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Comment by MrOwnPut | Hacker News Reader

They brought back spanking when I was in high school.

Was kinda strange (and ineffective) at that age, but totally better than in school suspension.

I opted in for it twice (uniform code violations) over iss until my parents said no, he should go to iss, he's not learning his lesson lol.

As a kid I was spanked a few times, it was never that the spanking that hurt, just the fear of getting in trouble.

Conflating spanking with "hitting" seems disingenuous.

Personally some people I interact with today should have been spanked, or raised better in general.

And no I'm not talking about not violating dress codes etc, it's fine to break the rules if you're not hurting anyone. But there's a lot of bad people that would have benefitted from discipline.

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> Conflating spanking with "hitting" seems disingenuous.

Spanking is intentional hitting for the purpose of inflicting pain; your attempt to distinguish them is disingenuous.

If you're spanking to inflict pain, that's beating.

It's the fear of getting in trouble, that's why spanking doesn't work in older ages.

You don't slap the the bum enough to hurt, it's the event and the getting in trouble that disciplines.

> You don't slap the the bum enough to hurt, it's the event and the getting in trouble that disciplines.

Speak for yourself. The night master at my prep school would ensure that you thought of it every time you sat down for the next week.

I am speaking for myself, it's my personal anecdote and life experiences.

I don't disagree that there's people that beat children in the world, that's different entirely and should be condemned.

Spanking should not hurt the child, if it does you're beating them.

Perhaps you ought to take a poll on whether spanking is generally painful, I think you might be surprised by the consensus of your peers.

That poll would just differentiate from the people who were beat and those who were spanked.

Spanking is no longer spanking when it inflicts pain.

> Spanking is a form of corporal punishment involving the act of striking, with either the palm of the hand or an implement, the buttocks of a person to cause physical pain

Straight from wikipedia.

There is no punishment mechanism to spanking without pain. This sort of strange homeopathic idea of spanking is unrealistic and I'm unsure why you're trying to paint this false picture of the world - the vast majority of parents who spank do so with the intention of causing pain to discourage behaviour.

> Conflating spanking with "hitting" seems disingenuous.

How can you define spanking without using a term like "hitting?"

> it's fine to break the rules *if you're not hurting anyone*

seems odd to have the person in authority return the favor by hurting the kids as punishment

> How can you define spanking without using a term like "hitting?"

You call it spanking, or slapping on the bum.

Hitting colloquially gives the impression of a closed-fist.

> seems odd to have the person in authority return the favor by hurting the kids as punishment

The world is not fair. You can pick and choose rules based on a moral code but things like dress code, drugs, etc. are the institutional rules and they have setup consequences, agree with them or not.

And if you're hurting the child you aren't spanking, you're beating.

> Hitting colloquially gives the impression of a closed-fist.

Hitting does not imply closed fist.

It doesn't imply it to you or are you speaking for everyone?

It does for me and I'd assume many others, otherwise you'd use "slap".

Let's take a poll.

In baseball, how is it when players hit the ball, it does not damage their knuckles?

The words "fist" and "knuckle" do not even appear on M-W's definition of hit. "Fists" appears in a sample sentence that would be redundant if "hit" assumed "fists." https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hit

the player doesn't hit the ball, the bat does.

when a baseball player gets slapped on the butt after a good run, would you say their teammate hit or struck them?

semantic debates are fun, how'd we get here? :)

> You call it spanking, or slapping on the bum.

this is circular logic

> Hitting colloquially gives the impression of a closed-fist.

it does not

> And if you're hurting the child you aren't spanking, you're beating.

what the hell is spanking then? you're not hitting the kid or hurting the kid apparently. is it just another term for a 'stern talking-to?'

> this is circular logic

Are you trying to get into a semantic debate because you don't want to do the philosophical one?

You're choosing words with a connotation you know are more extreme.

So you avoid basic words like slap and use a basic word like strike. For the connotation.

> Hitting colloquially gives the impression of a closed-fist.

You don't speak for all of society. So we're 1:1 right now. Let's take a poll.

When describing a fight, you see one person using open hand, one person using closed fist.

You wouldn't say one is slapping, one is hitting?

> what the hell is spanking then? you're not hitting the kid or hurting the kid apparently. is it just another term for a 'stern talking-to?'

It's the fear of the whole process. It's the next level after being sent into the corner or something.

No child would benefit from being struck by a teacher (or anyone else) in school.

