Any punishment that does not correct, that can merely rouse rebellion in whoever has to endure it, is a piece of gratuitous infamy which makes those who impose it more guilty in the eyes of humanity, good sense and reason, nay a hundred times more guilty than the victim on whom the punishment is inflicted. – Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade
Some people believe that truly horrific crimes are more common than they used to be, but others point out that while it is highly unlikely that humanity’s prodigious capacity for behaving in a monstrous fashion has increased, modern media undoubtedly publicizes atrocity stories more widely and efficiently than ever before. Certainly the historical record reports many incidents equal to the worst committed by modern governments, police and serial killers, and our ancestors’ genius at inventing horrible means of torture speaks eloquently of mankind’s pronounced sadistic streak. But there are more people on Earth now than there have ever been before, so even if the rate at which acts of senseless violence are committed has remained constant, the aggregate number of such acts is vastly greater than it was at any time in history. And since cities are more densely packed than ever before, the chance of an atrocity occurring in any given place is greater than it was in the past. And that’s only counting individual actions; when the criminals in question represent governments, the advantages conferred by technology must also be considered. Modern industrial methods allow far larger numbers of people to be tortured or slaughtered far more quickly and efficiently than in pre-industrial times. It’s unlikely that anything like the carnage of the “War on Drugs” would’ve been feasible prior to the late 19th century, and though the witch-hunts conducted by Germans of the 16th and 17th centuries (some of which ended in mass burnings) were easily as diabolical as anything their Nazi descendants did, those campaigns took many decades rather than a few years.
Indeed, it may be that most of those in power are not actually greater fiends than most of those they govern, but rather that they simply have greater ability to molest and torture a far greater number of people than those who lack an abusable position, not to mention a vastly greater ability to protect themselves from the consequences of their own evil. So it’s entirely possible that the punitive mindset of the “authorities” in our society, who think nothing of locking people up for decades for breaking arbitrary rules which restrict what they’re allowed to do for pleasure, is reflected in the actions of the monsters in this Huffington Post story from July 29th; the only difference is that those in power are supported by sycophants and armed thugs who allow them to enforce their sick desire for control on grown strangers rather than their own children.
The family of a 10-year-old found dead in a trunk outside an Arizona home initially claimed the child died while playing hide-and-seek. But investigators now believe Ame Deal suffocated after her family locked her in the box because she took a popsicle from the freezer without permission. Phoenix police claim Deal’s grandmother, aunt and two cousins regularly subjected the child to horrific treatment, ultimately culminating in her July 12 death…[which] was classified as a “[cause] unknown” until July 28…after Deal’s cousin Samantha Allen, 23, and her husband, John Allen, 23, admitted putting the child in the trunk and padlocking it, authorities charged the couple with first degree murder…The victim’s aunt, Cynthia Stoltzmann, 44, and grandmother, Judith Deal, 62, were charged with child abuse and kidnapping after reportedly admitting to locking the child in the box on previous occasions. Witnesses told investigators the child was regularly punished by being locked in the trunk. They also saw the caregivers force Deal to eat dog feces as punishment, crush cans barefoot and exercise outdoors in “extreme measures”…Deal, who weighed just 59 pounds and was discovered in soiled clothing, died in a box that measured less than 3 feet long, 14 inches wide and one foot tall…Twelve children who lived at the residence have been taken into custody by Child Protective Services…The whereabouts of the child’s mother are unknown and authorities are currently trying to locate [her] biological father.
On second thought, there’s another difference; when ordinary sadists kill people by locking them up in extreme Arizona heat as “punishment” for breaking stupid, arbitrary rules, they’re charged with first-degree murder. But when sadists with uniforms kill people in almost exactly the same way and for similarly absurd and pointless reasons there are literally no consequences whatsoever.
One Year Ago Today
The first part of “Regulars”, my column about repeat customers.
I am actually much more horrified and worried by the “[w]itnesses [who] told investigators the child was regularly punished by being locked in the trunk.”
If there were people who actually saw this on an ongoing basis and did nothing to prevent it then I’d say they deserve to be treated almost a accomplices.
While I may not have the balls to personally stop a neighbour when I see them locking up a child in the trunk, I surely have enough of a mettle, common sense, and sensitivity to the plight of others to at least inform child protection or another law enforcement agency?
The persons who committed this atrocity themselves surely are monsters and deserve punishment, but did the “witnesses” not implicitly condone such acts by seeing and doing nothing?
