Were
that all children were the same—eternally quite, respectful,
obedient, humble in spirit and respectful of authority. In the high
school I attended the Principal's Office was known to have a "Paddle
on the Wall". Whether it was ever used, I do not know. But all of us
knew—no matter how rebellious and disrespectful of authority we
might wish to be—that the utmost level of embarrassment and
humiliation was always possible. The visual that we all knew our
peers would see (no matter how arrogant and cool we wished to be) was
us bent over before the pinnacle of authority in a subservient
position getting hit on the butt. Let's get one thing abundantly
clear. The pain in such paddling has nothing to do with a
momentarily stinging butt, but with the snapshot of us in total
subjection before authority. We, despite our fondest wish and
ugliest behavior, are not demigods in the driver's seat able to run
roughshod over authority, our fellows, or the facts.
In
America we have obsessed over the momentary sting of a paddling and
completely ignored the awesome necessity of communicating in
unsubtle ways that no individual represents the totality of the
universe. It is a very serious matter that Johnny knows that he can
report that his dad paddled him and thus outrank his father in power
and authority. This is a governance situation that has gotten
totally out of hand and is destructive of the family.
When
we decide that ideology and flimsy idealism are stronger and more
obdurate than human nature we make a serious error. Once we fancy
ourselves gods and not animals disaster results. Again, we must not
be subtle—we must have a visual that makes it abundantly clear
who's in charge. I'm sorry, time-outs do not provide powerful
visuals. A spanking on the butt bent over in a subservient position
offers a visual that says it all with utmost power and clarity.
Here,
I must reprimand what I think is our lust for “sophistication.”
We lust to be considered
“liberal”,
“open minded”, and “cool” not only
in regards to discipline, but everything else. This yearning for
what is at base a lust for license and anarchy is going to bite us on
the butt. It is getting so bad in America that it seems our
Constitution does not contain a Bill of Rights, but a Bill of
License. We should remember "when liberty becomes license
dictatorship is near". I pray daily for strong transformational
leadership that will remove the scales from our eyes before it is too
late.
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