re: #103 Charles Johnson

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Yeah. Parents and/or guardians are allowed to do things to kids which would be considered assault and battery if done to an adult. However, if you talk about not spanking kids, OMG, people come stark staring unglued. Some of the Religious Right would come unglued because hitting kids is one of their 10 commandments. These are the same people who think James Dobson gives great childrearing advice, yet in the introduction to The Strong-Willed Child, Dobson talks approvingly of beating his dachshund, Siggie, because the little dog had curled up on top of a fuzzy toilet seat cover on a cold night.

For the record, my mother used to hit us with a metal flyswatter after she broke a blood vein in her hand from whaling on one of us. All spanking did was make me a much better liar.