Not being struck, I agree, but being slapped on the bum once or twice might discipline them.

Being slapped anywhere on their body is striking, as you would quickly discover if you tried it on a police officer.

Not how you're attempting to use it. You're using the "strike" to make it seem like a powerful blow.

A light slap on the bum is entirely different and that's what I'm talking about.

Holding hands with an officer without permission would end you up in jail.

Grabbing an item from the officer without permission would end you up in jail.

You can do all of those things with your child that you can't with an officer.

Your analogy's logic breaks down easily.

No, I'm doing nothing of the sort. Try precisely the physical assault you're condoning for a child on a police officer. After they break your arm, they'll put you in a lockup, and the state will follow that up with a felony prosecution.

(I don't condone police violence either; I'm laying out a positive argument, not a normative one.)

You are, everyone can see which word you are choosing to stick with, and why.

You ignored the breakdown of your analogy.

Just going to reiterate, if you're hurting your child you aren't spanking, you're beating.

If it doesn't hurt then it's not spanking...? I don't understand these tortured semantics.

The act of spanking is to strike the butt cheeks to inflict pain as a punishment, there is no other mechanic at play. It is striking another person to hurt them.

> to inflict pain as a punishment

> It is striking another person to hurt them.

You added those parts. I said exactly the opposite.

There is another mechanic at play. The fear of getting in trouble and going through the process.

The light slap on the bum isn't even supposed to sting.

What you're doing here, trying to shift the meaning of the word "hurt" depending on whether you're the one speaking or someone else is, is a tactic that is indistinguishable from trolling. It's fine if we're just at the limit of productive dialog here.

No what you're doing here is trying to add your own pre-conceived notions to what I'm saying.

But I do agree we are at the limit of productive dialog, have a good day.

Slapping another adult on the bum without consent is assault or battery a lot of places. I'm in the UK where slapping your child is legal, but merely causing another adult to be in fear of imminent "unlawful physical contact" (an unwanted slap, for example) is assault even if it never actually happens.

The hypocrisy is astounding and one of the worst aspects - behavior we've outlawed against adults are being outright advocated for children in a position where they can't reasonably defend themselves.

You're seeking to justify violence and abuse, no matter how you trivialise it.

Copying this as you said the same thing as another user:

Try to do anything to another adult with consent and you'll have criminal charges.

You can't ground another adult, or take away their stuff. You can with your child.

Also teammates slap each other on the bum all the time.

And if a teammate makes it clear they don't want to, and people still do it, it's battery in the UK, and a criminal offense. In theory it'd be an offense even without a warning, but one might expect the defence to argue they believed there had been prior consent.

My ex took someone to court over an unwanted slap on the bum a while back, in case someone thinks this is hypothetic, as the CPS agreed it was a crime though they cautioned they'd have a hard time proving the case.

I responded to your other point elsewhere.

How about if a teacher spanks my child without my consent (which I'd never give) I get to flog them?

Sure? Contact your congressman.

It's great for teaching people violence is acceptable, as we can see in plenty of responses here.

It's sad that many people conflate discipline with violence.

What you are doing is making violence acceptable with your conflation.

What you're doing is trivialising abuse and violence by pretending physical discipline isn't.

Try applying it to an adult without consent and see the criminal charges you'd face.

> What you're doing is trivialising abuse and violence by pretending physical discipline isn't.

Again, what you're doing is conflating abuse and violence with discipline.

> Try applying it to an adult without consent and see the criminal charges you'd face.

Try to do anything to another adult with consent and you'll have criminal charges.

You can't ground another adult, or take away their stuff. You can with your child.

I'm not conflating anything - it is assault or battery when done to an adult, and it is no less assault or battery when done to a child whether or not the law recognises it.

Try to do anything to another adult with consent and you'll have criminal charges.

> You can't ground another adult, or take away their stuff. You can with your child.

You can tell another adult they are grounded all you want. You just can't rely on physical violence to enforce it.

With respect to possessions, there's a stark difference between bodily autonomy and property.

That you're stretching to the point of comparing violence with taking away their stuff is disgusting.

That's so weird to see.

The information is that it teaches violence is acceptable and people will unironically respond with something like "I was slapped as a kid and I'm not a person who thinks violence is acceptable... that's why I think slapping kids is okay".

If they then do see the irony they'll argue that their form of hitting the child is completely different from the bad form of hitting a child.

And of course they have a whole thesaurus to differently what they do from hitting. It's spanking, popping, swatting.

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