No Spank You: Why physical discipline has no place in modern society.

Pictured above, a frightened "child" who looks at least 25 takes a spanking in a black and white movie from a very creepy old guy. Seems extreme doesn't it? What if I told you this was considered normal in its day? Credit Word Press for the photo.

      The 1940's era movie slap. We've all seen it. The woman is hysterical, she's being irrational, and all she needs is a good smack across the cheek to electroshock her back into coherence. For those of you crying "sexism", "abuse", and "degradation" - this is no less rational than punishing a child by "spanking" or "paddling" today. It is legalized abuse in moderation (any other word for it is a tool to help the abuser feel better about themselves), and it's a completely useless disciplinary method that serves only to feed the ego and quell the undue rage of the one doing the hitting.

         In modern era cinema, the slap has been replaced with a kiss, and only the most heinous villain dares to strike a lady on screen today because she's supposedly seen as defenseless. Would that be any more defenseless than a seven year old who doesn't fully understand the reason the beating is coming, and thus cannot correct the action? Why is there one last fragment of people on earth left that can be struck when they do something we don't like, and why is it the group most traumatized by it? And where do we draw the line? Is abuse of an eighteen year old assault and battery when just yesterday at seventeen it was good parenting and the implementation of structure? 

            Forget the fact that we're still striking our own children. In 40% of the country (20 of 50 states), we're still letting strangers with bachelor's degrees in English strike our kids for us. That's right. All over the worst educational systems in the country, archaic "corporal" punishment is still permitted. Do you know what this is? This is when a kid performs some unforgivable act such as talking out of turn, getting up out of the desk too many times, or being caught in the hallway without a pass, and the brilliant minds in the seven of the bottom ten states in education in the country that allow this have deduced that CLEARLY the problem is they're not getting beaten enough at home, so we need the fat middle-aged malcontent who lives for these opportunities to parade the kid out in the hallway in front of all his friends, have him bend over for the security cameras, and deliver one to three strikes with a wooden board to the ass of this little rapscallion to teach him a lesson he'll never forget.  

         Contrary to the states bringing up the rear in American education, nine of the top ten states in terms of educational prestige have banned corporal punishment. Those kids seem to be going on to become doctors, lawyers, and business professionals having missed this apparently all important life's lesson that uncaring, remorseless strangers can take you off by yourself somewhere and beat you if you do something they don't happen to like, and you'll have absolutely no chance to defend yourself. In fact, if you try to defend yourself, you'll just wind up in more trouble than you'd bargained for from the beginning. 

         The teachers in these corporal punishment schools don't have the same high expectations for their kids. They really just have one goal: NO TALKING. That's it. If the teachers in these schools with no science equipment, no musical instruments, no art classes, no hope, no ambition, and no future can just achieve NO TALKING in all of their classrooms, then some secret educational Xanadu will appear. There'll be microscopes and books without pictures for everyone. No one will talk, because no one will really have much to say. That's the price of never really learning anything in school. You don't get a voice. You can speak plainly enough, but the most you'll ever come up with is "DUH salt is salty" or something to that effect, and people tend to tune you out when the spit collecting at the corners of your agape mouth starts dripping directly onto your shirt.

           If you're looking for a little factual basis to back up the reality that corporal punishment doesn't work, consider who's getting hit and why. Is it the A students? Do you recall very many of them taking the walk of shame out into the hallway back in the day? No. It's always the lowest 10% who can't cope in a classroom when they realize that everyone else around them is getting it and they're not, and their only hope of averting complete outcast hell is acting out in a way that will provide some amusement for the academically superior students. That's all they've got. Hitting them with a piece of wood isn't going to change that. If their parents are actually consenting to a teacher being allowed to do it, what are the chances that that's the first method applied at home each and every time? And what, pray tell, is the defense of every weirdo, creep, rapist, pedophile, and general maniac in court after some unspeakable horror has been committed and they're shooting for a last ditch effort of an insanity plea? "Well, your honor, he was abused as a child." That's IT. That's the #1 way people turn into freaks in this country, apparently, and hitting is the way to CORRECT behavior?

                   Where do you draw the line? You draw the line at hitting someone it's your job to protect. No buts about it. "But I don't know any other way to reach him." You don't? What are you, an idiot? Are you a caveman? You can't think of any other way to reach a child besides hitting? Well guess what, you made the (hopefully) conscious decision to have a child, so you're going to have to figure out another way, and stop taking the easy way out. Try talking to the kid and telling him what's wrong with what he did. Stop trying to use one mindless act to correct another. 

           "Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell."- Proverbs 23:14

                   Of course it's in the Bible. It couldn't not be in the Bible because it's something brutal and inane, and religion is the foremost cause of all violence in the world. Sorry to burst the bubble, but just because it's in the Bible doesn't mean it's something humanity is bound to for all eternity. In a world of many religions, nobody truly answers to any law higher than the laws of man. So where's the disconnect? Why can we make the quantum leap in logic for marijuana being a gateway drug to all sin and vice in the known world, yet no one connects the dots of "physical discipline" being a gateway to full blown abuse?

