Spanking can be harmful?

MSN has a groundbreaking story that spanking is correlated with problems later in life.

I am totally kidding, of course, because obviously beating your child isn't a healthy way to interact with them.

The story claims a link to sexually deviant behavoir, and other risky sexual behavoir. This part is actually kind of funny, that kids that are spanked are more likely to have spanking in their sex. As if that's so deviant. I thought they were going to say like child porn or something was the deviant behavior. I personally think that the risky sexual behavior (they called out "premarital sex without a condom") would be more from the fact that the parent that spanks a lot doesn't have the communication skills to have a real conversation about safe sex with their children.

Then the story reveals that spanked children are more likely to be abusive and violent later in life. Gee, no kidding. Are they actually saying that children model what they're shown at home? Amazing. Chalk up another tally mark for the nurture theory. But it could also be nature, since the parents are violent in the first place, there could be violent tendencies in the genese. Guess that nature vs. nurture is still up in the air.

I couldn't imagine spanking my kids. I get pretty pissed off at them sometimes, but what possible good could spanking do? I guess it might give me an outlet for frustration, but I don't see how anyone could feel that hitting your kids will help them become better people. Especially a two year old. I have a two year old. It is just insane to think that I would hit him and expect him to learn not to do the thing that I was trying to correct. And besides, he already throws enough hard toys at me without me showing him that hitting is a good way to solve a problem.

Adults with children have a responsibility to act like adults. Hitting is perhaps the most baby-like way to try to resolve a conflict. People love to blame TV and video games for violence, and while they may reinforce the acceptance and normalization of violence, it has to start at home. If a person is raised in a nonviolent setting, then violence on TV and in video games will clearly be part of a world that's not real, and less likely to become part of a person's real life.

Don't hit your kids.

Definition of Torture

I am sick of all this torture nonsense. It is so obvious that the we (the US) use torture to extract information. Even though Bush says we don't do torture, we have memos authorizing humiliation tactics, stress positions, and other crazy interrogation techniques. In fact, it turns out that the things we saw in photos at Abu Ghraib weren't just the work of a few rebels. They were actually what the soldiers were told were OK to do. They were commonplace at our prisons all over the world (maybe not here in the US). But Bush said that "this isn't how we do it" and "we're going to get to the bottom of it". But then the memos show that the photos showed the normal behavior.

Now I am not so sure that scaring people with dogs, or parading them around naked is really that bad of a treatment that it should be outrageous and considered torture. But I do think it is a really dumb way to try to get information. I think it is more of a retaliation, or vengance from the soldiers and even our whole government to get back at this enemy that we can't quite pin down. HOWEVER, Bush came out and said "wow, that's not right" while all along, it was what the administration was specifically authorizing. In other words, our government was instructing our interrogation officers to act in a way that it did not believe was the right way. When discovered, lies were used to act as if that isn't the way that we do it.

I thought Bush was supposed to be this great religious guy. Now I am not a religous expert, but it seems to me that acting in a way that you believe to be wrong is not the most direct way for a Christian to "get to heaven". (A side note, I don't buy the vengeful God thing, and I don't think you need to do anything special to get to heaven, except for die)

Now finally, the point from the title. Amidst all these memos, and "we don't do torture" talk, the right has done a pretty good job of shifting the debate to the "definition of torture". That's just a bunch of BS! It is a tactic that the administration is using in other areas of its policy. It is a redirection strategy. Just like offering a baby his pacifier when he's crying about something else, the administration is leading us away from the thing it doesn't want us to think about. It is like when you do two bad things - one really bad and one not as bad - then you admit to the less bad one, and get off the hook for the really bad one. (I wish I had a good example - maybe I can think of one later and edit this post).

Some retired General that used to do all the interrogation said it best on the radio the other day. (I'm paraphrasing) "If in the old days you would have told us that we should use force to extract information, it would have been a big joke. We relied on our wits and knowledge of psychology to get information." Now that is something that makes sense. Too bad we lost our wits and knowledge of psychology once we became obsessed with TV 97 hours a day. Or maybe it was using Doom to train soldiers that got us a bit over violent.