Kansas City is in Missouri. Kansas has corn and crazy. Birthplace of the Phelps, home of the Kochs and inspiration for the FSM.
[edit] No offense, Maggie, but your homestate isn’t exactly bastion of free thought.
“Kansas City, Kansas, proves that even Kansas City needn’t always be Missourible.”
-Ogden Nash
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… I’m talking about people who call themselves Republican and vote Republican, but, compared to Southern conservatives, are quite liberal on social issues. Remember them? Republicans used to also be about fiscal matters, not just hating the gays and abortions. I know plenty of people like that in the Northeast.
But if you must have names of elected officials, I’d list off the top of my head Chafee, who (even as a Republican) backed legal abortion, gay rights, federal-funded health care, strict environmental protections and a higher minimum wage; Snowe, who supported abortion rights and voted with Democrats on most social issues; Chris Shays, who backs environmental causes, gun control, abortion rights, and finance reform; and probably others that I can’t think of right now.
But why do I have the feeling this is about to turn into a “true Scotsman” argument?
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What if we introduce a law to strike a lawmaker hard enough to bruise when they misbehave?
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I know, it’s a joke, but… Florida only recently required schools that want to use corporal punishment, with any instrument, on any portion of the body, without parental consent to have public hearings about it… and then, state law seems to only state that it must be administered “according to [local] school board policy.”
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True, but the KC that non-Usians think of, is not the poor cousin actually located in KS. Same goes for St. Louis, IL.
@doctorow asserted:
The research on hitting children is pretty clear: it doesn’t work.
@Amina replied:
…the article’s insistence that the effectiveness of said punishment is well understood is misleading.
It’s very hard to study the effects of corporal punishment on children, because it tends to be closely correlated with socioeconomic status, the parents’ attitudes towards violence and the disposition of the child.
I researched this pretty extensively more than ten years ago, because I wasn’t willing to base how I raise my children on propaganda sound bites, cognitive dissonance or wish fulfillment, and (at that time) @Amina was absolutely correct.
You know, I’m always amazed when people insist that there’s one single solution for a vast and nebulous set of problems encountered by every human being that ever lived… it’s like the nutritionist fallacy, this attitude presupposes we are all essentially identical robots. What nonsense! And I feel sorry for the children of parents who believe that discipline and punishment are the same thing, regardless of whether those children are spanked or not.
My wife, who is a teacher, stands about 155 cm “tall”, and the only person I have ever heard her yell at is myself. She has never used any form of punishment or threats on her students and she is on amicable terms with students feared by other teachers in her school. Now, I admire her very much for that and I´m not saying anyone could do that or that it´s easy, but maybe if you can´t, you shouldn´t become a teacher, and maybe then teachers would have a better reputation.
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Hrm - I don’t think I’d paint the whole state over a couple of radical nuts.
It was also the front line in the abolition movement and fought for the unpopular option to remain a free state.
We also fathered the current voice of Yoda.
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I grew up in Alabama. I was spanked by both my parents occasionally - my father would use a belt and he’d be mad. My mom sometimes made me go out and pick my own switch (just like her maid used to do to her). Mostly she just used her hand. It wasn’t an all the time thing, but later I realized that my dad would hit us more when he was depressive. I can never remember what it was I did to “earn” the spanking, but I do remember the high emotions around it.
Being in NC when my daughter was young, and having been a stepparent to kids who were not spanked but punished various ways - kids who seemed to me to be very dependent on adults to direct them, my stepson who responded to punishment seemed to almost beg for it - I didn’t like the dynamic at all.
I made the decision not to use it or any form of punishment on my daughter. No spanking, no time out chair as a mean thing (I did show her how to calm herself down in her own room and she would voluntarily separate herself when she was overwhelmed with emotion).
The thought of spanking her always just felt abhorrent to me. The people I knew who did it seemed more interested in creating obedient children than people who could grow up to think for themselves and make good choices. Parenting by fear.
In my rural middle school teachers spanked and it was always the same two or three kids who were singled out for punishment. Always the coach who gave the spanking. The threat of spanking did not deter the same kids from acting up again; in fact they seemed to enjoy taking the coach to the brink of anger. It was a game with them.
Sorry, I see nothing to recommend spanking. And to the point of bruising - hell no.
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As someone who was once hit by a principal, several times with a wooden paddle, for the dastardly crime of forgetting my spelling homework at home on three different days… I can say it certainly had zero good effect on me or my school performance.
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Hitting children highlights the failures of the adults in their lives, not the failures of the kids.
The end, it’s fucking wrong.
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See, torture does work. It knocked the English language right out of him.
Seriously, a kid experiencing corporal punishment would have a better case for Stand Your Ground than some of the people who’ve gotten off.
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A lot of things can change in 150 years. I live at the end of the underground railroad (srsly, I could take you to houses where slaves stayed before crossing into Canada), yet I’m surrounded by people who can barely contain their racism. BTW, I’m located in the most “progressive” area in the state. 
I’m not going to hide behind some past good deeds in an effort to sugar coat the terrible bullshit happening today.
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Okay, now that you vented: do you seriously believe, that one of those students with severe behavioral or even mental problems would profit from being beaten? Or at least become less aggressive?
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This bill died in the House Committee yesterday, so you’ll all just need to be patient until the next loon introduces a nutty bill in the next week or two.
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To me that reads like “people aren’t allowed to whip slaves without their owners’ consent”.
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Corporal punishment by teachers is legal in Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Tennessee, Texas and many other states (19 in all):
From The Wire:
In 2012, there was an uproar in Texas when two male assistant principles [sic] paddled two girls so hard they had bruises. Parents thought it was inappropriate for men to paddle girls without a same sex administrator in the room. As long as the paddler can prove they’re beating the paddlee for “discipline,” it’s all legal
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And the Titantic just hit a floating piece of ice.
