2000-05-20 - 16:53:42

May 20, 2000

GILBERT AND SULLIVAN

There is a bit in one of their light operas (?) where a male voice sings, "and let the punishment fit the crime," repeated by the chorus. The ancient, eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth line of reasoning, at times seems to make sense to me. The main sticking point I can see is, what cruel and sadistic lawmen would be willing to crush someones legs as happens sometimes in acts of violence or put someone's eye out or worse ?

Going back to medieval times Bastion ? Well maybe, nothing else seems to work. Some things to consider, if the punishment renders a person permanently disabled to the point of requiring nursing care for the rest of that person's life, what group of taxpayers would vote for that ?

As I talked about elsewhere, confinement in a prison I don't conceive as punishment but protection of the populace. A convict gets punished by "bread and water," or "solitary confinement" while in prison because of his refusal to behave.

Wouldn't it be much easier on the taxpayer (us) if we all truly raised our children to be above criminal activity, raised by example as well as instruction by ALL of us. Of course there will be the occasional maverick who could be put on the present day equivalent of a chain gang or prison farm, or at a quarry breaking rocks - somewhere that their confinement gives some payback to society.

In our minds punishment and confinement become intertangled, economic questions also come in to play in that arena. Human kindness and esteem building could possibly be unusable for most true criminals.

To avoid building more prisons and filling them with people who did victimless crimes, why not wipe victimless crimes off the books, with the public understanding before hand that no help will be given by the taxpayer to help cope with addictions.

It reminds me of the past, when two roads crossed with four way stop signs, as long as a clear sight was there in all directions very few people stopped at all. Then some intelligent traffic engineer had a stroke of genius or a flash of thoughtfulness and came up with a brilliant solution which worked well and kept us all from being in violation of the law. He came up with the, "yield" signs, a marvelous construct.

Maybe some time in the future, with the help of God some one will come up with a way to protect people and yet let God handle the punishment. I do hope so from the bottom of my very soul.

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