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I understand “corporal punishment”, in the context we are talking, is severe and recurrent physical aggression; that is not what I intended to parse when I mentioned “extreme measures”.

I was using the legal definition of corporal punishment as currently allowed in schools, "the deliberate infliction of physical pain by hitting, paddling, spanking, slapping, or any other physical force used as a means of discipline." What you consider 'extreme measures' is still considered corporal punishment, but it's on the lighter end. My elementary school principal proudly displayed the wooden spanking paddle on his desk, he had a little stand for it and everything.

At an intuitive level, something tells me this is not about discipline and education but control, physical and mental.

Of course it's about control, discipline and control are synonyms? It's even said that kids are being 'out of control' if they misbehave in public and parents are encouraged to spank their kids in the middle of the grocery store to reestablish dominance. The general perception is that kids 'test' their parents control through misbehavior, and parents are shamed if they let challenges to their authority stand. It's supposedly to train kids for the strictly hierarchical world they're allegedly entering as adults,

Again, that's without the religious aspect that says everybody is tainted with the evil of Originial Sin at birth, and that an evil demigod is really good at telling kids to misbehave so he can build his army in hell. There's parenting manuals I grew up with that straight up said an infant crying is following satan and trying to manipulate their parents. It was encouraged to put crawling babies on a blanket and switch them with a plastic ruler if they tried to crawl off the blanket without permission. The holy book specifies that 'the wages of sin is death', so using implements to hit your kids with is a generosity in comparison.

I’ll read your link a bit later. Thank you.

It is long and a hard read, but it's truly an eye opening experience for people who didn't grow up with American Evangelicalism.