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fandomhigh2011-01-27 12:42 pm
glasses-justice.livejournal.com) wrote in fandomhigh2011-01-27 12:42 pm
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Nation Building and the Origin of Government, Period 5, Class 4, Thursday, 1-27
"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."
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."
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