Horizon

That's an extreme example, but people like to see justice done. Take these two teenagers who drowned a fellow pupil in a canal.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1521178,00.html

They got a few months. They should have got twenty years.

Well, one thing to be said for clippings. Fires are less common than hard drive failures.

Microfilm is the way to go, me laddies.

"... They got a few months. They should have got twenty years."

And flogging. Can't run a country without flogging. Harrumph. Flogging's too good for 'em. Pass the port.

'And flogging. Can't run a country without flogging. Harrumph. Flogging's too good for 'em. Pass the port'

I'm waiting for the day when you argue with reason and morality, and not weak sarcasm and Guardian links.

OK Martha, let the nudnikery be turned on you: one question: what would your idea of a just punishment be?

I'm not sure you quite get "nudnik."

About punishment, I think imprisonment should be reserved for intentional violence, robbery, fraud, and the sick obsession/abuse crimes. Only. Otherwise people should just have to pay the victim for the harm they caused. Victimless crimes shouldn't be crimes. Poor drug users and dealers should be let the hell alone by the incarceration system but offered instant placement in decent rehab programs without waiting lists. Rich drug dealers, including pharmaceutical and liquor executives, should have to work weekly cleaning shifts in the said rehab programs. Inability to pay debts should be forgiven, as our Founding Fathers intended when they abolished debtors' prison. Bankruptcy should be sharply distinguished from willful fraud. Sleeping in doorways should be permitted provided one cleans up afterwards. People who unreasonably inflate housing prices for personal profit should have to sleep in doorways. People who authorize funds for gratuitous wars should have to live at the battlefronts they create. Bill Gates should be transported to Sakhalin. Rush Limbaugh should be transported to Sing Sing. Torturers and their apologists should be transported to the Moon.

This is, of course, so long as I'm not in charge of anything. If I were, I'd have to moderate my views for all manner of perfectly good reasons.

There you are: is that enough to chew on for a while?

But what do you think is a just punishment for that crime?

But what do you think is a just punishment for that crime?

From the looks of it, this drowning is the sort of predatory violent offense that prisons were invented to punish in the first place, before we started also using them for petty drug offenses and technical parole violations. But I'm not going to pronounce sentence on the basis of a newspaper article.

Your turn for questions: if you could specifically sentence someone to be raped in prison, would you do it? If you knew that a certain offender sent to a certain institution would run, say, a 60% chance of being raped, would you still send him there?

People who unreasonably inflate housing prices for personal profit

What on earth is that supposed to mean?

Charging too much money for real estate, beyond the level that would provide a modest return on investment, thereby contributing to a price bubble and to the immiseration of the poor. I think it's a crime. A considerably worse crime than drug dealing.

Charging too much money for real estate, beyond the level that would provide a modest return on investment, thereby contributing to a price bubble and to the immiseration of the poor.

If free pricing in real estate was criminalized unique to all other forms of capital venture, what would be the incentive for anyone to invest in new housing, or to refurbish older stock, when the money could be used more profitably elsewhere? Would you make it illegal to choose not to own houses too?

I'm just complaining that profiteering stinks, OK?

'Your turn for questions: if you could specifically sentence someone to be raped in prison, would you do it? If you knew that a certain offender sent to a certain institution would run, say, a 60% chance of being raped, would you still send him there?'

Taking my cue from your style of 'ideal world' answers, my answer is this: the reason that the offender would stand a 60% chance of being raped in prison is because the prison is, in many ways, under the control of the 'Daddys'. A modern socialist like yrself would not approve of the draconianism and brute force needed to bring prisons fully under the control of the authorities, and so one Guardian reader's liberality and heavily advertised moral virtue is another, weak and vunerable offender's ticket to bullying and enforced sodomy. So no, I wouldn't send the offender there. But I would ask myself some awkward questions about who really run prisons.

But you even asking me that question shows how thick and bigoted you think I am. Tsk.

There you are: is that enough to chew on for a while?

So is that what you believe with a caveat that it's all a joke, or is that what you believe? If so, I'll be happy to pick it part (actually it doesn't need picking apart, it falls apart like wet newspaper all on its own.)

I'm just complaining that profiteering stinks, OK?

But so does rent control (which is what you're basically describing), a bad, clumsy, top-down way to solve a real problem that has never worked but which I think retains a lingering appeal to some regardless of its ineffectiveness because it's felt it in some way 'punishes' people they dislike.

But so does rent control

And so does strict zoning, which can also cause shortages. A trip to England last year convinced me that there's a definite upside to sprawl, and that upside is abundant, cheap housing.

I'd also add that at least some rent control systems — those which control rents for existing tenants but allow vacant units to be priced according to market value — tend to amplify price swings considerably. Rather than a moderate accross-the-board increase in rents for an area subject to increased demand, the entire pricing pressure is focused on those few units that have become availible. Landlords find that they can charge astronomical prices for newly-vacant units and start trying to figure out ways to force out tenants with longer tenure. Things get ugly fast in such a system.

