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Yes. When he starting reccomending dino parents quit spanking as a punishment, they were forced to do "timeouts" instead. However, lacking wristwatches, they didn't know to let the kids back up, and they all starved to death.

And in civilized countries, we outlawed it completely 30+ years ago.

http://www.nospank.net/durrant.htm

Except schools in Texas and the rest of the southern US still can beat students. Only in two states in the US is it illegal for both public and private schools to beat kids. Those two states schools are consistently ranked among the best. Texas beats more kids than any other state, and they are near the bottom in school rankings. I would say the problem with schools is the way they treat students as moronic cattle. Beating them only reinforces the notion that they have no rights. If a person doesn't have the right to defend themselves from assault or sexual assault, they have nothing. I would argue spanking students is sexual assault, it would be if they are 18, that it isn't considered so when they are 17 is a failing of our society. The Supreme Court's answer is always that "the Constitution does apply but..." followed by some senile hand-waving to excuse forced strip searches, beatings or any other gross violation of human rights the school wants. The reality is our legal system treats children like property. Kids would have more rights if they were prisoners or dogs.

Except schools in Texas and the rest of the southern US still can beat students. Only in two states in the US is it illegal for both public and private schools to beat kids. Those two states schools are consistently ranked among the best. Texas beats more kids than any other state, and they are near the bottom in school rankings. I would say the problem with schools is the way they treat students as moronic cattle. Beating them only reinforces the notion that they have no rights. If a person doesn't have the right to defend themselves from assault or sexual assault, they have nothing. I would argue spanking students is sexual assault, it would be if they are 18, that it isn't considered so when they are 17 is a failing of our society. The Supreme Court's answer is always that "the Constitution does apply but..." followed by some senile hand-waving to excuse forced strip searches, beatings or any other gross violation of human rights the school wants. The reality is our legal system treats children like property. Kids would have more rights if they were prisoners or dogs.

If one of us sneaked a camera into someone's home and took pictures, I guarantee we would go to prison for it. One of our civilizations greatest failings is the way our legal system treats kids. In the southern US it is still legal for schools to sexually assault their students. The Supreme Court's answer is always that "the Constitution does apply but..." followed by some senile hand-waving to excuse forced strip searches, beatings or any other gross violation of human rights the school wants. The reality is our legal system treats children like property. Kids would have more rights if they were prisoners. -Posting comment a 2nd time because the first one seems to have disappeared

If one of us sneaked a camera into someone's home and took pictures, I guarantee we would go to prison for it. One of our civilizations greatest failings is the way our legal system treats kids. In the southern US it is still legal for schools to sexually assault their students. The Supreme Court's answer is always that "the Constitution does apply but..." followed by some senile hand-waving to excuse forced strip searches, beatings or any other gross violation of human rights the school wants. The reality is our legal system treats children like property. Kids would have more rights if they were prisoners.

It's called "positive punishment", a very standard and accepted phrase in the studies of psychology and behaviorism. Does a kid that was spanked always become aggressive against his/her environment?

Actually, now that you mention it, yes, that's basically it.

I don't know any people that think physical discipline is immoral as long as it's not done at the drop of a hat.

I agree with you except on this point. Physical discipline should not just be avoided; it is never acceptable. See Wikipedia article on the anti-corporal punishment movement and the book For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence . Of course, those sources should be taken with a grain of salt as they are clearly strong supporters of one position... but they are people who have carefully considered physical discipline of children and would find "immoral" a bit weak to describe it.

That said, it sounds like you are in favor of better methods of parenting anyway.

Cite an example of this ever happening for similarly-mundane infractions.

If you insist.

Those're from the first page of a Google search.

I am replying to your post because I see an opportunity to bring attention to the fact that punishment:
1. equals abuse
2. does not work as intended

The best possible message of punishment is "don't get caught." It addresses a behavior by inflicting discomfort, fear, pain, shaming, humiliation. Ultimately lots of anger towards the punishing party.

It does nothing to create understanding and respect for the value that behavior goes against. We ought to approach child upbringing differently than dog training (and actually I think dog training has evolved faster, we already know that beating dogs doesn't produce good results).

This is not a substitution for better network security. Or keeping secrets secret. Or promoting trust and integrity.

Discussing whether a punishment is fair or not does not change the fact that punishing children is abuse.

"Fair abuse?"

