Correct now, or correct later

"Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline will drive it far from him." Proverbs 22:15

A Texas town just outside Fort Hood has decided to bring back an old-fashioned weapon to instill a little more discipline in the increasingly unruly student body: the paddle.

"The discipline problem is much better than it's been in years," school board president Steve Wright, who runs a construction business, told the Washington Post. He credited the new punishment and other discipline programs.

Parents are firmly behind the new slap on the backside.

So naturally, Uncle Sam has to involve himself:

Besides Texas, corporal punishment is still legal in 19 states, mostly in the South. It's use is waning (Ohio stopped last year) and Congress may consider a federal ban.

Why do I never see articles say things like "runaway social program spending has led to spiraling state budget deficits in 14 states, mostly in the North?" Seems when the South is highlighted, it's to damn a particular practice or belief by association. After all, everyone knows they're all a bunch of ignorant, intolerant, racist hicks, right? Sadly, this meme is so well installed in the media conversation, the town mentioned above preemptively tried to defend itself:

"We're rural central Texas. We're very well educated, but still there are those core values. Churches are full on Sundays," Hancock said. "This is a tool we'd like in the toolbox for responding to discipline issues."

Note, too, the different descriptions of the practice. The town sees paddling as a tool, whereas the writer of the article describes it as a weapon. Critics are correct that corporal punishment can be abused... but that's true of anything. The fact is, each generation is born barbaric, without any sense of a community larger than themselves. It takes a combination of loving intent, consistent standards, and the occasional corporal reinforcement of consequences to mold the next generation of civilized society.

We've tried ever-larger doses of self-esteem therapy and child-centered parenting. And as society has become less self-controlled, it's become ever more State-controlled. Which is better: applying a paddle to a young backside to promote correct behavior as a habit, or sending heavily armed police to take down gangs of adolescent miscreants years later?