Demos, my example of someone entering your house is quite real, and black and white because, I am not sure which, but in some of the Ami provinces you must withdraw and not fight - escape is the legal option. Legal yes but honourable? No, not at all.
You say that if a man enters your home and you kill him, that is excessive. Why? Beacuse of your morality? A man has entered your home to rape, pillage, and plunder, you know not what. You are certain that if he is allowed to continue he will take and harm and then do it again, no retribution provided the first time. So you shoot him once to incapacitate and another to save your neighbors. You say this is wrong? I say no - I applaud it. At the very least it proves the base reality the criminal now dead will not reoffend.
You say in the bell tower example what end does the killing of the criminal serve? What end? He has killed others so now he too must die. The manner in which he killed was not in the line of duty (as a police officer might) in combat (as a soldier might) by accident (which a doctor might) in a duel of honour (as a jilted might might) or in defense of home hearth and fellow man (as a bystander or homeowner might). Excepting these cases, the execution of the guilty party may very well serve no purpose but it does eliminate the cost of feeding him, it satiates blood lust, it placates the victims families, and it gives some measure of closure to the agreived.
I have conceded that hard labor is neccessary if execution be eliminated. Then fine. Make them work in horrid conditions with no safety devices. Make them stir fecal matter to extract methane and fuel, make them word toil and bleed. This is a service to the people, working to better themselves.
There are ways to make a prison self sufficient, but cannot be implemented because of the liberal minded cowards in the ACLU and others. Prisoners could grow their own food in confined gardens, make their own jumpsuits with thread and cloth, make the paper needed to administrate everything by grinding wood to pulp. It cannot be because some have come out against hard labor. Let me cite an example.
Before moving to Delaware and becoming a police officer I served at the Lehigh County prison in Pennsylvania as an Officer, a facility in and for the third largest city in that Commonwealth. At any given moment there were over a thousand inmates inside. These inmates could have been tasked with cleaning fouled streets, clearing vacant lots, moving dirt around at a construction site. It was even suggested by the county that gangs be drawn up and sent to clean the streets, watched over by armed officers who would fire at the first sign of disturbance. The City, despite an ever worsening condition of litter and filth, said no. The city and other contractors and business were afraid they would be underbid by the prison. And indeed they would have for there is no need to pay the prisoners. That is not a bad thing - those employees and contractors then would have been forced to stop gouging the city and drawing out works projects at tax payers' expense. But again, greed was the motivation here, not the common good, not justice.
No, compared to the almight dollar, Justice and Common Good are punchlines, nothing more.
I can go on with examples but you understand the meaning of them all. Then you have the everpresent NIMBY, or not in my backyard syndrome, where the masses shout build more prisons but then yell even louder but not here. These people need to be told to shut up by the government. I do not believe in zoning and never have. If the land be yours do with it what you wish. Simple. If the city buys a downtown slab and wants to put in a prison then so be it, the cries of wah, my property value will drop must be dismissed by the wave of a mailed fist.
Ironic isn't it then - people want things done but not near them But I digress.
Prisons today are mostly clean and the inmates send all the mail they want which we have to pay for in postage, they are shipped back and forth to court at our expense and languish in prison because court dates are set ridiculously far in the future, they receive medical care the envy of every middle-class worker struggling to pay for his children's glasses, he has protection of training law enforcement officers only a yelp away round the clock, he has access to cable television, games, computers, etc. It is a cosy little life given the alternative of living on the street, according to those Ive spoken to with the option of one or another. What restrictions do they have? They have to be locked in their rooms at time and subjected occasionally the random shake down and strip search. Small price to pay for not freezing or starving. Punishment indeed.
[size=1]Requiem en Terra Pax[/size]
