Kowabunga

Gotta love the Liberal-Left, especially the media types, and how they use words to twist things to get their agenda across. The current big example is the controversial spanking ban being floated in my former home state of California. The ban is being pushed by Leftist Assemblyman Sally Lieber, and in interviews used beating, abusing, and hitting to be an interchangeable word with spanking. The difference is huge.

When a person hits someone, it is with the intent to do bodily injury. When one spanks a child, it is to get the message across that their behavior is unacceptable, but not do injury. If spanking is used, it should be when all other methods of disciplining a child has failed.

Here's a bit from the Blue Streak:

Occasional spanking may not hurt kids, the studies find, but I've yet to meet or read a child psychiatrist who recommends it as a first resort in raising kids. If you can't hit your wife, your friends, even your pets, why should you be able to hit babies?

This quote strikes another chord, using babies instead of children, as well has substituting the word hit for spank. It is never okay to strike a baby. As a parent, I have serious problems with anyone who believes striking an infant in any way for any reason as being acceptable. Babies are too young to understand if a parent finds their behavior unacceptable. Besides, their world consists of eat, sleep, poop, and exploring their new surroundings.

Children, on the other hand, are capable of understanding the difference between right and wrong, and need to be taught those differences, and disciplined when they break the rules. However, the difference between spanking a child that is misbehaving and beating a child to inflict injury is huge. Laws are already inplace to protect children from abuse. However, when you make it a criminal offense to spank a child, you take away one of the most important tools a parent has to discipline a child.

Don't get me wrong here, I don't think spanking should be used as a primary tool, but as a tool to discipline when all else fails. It should never be done with the intent to inflict physical harm. God willing, I hope and pray to never have to use such a tactic. It took some pretty serious misbehavior on my part to warrant a spanking growing up, and I did get spanked a couple of times, and I earned those times. But I was never hit or beaten.

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Sally Lieber California Spanking Ban