Nation Building and the Origin of Government, Period 5, Class 4, Thursday, 1-27

[glasses-justice.livejournal.com]

"Welcome back," Alex said. "Last week, we deal with some very specific offenders and their very specific offenses. This week, we're going to take a step back and look at the larger picture. We're going to try to use those experiences to form some general laws and make decisions about punishments, for those laws."

She gestured to the blackboard. "I've written out last week's list again, to refresh your memory."

• Two men engaged in a barfight; both were injured, one seriously.
• An alleged would-be burglar entered the home of a resident. The resident fired a gun at the presumed burglar. The presumed burglar is in critical condition.
• A homeless man stole several food items, at gunpoint, from a grocery store.
• A woman discovered her husband in bed with another woman, and stabbed him.
• A CEO hired an assassin to kill the CEO of the company's chief competitor; the hitman succeeded.
• Two adult siblings engaged in what both claim was consensual sex.
• A woman has been printing and mailing out a newsletter which insults you and spreads lies about your regime.
• A man gave a prostitute money in exchange for sexual favors.

Alex waited for anyone who wanted to scribble that down before continuing. "If we wanted to, we could put these into rough categories. Physical attacks would cover the barfight, the resident shooting the burglar, the wife stabbing her husband, and the CEO's assassination. We can call the newsletter treason, or free speech, depending on your permission of it. Theft would cover the burglar himself as well as the homeless man's hold-up of the grocery store, and that leaves the incest, prostitution, and adultery as what we might loosely call non-normative sex. By doing this, we lose a lot of the nuances, so I hope you can appreciate last week's specifics all the more, now.

"In going forward, we have to remember that making rules about physical attacks could cover any of the above, unless we craft the rules specifically to exempt them. However, exemptions are, themselves, a tricky gray area. Let's say you decide the homeless man was justified in robbing the grocery store, and make a rule that anyone who steals while hungry is immune to punishment. What happens when an international jewel thief fasts for three days before breaking into a bank vault? Or, back to our specific example, what would have happened if the homeless man had shot and killed the grocery store clerk? Would your answer change?"

Alex leaned back against the edge of her desk. "That's the first half of our discussion. Here's the second. Once we have laws in place, what punishments do we apply for breaking them? Someone raised an excellent point last week, that in this interim phase, it felt as though the only choices were execution or letting someone go with a stern warning. There are many alternatives that we can institute in this country, moving forward. Execution is one. Exile is another. We can assign monetary fines, for minor infractions. We can strip our citizens of some of their ranks, status, or privileges -- for example, someone who drives while intoxicated could lose their license to pilot a vehicle, or lose their vehicle itself. We could even use disfigurement, such as branding the person with their offense -- a T on the thumb, to show that the person had had one warning in case they were caught again -- or removing a hand. Those are generally considered less civilized. Or we build prisons and keep the person away from their normal life for a set period of time. At which point we need to decide how long imprisonments should be, for varying crimes."

She smiled quickly at her students. "We have a lot to talk about this week. So let's get to it."

Comments

Sign In - NAT04

[glasses-justice.livejournal.com]

In an uncharacteristic mood!

Re: Sign In - NAT04

[daventryprince.livejournal.com]

Prince Alexander of Daventry

Re: Sign In - NAT04

[kestrelswolf.livejournal.com]

During the Lecture - NAT04

[glasses-justice.livejournal.com]

Take notes, pass notes (briefly, please) and remember all those weird people you talked to last week.

Re: During the Lecture - NAT04

[kestrelswolf.livejournal.com]

This was really doing nothing to dissuade Firekeeper of the notion that humans had a tendency to make things far more complicated than they need be. Still, she had some ideas for rules and punishments.

Re: During the Lecture - NAT04

[daventryprince.livejournal.com]

Alexander was definitely listening carefully to the lecture, the usual thoughtful frown creasing his face. He wondered if, by the end of the class, he'd shake off these feelings that the sort of government proposed in this class was far too involved than the sort of government he would prefer to lead himself.

Re: During the Lecture - NAT04

[child-of-rer.livejournal.com]

This was a really interesting topic and Sov took detailed notes.

Re: During the Lecture - NAT04

[whateverknight.livejournal.com]

Squall put his pen to paper but didn't take notes, instead leaving it there to make a dot while he thought.

This was hard.

Discussion #1 - Crafting Laws - NAT04

[glasses-justice.livejournal.com]

Try your hand at writing a few laws to put in place for your society. For example, if you wanted adultery to be illegal, you could start with 'No person shall engage in sexual activity with a person other than their spouse.' (At which point Alex would raise all kinds of thorny questions about things like threesomes and divorce and whether separated couples still count as being married, so be prepared for her to poke holes in your arguments.)

Remember that laws can be applied very generally, so try to work around anything you'd like to be exempt. (I.e., 'no one should stab anyone else, unless she catches her dumbass husband cheating, in which case, don't, like, kill him or w/e.')

(A: feel free to ping against one another to argue the points! and B: examples are mine, not alex's o.o )

Re: Discussion #1 - Crafting Laws - NAT04

[wwiii]

Warren pursed his lips a little, mulling over his options, before finally deciding on something that he figured would do, for a law in his made-up country.

