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Jackie Blitz's avatar

This hits on an underlying theme of much of Matt’s writing: there’s something fundamentally unlikable about many American leftists. Figure out how to be more relatable/likable/normal and win more elections.

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David Abbott's avatar

Its worth trying to empathize with the spankers. Physical discipline is probably more effective in the short term. I tell my eight year old to control his voice multiple times a day. Usually, he deflects, sometimes he even makes fun of me by repeating what I say in an hysterical falsetto. I bet he wouldn’t do that if I popped him a few times! I might also extract more domestic labor from him if I used a broader spectrum of coercion.

I stick to the mildest forms of coercion because my child can “fail” safety. But if my respectability were hanging by a thread and I were afraid of social services being called if we didn’t hold the line, or I needed Charlie to do the laundry because I were working two jobs, or even if I spent much of my weekends doing chores because we couldn’t afford help, I might give more weight to the short term efficacy of spanking and worry less about modeling non-violence.

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