Why are cruel parenting sites legal?

[Blu]

I have heard of Gary Ezzo before, and today discovered the horrific Michael Pearl. Pearl and his wife actually advocate beating children under the age of one with 'switches' from a tree, and describe horrendous incidences where they have beaten other peopel's children. He instructs parents to beat children relentlessly.

Since incitement to other kinds of violence is banned, and the beahviour this man admits to is presumably legally child abuse, why is it permissable that he openly encourages people to beat children. To beat babies? (he proudly describes beating an 11 month old on his bare leg with a stick).

I really, really want him arrested.

I can see them myself but they are not being touted as 'parenting manuals'. These idiots are saying, look at us and our perfect children - we used God's word, follow our methods and you'll have a happy family.

At least most of that peado nonsense isn't dressed up to be anything other than what it is (not that I agree with any of it).

Surely it is illegal to incite others to break the law?

OMG!

This totally grim. I actually do feel physically sick from reading those extracts.

I will e-mail Amazon too.

Well done to MN for taking some action

I can't believe this thread will not bring Aloha out of lurkdom.

SW. Yes this definitely calls for Aloha.

yes, I was going to post that Pearl don't mention much about Jesus. Lots about God, bit not much about Jesus. I rekcon Jesus would (will?) have one or two things to say to Mr Pearl
and I was also going to say - like ruty - that not everyone went around beating their children. Just like not everyone followed Truby King. OR any other child rearing "expert" for that matter. There have always been great swathes of the population who wetn their own way and followed their instincts or their judgment. Not everyone is a sheep - there are plenty of goats and always have been.

I take exception to that. Can't we be gazelles or something?

you call yourself what you like dear

Not sure i should ask but i'm going to, who is Gary Ezzo (not heard of him before)

I just got the standard response email from Amazon that everyone else seems to have got. So I've just clicked reply and sent them this:

"Thanks for the standard reply that you have sent out to all who have complained about these books for sale in your marketplace. Thanks for sparing the time to actually read my email and giving me a personal reply. Thanks for taking these things so seriously that you would never just produced computer generated replies to fob people off.

You've just lost a customer and I hope countless more follow suit.

Please note: This is not a computer generated reply!"

I've closed my account.

Well done Rhubarb!

My email was quite erm to the point shall we say so I'll be very lucky if I get a reply at all.
They'll be wondering whats gone off, getting bombarded with all these emails.

What seems so stupid about the whole thing is that Amazon sell boat loads of different products. I can't imagine how much profit they make, so to take these books off their site would hardly make any difference to them surely?

I got this reply; I especially like the thank you for shopping at Amazon line at the end !!

Dear Customer

Thank you for sending Amazon.co.uk your suggestion.

We are very sorry about the discomfort that you encountered from
this book being on our website. I will be sure to pass your message
on to the appropriate department in our company for consideration.
Customer feedback such as yours helps us to continue improving the
selection and service we provide. We appreciate the time you've
taken to write to us.

If you have any other suggestions for us or would like to make a
comment at another time, please don't hesitate to send us an
e-mail. To do this, please visit our Help Desk at the following URL:

www.amazon.co.uk/contact-us

We'll look forward to hearing from you. Thank you for shopping at
Amazon.co.uk.

Warmest regards

David Pearson
Customer Service
Amazon.co.uk

Well, as others have said, if they refuse to stock this because people object, why should they stock Harry Potter? Or, say, pro-extended BF books? Or books about homosexuality?

Once they start picking and choosing what they stock, where does it end?

I don't think Amazon notice that they are being bombarded, they don't read the emails, they are sorted by title and given the appropriate computer generated reply.

NQC, these books promote and encourage practices that are illegal and that endanger the wellbeing of children. It is a little different to someone being offended by Harry Potter. These books encourage actual harm, physical in the Pearl case and sexual in the others. As these practices are illegal, I do think that products encouraging them should be made illegal too.

Rhubarb, I agree with you; maybe these books should be made illegal, but at the moment they are not. Do those people who are emailing Amazon, really want Amazon to stop stocking books when people write in and ask them to? Really?

Franny makes a good point.

(I'm not sure the books should be illegal, either, though, to be fair. If books encouraging illegal acts become illegal, how do we change unjust laws? Were books against slavery illegal?)

I think that books like this teach us a lot about the kind of people that buy them. (400,000 copies sold, did someone say? That sounds like bolox but you never know, American conservative christianity being as scary as it is). Do you think that there should be books which are sold in America that we can't BUY here? What about people who are researching this kind of thing? Or who have an interest in this area?

There are ALWAYS ongoing campaigns to Amazon and other book stockists about loads of different books - including a sustained campaign against Harry Potter in this country and the US. I don't think that these replies are computer-generated at all. I'm sure that someone reads them and then gives the appropriate response - yes those responses are the same, but that's because it is a standard response to the (probably hundreds) of complaints they get every day.

well I made my point by emailing them but i certainly won't go campaigning outside their head office to stop stocking the books, going to add my review (and not a good one against the book) I personally don't shop on amazon DH does, should I ask him not to use the site anymore mmmmm don't think i can its a bit like him saying "I don't like something on MN stop using it"

I think these books should be illegal. But they're not, so I'm not sure it should be down to Amazon whether to sell them or not. It should be down to the state to decide whether a particular book is legal or not, and Amazon should be free to sell any book that is legal. Once Amazon starts refusing to sell legal books because of lobbying by its customers I'd worry where it will all end. I would rather lobby the UK government to do something about these books than an American bookseller.

Let me just clarify again; these books encourage the harm and abuse of babies and children. You cannot say, compare them to books on slavery when slavery was legal. Physical and sexual abuse of babies and children is WRONG whether it is legal or not. Encouraging people to whip their children in the name of Christianity is bloody wrong! Encouraging people to grope little boys and have sex is children is wrong.

Children cannot protect themselves, they are helpless in a society that is full of perverts and weirdos. They need us to defend them, to protect them. We cannot just turn a blind eye to this and say "Oh, we can't stop them, that would be censorship!" So where do you draw the line with that argument then? Would you allow a book made up of obsene photos of children to go up for sale on Amazon?

Um, but a book made up of obscene photos of children would be child pornography, and illegal.

I'm not comparing these books to books on slavery when it was legal, by the way. (Slavery is also still wrong, whether legal or not, I would think?) I'm comparing them to books against slavery when it was legal. Books that go against the current law, but that we think should have existed.