Sad, sad, sad…
I’d beat the hell out of anyone who forced a kid to eat dog feces in my presence. If the cops had a problem with that – they could arrest me and throw me in jail … whatever – but someone is going to get their lights punched out.
I guess these “witnesses” just turned a blind eye?
Please.
As I recall the women prison prisoner also had mental health issues
I am sickened by this. Just where do we get off wagging our fingers at the likes of Pol Pot, Idi Amin, Stalin, Mao or even Hitler when our own uniformed “law enforcement” commit acts of disgusting cruelty?
Well you know, Tonja, they’re “only doing their jobs.”
A big part of my critical thinking classes in 7th grade included Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Development. I have no respect or affection for anyone just “doing their job” when their job is to exercise authority/tyranny over others.
I’m with you 100%; did you click the link?
I did, and I was nearly sick. It’s the modern indulgence – if you have money, fame and/or influence, you can buy your way out of purgatory, I mean, jail. Just look at the stuff celebrities get away with – if Michael Vick was just a typical gangsta who got caught torturing, killing and fighting dogs, do you really think he’d be able to get his old job back, let alone become a spokesperson for one of the nation’s largest and best funded animal welfare organizations? It doesn’t surprise me in the least that cops and correctional officers have similar indulgences. I remember the film Shawshank Redemption fondly.
I meant the link in my reply, to the “Godwin’s Law” column.
*Dies laughing*
Point taken.
I don’t believe that the rare at which senseless acts of violence are committed has remained constant. I think the per capita rate has declined. It’s been a while since any government has dedicated itself to exterminating millions, even though with nukes we could do it a lot faster. In fact, major industrialized countries haven’t directly fought each other since WWII. Instead, we got proxy wars like Vietnam and Korea. Iraq and Afghanistan each have lasted longer than Korea and WWII put together, but Iraq and Afghanistan together haven’t managed to kill as many people as either one.
But there’s still far too much of it. And government. Government in particular needs to be getting away with less of it. In this age of cell phone cameras and Facebook and YouTube, government needs to be, and should be, and to a greater degree than ever before can be held in check, if we just will.
Big Brother is watching you? Yeah, but we can all watch Big Brother right back. Orwell never thought of that.
Sailor Barsoom, have you heard of sousveillance?
Yep. It’s where the democratizing nature of technological progress allows the people to watch the “authorities,” just as surveillance is the “authorities” watching us.
In the Fifties and Sixties, there were a lot of science fiction books where a gigantic computer ran the entire world. The assumption was that computers would get more and more powerful, more and more expensive, and eventually there would be just one (with maybe a secret, hidden back-up somewhere).
But what actually happened is that computers became more and more powerful, less and less expensive, and eventually (now) even people on welfare have computers more powerful than all the world put together when these books were written.
And it’s only going to get better (or worse, if you’re an oppressor).
Well, to be fair, those books also did predict computers would get smaller, more powerful and cheaper…but they also assumed that those small, cheap, powerful computers would be installed in humanoid domestic robots, which hasn’t happened yet.
Mostly, those were different books, but yeah sometimes the same ones. It’s kind of like my favorite Heinlein juvenile, Have Spacesuit, Will Travel. In a world which includes Lunar tourism the characters still use slide rules.
So today we don’t have the Moon base and humanoid robots (we have Roomba and cars that park themselves, but yeah), but we have communicators Kirk would’ve killed for. How many times would it have helped if he’d been able to take a picture or record sound with his communicator?
The Federation included those functions in the tricorder, not the communicator, and they’re far beyond current capabilities. A tricorder can capture picture and sound of scenes which include the tricorder unit itself, and can process data at many terabytes per second (such as the images Spock collected from the Guardian of Forever). The communicator has a range of hundreds of kilometers (surface to orbit), whereas our cell phones need a network of towers littering the landscape. We’re still a loooooong way from Star Trek technology no matter how you slice it.
Yeah, the tricorder was pretty awesome. They should have used it more; most of the time it just told you what something was made of, or that the babe standing in front of you was actually an android.
The .mp3 format was inspired by an ep of ST:TNG, and there is work being done on transporters now. So far, a few photons of light, but then it always starts small. IBM’s Jeopardy!-winning computer WATSON was inspired by the Enterprise’s computers which could answer questions based on spoken clues.
One thing it seems that all or most SF writers missed was just how tough a nut artificial intelligence is to crack. I suspect that even when we have computers which exceed human processing and memory and even pattern recognition, we’re still going to need a few more years for strong AI.
