In bygone days, this pile of useless junk was viewed with reverence as the very pinnacle of human  know-how.  But now it is but an irrelevant relic from the past.  It continually fails to work the way anyone wants it to.   All attempts to fix the problems which arise from its use leads only to worse problems in the long run.  It serves no purpose except to pose a risk to society.

      Like the fate of Mir, the looming crash of the traditional Prospank Paradigm which defines children as a hittable class of persons is an inevitable one.  Already it spirals downward from the once-lofty traditional orbit it formerly occupied, as more and more people recognize it as useless and dangerous with no rightful position in the cultural firmament.
 

• A dozen countries have banned spanking outright, and many more have banned it in their schools and foster homes.
• The majority of US public school districts, comprising an even larger majority of US school children, have banned paddling in schools.
• Research linking spanking with a variety of negative long term effects on children continues to mount, while evidence of long term benefit fails to emerge.
• Public opinion polls in the USA show that support for spanking continues to erode.

     Yes, the Prospank Paradigm's firey re-entry, disintegration, and disappearance beneath the waves of History, are now only a matter of time.

Disintegrating fragments of the
Prospank Paradigm plunge Earthward.

      Just as Mir's orbital momentum prevents it from immediately dropping like a stone, "spanking" still has its defenders who work to slow its inexorable descent.  But try as they may, they can only forstall, not prevent, the inevitable.

      After all, how does one defend a practice of which one is so ashamed that one will never take a picture of it, or a sound recording of it, for fear of the predictably disgusted reaction of others?

      How does one defend a practice whose details are so distasteful that one must respond with silence or evasion whenever asked to precisely describe the practice one seeks to defend?

      Yes, there will be "fireworks" as the Prospank Paradigm plummets Earthward.  But once the flames of blind dogma, neurotic defense, and denial, have been quenched in the Ocean of Reason, the social "skies" will at last be clear of normative violence against children.