About that video: beating children is not acceptable

by fmhilton

By now, if you haven’t seen this video, you should. Fair warning-it is very graphic and disturbing. Don’t watch it if you can’t stand physical violence.

It shows a grown man, a judge and lawyer in Texas, beating his 16 year old daughter for downloading a game or video from the Internet with his belt. It goes on for nearly 8 minutes. You can hear her screams, and his swearing.

This happened 7 years ago.

It shouldn’t matter how long ago it happened-to do this to any child is not acceptable. It isn’t corporal punishment.

It’s savagery. It’s outlawed in many countries.

The man who is in this video, who has admitted that he is the perpetrator, should be removed from his position.

He is a judge. He is supposed to know the law. In most states, this rates as child abuse. It is illegal.

He’s tried to explain it away by saying it was “not as bad as it looks”. He claims that she released it because he threatened to not support her if she didn’t comply with his demands for behavior.

It’s simple. There is no justification on the earth for what he did. There’s no excuse that can take away the powerful images of his whipping her across the legs and back for disobeying him.

All the excuses in the world, all the denials cannot make this better.

It was bad then and it’s bad now.  Any parent who does this to their children should face all legal charges possible, when it happens.

However, in this instance, because the statute of limitations has run on charges that could have been brought then, he doesn’t face criminal charges.

But hopefully his peers and the judicial system will punish him by other means.

He is not fit to hold the position he does, and he does not deserve to be allowed to continue to have legal and more power over others when it appears he has no power to control his own behavior.