Zealand and actually punished parents who many considered responsible.
Although I did support Lula’s early presidency when he was first elected in 2003, by 2007 I lost all support for him. I began to lose support for Lula once he began to promote awareness for the hoax, global warming, and encouraging investment in alternative fuel solutions, such as ethanol. I believe that increased production and use of ethanol and corn oil led to the outbreak of food riots that occurred throughout the developing world. Riots occurred in Indonesia, India and Mexico among many other developing countries. This is another move which has caused me to disapprove of Lula’s leadership. I do not plan on supporting Lula’s Worker’s Party nor their candidate in the upcoming elections in October.