Capital punishment
I don't start from the basis of human rights, that is a fiction.
What matters is does hanging people actually work. On the positive
side it has a provable zero rate of recidivism, by far the best
of any form of punishment or rehabilitation. I am unaware of
a single case of a hanged man re-offending.
Also on the plus side we have the removal of the bad example.
No young lad is going to share a cell with a hanged man and
learn his methods or his values.
Finally there is the sheer economy of it. A few metres of hemp
rope and a trapdoor. Wage costs no more than any other day in
prison, but with no prospect of overtime payments. In the USA
they argue that it costs more to execute a man than to imprison
him for life because of all the appeals and so on. I know lawyers
are expensive but I still find this hard to credit.
The biggest drawback is the probability of miscarriages of
justice. Pardoning innocent men and letting them out of prison
is easy. So is pardoning those bastards you know are guilty
but you got caught out with planting evidence. Pardoning a bloke
who has spent the last twenty five years buried in quicklime
is a bit more problematic and considerably more futile. On the
whole I think it is a tough call, no obvious solution. It is
one I would bend with the wind on, I think now on balance it
is more likely to be politically expedient to stay with the
liberal consensus and to continue to operate without it.
The statistics are not clear either way as to whether it saves
money or lives, neither does it appear obvious whether the deterrent
effect against murder is very clear. Perhaps this is where we
have been going wrong. We have been executing the wrong people.
Most murders are domestic and not part of any pattern of criminality.
My mother was a prison officer for many years and was well acquainted
with many women who had killed their husbands and lovers. They
were the most reliable prisoners she had to deal with. In contrast
it was the shoplifters and cheque fraudsters who were the dyed
in the wool evil bitches.
Some crimes need a strong deterrent, for others the punishment
is irrelevant to the chances of an offence being committed because
the offender either does not think about being caught or does
not think at all. What matters is not the nature of the offence
but the nature of the offender. For the classic murder for greed
hanging and life imprisonment are equally effective as deterrents.
For the lunatics life imprisonment is a bigger deterrent. For
the woman who snaps after fifteen years of abuse no punishment
would deter.
The biggest deterrent effect of capital punishment would be
against the career petty criminal. Imagine the effect of being
told by a judge
"When you were fourteen and first arrested you were cautioned
and let off, the second time you were let off again with a
suspended sentence of imprisonment. On the third occasion
you were sentenced to imprisonment. I now have to inform you
that this repeat offence after a period of imprisonment makes
you eligible for sentence review by a panel of experts who
will assess your suitability, or otherwise, for imprisonment.
If it deems you incapable of rehabilitation you will be executed.
I trust I will not being seeing your sneering face in this
court again. Goodbye."
Juries should be given the job of deciding the facts. Judges
given the task of deciding the matters of law and specialists
on criminal behaviour should be given the task of deciding the
most suitable sentence, with judges free to make or refrain
from making their own recommendations.
Marriage
Marriage is not about love, or religion, it about commitment.
It is not a test of faith or a measure of love it is a long-term
contract to live together in a special trusting relationship.
Seeing it in any other way is naïve. Forget the hearts
and flowers, forget the love of God, marriage is about making
a working day-to-day relationship that involves a shared agreement
on the nature and extent of that commitment. Love will not conquer
all, you can't live on a prayer. You have to negotiate an evolving
partnership.
There are thousands of ways to have an unhappy relationship,
more ways are being discovered all the time, but successful
relationships rely on trust, forgiveness, shared interests,
not too much secrecy, not too much jealousy. An agreed level
of shared interests and behaviour, agreed levels of personal
growth space. Marriages are not made in heaven and they are
not made in a moment of reciprocated sexual attraction. Marriages
require effort. At the best they are the surest way to a happy
and fulfilling life, but not always, not every time and for
many people it never could happen.
There are millions of myths about marriage which help to make
the current situation the way it is. People get damaged because
they expect marriage to solve problems or they see a wedding
as the fairy tale happily ever after ending. People need to
be taught the truth about marriage, that it is about give and
take, accommodation, a working and evolving relationship. The
media is full of crazy stereotypes of impossibly happy marriages.
Divorce is an essential escape route for many people trapped
in unworkable marriage but it is too easy to get yourself caught
up in the divorce industry and fleeced by lawyers who have no
option but to see marriages like scrap merchants see older cars.
My sister is a solicitor specializing in family law and she
agrees with me on this point.
