According to Eric Dondero’s Libertarian Republican blog, 9/11 Truther and Libertarian Party congressional nominee Kevin Barrett is facing charges of domestic violence. Barrett allegedly struck his 13-year-old son.
Kevin Barrett — who supports Social Security, single-payer health care, and anti-trust legislation — beat out Libertarian Ben Olson III in the Wisconsin primary, his campaign calling the 332-227 victory a “landslide.”
In response to the domestic violence charges, Barrett’s campaign alleges that Barrett’s wife made up the incident in an effort to get more publicity for her husband.
Seriously.
Read about it at Libertarian Republican.
GE;
I forwarded a link to contact.ipr@gmail-dot-com
Siblings.. Yeah, forgot about that, too. Yes, I sinned in that regard pretty harshly for many years!
“Human beings have a right to be free from the initiation of force.”
Self-owners have the right to be free from initiation of force. People who give up that self-ownership voluntarily might well not. And children, who are only partial self-owners, do not either. While beating them black and blue would obviously be evil, a little smack on the wrist or a old fashioned spanking is not.
“I have never in my entire life — well, not since kindergarten — initiated force against another human being.”
Neither have I…unless siblings count. <_<
Hey, I want to post a story on this, but I couldn’t find it at Barrett’s site.
Breaking News!
Restraining order against Kevin Barrett and his kids is dropped for lack of evidence!
And so much for the bogus disorderly conduct charge.
Breaking News!
Restraining order against Kevin Barrett and his kids is dropped for lack of evidence! And so much for the bogus disorderly conduct charge.
http://www.barrettforcongress.us
Bizarre. If this was really a stunt, it was a stupid one. Wisconsin might kidnap the children before it’s all done.
I think a spanking every so often can do a kid some good.
Barrett does not have a criminal record. His wife is mentally unstable and has been busted twice for assaulting Barrett.
I suggest everyone read the entire statement provided by Dondero.
Barrett’s a battered husband, whose psycho wife ran off with the kids and made up a story to help his campaign?
Someone please make the room stop spinning!
“statewide” = stupid gaffe. My bad.
Galileo Galilei – Who the hell is gong to have “egg on their face” but Barrett and his dumb-ass wife? I’d say it’s WORSE if it isn’t true. How goddamn stupid can you be? I think marrying a woman that dumb is a greater crime than beating a punk kid.
Barrett is not a Libertarian. He did win the primary. The primary was NOT “statewide” as is stated in the story above (GE, please take note and correct the story). He won in one Congressional District. Wisconsin has 8 C.D.s.
Barrett is innocent. Barrett’s wife did indeed make up the event, and Barrett is indeed getting a lot of publicity.
After Barrett wins the case, a lot of people will have egg on their face.
PS
Barrett does not have a criminal record. His wife is mentally unstable and has been busted twice for assaulting Barrett.
I suggest everyone read the entire statement provided by Dondero.
Having litigated DV cases from both sides, I can say that the court system will generally err on the side of the “victim”. It was not always so.
At the end of the day, the question is what to do in the cases where it is a close call. There are no easy answers.
Before I get killed here, let me preemptively say I am NOT necessarily advocating any kind of involvement by the state here, and I fully recognize the evil of Child Protective Services in their Communist agenda to collectivize the rearing of children.
How do you teach your children it’s wrong to initiate force if you do it yourself? That teaches them that it’s okay to initiate force if you’re bigger and stronger… i.e. it’s a neocon style of parenting.
Obviously, you do have to initiate force on children, though. Like when I put my daughter in her crib at night and she doesn’t want to go, etc. But physical violence? I’d like to here a cogent argument for child battery.
If your child poses a threat to you or hits you first, etc., then I have to say it’s your fault. How could it not be? Personal responsibility includes taking responsibility for your children up to the point that they are emancipated.
Human beings have a right to be free from the initiation of force. That includes children. I have never in my entire life — well, not since kindergarten — initiated force against another human being. I’ve been in a few scraps, sometimes defensive and other times upon mutual agreement (in junior high and high school, none since), but I last struck first on the playground in KG. My opponent turned around and blasted my face, causing me to bleed on my Hulk Hogan t-shirt. And then I lied and said he started it. I never had to lie again (at least when it came to that).
Anyhow, there is literally no instance in which I would ever in a million years strike my daughter. People who use “corporal punishment” have bad values. In a free society, their children could escape and live with others if they chose, or stay if they preferred. If I’m on a jury, though, I’m awarding damages to the injured just as I would in the case of two adults.
I think their are legitimate uses for physical discipline. As a kid who met the hand of such discipline many times, and observed other siblings go through the same process, I’d definitely say it was not a failing of my parents. When it came down to it, whenever I got hit it was my own fault. It’s not like it really hurts much either — it’s really more of a shame thing anyway.
That parents should pay restitution to their kids for spanking them is beyond ridiculous.
The kid absolutely did not deserve it, Art…
Assuming it even happened.
The only things anyone can do to deserve being physically hit are 1) present a threat, 2) hit first. And in the case of your own child, you can deal with it in some other way.
I would say that Barrett should have to pay restitution to his son (if guilty), but since he rejects libertarianism — throw him in one of the state’s animal cages and let him rot (IF guilty).
My view is that violence is wrong, period, and it is especially wrong when used by the powerful against the weak and defenseless. Parents who legitimately need to resort to violence have failed somewhere else along the way, so it’s always their fault.
I can’t take this too seriously as the one time that my mother ever hit me was when I was 13, and I damned well had it coming. Holy crap did I ever have it coming.
There are a very few times that a kid deserves to be smacked, some certainly never do. Not during the very young formative years, but there are times when the kid has to know who’s boss and nothing else will speak to him. Most of us who have actually been that age know that. 🙂
Perhaps it’s different in this case, but I’d give him the benefit of the doubt unless he has a violent history.
I would not hold this against him until I had more information.
I would also want to see a great deal more detail about why this was considered “domestic violence.”
Corporal punishment of kids may not be politically correct these days, but some still believe that it works, at least for some level of offenses… Exactly where one draws the line between “discipline”, “domestic violence” or “child abuse” etc. can be a difficult situation.
13 is also a bit on the old side for a spanking by many standards, but again not all. 13 is also an age when many kids start doing some serious limits testing…
Even without adding in all the libertarian philosophical arguments about rights of a child, non-initiation of force and all that, a certainly valid question can be raised about how much right the community in the form of government should have to try to impose its standards on the relationship between a parent and child…
The question is a hard one to define, but it can be somewhat covered under the old obscenity definition “I know it when I see it”
So I’d ask for a lot more details about circumstances – Where did the incident happen? Where did he hit the kid, and with what? What was the alleged reason? Was this the kids first offense, or one that had occurred previously and been dealt with by softer warnings / penalties?
Without answers to those sorts of questions, I couldn’t make any comment on the legitimacy of the charge either way – depending I could say that Barrett was wrong, or that he was right and the kid deserved it…
ART
I point out those stances because they are so unusual for a Libertarian — they bear mentioning.
It’d be like if a CP candidate was for abortion on demand, the abolition of religion, and capitalism.
Kevin Barrett — who supports Social Security, single-payer health care, and anti-trust legislation — beat out Libertarian Ben Olson III in the Wisconsin primary, his campaign calling the 332-227 statewide victory a “landslide.â€
Why bother pointing that out when you can just state that the guy is a scumbag? Seems to sum him up well enough.
It’ll be interesting to see what happens with this…