Probably. I never said people didn't deserve punishment.
Escalation from spanking to beating. That's what sometimes happens.
Possibly, but you should never condemn the mundane with the extreme.
I would love to see whether any psychological study has ever been done to confirm that systematic spanking does escalate to beating? It seems quite very possible to me that child abuse occurs more often in homes where there is no systemic corporal punshment, and instead where any hitting occurs merely as uncontrolled temper.