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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   9950 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 28, 2025

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Yup. And while we are granting wishes for things that are good but will never happen, Corporal punishment should also be brought back into schools

My school teachers are not trusted to make good judgments. They'd screw up corporal punishment. In a better world we'd have reliable teachers who could correctly determine who needs a paddling. We don't live in that world.

Then why have school teachers if their judgement is that poor?

Agreed. All the teachers I know who ever indulged in corporal punishment were assholes, and not very bright assholes to boot. I could tell the majority were malicious.

(This is coming from a place where corporal punishment was nominally illegalized maybe 15 years back?)

The only people who I think ever gave me a spanking for my own good were my own parents.

Unlike almost every other person talking theoretically here, I actually did go to school with corporal punishment. I am not even old this was mid 2000s. I do remember that it was 1) quite good at establishing teacher’s authority 2) pacifying the troublemaker kids into learning a bit or at least not disturbing others and 3) extremely discriminatory. Girls virtually always got a pass, so did the boys with middle class or higher parents. I remember vividly the day when an inspector visiting the class noticed the wooden stick in the corner and remarked to our teacher that the ministry doesn’t approve of this anymore. It disappeared and never came back.

Yup, that absolute confirms my priors

All these ideas fall to the same issue. You can't trust the people with discretion. Do you really trust a high school (or middle or elementary school) principal to decide who is worthy of corporal punishment? Especially given the outside incentives? Beat cops may be better people than the criminals they arrest... but only by a little bit, and they'll be happy to beat up anyone they dislike, who gives them lip, or who gets in their way.

Anecdotally, corporal punishment in (rural) schools was ubiquitous through well after WWII. I'm not going to defend the practice, but there are plenty of family stories of it within living memory.

Family stories? The school I attended had corporal punishment into the late 80s. The teachers who practiced it are still living, and the last cohort of students to experience it are only in their 40s.

ETA: I had those same teachers in later years. They found some creative alternatives to the paddle and the rod once those were banned. I think I might have preferred a quick paddling to the more protracted punishments they used instead.

I'm not sure exactly when it disappeared, but that sounds about right. I know the laws still allowed it in some cases through at least 2000, but I never saw it myself. My parents have stories of it happening.

That’s fine, bring back the lash then. Have judges order public lashings. The effect will be similar, so long as delays in arrest - punishment aren’t too long

middle or elementary school) principal

Yes.

Then you are insufficiently familiar with the breed.

Counterpoint: No.

I'm concerned enough about what school administrators may be imparting to impressionable young children. I don't want them to also have the power to physically punish students for transgressions that will inevitably differ from teacher to teacher.

I have no inclination to hurt my children beyond maybe a light spanking; the thought that some freak might get off on inflicting serious pain on a child, let alone my own, is intolerable.

See, teachers can and do do some bad things. Using corporal punishment for no reason isn’t one of them. Corporal punishment is protected by law in my state and getting schools to use it is… difficult.

I think they are aware of that, and are saying that the juice is worth the squeeze.

And they're completely wrong, because they won't get the juice, only the squeeze. The cops aren't going to go back to beating up drunk/high vagrants of color if given the authority to beat people up; they'll beat soft and fun targets like teenagers, white collar guys, and generally anyone who gives them lip.

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