To think that Amazon should not be selling this book!!! <warning - upsetting content>

[LEMisafucker]

www.amazon.co.uk/To-Train-Up-Child-children/dp/1892112000

I don't have the words - this is actually a thread about a thread, but i thnk this needs more attention so posting here. There have been convictions for murder in the states by folk following this book. Yet it is still published

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/in_the_news/1915841-Has-the-world-gone-completely-mad

Link to original thread

It is remarkable that people are defending the right of a capitalist behemoth like Amazon, who treat their staff like absolute shit, to profit from peddling abusive crap like this.

Peddling being the operative word - it is all about money with Amazon.

And the idea that Amazon are now suddenly promoted to the role of banner wavers for free expression is beyond risible.

It is not a freedom of speech issue to protest against Amazon's sale of this book .... in the same way it is not a freedom of expression issue to ask my local newsagent not to display porn mags next to comics.
The vendor has a commercial choice - to stock it and face boycotts from customers ... or not.

This book is already being given away freely by the fucked up Ministry these "authors" run. In the digital age books do not "need" to be published and sold in order to be widely available. It would be impossible to truly censor it.

"Training up" children seems to be what gives Christian extremists a hard on and there are loads of texts available. The Pearls are not the only bastards at it as you can see here....
www.gobookee.org/to-train-up-a-child/

Just a reminder of its content though .....

"Many people are using a section of ¼ inch plumber’s supply line as a spanking instrument. It will fit in your purse or hang around you neck. You can buy them for under $1.00 at Home Depot or any hardware store. They come cheaper by the dozen and can be widely distributed in every room and vehicle. Just the high profile of their accessibility keeps the kids in line."

Should anyone really PROFIT from the sale of this stuff?
Really?

This is what the CEO of the NSPCC says -

"We urge Amazon to consider whether it's acceptable to profit from books, or any material, that supports child cruelty."

Simple as that.

i think i love you harticus

Freedom of speech should only be limited in circumstances where the speech in question results or is very likely to result in actual harm to someone else. That is why it is (rightly) illegal to incite someone else to commit suicide, for example. That is why someone can sue you if you slandered them- unless you have truth on your side (that's a gross over-simplification, but it'll do).

When we start trying to regulate people's thoughts, fiction and art, when we start to say, "I don't like what you wrote; it's not illegal, but I don't like it and am offended by it, therefore it needs to go!", then THAT is dangerous territory indeed.

I can't stomach Nabokov's "Lolita," which you will certainly be able to buy from any decent bookseller in the UK, as its subject matter and especially its utterly convincing depiction of the innermost thoughts of a monster who preys upon his orphaned step-daughter is utterly stomach-turning. However, it is rightly regarded as Literature with a capital L. Doubtless some people derive the wrong sort of pleasure from it, but most read it for Nabokov's lyrical English. Surely no one nowadays seriously campaigns for that to be banned (again), do they?

Amazon is a business, a big business. It sells lots of things that I wouldn't buy, and wouldn't want other people to buy - but I cannot impose my moral standards on other people.

I can say "I think selling this item is wrong" but I cannot add to that "and everyone else in the world should also think it is wrong"

I don't like the training methods of Ceasar Milan. I won't follow them, and have told friends why I won't. I think he is cruel to the animals that he says he helps. Amazon (and every other bookshop) sells books by this man that I don't think should be sold. But that is my judgement. My friend thinks his methods aren't cruel and follows his teachings. She is still my friend, because my moral standards aren't the same as hers.

I also hate all the SWMNBN parenting books, because I think they are cruel and outdated. Again, her books are for sale in every bookshop. Other people on this very site avocate her as a parenting genius. Just because I find her cruel doesn't mean I can impose my thinking on others. Where do you cross the line? Is CIO cruel...Is NCSS cruel?.....Is anything other than Attachment Parenting and Co-Sleeping cruel?

...and this is an American book, by American authors, in America. The rules/regs on child cruelty differ from ours and differ from state to state, so the NSPCC are being a bit daft with their statement - trying to impose the will of the UK on the USA. Never going to happen.

Be annoyed, write a review, tell everyone you know why you think this book is wrong. But there is no point in trying to get it 'banned' or withdrawn from sale. Censorship is not a good thing...

Isn't inciting violence and/or child abuse a criminal offence?

No. Common law incitement was abolished as an offence in 2008. It's replaced by S.44 through S.46 of the Serious Crime Act 2007. There's absolutely no way that publishing or selling a book like this would get over the "intent" threshold in the legislation.

www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2007/27/section/44

cannot impose my moral standards on other people

Oh FFS.
Humanity imposes moral standards all the time - cannibalism, incest ....
If it didn't we'd live in a constant state of brutal anarchy.

Opposing something as inherently wrong as physically brutalising babies with plastic piping does not make you some despotic violator of free expression.

LtEve this book and similar are sold to people and followed by people in the UK too.

Shepherding a child's heart, a similar book, is promoted in many evangelical churches around the UK.