I’m thinking you’ll enjoy this month’s fictional interlude, then. 😉
[eyebrow]
I’m looking forward to it.
Jesus, that was horrible to read. But the general point – which libertarians make all the time — remains. Take an act by government, substitute in a private individual and ask if this would be tolerated. Whole acres of government behavior suddenly look like the abuses they are. To return to the usual subject of this blog — suppose private citizens tried to rid their cities of prostitution by bullying whores, demanding sex in return for not turning them in, poking holes in their condoms, etc. We would not put up with it. But slap a badge on someone and it’s OK.
That’s exactly a point I’ve made a number of times about taxation. If one man robs me, we call it theft; if a gang robs me, it’s still theft. How many people have to agree to rob me for it to magically become something other than theft? 100? 10,000? A million?
Maggie, you are super-smart and rational, but I call a logical foul on this one.
Is it theft to ask you to pay for your portion of the national defense? Of the roads you drive? Of the civil engineering which kept New Orleans as a viable port for the entire 20th century? If you pay no taxes, you are taking from the pockets of whomever did pay for these public goods.
Now, we may have differences about what are true public goods and how much of them is needful. You might desire a government many times smaller than our current behemoth.
But to posit that ALL taxation WITHOUT EXCEPTION is axiomaticaly theft is to posit that any amount of government, no matter how minimal, is tyranny. To me, that’s self-falsifying in the real world. We need civil and criminal courts, we need a military, we need a customs and border service if nothing else: the same functions government provided in 1800 at a bare minimum. And for them, we must pay taxes.
I disagree a little bit here. Taxation is, at least in theory, a few for a service — law and order, Medicare, wars to prevent Libyan hordes from ravishing our women — that had already been provided to us. I will agree that we end up in the situation were 51% of the people (or at least 51% of the carefully-culled Ivy-league educated lawyers they are allowed to vote for) can bill us for services we don’t necessarily want. I’m tempted by the idea of a taxpayer receipt where we’d get to choose how much to pay for defense, social security or whatever.
I’ve read of a fictional planet where governments are things you subscribe to. They aren’t geographically defined, but if you subscribe to THIS government for THIS much in taxes, you get guaranteed healthcare whereas if you subscribe to THAT government for THAT much in taxes, you don’t have to pay any additional fees to use the rail lines.
Hold on, I’ll try to find a link.
Couldn’t find it. Related to Herman Miller and his mice-like aliens.
That would be about as close to a Utopia as humans could manage.
Found it. Fourth paragraph down.
As others have already highlighted, taxes provide for public services. So using any public service, such as driving to a store on a government-built road, without paying taxes, becomes theft too. And while many services are questionable, many others would be impractical if delivered by any other model.
Guys, you’re right but not quite. Yes, taxes are a fee for services, but there are ways to provide those services without involuntary taxation. Roads can be paid for by taxes on fuel and tires; property taxes (for defense) can be avoided by not owning property; taxes on certain goods can be avoided by not buying those goods. Lotteries are a wholly voluntary tax, and some governments have had government monopolies (such as the Roman monopoly on mining, which is completely logical since it holds that things under the ground belong in common to everyone and should be used for everyone).
But beyond that, ‘all are missing the fact that just because an evil is necessary doesn’t mean it isn’t evil. George Washington once said, “Government is not reason. Government is not eloquence. It is force. And, like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.” That’s a good analogy. We all agree fire is necessary, but we also agree it’s dangerous and take steps to ensure it doesn’t get out of control; those who misuse fire are severely punished. Government powers, ANY of them, are like fire; they are necessary but dangerous, and should be viewed as such. And stern measures are needed to ensure they don’t get out of control.
Taxation is theft; the fact that it’s a necessary theft doesn’t change that. And by pretending that it (and the police, and other government functions) are good things rather than barely tolerated, necessary evils we open the door for the same kind of danger which would result if we all had open, untended fires on our kitchen floors.
I’ll agree that law enforcement and the military are necessary evils, necessary only because of the existence of foreign enemies and domestic criminals (and by criminals I mean what you mean).
Sewers, roads, and medical research are not necessary evils. They are goods.
I didn’t say that roads were evil; I said taxes are, as are the police. Anything which has the potential to be used as a weapon of destruction, and which can provoke a revolution, is evil even if necessary.
You’ve made it clear you don’t have a problem with roads, so I figured you didn’t consider them evil.
