Oh dear, these sort of threads never turn out well 
FWIW, i'll post below what I posted last week in support of someone on here who was getting flamed for her DHs views on smacking:
"OP, fwiw I was smacked a handful of times as a child by both my Mum and my Dad, when i had done something dangerous i.e. ran out into the road, or was being extremely insolent. Either on the hand, or on the back of the legs. It hasn't scarred me, and I am a normal, happy, non-violent member of society. My Mum says she that by the time I was about 6 or 7, they no longer had to smack me, as a warning of a count to 3, or a certain look from my Mum, would 9 times out of 10 make me behave, as I know that I would then get smacked if I didn't. And this wasn't because I was trembling in my boots in fear of my parents, it was just that i'd learned to respect their authority, and that if they started 'the countdown' then I must be behaving pretty badly! I have a great relationship with them still, and think their method of parenting was consistent and fair. And yes, there were also plenty of cuddles, and I didn't find that this gave me 'mixed messages' or was 'confusing'- cuddles happened most of the time, and if i misbehaved I got a smack/tap- seemed fairly simple to understand in my eyes, taught me what was bad behaviour!
I read something along the OP in the news the other day, and someone commented that a mother cat would give her kittens a nip or a bat around the head if they are playing up, and why should humans be instinctively any different? I think they had a point. Humans ARE animals at the end of the day, abeilt highly complex ones. Of course there will be people who argue that they don't instinctively want to smack their child, and that's fine and fair enough. But I think the media, MN etc has made parents who do want to go down this 'old fashioned' route extremely guilty. And remember here, i'm talking about a small smack NOT beating 10 shades of shit into your kids.
My mum often says that when she was small (child of the 50s), if you were caught misbehaving when playing out by the local bobby, you'd get a clip around the ear and sent home. Then if you had the nerve to tell your parents what had happened and complain, then you'd get another clip around the ear for getting the first one from the bobby! In those days, parents seemed to work more with authority i.e. police, teachers. These days lots of parents can't believe that their little darlings would ever get into trouble, and are outraged when anything is said against little Johnny- just ask friends of mine who are both primary and secondary school teachers. I also have worked as bank staff at a nursery, and lots of the older children who IMO know better (4/5 year olds) were terrible at listening to us adults when we asked 'nicely', and because you were "not allowed to shout", often just didn't listen at all. I remember when I first started at the nursery, and a 4 year old was hanging off his chair with his head on the floor during lunch, and I said "X, that is really stupid behaviour, you're going to fall off your chair and hurt yourself, now please eat your lunch"- ALL the children looked at me and said "UMMMMMMMMMMM, you said the BAD word!" saying that behaviour (not the child mind) was 'stupid' was "not allowed" and I was told off by all of them (I was mortified!)- kids at THREE and FOUR knew their 'rights'. And i'm sorry, and I will probably get flamed for this, but i think that's crazy...
My DS is only 11 weeks, so I have no idea yet what kind of parent I will be, or what kind of personality he will develop, thus won't know what discipline works best for us for a while yet- but if that's not smacking then so be it, and if it involves the odd small smack for really bad behaviour, then I don't always think that it's the end of the world, or that DS will grow up to be the scurge of society. I'd also hazard a guess that there are more people on MN who smack, and it works for them, than dare to admit it for fear of being verbally attacked, have their DH called a tosser, or their relationship questioned like the OP has had done here".
So there you go, I think controlled smacking isn't the worst thing in the world, as others have said, I think it's far worse when a parent loses it and smacks their child out of pure rage.
Last week on my street I saw a small boy (maybe 4 or 5) hitting someone's car consistently with a stick, and see his Mum say about 5 times in a 'sing song' voice "Hugo, don't do that please" before darling Hugo actually bothered to stop it, by that time probably scratching the car to shit. I wanted to smack the Mum for not bothering to do something sooner! I'm sorry but I think that sort of behaviour would've possibly warranted a smack had he not listened after the first time and removal from the situation to get the message home that it was NOT acceptable behaviour.
Flame away people! 