Joe Hatcher wrote:
> I think the burden here is on the ones who advocate causing
> physical pain to children as a corrective measure to demonstrate that this
is effective
> beyond other means. If spanking (or hitting our children, to
> put it another way) does no good, then we shouldn't do it, the same way we
> would not give our children medicine that did no good.
(warning: crude stereotype follows:)
The conservative moralist will (and often does) say something like "If
I'd-a acted like that, my daddy woulda whupped my ass". Limbaugh will tell
you something similar, with the implication that the spanking is what
accounted for how well _he_ turned out. It seems to me that this indicates a
deeper problem with the argument. The conservative moralist believes that
the outcomes of spanking are generally good - as they produce more such
moralists*. Of course, the rest of us take that as a _bad_ outcome (if
spanking produces people like Limbaugh, or Bauer, or Quayle, or Tate, then
we should avoid spanking at any cost, IMHO).
*Whether or not that's really true is still open, but that's beside the
point for the moment.
Paul Smith
Alverno College
Milwaukee