Almost anything can be used as a weapon of destruction. I guess we just have to settle into our different camps on this one.
You’re being a bit disingenuous there, Sailor. You and I both know that taxes (backed up by force and threats of force) are the primary way that governments have crushed people into peasantry since time immemorial.
I don’t know about that. I mean, yeah, they are backed up with force and the threat of force, but then so are all laws, including things like “don’t set people’s houses on fire.” Good laws or bad, they include an “or else.”
But the primary way of crushing people into peasantry? Maybe back in the day, but today’s peasants, at least in most countries, aren’t kept there by taxation but by things like low wages and high unemployment.
Taxation isn’t limited to things paid by individuals and honestly labeled as “taxes”; they include levies, duties, fees, fines, licenses, tolls, etc and they don’t only affect the people who directly pay them.
Well, Maggie you did warn us right above against “pretending that it (and the police, and other government functions) are good things rather than barely tolerated, necessary evils…” I think Sailor and I too are justified in assuming that your phrase “and other government functions” covered all government action, including building roads et al. So, respectfully, that actually is what you said.
But to the higher point: any adult citizen in this country can renounce his or her citizenship. Just leave the country, walk into the nearest US embassy or consulate, and say so, while turning in your passport. Presto–you are no longer a US citizen. If you choose not to, however, you consent to live under and be bound by the US Constitution, which authorizes income taxation in the 16th Amendment. You have consented to this amendment by not renouncing your citizenship.
Theft is the illegal taking of another person’s property without that person’s freely-given consent. When the US legislature exercises its power to tax incomes it is not theft, because it is 1. a legal taking authorized by the Constitution, and 2. a form of taking to which you consented by continuing to be a citizen.
You can work to have the 16th Amendment repealed. You can work to have the income tax suspended as a matter of policy. But you either consent to live under the Constitution as a citizen, or you don’t; you don’t have the right to take it or leave it piecemeal, article by article and amendment by amendment.
Like Sailor below, I suspect we will have to settle into our different camps.
As long as there is no frontier, no place to go that is not ruled by confiscatory tyrants, that suggestion is disingenuous in the extreme. Y’all are pretending that involuntary taxes are inevitable when in fact they did not exist in many historical cultures nor even in the United States until about a century ago. Taxes which result from the activities required for basic human existence (such as earning an income) are immoral no matter how you choose to slice it. There are many other means of financing the minimal government which is truly necessary, several of which I have already enumerated.
I don’t pay income taxes. No, I’m not a tax cheat, and no, I’m not General Electric. I just have a very small income. My income is, though, enough to keep me fed and such. Only in developed nations (USA, GBR, AUS, JPN, etc.) am I considered poor; I’m actually wealthier than many of this world’s people.
So any American who wants to avoid income taxes, doesn’t have or can’t find the loopholes, and doesn’t want to renounce citizenship, still has a way to avoid the taxes: just don’t make so much money. You can still make enough to eat, enough to have a roof over your head, even have a high-speed Internet connection if you’re careful.
Now me, I have an itty-bitty income because I’m disabled. It sure ain’t to avoid taxes. In fact, I’d happily accept income taxes as a condition of a higher income, so long as what I have left over is more than what I have now.
That’s still not the point. Income taxes penalize people for working hard and making money; they also make it more difficult to save and invest. Taxing voluntary actions like buying things allows a person to cut down on taxes or pay more as he pleases; government monopolies allow the government an income which isn’t taken directly from anybody at all. I daresay a government monopoly on mining (as the Romans had) since the beginning would mean our government might have a surplus right now rather than a deficit. Think about it; instead of income tax the government would be funded by money that in our world goes to oil companies, gas companies, metal companies, salt companies…
Yeah, I hear this. I hear it a lot. Maybe it’s because I’ve spent so much of my life doing without money, but I just have trouble imagining somebody saying, “You mean if I work harder and earn twice as much money, I’m only going to have one and nine-tenths as much money after taxes? Well hell, that ain’t worth it!”
I’m probably hopeless on this. Ask Laura about trying to get me engaged on the subject of the Federal Reserve. Truth is, I just don’t care about the Federal Reserve.
