[Edi]

Atrocities said:
The control parents had has been dramatically reduced by liberal ideals and liberal back passage of liberal laws. If your child refuses to obey you, and you take away their X-box and turn off the TV, they simply have to pick up the phone and call 911 and say that mommy hit me. Most parents are scared to death of this and most kids know about it.

By the time the kid is old enough to understand a method of blackmail that sophisticated, the damage has already been done. If you raise your kid right and enforce discipline from the get-go, this possibility will not even manifest. Most kids love their parents (unless the parents are actually abusive scumbags) and would not want to hurt them. I've heard stories from some Americans I know how they have no problem controlling their kids at all and this thing has never come up even as a possibility.

Atrocities said:
Liberals have taken the power that the parents once held and gave it to the children. This is no lie, it isn't propaganda, it is fact and it is ugly.

I would like to see evidence of this unsupported claim. I will not accept it as a statement of fact at face value. AS I said, by the time it gets to that point, the parents have already failed.

Atrocities said:

Abuse is not acceptable. My parents spanked me, they never abused me. I suspect that that is true for most people. People who abuse their children are the lowest forms of life known to exist.

The problem is that there are far fewer people who subscribe to your point of view than not, and even fewer who would actually know when to stop. Just the past two years, I've seen several news reports about small children being beaten for not being quiet or other trivial reasons. Many of those kids died and there are more cases where there were several injuries. Simply put, the people most likely to have children are the ones with the least education and who are the least equipped to be good parents and they also have more children on average and they are, simply put, too incompetent at being parents to allow any kind of leeway with spanking. It would be irresponsible in the extreme to not ban spanking for that reason. At least if it is criminalized, you can throw child-abusing scumbags in prison without unnecessary complications.

Atrocities said:
And Edi, comments like these really do more harm than good as they prove a point. When people disagree with a liberal point of view they are attacked, ridiculed, harassed, intimidated, and marginalized. Now I know that you are a passionate advocate of your position and enjoy a good debate, but please bare in mind that when you resort to personal attacks, you loose the high ground and forfeit the moral values of your position, whatever those might be.

Only when the opponent thinks that the substance of what is said can be ignored in favor of the way it is said. Style over substance is a logical fallacy. The comments are accurate in the sense that the views you expressed in the post I replied to are in no way grounded in reality. I've seen many of the same arguments from others who were, unlike you, completely unable to understand any of the counterarguments at all, whether framed civilly or using far harsher language than in those quotes.

I can also attest to being harassed and ridiculed for advocating moderate positions in opposition to conservative ones, even on forums that are known to be liberal places. The runup to the Iraq war particularly stands out in that respect. Unfortunately for the people doing it, I have no problem dishing it out in kind, so they generally got the worst of it.

Atrocities said:
Attacking an idea or philosophy is one thing, but attacking a person because of those ideas and philosophies is something else entirely. Please keep it civil and don't flame people.

Thanks man.

I know. I'm well aware of the difference between attacking an idea and attacking the messenger. Saying "Idea x is stupid for reasons 1, 2 & 3 and therefore people who support it are stupid" is not attacking the messenger even though it may sound rude to some, but saying "Person x is stupid, therefore anything he says is wrong" is an ad hominem with no logical basis. It's just that too many people think that using any bad words automatically means an ad hominem.

I also know that you are, despite your obviously very conservative views, capable of understanding the arguments and you also seem to enjoy debate, so don't take the harsh words in my first post as an attack on yourself. They are attacks on ideas, not on you. I don't know why you have such views, but based on the evidence at hand, I would say it is due to bad experiences with some liberals, definitely bad experiences due to criminal left-wing extremists and some corrupt organizations (whether local government or something else) and possibly also lack of exposure to mainstream moderate liberals.

I happen to think you're a swell guy.
I just don't let that get in the way of blasting a position I think is factually incorrect.

Funny as it may sound, in Finland I am counted as a conservative. In the US, I'd be pretty damned left-wing, that's how far to the right the entire US political spectrum is. I do not know if liberal would be an accurate term for me in the context of US politics, or even here, "progressive" would fit better.