>>>Memphis has one of the worst school systems in the country. Kids are being graduated who don't have a clue as to subject and verb agreement, basic math skills, etc. Discipline - they never use that word! I'm not over generalizing about the schools in Memphis, the state just took over 17 of them and there are more on the target list. Liberalism will be the death of this country.
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>>Liberalism? I know that word is never far away when you're looking for something to blame a problem on but how exactly do you mean it here? How are failed or failing schools a symptom of liberalism?
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>It's the liberals who have pushed the notion of being more concerned about how the kids feel, than whether they can do math. It's the liberals who have taken corporal punishment out of the schools. Here in Memphis, we had a super liberal superintendent who took corporal punishment out, and the idiots have been running the asylum since then. They are now holding hearings, and many teachers are testifying that when the young thugs learned they weren't going to be punished, they started assaulting the teachers and other kids at will. The new temporary superintendent has been quoted saying, "you can't have education without discipline" I'm thinking some sanity is coming back into the picture. Yes, liberals are the ones who want everyone to just play nice, irrespective of the FACT that some people can't be dealt with like that.
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>I'm not for beating people, but I am for maintaining order and paddlings are just one way of achieving that. I liken it to the hierarchy we used in law enforcement. It's called the level of force continuum. We always go one level above the offenders. If they use their hands, we use a baton or spray or taser. If they have a knive, we use a gun. If they have a gun, we try to have many guns, and if they indicate a willingness to shoot at us, we try to shoot first.
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>Liberal parents want to be the kids "friend". I never wanted to be my kids friend when they were young. I can be their friend now that they are all 18 or older. Until that time, I was a benevolent dictator, as was my dad.

You ever read "Farnham's Freehold" by Robert Heinlein? You sound just like him!

As for corporal punishment - when I was a kid my grandma was forever saying "Bring back the birch" or worse still "They should use the 'cat' [o' 9 tails] onthem" - and that was back in the relatively genteel days of the 60s. Now, with assaults on teachers, the rise in knife and gun crime in the UK, the smug smart-@ssedness of the barack-room lawyer kids we have today, I have to agree with her.

As for cops - things were better when he could give a snot-nose a timely clip behind the ear, before the snot-nose went on to worse things; people respected cops then, called them "Officer" rather than "Oi, mate".