From the University of New Hampshire, a profound study. Corporal punishment is an appropriate form of discipline only if one intends to diminish the child’s intellect.and as much a double the chance of diagnosing PTSD in adulthood.

Prof. Murray Straus shows a linear, “dose-related” response in lowered National IQ correlating to the frequency with which that nation’s parents spanked. their children.

Provocative though these findings are, they are certainly not unpredictable or counterintuitive.

The shocker is in the 66 comments to the original L.A Times.blog post referencing the study.

A disturbing sprinkling of commenters accepted the findings or (quibbled ineffectually) and professed their undiminished adherence to the imposition corporal discipline (often referencing with nostalgia spankings they themselves received as children…)

Thus::

“spanking a child, not beating, has nothing to do with IQ. In honesty, it probably helps most kids to be better mannered and respectful”

Of course, the simple assertion that the study’s findings will not be permitted to encumber the responder’s thinking falls somewhat short of reasoned discourse; the attempted distinction between “spanking” and “beating” is merely pathetic.

Another fan of spanking:

“I’m sure (emphasis added) spanking lowers IQ if you just spanked the kid and then gave them the IQ test. What about the ethical/moral foundation spanking provides?…The spanking I received as a kid was the best punishment for me…my parents cared enough to go to the trouble to correct my bad behavior”

Besides wilfully misstating the premise of the study (No one rushed in with an IQ test just after a brutalization by the parent), this beacon of parental intervention seems to think that the periodic experience of parent-inflicted terror is an essential building block of character.

A shocker in the study proper is the news that much spanking is done to babies as young as ONE YEAR OLD!!

24 nations forbid this sort of systematic brutalization of their own children.

That we permit it is surely another instance of American Exceptionalism to which the embattled armies of Reaction will point with pride!

I cannot share their breast swelling emotion. Personally, it makes me want to puke.

(Just parenthetically, yes, once again, I blame the Yahwists…)