I got a good walloping once or twice as a kid, but I was pretty good. Dad and I both have short tempers so we constantly rile each other up and on occasion get pretty nasty at each other, I love my parents though. I'll be damned if I won't bring my kids up the same way I was, because hey, it worked.

Regarding Jean-Luc's point about people being too soft... you can attribute most of the problems in our society to that very thing. Something is very, very wrong when someone who breaks into your house with the intention of stealing your personal property and harming you or your family can sue the shit out of you for cutting themselves on a window which they broke.