Enraged conservatives: “Stop saying that spanking causes violent behavior or I’ll beat the crap out of you.”

There's a whole slew of stories this morning revealing yet more evidence that, “children who are spanked have lower IQ scores and that frequent spanking has been linked to anxiety and behavior problems and higher risk of violent or criminal behavior, depression and excessive alcohol use.”

Nothing earth-shakingly new there. It’s just a confirmation of earlier studies. But as might be expected, there has been fierce blowback all day from the Conservative side of the pre-Cambrian layer.

Conservatives seem to like spanking. So any science that confirms that spanking can harm children arouses fury—most especially the fury of those who grew up getting spanked.

Most of it can be paraphrased this way: “I was spanked frequently as a child and it didn’t do me any harm. Today I’m a grown up, contributing citizen and you can bet I spank my own kids.”

Well actually, here’s one argument verbatim from the Wise Conservatism blog that says, "Spanking isn’t abuse; it’s a method of discipline that children need to become productive, responsible adults."

Science? Science must be wrong, just the same as it is on global warming, and evolution, and vaccination and all that stuff that Conservatives refuse to "agree" with.

What this style of thinking boils down to is, “Facts are just another word for opinions, and I’ve got my own. If I think 2+2=7, that's my opinion and it's just as good as yours. Or maybe this anti-spanking thing is another one of those left wing, pinko, commie, pointy-headed egghead liberal, socialist conspiracies.”

Or as one pro-spanking spanker implies, this is one step closer to taking all our kids away and putting them in brainwashing camps:

“How dare you call a spanking abuse? Should we take children away from parents who spank their children? Give me a break. There are too many children in foster care for foster parents to go around now. And yet, you want to take children away from loving parents who just want their children to grow up to be good and caring adults.”

Well m'am, I completely agree with you. Who says a good and well-bred child shouldn't grow into a caring adult who gets into bar fights, drives drunk, and beats his wife and kids black and blue?

Beat the crap out of our kids! It’s the only way to preserve America's freedom (aside from repealing healthcare) right?