I'm ready for a debate.... to paddle or not to paddle

[Rosie the Riveter]

More critically: Children are almost universally humiliated and threatened into blind obedience to their parents/church/school/state. Given all that abuse, whether or not the arbitrary punishment involves a paddle, a hand, a detention, or a humiliating lecture is pretty bloody irrelevent. At risk of abusing a metaphor, let's stop fiddling with the trunk and do something about the elephant.

How about we teach parents how to raise children without bludgeoning them into submission? And educators how to deal without students without needing to dominate them? (And reform church and state, but that's a different issue entirely)

So heck yeah, I'm against paddling. But more importantly, I'm against any environment that leads to an authority figure "needing" to dominate and humiliate a child.

Wow, hear..hear. I agree that children are individuals with rights as adults are, but how do you teach others to parent? Isn't it within there right to be an a-hole? Does enforcing it take away the parents rights?