Common Sense Left The Building

Snowman999

Snowman999

Active member
Just like Elvis Presley.

You can't make this shit up. In Germany a folk singer was fined 3000 euros because his 4 year old son was on stage during his performance, and even did a 4-year-old interpretation of "What a Wonderful World". The singer broke child labor laws.

He's appealing and this better be overturned in court. What brain dead PC asshole was so incensed that they decided this man needed to be punished for allowing his son to be on stage with him during an open-air summer festival. Common sense is DEAD.

 
Hang on - part of my job was dealing with the UK's children's protection laws and currently there are two different ones covering England, Northern Ireland and Scotland. There are VERY strict - they get broken all the time, but like other laws, if you get caught - there's little you can do. The EU laws are very similar. They are there to make sure the kids are safe, and one of the things about this law is that every local Council and Authority are the ones responsible for keeping kids safe. They didn't even use all the law components he broke. Each enforcement authority have some leeway - somebody could come up from the audience and join in a song, then go back to their seat, and the parents or guardians in the audience are responsible for their safety. Somebody IN a production is considered working, so cannot also be doing their parental duties, so who stops the kid getting electrocuted, or walking under a moving lighting bar, or safe from people in the audience taking photos and sticking them up on Facebook?

He was on the stage for a longer time, out of anyone's direct control, and putting other workers at risk - Children must be chaperoned, by licenced chaperones who have been checked and monitored. Children are also not permitted to hear or see certain things, including physical and verbal content deemed unsuitable. Of course it probably did no harm - but pubs, clubs and theatres are NOT considered safe places for children. He was foolish, and as a performer should perhaps have known better. You cannot play the 'aaaah' card when dealing with kids. That is why the rules are there. It seems trivial and hard, but they are there to keep kids safe. The rules mean that I have had to stop a girl of 16 and a half being friends with a boy of 15 and a half. They think it unfair, and I do too - but under 16's have a huge amount of protective bubble around them, and bringing your kid onto stage is plain stupid. If his wife was in the audience and was looking after the kid, I'm fairly sure this would never have made it to court. I suspect he simply took his kid to the gig. That was not sensible. How many of us have seen dodgy things going on on stage, in the wings or in dressing rooms? I certainly have. Kids have NO place just hanging around unsupervised and unprotected.

It sounds stupid - and perhaps it was, but he didn't bend the rules - it was late, the child was on stage too long, in the close company of adults, without any direct supervision because his father could not supervise him while performing. I suspect that instead of just saying sorry - it got messy, and that's how it went to court. I did a show a while back where there were a performers under 16 kids taking part in the show. I saw no chaperones, no paperwork and totall ignorance of the law. If the Council people had made a spot check - there would absolutely have been fines. I have to do it properly. I get spot checks, paperwork inspected, chaperones licences investigated - and nearly had a problem with toilets. The law says under 16s can not share a toilet with adults - they MUST be separate. They have strict hours and they cannot go over time.

Sometimes you need to read behind the story and sensationalism the papers put in. Child protection - post Jimmy Saville is extremely hard work to get right and the fines high!
 
No doubt some are questionably fit to parent a child, and many a child deserves better. That's nothing new, somehow the human race has survived.

That being said, for the most part people should be free to raise their kids as they wish.

I forget the comic, but the skit went something like: Kids are too pampered these days. Hell, when I was a kid we had a 5 hundred pound TV balancing on top of a flimsy TV dinner tray table. My mother would yell at me to not sit so close and get back away from the TV. My father would say, "that's alright, let him knock that TV over on his head and that'll teach him." I guess you had be there, but to many it is reminiscent of growing up in a less pampered learn as you go "that'll teach him" world.

Parents can dress their 5 year old daughter up in a slut custom to compete in a "beauty and talent" contest, but a folk singer can't have his son join him on stage to sing a song? Go figure.
 
You can't drive your car over the limit, you can't drink too much - many would think these things are fine within reasons.

If you had a four year old, should he really be on stage? As I said a quick hello is very different from being a proper part of the show and performing. Do you see 4yr olds performing on live TV with an audience? Not normally, because in most countries, it's illegal without safeguarding. The guy who did it was foolish. Not knowing the law, or worse, knowing it and ignoring it is NOT an excuse. if the kids was on stage at 8, what time did he go to bed? That's pretty bad parenting - like taking your 4 yr old to the pub, because that's where you are. If he is a singer, he's working and took his 4 yr old to work. I would have thought it pretty crazy if I was in the audience.
 
Who said there was no "safeguarding"? The child's mother was in attendance, as were his siblings, he being the youngest of 5 children. My guess is the child was enjoying himself, only a guess.

