Was Molly McCann wise to disparage Wooten in front of HER child? Sometimes judges are full of it. Sometimes a family is too broken to put back together. When a step father abuses the child he is suppose to protect, what is the mother suppose to do? I think the mother ought to tell HER kid to stay away from that jerk. End of story.

If you want to debate the matter further, I suggest you debate the fellow who wrote this article (see here).

I accept your correction, concerning references.

‘TROOPERGATE’
“Warned by the Court
A judge repeatedly told Palin and family not to badmouth her sister’s ex”

By Mark Hosenball | Newsweek Web Exclusive
Sep 9, 2008 | Updated: 7:36 p.m. ET Sep 9, 200

Please consider the following:

The judge was trying to stop “disparaging.”
This is more horrible than it sounds. The result can be Parent Alienation Syndrome:

Parental alienation syndrome
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

Richard Gardner: Richard Alan Gardner, M.D. (April 28, 1931 – May 25, 2003) was a clinical professor of psychiatry in the Division of Child Psychiatry at Columbia University from 1963 until his death in 2003. He was known for coining the term Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS) in 1985.

Gardner states that Parental Alienation Syndrome can result from alienation that occurs when a parent criticizes the other parent or stepparent directly to a child or in front of the children. The effect is to produce a disturbance in the child’s relationship with the other parent.[4][5]

Gardner proposed that children have been taught by an alienating parent to hate the targeted parent, to the point of wanting to eliminate the targeted parent from their lives. He considered this psychological abuse and a form of psychological abuse that has clear-cut unmistakable signs and symptoms.

Gardner was a consistent advocate for fathers in custody battles, particularly fathers accused of child abuse. His most recent book, the Parental Alienation Syndrome, describes in detail the stages (i.e., mild, moderate, severe) of destructive impact on a child of one parent’s alienation of another parent, and fully describes the three types of alienator parent (i.e., naive, active, obsessed). [See http://www.paskids.com/ and ‘The Parental Alienation Syndrome (1992) ISBN 0-933812-42-

Tom, children can be robbed of their birthright. Within a few months, children can lose the desire and ability to have a relationship with a parent. This can last a life time.

What the judge was trying to inform the family was how profoundly hurtful, to the point of child abuse, it is to trash talk the dad; not necessarily to the children, but even to each other, in front of the children.

Did you see above: “Gardner was a consistent advocate for fathers in custody battles, particularly fathers accused of child abuse.”

Why advocate for “particularly” for fathers accused of child abuse in custody battles?
Gardner didn’t advocate for such fathers because he thought that they had a right to occasionally abuse their children. Rather, he did it because he saw a syndrome occur in clients.

Children lost the ability to remain in the same room with a parent or stepparent, they came to hate their fathers for the rest of their lives, until the day their father died. On that day, memories return of those many little things that remind them that they were loved by someone who they rejected. With therapy they come to realize that they shouldn’t feel guilty, because they had no choice in that rejection. That is the horror of the infliction of Parent Alienation Syndrome.

Concerning troopergate, Governor Palin fired Monegan. He was the collateral damage of Ms. Palin’s desire to punish Trooper Wooten.

And the child is collateral damage of the same passion on Ms. Palin’s part.

Tom, I know that you want the best. If I could play a part in motivating your rethinking of this issue, I would be much pleased.

I am not defending the use of the taser on children. But neither the boy or his stepfather were looking for pain. The judge said that he would give custody to the step-dad if the family wouldn’t stop talking him down. Why?

Child custody judges believe that PAS can’t be allowed. Trooper Wooten’s “crime” deserved a strict repremand for doing something stupid. A five day suspension was deemed appropriate.

But the judge is obligated to defend the child who, himself, has done nothing wrong. The child’s birthright is to have Officer Wooten in his life, if he wants him there.

Tom, for the sake of the child, consider what I have said. And please keep in mind the words of a wise man:

A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right-Thomas Paine

Remember Tom, I see that the trooper did something wrong and so does the Trooper. As citizen’s we do no service to our country, or to Ms. Palin herself, if we don’t correct her; while we remember that like Trooper Wooten, we all make mistakes; and like Trooper Wooten, Ms. Palin may have made her mistake not realizing the pain that she was inflicting.

What do you think, Tom?

Any self respecting adult avoids pain. We risk injury and pain out of necessity, not in idle amusement. We do not deliberately suffer pain for fun.

Consider this example. Military personnel engage in rigorous training. Sometimes the toil and rigor of this training can be risky and involve pain. In fact, to understand what they might experience as a POW, military personnel will submit to mild torture. There is certainly nothing fun about that.

Men who train rigorously together often form strong bonds of friendship. Why? It is not because of the pain they experience together; it is because of what they learn of each other’s character.

However carefully you may think he did it, when Wooten tasered his son, he did it without serving any useful purpose. He did it for his amusement. IMHO, any father who deliberately tasers his child lacks something in his character.

Nonetheless, you need not worry yourself for the sake of Wooten’s reputation. The news media will work overtime to make certain his side of the story gets a public hearing.

BTW – Here is what the judge ordered.

A custody investigator appointed concluded that Molly McCann, Palin’s sister, had disparaged Mike Wooten in front of their children, Judge John Suddock said during an October 2005 hearing. The judge warned her and her relatives not to disparage Wooten in front of the kids.

“Disparaging is not to be tolerated — it’s a form of child abuse,” Suddock said, according to notes on the hearing included in the divorce file. (from here)

From now on, if you want to state “facts” relevant to the case, please provide references.