Shepherding a child's heart, a similar book, is promoted in many evangelical churches around the UK.

So that's what you should be campaigning against.

I am trying to by drawing peoples attention to it! I think what we need is a complete smacking ban as at present there is too much grey area.

Friday

is that not suppressing the evangelical churches freedom of speech?

rather than asking a retailer to just consider not making it available if one agrees that one dont want it promoted by them?

In the same way as waterstones have chosen to not make it available as they deem it inappropriate.

In the same way as WHSmiths withdrew from sale from their site (off their own backs) self published ebooks (which are perfectly legal) with themes of child sex?

In the same way as the NSPCC and Barnados have asked one retailer to consider their approach with regard to this book?

Amazon are not the media. They do not have a remit like the BBC for 'impartial' reporting.

If enough of their customers care enough to ask them to consider delisiting this title, then it is their choice whether to do so. They dont have a moral obligation to list everything possible thats available for sale. Other retailers have delisted it of their own volition. Their commercial decision.

I have the right to ask them to consider - they have the right to refuse just as you have the right to not be bothered and not to ask them. You dont have the right to tell me and others that we can't use our patronage in this way. That is you imposing your moral standards on me by telling me not to.
Of course i am going to defend my point of view if challenged, i accept you might disagree with my choices - but asking a retailer to change their policy is not censorship!!!!

From the book trade press - an announcement TODAY about the actions some content aggregators have chosen to take with content that they deem inappropriate. They were not breaking any laws by selling them - but have chosen to remove them from sale.

"The BA therefore suggests that booksellers who sell e-books should consider contacting their e-book supplier to ask that they take steps to ensure that booksellers are not unknowingly making available content from their platforms which violates their content policy.

"In addition, the bookseller should have an opportunity to direct the supplier to filter out any titles that they would not personally wish to sell to the public.”

The National Book Tokens e-book site The Indie e-Book Shop, a sister business of the BA, has reviewed its range of e-book titles as a result of last month’s exposé by a national newspaper and decided that “as a result a small number of titles have been removed”, Davies said.

He added that the BA had been satisfied by the action Kobo had taken to remove explicit content, review its policies and procedures and introduce safeguards to “do everything possible to ensure that this situation does not happen in the future".

Kobo has published a new content policy, making it clear that pornography, paedophilia, incest, bestiality, child pornography and hateful or violent content are not self-published onto its Writing Life authors platform.

Last month, a spokesperson for Kobo told The Bookseller the company wanted to “protect the reputation of self-publishing as a whole".

I think what we need is a complete smacking ban

I think we need to think very, very carefully before doing that.

We've already seen that a consequence of well-intentioned "no touching" policies in schools is that disruptive children use "I'll tell them you touched me" as a threat against teachers. And anecdotally, parents of disruptive teenagers are already being threatened with being "reported" when they try to impose discipline. Those "reports" wouldn't get anywhere, but it's easy for people like us to say that we would calmly discuss allegations of abuse with the nice policeman, rather less easy if we were already subject to social services monitoring and had a less happy view of the police.

So handing a teenager whose phone you've just confiscated the ability to go to the police and say "mum smacked me" has to be thought about quite carefully. If the next move was, say, an order for the accused person to leave the house, or the child to be taken into care, that would be massive escalation in the fallout without any real reduction in the harm. And given the way in which drinking, sexual activity, drug use and so on are thrown about as accusations in disputed custody cases, adding "and he once smacked him" into the mix is unlikely to be edifying.

Smacking should be socially unacceptable. Smacking which causes demonstrable injury should be illegal. But making it an offence to smack a child once will not materially reduce violence whilst potentially having a massive range of unintended consequences.

If enough of their customers care enough to ask them to consider delisiting this title, then it is their choice whether to do so.

It is indeed. However, if they decide not so to do, then that is also their decision. Why don't you see how many people you can organise into a boycott and find out?

By the way, you sneered at my reference to the material on the Waterstones porn section by saying that their website just lists book data. You said "Waterstones online is served by Nielsen book data and gardners.
big difference between listing all books available for sale and making a commercial decision as to what you actively sell in store." But now you're saying that because a book isn't listed, Waterstones have "have chosen to not make it available as they deem it inappropriate."

Could you clarify which is, in fact, correct? Is their listing of a book (a) a result of their website taking a feed of all available books, and anyone who doesn't know this "literally [has] no clue" or (b) a result of their decision as to whether it's appropriate to sell, as you now imply?

the point being that the waterstones rebsite is run seperately from their main book operation and takes standardised data feeds from nielsen book data. whereas the stores (and the sections) are bought centrally and stocked via a DC.
MY point was that i was saying waterstones dont have to offer sections instore to cater for people who want to use physical discipline for children. They curate their own offerings as all retailers can.

Your links to titles that are available everywhere and are adult titles for softporn readers was totally missing the point about booksellers curating their own content and even if they are sold in store would not be sold in a childcare section. They would be sold in erotic fiction. Context.

