| abstract
| - Children should be seen and not heard, and those who are heard are inevitably young limbs of Satan up to mischief, and should be given a dozen of the best with a birch rod. Unfortunately, some people with more sentiment than common sense — to wit, psychologists and social workers and other professional do-gooders — are adamant that hitting children is bad for them. They claim that it causes emotional damage; destroys one of the most precious relationships, that between a parent and a child; and turns the little brat into a raving sadist who spends his life inflicting similar injuries on anyone unfortunate enough to be in a weaker position. This is arrant nonsense. “Spare the rod and spoil the child.” A child who is not soundly thrashed will inevitably turn into a puling milquetoast, a namby-pamby little weakling, and a sexual degenerate. Consider the following illustrations which show the difference between a child who is spanked and a child who is not. Image:Calderoncaptain.jpg Image:Raggedpupil.jpg The child on the left, who is not spanked, is a mummy’s boy, a snivelling little wretch who whines and whinges when his delicate little feelings are hurt. Observe the pale complexion, the sunken eyes, the prematurely aged appearance, and the slumped shoulders. Observe the clammy hands, the suppurating facial pustules, the acrid belches, the flow of fetid matter from the fundament, the tongue coatings, the flabby muscles, and the draggy gait. All are characteristic of the chronic masturbator. The child on the right, who is spanked every day, is likely to grow up robust and hearty, a fine upstanding young fellow, the flower of manhood, with a healthy appetite for blood sports, and is likely to have a proper manly career in the army, navy, church or as a scoutmaster. (This evidence is provided by the celebrated psychologist Dr. Ludovic Halfries, known for his argument that educating women is detrimental to their health, as their brains overheat and explode in their heads, as happened to the Russian chess player Nikolai Titov.) I was beaten thrice a day (five times on Sundays), and it did not do me any harm. Quite the contrary; it instilled in me a proper respect for justice, and so led to my present exalted career, in which I may proudly boast that I have the record for condemning the most people to imprisonment (and, in happier days, capital and corporal punishment). Whipping, in fact, makes a man out of boys. (And out of girls too.) The British Empire was successfully governed for decades by people who saw their parents but seldom, were spanked on the smallest pretext, and then went to boarding schools where they were starved, caned and assaulted by older students and by the headmaster. (Despite the current emphasis on “values-driven” education and the liberal arts, and governmental disapproval of the cane, schools of the type of Dotheboys Hall, governed by such benevolent pedagogues (and, on occasion, pederasts) as Messrs. Thwackum, Wackford Squeers and Abiatha Swelter, are happily still to be found.) The decline of the Empire only set in with an aversion to corporal punishment. If they had been whipped every day, the British would still possess their empire, rather than succumbing to the mad urge to give the Empire away as fast as possible. Is it any surprise that juvenile delinquency, drug abuse, premarital sex, homosexuality, onanism, atheism, pacifism, vegetarianism and the single parent family are rife in the modern world? These are all abominations and violations of the natural order, caused by the degeneracy and decadence due to moral laxity. I therefore call for the restoration of Victorian values, beginning with firm discipline and martial masculinity. Which, I ask you, is less acceptable: that a child should be treated fairly and firmly, and ends up well behaved and respectful toward his elders, or that an indulgent parent should, by misplaced sentiment and what they fondly imagine to be kindness, produce an egotistical little monster, with the attention span of a flea and who, at the age of thirty-five, is likely to throw a tantrum if his demands are not met on the spot? The parents of such a child have completely failed in their duty both towards the child and towards society. Now, society, is, as Foucault (himself no stranger to discipline and punishment, judiciously administered in the brothels of San Francisco) argued, built on relationships of power. The father is harassed and bullied at work, the mother is subservient to her husband’s will, therefore it is only right and fitting that little boys and little girls should be entirely at their mercy, so that they may learn from as early an age as possible that life is cruel and unfair, before they can become idealistic or imaginative individuals. The real world is harsh and unforgiving, and children need to be strong to survive. It is deeply regrettable that modern medicine, with its vaccinations, regular health check-ups, and welfare support for parents, places so much emphasis on trying to ensure that children are healthy, happy and well fed. The Spartans and Romans had the right idea when they exposed sickly children at birth. Anything that weakens them by turning them into cretinous invalids is only setting them up for failure later in life, as they will be taken advantage of by the first sharp operator they meet. Rather than wasting time being dandled on their parents’ knees, children should be dangled out the window. Despite all the nonsense talked by Darwinists, we all know that the reason for having children is not to continue the human race, but to give parents an interesting hobby which will provide years of entertainment: namely, making the obnoxious, smelly, noisy little brats dance to their parents’ tune. After all, they cost the mother preeclampsia, an epidural and a Caesarean, and the father several months of sexual frustration. Even before they are born, children are, as St Augustine recognised, inherently wicked. Therefore, parents are entirely justified in doing whatever they consider necessary to redeem their children from perdition. It is imperative that children should, from the very moment they come hurtling down the birth canal, be left in no doubt who is master of the house. Give the little horror the slightest leeway, and he’ll be jockeying for position before he’s weaned. Now, this is not how things should be. The disobedient child, as that benefactor of humanity John Calvin argued, deserves to die, whether by stoning, burning or beheading. In violating the authority of its father, it has violated God’s authority. Unfortunately, this suggestion did not meet with the approval either of the jury or of counsel, although the parents were unanimous in their support for the motion.
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