A world without marriage would be a nasty place to live. Women
are controlled by their biological imperatives to a degree that
nobody these days is comfortable with. A secure future for their
children is what women want, with marriage this urge can be
dealt with in a socially acceptable way, without it things can
start getting complicated and dysfunctional. Marriage is on
the decline and so are moral standards. Children raised without
security are very much more likely to become delinquent. It
is not an iron law but the relationship is easily demonstrated
with statistics. If you are a murder victim under the age of
16 the single most likely culprit is your mother's lover.
I am against the lottery because it gives false hope to millions
of people. Their real interests lie in realizing that they will
never be rich and acting accordingly. The lottery stops them
from seeing their true class position. Millions of people say "good
on them, if they can get away with it" when they hear of footballers
or pop stars making a fortune or some ordinary bloke inventing
something and getting rich off the back of it. What they are
really saying is "bastard, that should have been me, if I make
out I don't care perhaps when I make it big people will not
be jealous of me." People have a crazy faith in their ability
to discover some unknown talent for invention, singing, bank
robbery, having unknown rich relatives die or picking random
numbers and think that they too one day will be rich.
As long as there is that one chance in fourteen million each
week that idea cannot be totally ridiculed. The best advice
I can give is to ask them to calculate the odds and then count
up to that number, if they count quickly they might be finished
before they are due to retire.
House of Lords
The more I think about the second chamber the more I think
it is unnecessary. Some democratic countries have second chambers
to accommodate different interests such as states. The House
of Lords was there to give a voice to the Lords, a voice they
are not entitled to. There is no need for a second chamber,
just a more thorough review by the Commons and their committees.
New ideas on the House
of Lords
Hello
again Martin
Thanks for the speedy response
to my e-mail. You've certainly clarified a lot of
things for me.
Capital punishment
Yes, I see you're point about
human rights. After thinking about it I agree totally
that the nature of the offender is the main issue
in deciding judgement. I think for Murder One (where
you decide to kill a specific person and then plan
out how and when to do it) and similar crimes, the
sentence should certainly be death. But only if the
evidence is completely conclusive and there is no
chance that the accused is innocent (a rare occurrence,
I know!). The other system you mentioned for petty
criminals, similar to the "three strikes" they have
in America, is also, in my opinion, a good idea. Although
perhaps it would be best to raise the bar to "five
strikes" or something more sensible. (My great-grandfathers
brother was actually the last man in Leeds to get
the birch for stealing a packet of sweets!)
Marriage
I have always considered marriage
a ancient religious ceremony and never a "contract
of commitment" before. Perhaps it should be used as
a method of ensuring security for children (and keeping
the population down), by saying only state recognised
marriages are allowed to bear any children. Adoption
and surrogacy could be used for homosexual marriages.
Any unwed parents having children would be subjected
to heavy fines and possible criminal charges. This
all sounds a bit extreme and I realise that marriages
are not the start-and-finish when it comes to successfully
raising children (I myself am legally a bastard :-))
but perhaps something similar could be considered.
Which leads me nicely on to.....
Lowering the population and
destroying the underclass
Er.. don't look at that title
and think I'm advocating the gas chambers or anything.
But I have a system that might just do what that title
says without having to kill anyone (hooray!). (Apologies
to Kim Stanley Robinson from whom I have blatantly
ripped this off :-))
Picture this. To have a child
you need a certain amount of credits, one to be precise.
According to the law, everyone is born with three
quarters of a credit. Therefore when two people get
together they will have one and a half credits combined.
If and when they have a child (costing one credit)
their total will be lowered to one half of a credit.
Now comes the clever bit. That couple can now either
sell that half to a richer couple, so that this second
couple can have two children, or buy another half
from someone else if they themselves wish to have
a second child. As you can imagine the price of half
a credit will be pretty expensive (after all you are
selling you're chance to have another child), and
the cash bonus that could give to a poor couple would
certainly encourage them to sell their half. This
would also ensure that second children are born to
financially secure couples.
Although it needs some refinement,
the system could work. The chances of it being actually
enforced are somewhat low however and I can only see
it happening if the population becomes ridiculously
high (the way things are going however that won't
be too long).
House of Lords
I AGREE TOTALLY, 100% AND COMPLETELY!!!!
Ahem..
I have never seen the point of
a upper house and if Sweden can get along fine without
one, so can we.
So. I think that will do for
now. If you've got some free time from running that
brilliant site if yours (the last thing I want to
be is a burden :-)), then please don't hesitate to
reply, I look forward to it.
