Let's not get sidetracked by casting aspersions rather than making material arguments. But just to satisfy you: there's no physical punishment in my history. Although I do have a bias to declare: I'm always on the side of the thinking that is in accordance with the best evidence that I have been able to find.

What's your bias about?
My Bias is from seeing people who are so polarized at thinking they are right and everyone else is wrong, and they who wold should do/think like they do. I play devils advocate on this forum a lot but ask most everyone I am open mined and easily swayed with facts.
There are many, many adults with whom who you cannot sit down and reason - I see it everyday on this forum, just for starters, not to mention everywhere else. Even in this thread, most people are just asserting things are true because they think so. So I presume from this that your position is that we should hit people who can't be reasoned with? What about adults who are developmentally disabled? Should they be hit in order that they might learn things they can't learn through reason?
They need dealt with on a case by case. Some need care/monitored/reminded constantly, some need to be in a special facility and some may need restrained most of the time.
Yikes, children should be treated/trained like dogs before they can talk/understand? And once they start to speak we can treat them like human beings? I'm not sure what to make of this. Dogs don't use language to communicate with humans, so I don't understand the point of this.
Have you not hear any of the millions of times they compare a dogs or puppy IQ to a small child? That's my point, at some age usually 2 or 3 their mental capacity or understanding is similar so training or attention getting is similar as in repetitiveness and reward. I dont think you should give a kid a milk bone for doing something good though.
Interestingly, when I was looking at research on this topic, I skimmed past an article that began "Using punishment during dog training leads to increased aggression", although I did not stop to read it. But given the human psychology articles I read, it's not surprising.
You're confusing punishment with abuse again. There is a big difference.
Maybe some force is required for training, but then I don't think people are the kind of thing that ought to be "trained" and perhaps this is the locus of the disagreement. I think this idea should be relegated to the start of the industrial revolution where it was in its prime because there was a desire to turn starving people into compliant factory workers who did as they were told and were fungible. There was little concern for them as people, and I don't see it as being applicable to children.
I agree that there is a difference between spanking and abuse, although sometimes the line is blurred. Let me say again that I am in favour of parents being able to spank their children without intervention from the law. My claim is only that the evidence seems to show that spanking gets obedience from children at a cost. I think parents should be able to decide whether it's worth the cost.
I don't disagree with this at all.