                It will be socially acceptable to hit kids for making mistakes and doing stupid things when it's socially acceptable to hit adults for making mistakes and doing stupid things, which is never. John Wayne can end an argument by throwing a right cross, and the guy he hits falls into a crowd of his buddies or into a pile of mud with no consequences, but we can't because there's this unfortunate little thing called reality standing in our way. People in reality talk out their problems, and you can talk it out with a kid, but you have to try, something that parents who resort to hitting first thing are very uncomfortable with- trying. But that's what being a parent is all about. Do you want to raise a kid who cringes every time your hand goes up in the air, or do you want to raise a competent human being who can be reasoned with and whose actions aren't governed purely by fear? Because the dirty little secret you don't like to talk about- it doesn't actually hurt you more than it hurts them. You'll forget about it in ten minutes, and they'll bottle that rage up inside of them for their whole lives until it comes out at the worst possible time- on their kid.

                That's it for me today, folks! I am still reading The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson. I'm listening to Mr. Pitiful by Matt Costa, another great song, and I'm watching A Christmas Carol of course. Have a wonderful, relaxing Christmas. Make sure you give everyone you love a call if nothing else and remind them how you feel. Your discussion question today for the future of the blog: Have you ever resorted to corporal punishment on your own children, and if so- has this influenced you at all one way or the other? If you don't have kids of your own, how do you feel about this method of discipline? Remember, you're in a judgment free zone, so let me hear it. Still looking for a good sign off line, so for now I'll just say I'll see you on the bounce. 

          

         

                                                            

Pride of a Nation

Pictured above- United States Armed Forces members march in  Gay Pride parade openly for the first time ever in 2011.
(Photo taken from CNN.com)

     It was chosen one of the most powerful images of 2011 by CNN.com in a recent article both for its historical significance and the contrasts in opinion it inspires. We live in a landmark time in our country when soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, and coast guardsmen may now serve in their respective branches openly gay without fear of persecution or reprisal. This marks a dramatic pro-gay shift for the military whose recent "don't ask, don't tell" policy, while affording somewhat of an opportunity for  gay soldiers to serve discreetly, resulted in the firing of more than 13,000 during its implementation. 

          Even four years ago, such a dramatic shift in policy didn't seem feasible, but with the sweeping social changes that have rocked the political landscape since the 2008 Presidential Election, the progressive new policy should hardly come as a surprise. Many who feel conflicted about the controversial issue may be struggling for a way to comprehend the problem at its base level, but a logical induction can build the argument in this way: it is inexcusable to make an allowance for an acquired prejudice and not for a genetic predisposition. There is hope for a man (or woman) to wake up one day cured of the ridiculous and antiquated illness of homophobia, but there is no such thing as waking up one morning no longer attracted to the same sex if that's who you are, any more than there is such a thing as a heterosexual waking up no longer attracted to the opposite sex. These are simple laws of nature, no matter how furiously the tyranny of one's will attempts to oppose them. An additional example: a racist may be a no good bastard for life in a lot of people's eyes, but his odds of reforming himself are much greater than the person he hates to wake up one morning no longer of the same race. 

            "The policy is an absurdity and borderline on being an obscenity. What it does is cause people to ask of themselves that they lie to themselves, that they pretend to be something that they are not. There is no empirical evidence that would indicate that it affects military cohesion. There is a lot of evidence to say that the biases of the past have been layered onto the United States Army."

-General John M. Skalikashvili

             Which is a greater compromise to the values of our modern Army? Bucking the traditional outlook on a social issue and making an allowance for something once strictly prohibited, or falling behind the curve of the social progression of the very country it defends?  We are foolish if we do not recognize both the necessity of the former and the danger of the latter. It is unfathomable that this ridiculous "goal line defense" was waiting for decades to pounce on anyone under suspicion of homosexuality, a perfectly harmless activity which has resulted in the death of zero American soldiers, while a man like Nidal Malik Hasan went unnoticed for years, rose up to the rank of Major, and slaughtered thirteen people (wounding twenty-nine more) due to some misplaced sense of politically correct morality in the worst shooting on an American military base in history. What, did Hasan make a couple of homophobic cracks and convince anyone who was capable of stopping him that he was "one of the boys"?     

           Consider for a moment, if you will, the weight of a dishonorable discharge from the military. Consider what a potential employer might say to someone with this black mark on their record. It is not hard to conceive that for many, such a blemish would carry almost equal destructive potential as a felony. Now consider that since 1944, every American soldier who's been "found out" received such a discharge. It is something that is absolutely impossible to reconcile at this point, and in no way can it be made up to these people, who've been so callously persecuted through a systematic fear-based political agenda. What do you say to someone who hasn't been able to hold down a decent job in the last twenty years since getting the boot? How do you fix that? It's almost comparable to wrongfully imprisoning someone for that period of time. 

          Standing with a given majority at a given time in history does not necessarily mean standing for what is right. Many times in our own country's past, we have seen what was once written off as extremist become the norm. By any measure, most of America in 2011 lives at the incomprehensible extreme of 1911, even 1961. The picture posted at the beginning may inspire many different emotions and feelings and for many different people, but take a moment to think what the subjects of the photo must feel. Perhaps they feel pride in having to hide no longer, relief in not fearing that one wrong word could mean the end of their job, and even hope that their country, which they so valiantly defend, will now defend them. 

           That's it for tonight, folks! I am listening to an acoustic cover of Radiohead's "Let Down" by Eliza Lumley which you can see here. I'm watching Sherlock Holmes 2- great movie. I'm reading The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson. Finally, your discussion question for the future of the blog: What *are* your most pressing social issues that need to be brought to the forefront of national debate, what's your position, and how are we going to solve them? See you next time.