The seperate link was to demonstrate that whilst soft porn (irrelevant comparison) is widely available including a waterstones, they have actively stepped in to filter this title out from nielsens feed as they have decided not to sell it.

That was the point.

On the sneering issue - perhaps if you stopped trying to label anyone who disgarees with you as hysterical / holocaust denying / anti porn prudes then you might not get responses in kind.

Friday- in countries where smacking is already banned children are not removed from parents after a single instance of smacking, there is no reason to think that would happen here. parents are normally directed to parenting classes in a first case.

YANBU to wish amazon didn't stock it.

All kinds of books are written by Joe Public, some of them worth reading (which is a judgement) and most complete rubbish. So I don't buy for one second that amazon are selling this book because of freedom of speech/the press, because if that were the case they would be selling every book ever written. Amazon will only sell what makes a profit.

If there were a book written about how to beat your wife into submission so that she would obey and never question you, I think more people would be up in arms, regardless of the need for freedom of speech. I don't know why we don't have more respect for our children that it is not illegal to hit them but it is illegal to hit another adult. (Not 'we' as in us, here, now, on MN, but we as people)

I wish nobody had written it, or done it, or even thought it. However as hitting children is not illegal and many do not consider that abuse, it has as much right to be published as the daily mail any other writings.

It is indeed. However, if they decide not so to do, then that is also their decision. Why don't you see how many people you can organise into a boycott and find out?

as i said:
I have the right to ask them to consider - they have the right to refuse just as you have the right to not be bothered and not to ask them.

on the other point - i have campaigned in small way on this issue for a few months now thankyou. I intially approached amazon direct with others, no response. I aprroached my MP too to clarify his position as former childrens minister.

I also started a petition on change.org and then realised there was a much much larger one already in existence with backing from national charities.

If there were a book written about how to beat your wife into submission so that she would obey and never question you, I think more people would be up in arms, regardless of the need for freedom of speech.

And as if by magic:

www.amazon.co.uk/Domestic-Discipline-Jules-Markham/dp/189731244X/

"Domestic Discipline is a lifestyle choice for couples who want to rebalance their relationship and live in harmony through the application of caring, loving, discipline. This book show you how to set up, run, and benefit from a disciplinary lifestyle. Topics include: Why do people want a DD lifestyle? The Philosophy and Psychology of DD. Spanking and other forms of discipline. Corrective versus restorative discipline. Orgasm control and sexual focus. Discipline and emotional cycles. Synchronising your cycles. Applying the discipline. Maintenance discipline. Denial and Chastity. Enema discipline. Anal Discipline. DD in the bedroom and DD on the edge."

Just sitting with some colleagues at lunch coming up with profoundly horrible self-help books/book titles to see where the libertarian brigade would actually draw the line re: censorship.

My personal favourite was "Grill Your Granny - a cannibal's guide to avoid paying for social care."

There was also "Hidden Bruise - how to inflict internal bleeding on under 5s without social services finding out."

And then it stopped being funny because, in essence, that is what this piece of shit by the Pearls is all about.

I aprroached my MP too to clarify his position as former childrens minister.

So do you want government action (ie, censorship) or not? If you want a consumer-led action, what's the need to talk to an MP? If you want government action, how is that not censorship?

missfliss

Although as I have said repeatedly and you cannot quite grasp, I don't want this to be banned, nor do I want it not to be published.

I somehow doubt that if the Levers Of Ban were in your hands, that such a book would be allowed to be published. But let's leave that to one side. I can fully grasp the massive holes in your argument. But what you can't grasp is that you are attempting to blackmail a retailer in to suppressing another's freedom of speech because that other doesn't share your values.

I just don't want someone I spend my money with to promote it.

Then don't. Take your Moral High Ground and go and shop at LovelyBooksFromTheGuardianLiterarySupplement.com

The whsmith question that you won't address is asking whether they wee right to choose to remove child porn books from sale.

Interesting that you won't address that.

Really? Or was it me simply avoiding a lazy trap laid poorly by someone who wanted to smear me for supporting child porn? Gosh, I wonder what it could be.

You trying to do that shows how weak your argument is. As if we needed any further evidence.

On second thoughts not interesting at all, just indicative of your inability to grasp the nuances of the argument.

Oh, bless. You saw Hackmum use the word 'nuance' and thought you'd join in.

"blackmail a retailer"

PMSL

You're a flippin comedy genius

oh bless, you saw someone say a word that someone else said and spotted a clever pattern

i approached my MP because i wanted to know if he knew about the legality of the book due to his knowledge of the legislation around incitement to violence / child abuse due to his aforementioned position as a previous minister. I wanted to check my facts before taking any stance.

Turns out its perfectly legal and so the approach i adopt is consumer activism rather than trying to use any legal argument.

oh and hamster - i wasnt trying to trap you into supporting child porn.

the blindingly obvious comparison is that in that case a retailer chose not to sell something because they didnt want to make it available despite being legal. My question was, was that then censorship?

sigh.