By Selwyn Duke

Taking a leaf out of what may be the the last chapter of western European civilization, the People’s Republic of Massachusetts is contemplating an anti-spanking law.  Such laws have long been in place in nations such as Germany and Sweden, so it was only a matter of time before leftists here tried to impose their flawed parenting paradigm through government.

I really find this to be the epitome of hubris.  Corporal punishment has been a staple of child-rearing since time immemorial in all corners of the Earth; yet, a bunch of psycho-babblers — people educated beyond their intelligence — believe they have license to ignore age-old wisdom and socially re-engineer civilization. 

We’ve all heard the arguments against spanking, such as the tripe about how it "teaches violence."

Poppycock. 

I refuted this notion in a piece I wrote this year titled "Does Violence Need to be Taught"; the answer is an emphatic "no."  It definitely does not.  I also wrote some snap commentary on the beauty of punishment just recently.   

People who advocate such insanity know nothing about man’s nature.  They generally raise ill-behaved brats and, proving that misery loves company, then want to impose their corruptive permissiveness on the rest of us.  As to this, it has been my observation that psychologists — who provide a specious scientific basis for this permissiveness — tend to have the rudest, most undisciplined children. 

Now, would you give your car to an auto mechanic if he couldn’t even keep his own vehicle running?  Would you take golf lessons from a duffer who couldn’t break 120?  In reality, psycho-babblers are the last ones who should be lecturing others about parenting.  Physician, heal thyself.

As for the fanciful, Rousseauesque idea that violence has to be taught, it seems as if those who subscribe to it never had toddlers.  Either that, or they never spent time with them because they did have nannies.

I recently stayed with a couple of friends who have two children that age, and despite their being good little souls, watching them would disabuse you of any notion that violence must be learned.  If given carte blanche, the older one would push his younger brother around incessantly.  And then there was the biting.  They would sometimes try to bite each other when angry.  Who taught them that?  No one ever bit these boys until one of them bit the other. 

The truth is that we have violence on the brain; we have fallen victim to the idea that all hitting is equal.  That is, equally bad.  But just as there’s a difference between hitting someone in self-defense and doing so motivated by sadistic impulses, so is there a difference between a child hitting a sibling out of anger and his father hitting him to deter that behavior.  And only an ideologue won’t accept this distinction. 

Moreover, a parent needs something that will act as a deterrent to bad behavior because, I hate to break it to you, compliments and raising children’s "self-esteem" only serve to make them egotistical ill-behaved brats.  So what will this stick be?  Would it be a removal of privileges, a grounding, or the oh-so-effective "time-out"? 

OK, if such a thing is effective, why?  If the child liked the measure or was indifferent about it, it wouldn’t have a corrective effect.  It could only have an effect if it caused . . . what?

Pain.

Sure, if someone is hung-up, he may not call it punishment.  He may try to scent it with the fragrance of the latest psycho-babble term, "time-out" or whatever the euphemism du jour may be.  But if these non-physical measures are effective, it’s only because they induce non-physical pain.  And is emotional pain less severe that the physical variety?

It isn’t the type of pain that determines severity, but the degree.  We all know, in fact, that emotional pain can be far worse.  Would we rather experience the pain of a flogging or that of a broken heart?  For my part, I would find physical abuse far more tolerable than emotional. 

Then, not too many suicides are caused by physical pain.  But despair is a different matter.

Think about that.