Braking the cycle

Spanking can really hurt your child's IQ, you shouldn't ever do it.

And I suppose if you were to vaccinate your child, they will also get autism, won't they?

When you spank your child too often, they usually succumb to bad behavior more often.

not in all cases. My mu gives my 3 little bros a slap on the wrist if they keep acting up after she's told them off multiple times, and they're really well behaved now, and not in a fearful way wither. A lot of it depends on the kid themselves and the relationship between child and parent.

That's not actually an argument. Do you hit your kids? If you don't have any will you if you have them?

LOL not an argument...
FYI, I have a 1 year old, who I haven't spanked. Not that that proves anything. Of course, I'm assuming you're stating that negative physical contact of any kind is the same, and equating it all to child abuse.

I think it depends on the parents and the kid. Negative reinforcement sometimes works, and sometimes it doesn't, but physical abuse isn't based on correction, its for punishment. That can damage.

I am stating the negative physical contact of any kind is all a degree of child abuse. I'm glad to hear the you haven't spanked your kid and I hope that if you consider spanking you'll look at the research first. There is some pretty convincing studies that show spanked children on average have a 10 point lower IQ, which is huge since IQ is stacks exponentially. Spanked kids tend to be more aggressive and anti social. They have a harder time negotiating with other kids and later as an adult. Its a very important and contentious issue.
Here's one article by the LA times but there are many more. I think you owe it to your kid to give them the best parenting you can and that included determining if spanking is good.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/booster_shots/2009/09/spanking-iq.html
Here's a video presentation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONNRfflggBg#t=0

Oh, I'm sure my wife and I will be reading up on the subject soon. She's super into stuff like that, and not just people blabbing on the baby boards. Also, I read all the same baby books she did before our son was born, so I'm not one of "those" dads.
I have to tell you, though, that I was spanked as a kid. Not a lot, and not severely, but it was made clear to me when I did something especially wrong. Honestly, I thought being made to sit in the corner was worse. It's kinda like a kid version of solitary confinement. I couldn't stand it. I'll probably try to skip to that before spanking, but I'm not taking it off the table.
Also, I haven't seen those links yet, but I think that lower IQs might be coincedence, or caused by other poverty-related factors that are hard to isolate in an experiment.
Btw, bumped you up from a -2 to -1, since you took the time to have a civil discussion. Sorry I was a bit rude before, I honestly didn't expect a real discussion here.

huh, guess I woulda been the next Einstein if my parents hadn't spanked me and taught me that doing bad things has consequences....shame

Thank you, I know its a contentious issue but that's when we need civil discussion the most.
The lower IQs don't seem to fall along coincidence or poverty factors. It seems to occur in every group and class that spanks their kids in similar manners. I does seem like the poor spank more and harder though. Which if these IQ stats are true we especially need show the poor these facts.
Its interesting. They've developed brain scans that can actually peak inside the head and see what kind of abuse was inflicted on a person. (I don't know if you knew this but trauma actually causes physical damage in the brain.) But people that were spanked show the same signs of people we'd say were physically abused. It tends to be less severe but that's likely because the abused tends to be harsher than the spankings.

Its also interesting that almost nowhere in the media is spanking portrayed. Its interesting because something like 4/5 (american) parents are pro-spanking but our sitcoms, which are sometimes regarded as a measure of 'best practices' in family life, never show spanking. At least not in a positive light.

I was spanked, once; I learned my lesson. I have a registered I.Q. of 143. Which is 17 points above the accepted "genius" level I.Q.