And I suppose the children who are the subjects of the horrendous abuse of smacking are to be removed from their parents into state care? Or you'll satisfy yourself with imprisoning the parents? It's okay for you to lock them in a cage for disagreeing with your opinion, but not okay for them to smack their children, right?

Once we think that human rights are whatever the state says they are, we open the road to political abuses and social problems far worse than the original problem the state was supposed to solve.

This is exactly the class of academic who should never, under any circumstances, ever, have any input into the lives of real people. They spend their whole lives in some rarefied atmosphere which totally eliminates any hint of common sense.

They should be kept in a glass bottle with a label that states, "even in extreme emergency, do not break"!

I have never been able to understand why it is they seemingly are able to get the ear of government.

Essays on the devastating inevitable applied politics of revenge and hatred (of both mom and dad) and the "culture" created by and in the image of systematic child abuse.

http://www.psychohistory.com

The same applied politics of cruelty as vividly portrayed in the unspeakably vile sado-masochistic snuff/splatter film produced by (mad) Mel Gibson, namely The Passion of Christ.

LOL The passion of Christ would have to be the ultimate in child abuse, wouldn't it?

To the esteemed author of this particular thread... Please go back to whence you came !

As a retired copper, I'm utterly sick and tired of these so called erudite, 'socially aroused' legal practitioners emerging from their dusty little chambers, seeking to tell all and sundry how to live their lives.

There is simply nothing wrong with giving a young person a slap on the tail for any number of juvenile misdemeanours in order to correct their disobedient or defiant behaviour.

In my previous job, I've had to enter many homes and witness first hand the dispairing results of a young person who is completely out of control.

To sit with one or both parents who are thoroughly perplexed and bewildered, with just what to do with 'junior' who continually ignores and defies all efforts to regulate or control their behaviour. It's really quite heartbreaking.

And on innumerably occasions, I've had to listen to so many parent/s say, '...we've given him or her everything, what more can we do...'?

With respect, go back to Cambridge, and give them the benefit of your wise counsel. Because I can tell you positively, the coppers are sick and tired of cleaning up the mess caused by you and your 'aberrant' cohorts meddling in our Society, with some of your more skewed structures of social engineering.

If we spare the rod

We'd have to reason instead

Suffer the children