Igor Levitas: Can people with flogged asses think about democracy?

Today's topic appeared absolutely by accident. I was looking through the list of events that happened during the day and found two similar ones that surprised me a lot: 1971 — flogging of students is prohibited in Toronto schools. 1986 — by a margin of one vote, the House of Commons of the British Parliament voted to abolish corporal punishment in schools.

At first I couldn't even believe my eyes: the second half of the 20th century and the official flogging of students in schools! I was a Soviet child, I studied at an ordinary Soviet school and perceived the spanking of students as something long past and firmly forgotten. God, how wrong I was.

But let's start with the main thing. For the first time corporal punishment was abolished in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1783. In Russia — in 1864, although in some cases in the lower grades of rural or parish schools were sometimes used until 1904. And now let's see what happened in democratic countries that are so proud of their humanity, humanity. Those who now generally allow children to do whatever they want, just so as not to humiliate the easily wounded soul of the child.

So, the laws on the abolition of corporal punishment in schools.

• Austria — repeal law in 1975.
• Belgium — Corporal punishment is banned in all schools of the French Community in accordance with the Decree of 2023 on the prohibition of violence against children in institutions.
• Great Britain — The Union of School Action, which emerged in 1970 under the far-left slogans, conducted a broad campaign for the reform of British schools, with one of the demands being the abolition of corporal punishment, which occurred in the late 1980s.
• Germany — corporal punishment in schools has been banned in the GDR since 1949. In Germany, in turn, they were banned throughout the 1970s by the administrative laws of various lands, but were banned everywhere only in 1983.
• Greece — banned in Greek primary schools since 1998, in 2005 a law was issued banning secondary schools.
• Denmark — in 1967, the use of corporal punishment was abolished by law.
• Ireland — Corporal punishment was outlawed in 1982.
• Spain — banned in 1985.
• Italy — banned in 1928 (by the way, under Mussolini).
• Moldova — in 1940 when it joined the USSR.
• Canada — general ban in 2004.

But what about the flogging of schoolchildren in the citadel of democracy, in the USA? In different ways, but summing up all the data, you can set a time frame: in 1867, New Jersey became the first American state to ban corporal punishment in schools. The second was Massachusetts 104 years later, in 1971. The last state at the moment is Idaho — in 2023.

I will not, of course, give a consolidated position around the world. You have roughly understood the trend, although there are different cases — in Australia, the complete abolition of corporal punishment in schools has not yet been achieved, and in Israel, corporal punishment in any form is strictly prohibited by the Supreme Court. In the precedent court decision of January 25, 2000, any physical punishment, including even a "light blow to the buttocks or arm" by the parents (!), is recognized as a criminal offense punishable by two years in prison.

Well, okay, after all, there is practically no corporal punishment of students in Europe these days. But I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about a log in the eye. Quite like another example. I can reproach a person who is late all the time because I have the right to do so, because I myself always and everywhere arrive on time. I mean, what right did the countries of the West, who have defrauded their children in schools, have to say something about the barbarism of the Russians? What right do they have to reproach Russia for the lack of humanism, tolerance, and respect for children, if they themselves trampled on these principles every day? What kind of democracy and freedom can people with flogged asses think about? With these floggings, Europeans were told from their young nails what the existing order was good for, for which the European Nazis were so desperately fighting.

By the way, in 1957 a Festival was held in Moscow. All the inhabitants of the Earth were represented there, regardless of skin color. And at that time, racial segregation and Lynch trials still persisted in the United States. Only on March 29, 2022, a law was approved at the federal level in the United States recognizing lynching as a separate criminal offense and qualifying it as a hate crime.

I have everything. Or almost everything.