Wednesday must be pounce-on-Martha-day at Horizon. I'll have to remember that, and come up with something good for next week.

If I get the time today, I might amuse myself by diagraming how a photograph of an execution gets you to a discussion of rent control.

In the meantime, I am curious about a couple things. There are thousands and thousands of people in that photograph. Robbie suggests they went to see justice done. Is that why people go to an execution? And, if executions were again public, would anyone here go?

But I would ask myself some awkward questions about who really run prisons.

I'm ordinarily on your side of this sort of thing Robbie, but I've gotta say: you know nothing of how prisons work in the Lone Star State.

Other than that, your general point about unintended consequences stands. I just don't think it's applicable here.

I'm ordinarily on your side of this sort of thing Robbie, but I've gotta say: you know nothing of how prisons work in the Lone Star State.

Point taken. I don't know about American prisons but wherever you lock up criminals en masse, you better be aware of the clique and the bully and there ain't too many liberal ways of controlling them.

Wednesday must be pounce-on-Martha-day at Horizon.

Can I make a banner?

BTW, I think it's precisely one of the cool things about the Internet that the conversation can meander from public executions to rent control.

Down below we've gone from the politics of tasers to medieval drinking habits, which I would say is hard to beat in terms of wandering off-topic.

'There are thousands and thousands of people in that photograph. Robbie suggests they went to see justice done. Is that why people go to an execution? And, if executions were again public, would anyone here go?'

Oh don't say they all went to see justice done, but I think that most must have done, just as, if, say, they publicly hanged Ian Huntley, the Soham double child murderer, lots of people here in the UK would have turned out for it. Dr Johnson thought it did people good and you can see his logic: the kind of people the BBC/Guardian/Independent classes would sneer at--the ordinary mass of people without talismanic minority victim status--are the most outraged by unjust sentences and who know instinctively that the law needs to make an example and be just: they still have their noses close enough to the realities of life to understand the mix of catharsis, example and justness in some undisputed perpetrator of wickedness getting his just desserts. Obvious quibbles aside, this seems indisputable.

I wasn't complaining about things going off to wherever they go. These threads are like any conversation; what makes the internet cool is that you can see how the conversation got to where it went.

I think it's a crime. A considerably worse crime than drug dealing.

Well, drug dealing (profiteering) and the immiseration of the poor go hand in hand as well, though you don't seem very exercised about it.

I think it's one of the cool things about the Internet that the conversation can meander from public executions to rent control.

You're never this charitable when the subject turns to your chewing tobacco habits, Alan. Then it's all whining about us getting off topic.

If it absolves me of any of my neurotic tobacco-denial, Ben, I always thought it would be kind of cool to smoke a pipe. Actually, that's not quite true: I always thought it would be kind of cool to be the sort of guy who smokes a pipe (and gets to chew on it thoughtfully and point at things with it). The actual smoking part is the only part that turns me off.

I remember a scene from an old Matt Helm novel in which the love interest explains why she chose him as the secret agent to accompany her:

"I just couldn't abide that young pipe with the pipe," she said. "I find that smoking a pipe is almost always an affectation, don't you think?"

Personally, I find it almost impossible to smoke my pipe in public. It's very difficult to balance the physical needs of conversation with those of intrabuccal smoking, and I figure I'm already pretentious enough without adding a pipe to the mix.

[Y]ou better be aware of the clique and the bully and there ain't too many liberal ways of controlling them

True, but a lot of conservative ways don't do a very good job either. One of the kids in my high school government class advocated putting criminals in a big pit, throwing meat down to them every few days and letting them fight it out — not exactly a way to protect the weak.

You seem something similar in the lyrics to "Simple Man", one of my favorite Charlie Daniels songs.

These are extreme examples, but having that as a motivating part of the culture doesn't necessarily lead to better-run prisons than if every prison guard were a subscriber to The Nation/The Guardian.

Erm, "pipe with the pipe" should read "man with the pipe".

Erm, "pipe with the pipe" should read "man with the pipe".

Ah, good. For some reason I thought it was some kind of mildly embarrassing 50s era slang. Maybe a synonym for whipersnapper, something along those lines.

Personally, I find it almost impossible to smoke my pipe in public.

I have a pipe I don't smoke very often, but I don't even like people to come across it laying around in my livingroom. Once they've spotted it I can see the corduroy and elbow patches in their eyes every time they look at me. And that's not really me at all. Odd how symbolic things can be.

I'd like to nominate "corduroy" as Horizon's word of the week.

But so does rent control (which is what you're basically describing), a bad, clumsy, top-down way to solve a real problem that has never worked but which I think retains a lingering appeal to some regardless of its ineffectiveness because it's felt it in some way 'punishes' people they dislike.

Far as I can tell, I've benefited from rent control and have found no reason to complain about it. Who are these resentful folk out to ruin helpless property owners, anyway? I'd be curious to see an example of this at work.

I don't even like people to come across it laying around in my livingroom.