Again, this is not a reaction to your post, just an opportunity to raise awareness. The cycle of abused children becoming adults who see abuse as the norm *can* be shifted.

Research:
http://www.physorg.com/news125155198.html

And, for the ones with time and courage:
http://www.nospank.net/fyog.htm

But I've done a few Internet researches. "religion child abuse" for example, yields about 2.5 million Google hits, many on the first few pages are links to scientific papers researching the link between those two. "religion mental illness" yields about 2 mio. pages, again several from the first few pages pointing to scientific journals or papers. If the link is no obvious to you: You certainly would agree that "training" a child in, say, shizophrenia, would be abusive, wouldn't you?

Your "Google Proof" method of affirming your claims is invalid. The majority of pages on the "religion child abuse" search are quoting Dawkins and discussing his claims. Let's look at the first 10 results, shall we?

1. http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=48252 - WorldNetDaily
Discusses Dawkins' series "The Root of All Evil?". Presents comments from a Catholic Church spokesperson in responce. Takes no position on the issue, as good news journalism shold.

2. http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,100175,00.html - Time Magazine
A news article about a paricular sect who refuse medical treatment for their children in favour of prayer. This is not common religious teaching, and the article doens't present it as such, but discusses the rights of the parent and changes to the view of "freedom of religion." More about politics then religion.

3. http://www.nospank.net/bottoms.pdf - NoSpank PDF
Bias aleart. NoSpank has a pre-published agenda and have cherrypicked articles to support. That aside, the article doesn't conclude that religion is child abuse, but that when religion is used to abuse it can have worse after affects. I would dispute this article based on the fact that it is published by a non-objective source, but regardless, it doesn't support your initial idea.

4. http://richarddawkins.net/article,118,Religions-Real-Child-Abuse,Richard-Dawkins
I won't even bother. Yep - surprise. Richard Dawkins thinks religion is child abuse. But wait a second - it reveals where some of Richard's spite towards the church comes from:

Being fondled by the Latin master in the Squash Court was a disagreeable sensation for a nine-year-old, a mixture of embarrassment and skin-crawling revulsion...

This is something I've been searching to find for a while. Reading Dawkins' work, and listening to him talk, I've always thought to myself "someone in the church has hurt him, and he's blaming God for it". And I was right. He speaks like someone who is motivated by bitterness rather then a series of objective findings that lead him to atheism. So he was abused, and blames religion/church/god for it. Maybe laying blame on the abuser who was using their position of responsobility for wrongdoing would be more sensible then a crusade against religion.

5. http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/2006/11/religion-as-child-abuse-and-about-hell.html - Blog post
Not anything approaching authorititive, the author links his own critiques of James Dobson that take read meaning into statements where there are none, and then write a diatribe on that one point. Example? He links an article which looks at the following paragraph:

Some kids can be crushed with nothing more than a stern look; others seem to require strong and even painful disciplinary measures to make a vivid impression. This difference usually results from the degree to which a child needs adult approval and acceptance. The primary parental task is to see things as the child perceives them, thereby

A few resources for those who are interested in seeing "la resistance" to these sick, twisted bastards:

Anti-WWASP
Anti-WWASP's forum
TBFight

And they brainwash the parents at the same time:
Creepy seminar

These boot camps are still going "strong", and killing people in the process.

http://nospank.net/boot.htm

Hi there!

I wonder which country you're referring to (with such stringent punishment for possessing a lethal weapon).

An interesting (but tangential) thought is the frequent conflation in government-run schools in the U.S. of "weapon" with "anything that can be used as a weapon." (Not that this is confined to schools, of course.)

I certainly wouldn't want to be sent to jail for 25 years for possessing a nail clipper on government property (or my own); see

http://www.nospank.net/n-e64.htm and
http://www.zerointelligence.net/archives/000654.ph p

timothy

If the state would pay for T1s for the schools, I guarantee you plenty of teachers (and administrators) would find good uses for them

Like child pornography!

</tounge-in-cheek>

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for installing internet service in schools - but you know sometimes you have to stop and think about what they really need it for, and what it will actually be used for, and if what you're paying for is what you need.

Do you really need 5 computers in every classroom, from Kindergarten to Grade 12 (On top of multiple, dedicated 20 or 30 machine labs PLUS library and office stations)? Do they all need internet access?
=Smidge=