Story here in the UK Telegraph. (H/T Andrew)

Excerpt:

A study found that youngsters smacked up to the age of six did better at school and were more optimistic about their lives than those never hit by their parents.

They were also more likely to undertake voluntary work and keener to attend university, experts discovered.

The research, conducted in the United States, is likely to anger children’s rights campaigners who have unsuccessfully fought to ban smacking in Britain.

[…]Those who had been smacked up to the age of six performed better in almost all the positive categories and no worse in the negatives than those never punished physically.

Teenagers who had been hit by their parents from age seven to 11 were also found to be more successful at school than those not smacked but fared less well on some negative measures, such as getting involved in more fights.

However, youngsters who claimed they were still being smacked scored worse than every other group across all the categories.

Prof Gunnoe found little difference in the results between sexes and different racial groups.

I find it interesting that the recent anti-smacking law in New Zealand was championed by Labor Party prime minister Helen Clark and Green Party MP Sue Bradford. These two are members of the secular left in New Zealand.

Spanking is opposed by the secular left because they oppose all moral judgments, personal responsibility, and accountability. They seem to have a hostility to any objective moral standard that defines good and evil, but instead embrace moral relativism. They want to be allowed to do anything they feel like doing, regardless of the harm and costs incurred, and to get off Scot-free in the end.

The following video explains the worldview of the secular left better than anything I’ve seen. They think that wars are caused by disagreements, so the best way to prevent wars is to support what is traditionally regarded as evil, and to denigrate what is traditionally regarded as good. When all distinctions between good and evil have been abolished, they think that the world will be a better place.

That is why they do not want parents teaching their children any standard of conduct. They view this as a setback to their goal of destroying all moral distinctions.

I do agree with the thrust of the article that spanking should cease as soon as the child is able to make connections between behaviors and rewards rationally.