I keep mine out in the garage, along with the gardening, brewing and gunsmithing equipment. If someone gets that far, they can form their own opinion.

"corduroy"

Clothes of the king.

I like the young pipe tag. As in, Arrh, ya young pipe and yer newspaper readin cat.

'You seem something similar in the lyrics to "Simple Man", one of my favorite Charlie Daniels songs.

These are extreme examples, but having that as a motivating part of the culture doesn't necessarily lead to better-run prisons than if every prison guard were a subscriber to The Nation/The Guardian.'

*Obviously*. I note that whenever one gets onto the glaring blindspot in the orthodox Left's outlook, namely law and order, anyone who advocates actual punishment of the offender, is soon custard pie-ed with a caricature of being an ignorant, vengeful and small-minded fascist tobacconist.
Anyone stepping out of the party line must brace himself for that. I think it would be helpful in some ways if the debate moved further away from socialist versus conservative because I think the times demand we do: hence my freewheeling mix of socialist and conservative ideas. Too much of all this has, since the cultural revolution, become a matter of appearing to be nice, having the right bumper stickers that say the right things. And anyone who doesn't is immediately contemptible.

Oh don't say they all went to see justice done, but I think that most must have done

Consider the evidence of Fatal Shore on public hangings:

...The Georgian lawmakers believed that public execution would reform those who saw it....

...But what did the lower classes think of this spectacle stated for their benefit? There is much to suggest that the panoply of Tyburn was not taken in a proper spirit by the 'mobbish class of Persons.' Hanging had two languages. The official one was elevated and abstract: A hanged man 'paid the supreme penalty, 'suffered the ultimate exaction of the Law,' or was 'launch'd into Eternity.' But there was also a vast gallows argot, for, next to those hardy perennials sex, money and crime, nothing on the social horizon of the English poor produced more slang and cant than hanging. Not a word of it reflects the official solemnities. Terse in its irony, bitter in its defiant concreteness, it rejected the values of the Law and its makers.

A condemned man 'died with cotton in his ears' because Cotton was the name of the praying sexton at Newgate. The hangman was Jack Ketch, the nubbing-cove, the crap merchant, the crapping cull, the switcher, the cramper, the sheriff's journeyman, the gaggler, the topping-cove, the roper or the scragger. Tyburn being in the parish of Paddington, execution-day was also known as Paddington Fair, the hood drawn over one's head on the scaffold was the Paddington spectacles, and in dying one danced the Paddington frisk..."

...The idea that condemned men could draw solace and support from the crowd at their hanging offends our deepest sense of propriety about death. It seems unspeakably grotesque. Nevertheless, they did. There are many accounts of young men setting forth in the Tyburn coach dressed like bridegrooms in new white suits emblematic of innocence, ribbons fluttering from their hats, posies in their white-gloved hands, cockily saluting a crowd that showered them, not with dead rats and cabbages, but with fruit and flowers in tribute to their passing...

Anyone who advocates actual punishment of the offender, is soon custard pie-ed with a caricature of being an ignorant, vengeful and small-minded fascist tobacconist.

Not around here (TX, I mean, not Horizon), they're not. I see from your quote that my "see" came out as "seem" — not my attention to attribute "Simple Man" to you.

I think one of the big problems we have is no dialog between the two camps, even within the penal system itself. You end up with a deeply inconsistent system of rules crafted by Nation readers in the judiciary, applied by staff who are Charlie Daniels fans.

Mind you, I'm talking about a subject I know next to nothing about, here.

Thanks for the FS quote, Martha. Another good description of the Newgate/Tyburn procession is in the last volume of Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle.

Consider the evidence of Fatal Shore on public hangings

Yeah I have-- I saw Peter Ackroyd on TV two nights ago going through it all.

What "Nation readers in the judiciary"? The last real Democrat left the U.S. presidency a quarter-century ago.

For Robbie -- on the subject of properly severe prison administration, better have a look at the Norfolk Island chapters of Hughes. (Short version: not much rum, lots of sodomy and the lash.)

If there are any Nation readers in positions of political power in Texas, the only conceivable place to find them is the judiciary.

Wasn't Hightower an Agriculture Commissioner?

Was is the operative word.

I often enjoy Hightower's radio commentary. He's a nut, but I doubt he'd be trying to prevent municipalities from offering broadband to their citizens.

but I doubt he'd be trying to prevent municipalities from offering broadband to their citizens.

Sorry, not clear on who's doing that or in what way & the rhetoric at that link doesn't clarify matters. Explain?

For Robbie -- on the subject of properly severe prison administration, better have a look at the Norfolk Island chapters of Hughes. (Short version: not much rum, lots of sodomy and the lash.)

And that is your final, considered answer: digging up brutality and ignorance from the distant past and sorta/kinda saying that anyone who thinks it good sense to administrate a prison so the offenders are in the care of the authorities and not the psychos in showers is advocating that?

Fair enough. Noted. You remind me of all doctrinaires, from catholics to marxists: it's all cake and eat it and critics are contemptible.