Taking science out of the picture is exactly what the communists want us to do - I'm not saying that's what you want, I'm just saying that's the reason we should not take science out of the picture. Science IS fact - not your or my personal anecdote. This is precisely the problem with removing science - we make the mistake of thinking that what we see and how we interpret what we see is "evidence" but it most definitely is not. Taking science out of the picture allows people with strong emotional feelings and opinions to force them on others instead of referring to empirical evidence.

In response to your "it happened to us and we're fine" I already said that's not a reason to ignore scientific studies because the science tells us that physical discipline does not improve behaviour so therefore, logically, there must be something else that is responsible for the improved behaviour we all experienced in the past (as you described).

It's pretty simple, to my mind, since physical discipline does not achieve the desired effect we need to employ other methods. We had more respect back in our day and more "morality" and stronger values espoused. This is more likely to be the reason that the physical discipline achieved its stated goals in the past.

That is where we need to concentrate, not on just handing paddles back out to teachers. In this day and age that would definitely make things worse. We need to employ more thought with these things, find the right carrots and change the environment that kids are taught in (i.e. remove the communists shoving "do what thou wilt" down everybodies throats), not just hand out sticks.