Is spanking children ever justified? I'm not convinced it is.
Is there no other way?
Someone told a story. To me, it sounded like it was made up, a peice of propaganda. And no citations were given to check that it was a true story.
The basic story: there were a bunch of people who claimed to be against spanking, but they secretly spanked their children. Why? They justified this by saying "there's no other way". (That's actually false, and spanking does not work anyways)
Really, the story didn't have any detailed analysis of different methods or whatever, just some person (or some people) supposedly said once that "there's no other way", despite wishing this weren't so. And that's that. Supposedly.
I'm pretty sure people like Libby Anne would beg to differ, as would countelss others. See also: The Main Options in Human Conflict.
But that's the thing about the story that was told: it seems specifically designed to make you discard evidence. If you have an example of people who don't spank, the story plants the idea that they do spank, they just do it secretly! So this story, with no citation, can become the foundation for an entire conspiracy theory. I'm really very suspicious it's a fake story.
What if the child runs into the street?
The places that we call home are built right next to death hazards (roads). This is a design flaw.
Anyways, this becomes, perhaps, the strongest case people use for the indespensability of spanking. You don't want kids to die! One of my highschool teachers said he never spanked, except one incident where his kid ran into the road.
Children are too young to watch out for their own safety. And unfortunately, as often happens in cases where convincing people (changing minds) through discussion won't work, many people skip straight to violence as the next course of action. They say "spank the children, because they are too young to learn from mere words!" or something. They forget that "separation" is an option. In this case: keep your kids away from the death hazard. Use a fence, pick them up and carry them, or something. But don't spank them if they run onto the road, blame yourself (and the flawed design of the context) instead, and never let it happen again.
When the option of peacefully teaching children through expereince was brought up, someone ridiculed this by saying it would be too late for the kid to learn if the kid ran into the street and got hit by a car. Maybe (I can imagine ways to teach from experience without any risk). But if that were true, it would also be true for using spanking (because it would be too late to spank them if they got hit by a car the very first time they ever ran into the road). That's why you never let that happen to begin with. So there goes that argument.