Hunter S. Thompson Quotes
Children are like TV sets. When they start acting weird, whack them across the head with a big rubber basketball shoe.
Effective, terse quotation illustrating the research findings that adults who were abused as children tend to become child abusers themselves. Although he was referring to Black parents, the findings have been borne out for all ethnic groups.
This is the Admiral who commanded that invasion of Washington DC and the burning of the White House. It was in retaliation for the destruction of buildings in the American invasion of Canada that began the War of 1812.
This Biblical passage is often used by fundamentalists who claim that any child abuse laws limiting their right to discipline their children is an unconstitutional interference with their religious duty. Even in the early American colonies this was an issue. See Cotton Mather: {612010}
This seems to be the first instance of the famous dictum.
This quotation has caused a great deal of conflict between some parents and local governments. In many states, beating a child with a “rod” of other implement is a crime—often a felony. Religious fundamentalist parents insist on their right to bring up their children in accordance with “God’s law”. In American society generally, we have decided that children’s safety and rights trumps the Bible where there are conflicts. Spanking with an open hand in moderate amounts is generally considered legal although most child development experts counsel against it as it models a resort to violence and tends to culturally perpetuate itself over generations. See {642236} and {642235}.
Hunter Stockton Thompson was an American journalist and author, and the founder of the gonzo journalism movement. He first rose to prominence with the publication of Hell's Angels (1967), a book for which he spent a year living and riding with the Hells Angels motorcycle club to write a first-hand account of the lives and experiences of its members.
