Is corporal punishment the cure for liberalism?

Richard W. writes:

Subject: Appreciation and Gratitude is due your camp councilors.

You are the only person I know who was physically punished for praising Marx as a child.

Surely it is not a coincidence that you are now among the fiercest critics of leftism on the planet.

The old ways are the best ways, and in this case I would like to thank your camp authorities for following tradition and not sparing the rod.

We could probably eliminate leftism from the West in a generation if every parent followed this simple practice. Promptly administer corporal punishment to children for any praise of liberalism or parroting of leftist ideas at first outbreak.

LA replies:

That’s amusing, and I’ll post it. But in that incident in summer camp, leftism wasn’t the issue. In the conversation with a fellow camper, I gave Marx as an example, along with Freud and Einstein, of prominent Jewish figures. The issue was Jewish contributions to society. I was punished for engaging in ethnic comparisons and saying the Jews had made the greatest contributions to society of any group, not for praising Marx.

LA continues:

However, now perhaps it will be concluded that the reason I became a Christian believer later in life and then a baptized Christian was that I was physically punished as a child for standing up for the Jews! However, that argument would fall down, because I still stand up for the Jews—with certain parties accusing me of doing so to egregious excess. Hmm, it looks as though corporal punishment is not all it’s cracked up to be…

Posted by Lawrence Auster at October 03, 2010 11:57 AM | Send