100% concur!!
Which brings to mind the application of corporal punishment at home and in school. At school it is now banned, and the advice from our phycotic phycological experts is that we should not use it at home.
We [me and 12 other old school mates] just had our 54th old boys reunion with one of our teachers attending.
The application of corporal punishment was applied quite liberally in those days, and that fact was a topic of conversation.
It certainly done us no harm...
Some personal examples that enforce the opinion that I have about punishment when appropriate....
When my Son was around 4 or 5 years old, he had a mate a few doors down from us who [after being egged on by a couple of older brothers] would whack my boy on the nose/face. He would come in crying and my Mrs [ who is highly religious] would tell him to forget about it and virtually turn the other cheek. After this type of behaviour occurred 4 or 5 times, I started to see red. I grabbed my boy after one instance, pulled him aside and told him if Andrew ever hit him again, to swing back and return the favour as hard as he could.
Sure enough a couple of days later, I see little Andrew strike my boy. He swung back and knocked him to the ground, sending him home with a bloody nose and crying.
That was 30 years ago, and to this very day they are still the best of mates. In fact best man at each others weddings.
Another instance saw me one day pull into a Service station for petrol. As I parked my car, I noticed 3 boys and a girl with another smaller kid against a telegraph poll, hitting, spitting and generally bullying him...all around 15 years old.
It was also adjacent to a school in which they all obviously belonged. Anyway, I briskly walked over to the bullies, and approaching the ring leader, walked straight into him [chesting/breasting him as hard as I could] knocking him to the footpath. Then apologising I "dragged" him up by the scruff of his neck and brushed him off, and "pushed"him on his way.....The other two brave mates of his and the girl, were well on there way at this stage.
Anyway, this attracted the Principal from the school, with whom I had a talk to and who consequently told me "good job" as this little arsehole was known for these sort of bullying tactics.
Perhaps if parents were still allowed to correct/punish their kids when appropriate, and schools were still allowed to apply discipline of the corporal kind when needed, we would not have this problem we do today with the younger set.
Sometimes bullies just need to fell some pain inflicted on their person [as they inflict it on others] to realise that what they do is not very nice.
We had a case in Australia a couple of years ago, where a fat kid was the subject of some bullying that was u tubed and went viral.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nu1PjbyfVU4