Try working twice as hard for about one and a half times as much, and you’ll be a little closer to the truth, and that’s only if you don’t attract greater notice. If you knew how much money my husband and I have lost to various government interferences, only a few labelled “taxes”, in the past decade, and the effect those losses have had on us (hint: I didn’t go back to work full-time for two and a half years just to get myself a few new pairs of shoes) you might see my point. Of course, I already felt that way years before; it just confirmed it. You know how in The Twilight Zone people often have awful things happen in order to teach them the folly of their beliefs? Well, I live in a sort of reverse Twilight Zone; when awful things happen to me they always, ALWAYS confirm my beliefs. 🙁
Actually there never was a US frontier that was not ruled by those you style confiscatory tyrants.
From day 1, all land in the US territories not previously granted by French or Spanish grants was US federal property. The only way to receive an individual title to land was from the hand of the federal government on the government’s terms. The only way to patent a mining claim was from the hand of the federal government on the government’s terms. Federal subsidy (gold and silver coinage) underwrote the entire mining industry. Federal subsidy (railroad land grants) made possible the large scale ranching industry. Federal marshals provided law enforcement, and unelected Federal governors comprised the executive branch of government. And last but not least, the entire standing US army was deployed on the frontier from 1877 to 1898 and was used for breaking mining strikes as readily as it was for fighting Indians.
In short, you were far more exposed to the direct operation of the US government in the Wild West than you were back east.
Whatever was not at the mercy of the US government was at the mercy of Eastern joint-stock company capitalists, be it mining companies, railroad companies, or meatpackers like Swift and Armour.
The so-called Wild West was, in essence, a peculiarly American fusion of go-go corporate capitalism with aggressive socialism. The historian Patty Limerick is excellent on this topic.
History didn’t begin after the War Between the States, sugar. 🙂
I’m southern by genes, but Yankee by conviction. “His truth is marching on!”
There was a time when it was possible to go so far away from areas controlled by any large government that, while a North American or European government may have technically been in charge, they were pretty helpless to do much unless you were gathering an army or some such. It just wasn’t worth it to control you for anything less.
That said, a whole, whole, WHOLE LOT of people seem to think the Wild West was this libertarian paradise, and as you show above, it was not. Maggie probably wasn’t talking about the WW, but I run into a lot of people who do. For some reason, the pro-space movement is infested with people whose entire plan for the future is “get the government out of the way.”
OK, and then what?
Ah, OK. Now I get your point. The “necessary evil” also applies to wars which may be necessary and even imprisonment. But we have gotten away from seeing these things as necessary evils and started seeing them as a priori justified or even desirable.
In the Lawrence v. Texas decision striking down sodomy laws, Justice Stephens outlined a principal I wish were emblazoned on every government building: that it is government that must justify interference in our lives, not we must justify our freedom. (Granted, he didn’t always stick to this). We’ve become inured to using taxes, law and regulations as the first resort to solving problems rather than, as they should be, the last.
Circling back to prostitution: If I recall correctly, you’ve said you don’t have problems with people who volunteer to help whores, to try to get them to find Jesus or whatever to get them out of the life. It’s when they use the lazy man’s way – government — that it becomes a problem.
Exactly. When we started seeing things like police, laws and taxation as positive goods rather than radioactive necessities (to be used sparingly and with great care), we opened the door to their overuse. To go back to the fire analogy, it’s as though the government used fire to do everything from trimming lawns to cleaning dishes.
And you’re right, I have no problem with people offering others what they perceive as help, as long as those to whom they offer it are free to refuse. Just imagine if doctors were legally empowered to use armed thugs to control their patients’ “unhealthy” habits.
>Big Brother is watching you? Yeah, but we can all watch Big Brother right back.
Not in Illinois, and several other states, where videotaping a cop is now against the law.
They have to catch you. How about when your camera fits in your tie or your baseball cap? You don’t have to identify yourself when you put it online.
Of course, the important thing is that a LOT of people start doing it. As the War on Drugs has proven, they can’t arrest everybody, and unlike pot smoke or acid tabs, every time they miss somebody, it’s all over the ‘net.
I’ve been too busy and stressed out to comment much, worrying if family was safe from the rioters.
And, to be honest, this sotry, about the woman murdered in Arizona really got to me.
This is where cop-worshiping, and Lawn order fetishizing gets us. It’s no surprise we tortured in Iraq, when it’s not unusual here in jails, prisons and cop-shops.
Abu Ghraib was especially unsurprising considering that one of the ringleaders was a prison official in civilian life.
I certainly hope your family is safe, and remains so; on this side of the pond they’re telling us the riots are mostly over now.
Thanks Maggie. Yes, they are all safe, I’ve spoken with most all of them. No riots of note in the city I am from.