So... anyways.

Did anyone want to respond to my questions here?

xhonzi said:
re:

TV's Frink said:
Unfortunately, in many cases the difficulty is determining when spanking ends and beating begins.

Warb:
exactly. this is why none of it should be allowed. The acceptability of spankings by society has led to child abuse. Parents start out with just spanking the child, then it gets worse and worse and and the kid ends up looking like a punching bag.

Allow me to crib from TheBoost:

Are we actually talking about anything? What laws abuse do you mean? What cases are you citing? Or is it just a general "kids today... spanking leads to abuse.... grumble grumble"?

I don't know of any abuse that started out as spanking. There's a clear, thick line (maybe 8pts) between abuse and spanking from where I can see it. I don't personally know of any kids (or wives, for that matter) that look like punching bags... And I think most of the parents I know (maybe 80%?) spank.

But then again... I don't have a temper/violence problem. So maybe that makes a difference.

Seriously. Are there lots of "carried away" parents that start spanking their kids and end up beating them? Do you mean that after a couple swats to the bottom, it progresses to a point of real violence within seconds? Or more that, overtime, gentle paddles on the rear-end lead to more violent forms of abuse as they get older? I know of no actual real world occurances of either, but maybe I'm just blissfully ignorant to it. Or maybe it's just rampant speculation.