Did you really come out "OK"?

(Previously posted to Patreon)

If you go through something and claim you came out OK, yet it causes you to support that which you went through being done to others, you may not be OK. You may be brainwashed.

I see this when the issue of "spanking" comes up. Libertarians who spank claim it doesn't violate the ZAP, when it can do nothing but. Whether it is one of those times when you "must" initiate force and then deal with the consequences, is another issue altogether- I won't open that jar of fruit flies right now.

I unwittingly performed a lifetime experiment in spanking. My first crop of kids were spanked. My current kid never has been. I see zero difference in the impact on encouraging good behavior, but a 100% improvement in how I feel about myself as a parent, and as a person. Yes, small sample size and zero objectivity.

I also see the same thing with regard to government schooling. People claim that they went through it and survived- and even got an education- so it must be fine to force everyone else to go through the same thing.

Well, I survived it too. And that is why I believe it needs to be abolished, burned to the ground, and bulldozed out of existence. Because "surviving" something is a sign it is probably not something to encourage more of. If you toss your kid off a cliff and she survives, is that a sign you should make tossing your kids off a cliff mandatory? What if you toss 100 kids and 99 of them survive? What if many of those who survive end up with lifelong disabilities due to the experience?

That people can go through government school and still support it only shows how good it is at brainwashing kids. It is a clear sign of the lifelong disability which results.

When you go through something like that and come out claiming you are OK, and not seeing that you claiming you are OK is evidence that you are not quite OK, I see something that needs to be abolished, not encouraged.

As in so many things, just because it was done to me- and I may have even done it to others, and I would prefer to not think of myself as a bad person- doesn't mean I am unable to see the harm in it, and doesn't mean I think it should be done to everyone.

Even if you survived it, don't inflict it on others "just because".

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