The push to curtail corporal punishment (disciplining children) reminds me of the push to curtail gun rights in that its advocates love to rely on half-truths and cherry-picked data.
You've probably heard the argument "this kind of thing doesn't happen in "developed" countries where they have reasonable gun restrictions." The important qualifier, there, is "developed." What is a "developed" country, anyway? Well, apparently, "developed" means a few homogenous countries in Europe, the Middle East, and Eastern Asia. Because those are the only places with lower overall homicide rates. What about countries that have similar history and similar demographic diversity? Well, they don't matter. Because the United States is a lot more like Norway than Brazil (insert eye-rolling emoji).
"But what about good-ole Canada, our hospitable neighbor to the north? Clearly we've failed as a nation because Canada is safer than us."
We've only failed in a world where Canada is the only other country on this side of the Atlantic. The truth is that the United States has the third-lowest homicide rate in this entire hemisphere.* Yeah, all the countries that share a similar history rooted in colonization and massive waves of immigration? We're safer than them. It's (conveniently) easy to lose sight of that when your data excludes everything except the most stable countries in Europe and Asia.
*I'm not sure what 2020 did to these statistics. But as far as I know, it remains true that only Canada and Chile have lower homicide rates in the western hemisphere.
"But what about the mass availability of guns in this country compared to others? Aren't the countries with strict gun control far safer?"
Not really. That's only true, again, in a world where the UK and Australia are the only countries that ever implemented gun control policies. The truth is that the United States has the most lenient gun policies in the world. True, Australia and the UK are safer. But most countries in the world (all of which have stricter gun control) are less safe.
In sum, The United States only looks like it has a gun crisis if you rely on highly cherry-picked data. Relying on arbitrary qualifiers like "developed nation" is one popular method. Selecting only a few examples of gun control's success (Australia) while ignoring its failure almost everywhere else (Venezuela) is another.
It's irritating.
But I'm also starting to see this intellectually dishonest approach to advocacy elsewhere, most recently among those who seek to ban corporal punishment.
Their argument goes something like "the rest of the civilized world has banned this child abuse and, as usual, the United States is lagging behind."
Is that true, though? Or is it more cherry-picking?
Over the last ten years or so, plenty of countries (mostly in Europe and South America) banned corporal punishment. But is it "the rest of the civilized world?" Is the United States some kind of abusive outlier?
Unsurprisingly, no. The claim's not even remotely close to accurate.
Almost all of North America, almost all of Africa, almost all of Asia, and even Australia still allow child discipline in the home. And, according to the World Health Organization, many of the recent South American bans have gone virtually unenforced.
Disciplining your children puts you well within the world normal unless you're living in a few European countries.
I'm not saying its normalcy necessarily makes it right. In case you need yet another reminder, the majority is incorrect at least as often as it's correct. "Most people in the world spank their children so it's ok for me to" is terrible logic and I'll not have anyone say that it's the argument I'm making.
All I'm saying is that "America is lagging behind on banning corporal punishment" is a wildly inaccurate argument that- much like arguments for gun control- falls apart unless you rely on intellectually dishonest data cherry-picking.
On a final note, I can't help but think that this "developed nation" business holds a few racist undertones. I'm not one who goes out of his way to find racism behind every rock. But in this case, it's pretty difficult to deny the prevalence of Eurocentric racism embedded in the advocacy of those who seek to curtail gun rights and corporal punishment.
The advocates are outright saying that predominantly "white" countries like Canada and those in the EU are the ones that matter. They're the "developed" countries we should seek to emulate.
Click on any piece advocating gun control, I guarantee you they'll highlight Australia, Canada, Britain, and even Scandanavian countries long before they mention Mexico, Venezuela, Brazil, or even similarly historically troubled places like South Africa.
"The United States has more in common with Scandinavian countries than Latin American countries and I'm not racist at all for thinking that."
... really, REALLY?
Of course, with anti-corporal punishment advocacy, South America is the only non-European place to point to.
But (though statistics are a little ambiguous, here) corporal punishment bans in South America haven't seen nearly the same level of enforcement or success.
Thus, the advocacy is still pointing primarily to Europe when it says "we're behind the "civilized" world."
It is almost surprising that liberals (who are usually quick to identify real or imagined racism behind every rock) are so comfortable relying on such coded language as "developed" and "civilized" to identify Europe while ignoring the rest of the world in their advocacy.