That's Why They Call It the Nanny State
California legislators are never without new ideas for regulations and bans. The latest proposal is to make spanking children under 3 a crime, punishable by a $1,000 fine or up to a year in jail. Debra Saunders makes the basic case against the bill. Though I don't have kids, I'm not as opposed to spanking as other enlightened folk; my brothers and I were spanked occasionally (not terribly hard), with some good and no ill effects. Smacking a 2-year-old's hand as she reaches toward, say, the flame on the kitchen stove seems to me a lot more persuasive than trying to explain the dangers of fire. And, on a purely anecdotal basis, psychological punishment seems to create much more long-term resentment.
All you spanking foes and child-rearing experts don't need to write to explain what a terrible parent I'd be. Even if I had kids, my Pennsylvania-reared husband would never countenance such punishment. Spanking, like gun ownership, is one of the characteristics of southern culture that non-southerners find barbaric. It persists in diaspora, especially among those who don't assimilate into the dominant culture of, say, California. A spanking ban would therefore have a wildly disproportionate effect on conservative Christians and on blacks. With zealous enforcement, California could get the incarceration rates of black mothers up there with those of young, black men.