To those saying "What the fuck is wrong with these people", I agree with you, but I can also answer your incredulity:
These people were spanked. I see tons of intelligent FSTDT readers saying "I'm not against spanking in principle...but..."
Well, as someone who DEALS with the victims of child abuse relatively routinely, I can tell you that the person doing the spanking is most often incapable of avoiding inflicting the feeling of abuse on the child.
Spanked people always say "Well, I was spanked, and I turned out fine!" as they spank their children. They think that as long as they emulate their childhood experience, the child will turn out like them. And THIS is why researchers in child psychology can't get anyone to listen. Spanking a child makes that child believe that, if they turn out okay, they can beat /their/ kids.
The thing is, the people who say "I turned out okay, and _I_ was spanked" aren't okay. /They spank their children/. Children are the only group in society we're still allowed to hit, and I wish people would stop trying to justify it by claiming, falsely, that inflicting physical harm is the only way to teach children something. Research in child psychology shows that pro-spanking attitudes not only teach children that force gets them their way, but also teaches them to beat their own children.
The cycle never ends, and quotes like this should show us that the "right" to spank one's children continues to do more harm than good.
I urge any academics among readers of these comments and readers who constantly have to put up with idiots like the Pearls, to read the research by Katherine Covell and R Brian Howe as expressed in their many fine works with the United Nations and other agencies, such as "Children, Violence, and Families", published last year, which addresses the myths surrounding the child abuse which we dismiss as "just healthy punishment" or "acceptable spanking". There should be no acceptable zone where children are not protected from ALL harmful physical contact.
It's our job as parents to train fine citizens. Teaching them that they may harm the most vulnerable citizens of our country "to help them", is teaching violence and perpetuating a cycle of violence against children and women.
Sorry I ranted, but people are /forever/ dismissing stuff like this as "an unacceptable expansion of an acceptable practice". Really this is just the /reality/ of an unacceptable practice taken to even more unacceptable extremes.