Whose business what time the kid went to bed, what time the father put his own child to bed, the government's? Should there be a law with concern for the child the proper time for bed? It's silly, and an overreach.

At what age did Beethoven first perform in public? Mozart? And, bedtime?

Beethoven's first music teacher was his father, Johann. He later had other local teachers:......Tobias Friedrich Pfeiffer (a family friend, who provided keyboard tuition). With the involvement of the insomniac Pfeiffer, there were irregular late-night sessions, with the young Beethoven being dragged from his bed to the keyboard. Johann attempted to promote his son as a child prodigy, claiming that Beethoven was six (he was seven) on the posters for his first public performance in March 1778.

Oh the horror. I'm guessing young Ludwig's first performances at such a young age were unsafeguarded, flying soloist, as it were.

Mozart showed prodigious ability from his earliest childhood. Already competent on keyboard and violin, he composed from the age of five and performed before European royalty.

My my, how ever did those young lads survive, and what ever became of them absent laws to protect their wellbeing at such mistreatment at the hands of their fathers?

Elton John? After performing at parties and family gatherings, at age 7 he began formal piano lessons. Parties? Parties? Really? There ought to be a law.

I'm making too much of it, a waste of space. It really is quite silly. There are times when the government might be a necessary evil, and there are times when the government should seriously fuck off. This is one of them. imo ymmv
 
rob aylestone said:
If you had a four year old, should he really be on stage?
Click to expand...

Years ago, 21, I attended a family wedding. At the wedding reception everyone wanted me to sit in for a song with the band. As I was playing my 3 year old nephew of his own accord came and stood directly in front of me. Now, and certainly at the time, I worried whether the volume was too much for the little guy. I reckon it was what it was. There is a picture to document the moment. He standing nearly at my feet, facing the crowd, hands raised to his sides, rockin'. I love and cherish that picture, as does he. Now all these years later we play music together. He is a fine guitarist, singer, and songwriter. I am very proud to be his uncle.

Of course, I was just sitting-in for a song with the band. The band was hired for the occasion. Neither I nor the child were being paid. Who gets the fine for not "safeguarding" the child's wellbeing?

I say the child was just fine, enjoyed it and was perhaps inspired.
 
I was reading a history book, either about German history or European history either way it was pretty much the same. But there was this king in not sure the time period or the king's name, but around 1200ish, and he was obsessed with regulating his country. At first, the laws were good, made sense, but after awhile, he was writing like 10 laws a day. He had one law, that coffins had to have a hinge on the bottom so it could be reused. (That is about the only one I can remember, Europe has a lot of shit in its history) But eventually, he had to roll back his laws as the people became so over regulated, that they started to revolt.

This king was well intended, according to the historian he was wanting to do good for his people, but at some point ...
 
The road to hell is paved with best intentions. I feel like this is a case of government being allowed to overstep their authority "for the greater good".
The devil's in the details. I don't believe we can write laws that cookie cutter what a child can or can not do at a certain age. I know kids under 6 that have far more common sense and maturity than some grown adults I know. We have child labor laws here in the U.S. but I just don't see that happening here.
 
Kelly's attorney, Julian Ackermann, blasted the ruling, saying that interpreting a “brief appearance on the stage in the presence of one's mother and siblings at a concert given by one's own father” as child labor was legally wrong and “far removed from the facts.”


There's a difference between forcing a child to work, and letting a child get on stage and sing with daddy. I'll be he does it at home, so it felt natural. It probably boosted his self esteem if the people clapped and cheered for him.

I spent a good part of my childhood at my dad's greenhouses. We would pull weeds from the flower beds, and water the plants. By the time I hit high school, my brother and I were working there summers, painting and reglazing greenhouses, cleaning the coal boiler, carrying potted plants. It taught us that we had to work for things we wanted.
 
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I agree with how silly this example is, but currently we have drone laws because some people were stupid, we have gambling laws because some people are addicts and numerous others that seem unfair to some. Some parents are stupid too. Public opinion on this is firmly how silly, but if the kid had been hit by falling scenery then they’d be reversed.
 
And to add to Rob's point, there is the problem, "but I was just enjoying being with my child?" Reply, "five days a week for four hours at a time doing a side hustle?"

But the question is, (and you can thank Charles Dickinson), how much protection do we want from the government from the ignorant or from ourselves?
 
We didnt get any protection from the Government in the past and we survived. That must be fact otherwise none of us would be here today if it wasnt true.

