I work at a school for kids with one issue or another. We have ld, mr and ed kids here. The majority of our kids are in the foster care system, and I hate to say that most of them have no future unless you count jail or homeless as a future. Even when these kids get in a good foster situation, they mess it up. I hear them all the time saying that if the foster parents try to correct them or spank them they will call their social worker etc etc. To me that is a huge part of why we are where we are today with child violence.
Our kids believe that they can say and do whatever they want and parents had better not retaliate with a spanking, because they will call the authorities. Where are we as a society when I can't even correct my nephew in a store without getting stared at and having people say "you really shouldn't spank him". I think people want it both ways, they want to comment when kids go bad and do bad things, but they don't want individuals to have the right to discipline their children however they feel. I believe that anything I choose to do to my child short of abuse is my right. Why should someone be able to tell me that spanking my child is wrong.