I've been listening to a Saturday's FTL in the car, and I can't help bringing up some points regarding the child-spanking. I am a parent myself, I have 3 children, and let me say it straight I don't condone violence, especially targeted at the little ones. Beating the one who is not only physically incapable to respond, but also dependent on you is bad-bad-bad. But I also heard some points on the show which I really feel like addressing:
Issue #1: Non-aggression
One of the callers brought up non-aggression principle, and that hitting your child is initiation of force. The problem with this statement is that non-initiation of force is not an axiomatic principle, but derived from the principle of self-ownership. Exercising violence on somebody can be equated to a property damage. Since humans value their body very high, hitting someone, even lightly is like damaging a very expensive item. But violation of property rights does not occur every time you spank somebody. You can spank yourself, since body is your property and you can damage it plenty. You can spank your significant other, because significant other owns the body in question and can authorize that. Who owns the child? Obviously, child does only when (s)he reaches capacity to exercise self-ownership. Little children obviously don't have this capacity, so their parents temporarily act on their behalf. So, there could be cases when spanking little child does not breach non-aggression principle.
Issue #2: IQ
I very rarely side with Mark, but this time he made a good point: difference in IQ between spanked and non-spanked kids does not establish causal link. It seems to me that it is very likely that children with lower capacity to understand others are getting themselves into situations where spanking is likely solution. Smart kids are likely to avoid those situations, so IQ difference simply reflects the fact that smart kids were smarter all along
Issue #3: Patience
One of callers mentioned that she believes that it is possibler to bring up a child with no spanking, but she simply does not have appropriate time, patience and resources to do this. I think this was the key. Everything is possible when you have infinite resources, time and skills. But not all of us are professional pedagogues, and/or own a fortune to be able to hire one. A lot of parents don't have time, a lot of them don't have skills. Some are lucky to have kids which could be brought without too much trouble, but other kids are not as easy. Being single mother with two boys of approximately same age is a whole different thing, than both parents with enough income, and with more evenly aged kids of alternating sex (I'm assuming she probably is not very well off financially, but of course I might be wrong).
Issue #4: Parenthood and individual liberty
Libertarians always talk a good talk about individual freedom, but somehow, when it comes to parenthood, liberty is forgotten. It is important to recognize that one human being cannot be made a serf to another one, simply because (s)he became a parent. While it's obviously a good idea to make sure you have skills and resources available for your children, it is not always happening. Children are people too. People should probably not look at their kids like they are saints, and expect the others parents to do same thing. It's where the liberty begins to end