Would more of us be here and/or would we have been better off if there was Gov intervention way back in the day? I can only talk for own experiences and it appears that there was 'more' to people in olden days. Where today everybodys a victim, in therapy or suffering from some condition. Back then you 'just got on with it'.
 
Orson said:
We didnt get any protection from the Government in the past and we survived. That must be fact otherwise none of us would be here today if it wasnt true.

Would more of us be here and/or would we have been better off if there was Gov intervention way back in the day? I can only talk for own experiences and it appears that there was 'more' to people in olden days. Where today everybodys a victim, in therapy or suffering from some condition. Back then you 'just got on with it'.
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I am going to say, drinking and driving laws. We accept them, but how many people does it save, and many people does it destroy, but this is a preventive law. Everyone accepts it, but unless you actually hurt someone ...

I have never been caught drinking and driving and I don't. But this is a good example of the government "protecting us". After it was first passed, the laws would get more restrictive. Then seat belt laws, then child seat laws, so it becomes a slippery slope. IMO As a matter of fact, many laws, like drug use and prostitution, are laws for what?

To me, laws are to protect property rights, regulate business and for personal safety. Proactive laws, or preventative laws and crime prevention practices are what is large issues in the US.

Crime prevention practices for example, if a cop is in a predominantly black neighborhood and he is trying to make the area safer for the residents there. He sees group of young black men known to participate in criminal activities, he is confident if he pulls them over, something will be amiss. The cop or police department is trying to keep crime down and the neighborhood safer. So he pulls them over for a bogus reason and bam, he is caught in a catch 22. He profiled! How can you do crime prevention without some type of profiling. Was he racist, was targeting, I don't know if he is racists, but he pulled them over for various reason, maybe for the right reason, maybe not. But there is no way to ever know. He is trying to prevent crime.

Which leads to "The Minority Report".

But what laws do we want? Send someone to prison cause he is a junky, a woman wants to sell herself to the highest bidder, a person drinks and drives and nothing happens? To me, this is why every law needs to be thought about and make sure the ramifications are understood. Just like when they were protecting kids from child pornography. If you had a picture of a child nude under an certain age, you went to jail for like 5-10 years (not sure how long). Then a 15 year old kid had a picture of himself on his phone. Well, they didn't convict, but he did go to court (lawyers, court costs) . Same thing where two teenagers, around 15 sent pics of each other.

Hum, didn't mean to write so much, but I think the topic is much deeper than it appears on the surface.
 
But you are taking all that to the extreme. And what laws actually stopped what? If they worked then we wouldnt have same problems would we?

None of this has got anything to do with a young kid wanting to be like his idol. If he was helping his dad on a car boot/garage sale would you raise a stink then?
 
Most laws are a form of risk management, implemented to minimise the risk of harm to people or property.

Many well-intentioned laws, implemented to address a specific problem, have unintended consequences as a result of policy-makers not foreseeing more general applications of them. This can result in a variety of absurdities.

Here is one such example. A kid took nude pix of himself and his girlfriend when he was 16. A couple of years later, police had occasion to examine his phone and discovered the pix. He was now an adult, so was charged with having underage pix . . . of himself: he was both the perpatrator and the victim:
www.cnet.com

Teen arrested for allegedly having nude photos of himself on his phone

A North Carolina boy finds himself looking at felony sex offender charges in which perpetrator and victim are both him.
www.cnet.com www.cnet.com

While I accept that governments have a role in risk management, being a libertarian, I believe that risk management should be a primary responsibility of the person. By handing this to government, we can end up fostering learned helplessness. Indeed, we are seeing this with the emergence of cotton wool kids and their helicopter parents.

Additionally, risk is present in everything, not just the stuff that is brought to our attention through the media. So, for example, a construction supervisor may berate a couple of workers for not wearing safety harness on a scaffold, then duck across the road for his coffee, blissfully unaware that in crossing the road and getting hot coffee, he is placing himself in greater risk of harm than the workers. So a kid getting up on stage is likely to face less risk of harm than when engaging in the more frequent rough and tumble in his backyard.

Risk is a part of life, and an important part of it. Without people being prepared to take risks, nothing would ever be achieved.
 
I'd bet there's no single person on earth who agrees with every law....no matter where they live. I'd also bet that there's no one on earth who would truly enjoy living in a place where there were absolutely no laws. There's never been a time when all people in any place liked every law. The best you can hope for is that you live in a place where you have even a small chance to enact a law you want or remove a law you don't.....by voting. It's not ideal of course. But lots of people live in a place where that's not possible.....ever. All for one....and one for all......is the best we can expect IMO. It's the "one for all" part that gets sticky.

Just my 2 cents worth of rambling.

