Red States Endorse Child Brutality

Just kidding. But a new survey by SurveyUSA has illustrated yet another philosophical divide in our country in the issue of corporal punishment.

The survey covers three different forms of physical punishment: parental spankings, teacher spankings, and mouth washing. The right of parents to spank their children received widespread support, especially in Alabama, where it had an 87% approval rating. It's worst support came from Vermont, which still gave it a reasonable 55% approval rating.

However, the most interesting contrast came with the issue of teachers spanking children. Arkansas took the lead with a 53% approval rating, which was 20 percentage points higher than 10th place Indiana, and 45 points higher than last place New Hampshire. What could account for these enormous differences? Perhaps the People of New Hampshire are the true conservatives, who distrust large government and see a danger posed by granting teachers, who are officials of the government, the right to discipline their kids.

The state that loves mouth washing the most is Idaho. From what I've heard, it hasn't paid off. The People of Idaho are as obscene as the People of Hawaii or Massachusetts, which only gave the punishment a 25% approval rating.

Here is another survey that discusses corporal punishment disagreements between men and women, blacks and whites.

Here is a link to project No Spank. Guess where they stand on the issue.