Spanking

There was this heated and very entertaining episode of The Tyra Show where mothers & women were discussing the morality of spanking and the whole nine.  I recommend you watch/find it on the web or WHATEVER if you like debates period.  I'd say it was one of the best episodes of Ty Ty, and I'm a religious viewer.  (:
In my opinion, no rules can be set in stone when they concern people.  That is truly the bottom line.  Why?  Because of the big V!  Variation exists with people, and therefore with the situations they are involved in.  So the only way to understand how to discipline a child, in my opinion, is to know the child.  Discipline is all about repercussions.  You do something bad and something bad happens to you.  Parents put you in time out, take away something of yours, or spank you, whatever.  Parents just have to know what disciplinary actions mean to their child or children and decide what repercussion is suitable to the malicious action.  Every child cannot have the same upbringing because they require different things, and in turn, different nurturing or disciplinary actions.
I'm not a parent THANK BEEZUS, so I know it is easier said than done.  But that is my 2 cents.
As a side note, I also believe parents should never spank a child when they are mad.  You need to calm down first and the reason why is this:  Don't you want to shoot a person sometimes?  After you calm down, you'll still be ticked, but it won't be with as much anger.  So don't wind up shooting your kid or yelling at them as if you'd want to shoot them.  It is scary af!