Mick
 
Maybe because in days of old laws were introduced to protect the citizens of the country. Where today they are introduced to protect those who think they are of a higher level than most or to suit some kind of activism.

We had child protection laws when alleged pedos were on the prowl and they ignored the law and the laws never stopped any of them. So what was the point?

So you make laws now where its possible you can be a criminal for having a nudey pic of yourself when you were a child. What have you stopped and what have you solved?

A law to make a criminal out of a father for having his son sing with him is just madness. Just suits some box ticker somewhere.
 
rob aylestone said:
Hang on - part of my job was dealing with the UK's children's protection laws and currently there are two different ones covering England, Northern Ireland and Scotland. There are VERY strict - they get broken all the time, but like other laws, if you get caught - there's little you can do. The EU laws are very similar. They are there to make sure the kids are safe, and one of the things about this law is that every local Council and Authority are the ones responsible for keeping kids safe. They didn't even use all the law components he broke. Each enforcement authority have some leeway - somebody could come up from the audience and join in a song, then go back to their seat, and the parents or guardians in the audience are responsible for their safety. Somebody IN a production is considered working, so cannot also be doing their parental duties, so who stops the kid getting electrocuted, or walking under a moving lighting bar, or safe from people in the audience taking photos and sticking them up on Facebook?

He was on the stage for a longer time, out of anyone's direct control, and putting other workers at risk - Children must be chaperoned, by licenced chaperones who have been checked and monitored. Children are also not permitted to hear or see certain things, including physical and verbal content deemed unsuitable. Of course it probably did no harm - but pubs, clubs and theatres are NOT considered safe places for children. He was foolish, and as a performer should perhaps have known better. You cannot play the 'aaaah' card when dealing with kids. That is why the rules are there. It seems trivial and hard, but they are there to keep kids safe. The rules mean that I have had to stop a girl of 16 and a half being friends with a boy of 15 and a half. They think it unfair, and I do too - but under 16's have a huge amount of protective bubble around them, and bringing your kid onto stage is plain stupid. If his wife was in the audience and was looking after the kid, I'm fairly sure this would never have made it to court. I suspect he simply took his kid to the gig. That was not sensible. How many of us have seen dodgy things going on on stage, in the wings or in dressing rooms? I certainly have. Kids have NO place just hanging around unsupervised and unprotected.

It sounds stupid - and perhaps it was, but he didn't bend the rules - it was late, the child was on stage too long, in the close company of adults, without any direct supervision because his father could not supervise him while performing. I suspect that instead of just saying sorry - it got messy, and that's how it went to court. I did a show a while back where there were a performers under 16 kids taking part in the show. I saw no chaperones, no paperwork and totall ignorance of the law. If the Council people had made a spot check - there would absolutely have been fines. I have to do it properly. I get spot checks, paperwork inspected, chaperones licences investigated - and nearly had a problem with toilets. The law says under 16s can not share a toilet with adults - they MUST be separate. They have strict hours and they cannot go over time.

Sometimes you need to read behind the story and sensationalism the papers put in. Child protection - post Jimmy Saville is extremely hard work to get right and the fines high!
Click to expand...
Pretty much everything you just wrote is the problem. It lacks any kind of common sense, and says parents are no longer responsible and the country has to step in and raise your children.

Here's a few problems I see - He was fined for child labor laws. The kid wasn't getting paid and wasn't working. He was at a concert. His father's concert. If he was fined for child safety, I'd still think it's fucked up, but at least there's a slight point.

Child's welfare. You can't keep children safe 24 hours a day. When they're 4 years old should you hold their hand while crossing the street? Yes. Should someone be watching them when they're not alone? Yes. Is an audience, roadies, possible family members (there are 4 other children and a mother) in the wings enough? Yes. Do you honestly think if that kid went anywhere near the edge of the stage that someone would just let him fall off? Do you think if the kid was playing with wires or trying to touch amps or bang on cymbals or pull on his father's pants leg while he was performing that someone wouldn't have stopped him? The only thing I'd worry about that kid was whether he was wearing some form of hearing protection. From vaudeville to modern day concerts kids steal the show. There were watchers from every angle on that kid. He wasn't left alone in a tool shed or somewhere that accidents happen with frequency. He was on a stage with his father having a good time. He wasn't working, he was an onstage audience member.

While I'm sure everything you said is correct. It's just part of the problem in modern society, a complete lack of common sense.

If that kid fell off the stage, YES I'd say arrest the asshole father. If the kid came close to being in actual danger, YES arrest and fine the father. Those are reasons. But, saying IT COULD HAVE HAPPENED when it didn't is beyond wrong.
 
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