Wednesday, August 08, 2007

Anti Child Abuse; Pro Multi-Car Pileups

Josh writes:

You can't be serious. Stop your car on the motorway and perform a meaningless gesture that does nothing to actually combat child abuse? Is Christine Rankin on the crack or what?

No, hang on.

*chants to self "Principle of Charity, Principle of Charity, Principle of Charity"*

So what did she actually say? Well, I'm not sure. Here's the quote from that article:

"If they have the courage and they stop wherever they really are at that time then that is fantastic, go for it."
There's no actual indication that she said this in response to "What? Even if they're driving their car down the motorway?" so it's possible that the implication is being drawn without her actually explicitly stating it. But in any case, it's a stupid fucking idea -- one that will likely cause more harm than good, as people think "right, stood for three minutes, that's my bit to stop child abuse done" and do nothing more productive -- so she's full of crap, Charity or no.

I am getting a wee bit sick of contextless quotes in the media -- and worse, contextless partial quotes. I would love to see the full transcript where Helen Clark supposedly called John Key "it" for instance. Did she actually say "We hates the Leader of the Opposition. It is a foreign exchange dealer and it stole our precioussss"? Or was it more like "The biggest threat facing New Zealand isn't gangs or dogs -- it is a foreign exchange dealer who thinks he knows what's best for us" or something equally politically-bitchy-yet-not-actually-dehumanizing? I guess the Herald doesn't think we need to worry about such trifles.

Mmm... trifle...

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