"All beings capable of sentient thought will be afforded the same fundamental rights. It should be illegal to persecute a person based on something like, say, genes."

Sore spot, there.

Re: Discussion #1 - Crafting Laws - NAT04

[glasses-justice.livejournal.com]

"Any distinction based on genes?" Alex asked. "If scientists discover the gene for violence, or insanity, should they have the right to isolate those people who carry it, or regulate who they can breed with? Should gene therapy be allowed, to eliminate the genes for those conditions, or for variations such as breast cancer or Down's Syndrome?"

Re: Discussion #1 - Crafting Laws - NAT04

[nohaircutsplz]

"I do not think genes and sentient thought are necessarily the same concept," Medusalith said. "Some beings, such as humans," and she figured she could say that, because Warren was a flyer, "are capable of sentient thought, but they are still genetically inferior. Should we not pity them?"

...she wasn't trying to start a fight. Really.

Re: Discussion #1 - Crafting Laws - NAT04

[thegirl-onfire.livejournal.com]

"All people are entitled to government-assisted income in a sum dependent upon and relative to the cost of living, and the number of minors and dependents under their care," Katniss said softly. "All people are entitled to government-assisted housing and healthcare. There'd need to be checks to ensure there wasn't abuse, though."

Re: Discussion #1 - Crafting Laws - NAT04

[glasses-justice.livejournal.com]

"How would you define abuse?" Alex asked. "And how would you measure and prevent it? If the government-assisted income was similar to what a person could make at a menial job, how would you encourage people to accept the job over your help?"

Re: Discussion #1 - Crafting Laws - NAT04

[child-of-rer.livejournal.com]

There were a few options Sov could think of, but they decided to go with a suggestion they didn't think would be too questionable.

"No person shall steal another person's property, especially not if the owner is dependent on that property for their livelihood."

Re: Discussion #1 - Crafting Laws - NAT04

[glasses-justice.livejournal.com]

"You said 'especially,'" Alex noted. "Does that mean the punishment would be more severe for stealing from someone who is dependent on their property? Does that change if the thief didn't know?"

Re: Discussion #1 - Crafting Laws - NAT04

[daventryprince.livejournal.com]

"Even I," Alexander proposed, "am not so naive to think that making a law that dictates that people should be good to each other is a law than can be enforced. However, that is the only thing I would want to ensure happens in my nation beyond anything else. So that is why I am afraid I do not particularly believe in making laws, but rather...guidelines, to be good, and any actions deviating from that guideline would be considered fittingly to the situation."

He was a bit of an idealist, yes....

Re: Discussion #1 - Crafting Laws - NAT04

[whateverknight.livejournal.com]

Squall thought. And thought.

"Don't steal. Don't hurt or kill other people. Honor contracts you make."

Those were the important ones he could think of. Once the exceptions were taken care of, of course.

"It seems like you'd have to give judges leeway to change the sentences based on extenuating circumstances, because you can't write everything into the laws. But that means trusting the judges to be fair, which isn't going to happen."

Discussion #2 - Punishment - NAT04

[glasses-justice.livejournal.com]

Now that we have some rules, how do we punish those people who break them? What punishments would you like to use in your country, and which wouldn't you? (Are there other punishments besides the ones already mentioned that you would like to institute? If so, please share.) Do special circumstances allow for reduced punishments -- i.e., theft by a homeless man, or assault by an enraged wife? How do we decide what's fair?

(Messy is what we aim for! Feel free to ping in overlapping ways, zomg.)

Re: Discussion #2 - Punishment - NAT04

[thinkbetterofme.livejournal.com]

"If one wants a just law, I believe it would be impossible to not show mercy but even if a poor man steals food, his actions are wrong," Faramir mused. "If he cannot repay his debt, then perhaps it is up to the state to do it in his stead and take him into their service until he has repayed his debts. I think it would be near impossible to decide any such cases beforehand and you would not want to risk being too lenient and encouraging others to follow the same path."

Re: Discussion #2 - Punishment - NAT04

[whateverknight.livejournal.com]

"Once we can spare the resources for a prison, that's probably the best thing to do. And once the monetary system is set up, fines are good, too. Permanent things like execution or branding aren't good long-term solutions, because you don't want to accidentally do them to someone who's innocent."

Talk to the TA - NAT04

[glasses-justice.livejournal.com]

If she's here. Ask about some of those fascinating Kaeleerian punishments.

Re: Talk to the TA - NAT04

[glacial_queen]

THEY WERE TOTALLY VALID AND LEGIT, GAWD.

Karla was, in fact, trying to decide how to quietly introduce certain punishments without getting her classmates up in arms. She was pretty certain she didn't want to get into a debate about having someone shaved.

Talk to Alex - NAT04

[glasses-justice.livejournal.com]

She's here. And in a good mood. She likes talking about the law, okay?

OOC - NAT04

[glasses-justice.livejournal.com]

Some part of me is really tempted to have Alex get drunk and get a scales-of-justice tattoo. Something small and in a discreet location.