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Showing posts from November, 2011

Discipline is not the Issue Here

In 2004, Hillary Adams used Kazaa to download some music. Her father, an Aransas County judge, sat Hillary down to have a calm discussion about P2P networks, why much content on them is illegal, and how file sharing undercuts to earnings of struggling artists. Hillary recorded this video: My primary aim is not to condemn William Adams, though of course some judgments will creep in. Instead, I should like to talk about a wrong-headed narrative that has grown around this story. One article I read speculated that this video would set off a national dialogue about child discipline. Such a dialogue would surely be beneficial. But parental discipline is not what we see in this video, even if an unrepentant Adams couched his actions in those very terms. [I]n my mind I haven’t done anything wrong other than discipline my child after she was caught stealing, and I did lose my temper but I’ve since apologized. It looks worse than it is. (Some of you, desensitized to