Hell yes, says this kid who probably got whacked less than he deserved by his parents.
I am not against it, but it should be limited, judicious, and carried out within a window. No point in smacking toddlers around. And if you’re smacking your teen around, you’ve fucked up to the point you can’t remedy it any more.
I’d prefer it not be used, honestly, but I do see the need. With a hand. Don’t use a fucking belt. Don’t use a paddle. What the fuck…when did this turn into “Let’s hit Junior as hard as we can?”
I have tremedous love and respect for my parents…but I can’t imagine how I’d feel about them if they had physically assaulted me during my childhood. 
And I could never hit one of my own children. I think it is disrespectful and completely unneccesary.
(although I have been tempted to hit *other people’s *annoying children, especially in restaurants)
When I was a kid every infraction was followed by a whipping with an Ironing cord from my Mom, step dad preferred using fists and sometimes an air rifle. Once when he was out of BB
's he just used the rifle on me.
So, I NEVER hit my kids and was never pushed to the point of thinking I had to. That would be my weakness not their misbehaving. They are grown with kids of their own and also have not hit their kids.
I am against it all the time.
Comparisons to how we discipline adults are hilarious. FTR, we ultimately discipline adults through the threat of pain and death. If you break the law, you will be arrested. If you resist arrest you will be physically subdued with pain and violence, or perhaps even killed. While you are incarcerated, you will be supervised by guards who have the authority to physically subdue you, or even kill you, should your level of misbehavior require it according to their rules and procedures.
If I could trick out my car to run on sanctimony, this thread would let me commute for a year for free.
I don’t see how hitting children is ever acceptable. Teaching a lesson? What lessons are being taught? Sure junior won’t draw on the walls anymore, but he’s also learning that it’s okay to hit people. Not a lesson I want to teach.
My dad got the shit kicked out of him by his father when he was a kid. I admire my father that he made the point to not be that way with his kids. Sure I can recall being scared of my dad when he was pissed off, and there was a time or two where it hurt when he would hold me firmly by my arms for a talking to, but he never got violent.
In fact, I can still recall a time when I was maybe 6 or 7, visiting my grandparents house and I don’t even remember what I did, but I do remember my grandfather grabbing me by the arm and whapping me on my ass as hard as I think I’d ever been hit ever at the time. To this day, I don’t recall the “lesson” that I was being taught. I remember being embarrassed. I remember my mother being pissed off. And I remember my grandfather as a dick.
There may be circumstances where a guard can commit justifiable homicide upon a prisoner and be acquited, but this also applies to a peace officer and anyone he suspects of committing a crime, too. Guards have zero legal authority to execute prisoners, and are usually harshly punished (and rightly so) whenever a prisoner dies as a direct result of their actions.
But keep telling yourself this line of absolute crap. I’m sure it helps you justify the choices you make throughout life.
Is that really what’s being taught? The vast majority of British people have been subjected to corporal punishment, either from their parents, or from their teachers, at some point in their life (cite available on request, although I’d prefer not to search for spanking at work). Yet, if you were to be believed, mass brawls should be breaking out in the streets, as everybody here believes that violence is the answer to all of life’s problems. This, despite the protestations of the tabloid press, is not what is happening.
More likely, even a child is able to recognize that parents are allowed to behave differently toward children than fellow adults, no?
If you read the thread, you’ll see that I actually responded to Capt. Ridley’s Shooting Party who claimed “We don’t put adults on “naughty steps”, we don’t chastise adults, the way we typically talk to a child would be highly offensive if done to an adult.”
My position is that you wouldn’t treat an animal, a teenager or an adult this way - so why commit violence against a helpless kid?
Do you find that hilarious?
I was responding to pseudotriton ruber ruber, after he started talking about hitting his boss (an adult, I’d presume).
Countries ban homosexuality because they hate gay people.
Countries ban smacking because they love children.
In case the difference isn’t clear to you:
A campaign called “Global Initiative To End All Corporal Punishment Of Children” hopes to achieve full prohibition of all corporal punishment of children worldwide. The UN Study on Violence against Children sets a target date of 2009 for universal prohibition, including in the home…
School corporal punishment is banned in most western nations and in industrialized nations outside the west. All of Western Europe, most of Eastern Europe, New Zealand, Japan and South Africa have banned school corporal punishment, as have many other countries.
Never acceptable under any circumstances. What lesson would it teach even if it were morally justifiable (and it isn’t)? That it’s okay for bigger people to hit smaller ones?
That’s a bit of a stretch from my point. You teach a kid that it’s okay for parents to hit children, then that child, more often than not, will grow up to hit his children. I’m thankful that my father was the exception.
Another offshoot is that child will also more often than not, hit other children as a child, thinking it’s perfectly acceptable behavior. With any sort of luck, adults begin to know better.
And you make it sound like it’s a fond memory of all the times kids in England got humiliated and beaten in class.
“How can you have any pudding, if you don’t eat your meat? Now stand still, laddie!”
Pink Floyd isn’t just for stoners, you know.
There’s enough in that post to get me to the Outer Banks for vacation next year.
I wasn’t talking about guards summarily executing prisoners and you knew that.
glee, what exactly is your point? That the existence of bans in some countries implies that smacking is immoral? That a campaign exists to ban smacking (campaigns exist for all sorts of reasons, good and bad)? Some other point?
I did know that, but I also know that’s what you wrote. Try taking responsibility for expressing yourself poorly.
Corporal punishment in UK State Schools has been illegal since 1986.
All the major public schools have abandoned the use of the cane.
So presumably you’re claiming that the vast majority of parents hit their children?
Who claimed ‘mass brawls should be breaking out in the streets’? Is this your strawman?
I think that corporal punishment teaches kids that somebody bigger can do what they like to them. I think that it leads to bullying, where the bullies carry out the lesson of private violence they have been taught.
This is only a bad thing if you assume from the outset that corporal punishment is a bad thing! See:
Parents teaching their children to eat with knives and forks implies that children will grow into adults who teach their children how to eat with knives and forks.
Remind me what’s wrong with teaching children how to eat with knives and forks?
Will they? Like I said, most British children are smacked at home (again, cite available if requested). I didn’t see fights breaking out at school every day.
I’d have thought that was the point, no?
I disagree 
The campaign to ban corporal punishment comes under protecting human rights.
Do you not agree that using violence against children is immoral? Or are you arguing that corporal punishment is not violence?
See here:
Article 19 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child requires states to take “all appropriate legislative, administrative, social and educational measures to protect the child from all forms of physical or mental violence, injury or abuse, neglect or negligent treatment, maltreatment or exploitation including sexual abuse, while in the care of parent(s), legal guardian(s) or any other person who has the care of the child…”
Yeah, like I said, I’ll find a cite when I get home. There’s a bmj document making this claim that I was reading. Presumably you’re making the claim that the majority of parents have never hit their child?
I don’t see how it is a strawman argument, to be frank. The original claim (as I intepreted it, given the claim was ambiguous) was that “corporal punishment implies kids grow up learning violence is the answer to their problems”. If this really was true, then surely we’d expect a lot more violence than what we are seeing, no?
OK.