James
P.S. Thanks for the advice on
the lottery, my dad has actually decided to stop (yippee!) |
Criminal Scum
We need to be clear about this. Punishment should not fit the
crime it should fit the criminal and the crime. There
is a trade off. Stealing a packet of sweets sounds like a minor
offence but it is an act of dishonesty, what should matter is
not the size of the theft but how it fits into a pattern of
behaviour; what caused the behaviour, is it likely to happen
again without a harsh punishment, what would be the effect of
a punishment. For most lads caught stealing the fact of detection
is all that is required to shock them into seeing sense. For
others a severe punishment is absolutely necessary, and for
a further minority all punishment is a waste of effort. For
some dyed in the wool criminals the simplest and most straightforward
answer is to execute them while you have a chance, even if that
is for a "first time offence" of a seemingly minor nature.
Think about this. Your neighbour has a scrap-yard. Full of
interesting stuff of limited value. To protect it he keeps a
dog. The children of the area tease the dog through the fence
and drive him insane with their taunts. One day a child squeezes
through the fence and the dog savages him. Would you let the
dog off with a caution and go easy on him because of his dysfunctional
lifestyle? No. You would destroy the public nuisance. That is
the sensible approach in the interests of public safety. There
is no reason at all not to use precisely the same reasoning
with people. If a man is a twisted psycho who is likely to abduct
and murder children that is the most important thing we need
to bear in mind. We only need a psychiatric opinion on the likelihood
of rehabilitation and punishment achieving a cure of the offending
and offensive behaviour. We don't need to understand and empathize
with the nutter, just understand him enough to predict his behaviour.
If a court is faced with an alcoholic with plenty of money
who thinks he can drive safely with twelve pints of Special
Brew inside him and is likely to continue to drive whether or
not he has a licence then the court should consider an appropriate
sentence. Instead of fining him or sending him to prison it
should seize his assets, sell his car and manage his bank account
for him in a way that ensures he can have a credit account with
a couple of local taxi firms. That would be cheaper than imprisonment,
no more or less of a limit on his freedom and be significantly
more likely to have the desired effect of keeping the pillock
from killing anybody.
Lowering the Population
A very interesting suggestion. It sounds like the work of
an economist. It certainly seems to work well as a theoretical
economics model. However most such models assume that the people
are rational maximizers of their own marginal utility or welfare,
but economics has a poor insight into what that actually means.
This is where a bridge-builder is needed, somebody with skills
of social science and biology as well as economics.
Yes, I'll set my mind to it and thrash it out.
It does seem a little similar to, or at least compatible with,
some ideas I have been speculating about for several months
although they were a little more complicated and integrated
things with the taxation, welfare and judicial systems too.
Perhaps when I have a little time to mull it over one day I
will come up with the right synthesis.
It is a bit like being the executor for God's will. Now we
know he's dead we can redistribute his responsibilities to appropriate
committees. It might not be perfect but it is better than standing
around in draughty buildings wishing into the empty air.
Marriage, bastards and morality
The Church has caused no end of problems. Once again the Big
Lie in operation. (Watch out for my new article on The
Big Lie, soon.) The Big Lie is that morality follows from
and is dependent upon religion, or put another way you cannot
be rational and moral. The Church frowned on bastards because
they were the results of sin, fornication. The reality was that
bastards were a problem because they damaged the social structure
and the civic institution of marriage. If a woman had a child
without a husband then they were probably going to be a burden
on somebody. They would be a burden on the woman's father, the
parish poor relief system or society in general if the "one
parent family" took to whoring, thievery or other desperate
measures.
The taboo against the single parent family makes perfect economic
sense, children need looking after and you can't look after
a child and earn money unless you have above average talent
in something, so you can pay a fair price for childcare while
you work to earn that amount plus the other needs of woman and
child, and most women have no such talent. In the current era
nothing has fundamentally changed with this scenario. Single parent
families will always be a social burden as long as people who
are not single parents refuse to allow single parents to be
paid more for doing the same job less well. I can't see this
situation ever changing. Men will want to provide for their
families and will resent any idea that they should be rewarded
less well for their higher commitment to a job than a single
parent.
It is better for all concerned that children come from steady
relationships. The nuclear family is the natural way to do it
and the one that works the best. Jealousy exists in all relationships
between people but in the nuclear family it is actually lower
than in other relationships. The family have shared goals. The
interests of the mother and the father in the child are very
similar, this similarity of interest does not extend to the
extended family or step families. A small nuclear family is
a terrifically stable and functional unit. I live with a boy,
a girl and a woman. They are all my favourites. We are all each
other's favourites. There is competition and jealousy involved
as in all relationships but it is manageable, obvious, transparent.
We live just like the Teletubbies. I think I need a big hug.
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