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  • Posted by $ blarman 5 years, 6 months ago
    That's what prison effectively is: exile from the main body of civilization pending reformation. Many nations or territories (including Australia, Georgia, and Florida) were started as penal colonies where the "riff-raff" of society were sent in punishment for their crimes.

    I wholly support exile. If a person is unwilling to live the laws of society, they should find a different place to live with values they are willing to live by.

    Who pays for it? Taxation. I reject the idea that any system of government can effectively exist without some taxation. Government does have a critical role to play but it is an extremely limited one when implemented properly. The problem is that few people who actually work in government appreciate the fact that they should be working to put themselves OUT of a job - not increase it!
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  • Posted by term2 5 years, 6 months ago
    Exile is great. The problem todday is where to send them if they are incorrigible.

    For more normal offenses, there is restitution to the victims. If they cannot pay through their everyday jobs or savings, they have to work at forced labor until they can pay back what they owe.
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    • Posted by 5 years, 6 months ago
      Maybe a socialist sjw country will be happy to take our rapists and murderers lol
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      • Posted by term2 5 years, 6 months ago
        I find it difficult to understand why the liberals want open borders here to sap up our resources and wealth. Sounds stupid to me. Why wouldnt they want to pick and choose among the immigrants and pick the best ones?

        Its almost as if they WANT to drain our wealth and give it to the poor ravaged refugees, thinking that the producers here will just build up the reserves again. They are wrong about that. The producers have pretty much had it with the wealth redistribution. One reason Trump got elected.
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  • Posted by $ Olduglycarl 5 years, 6 months ago
    In my day, unless you raped, murdered or even accidentally murdered, ie arson, drunkenness etc, you were required to pay back damages and learn your lesson...it worked.

    In my view, regarding the exceptions, so long as the case is air tight...then their death would be required.
    If we had a place on earth where you could NEVER get back to civilization and were forced to attend to your own survival amongst others like you...then that would be a good solution.

    ...maybe that 50mile deep hole in Siberia would be a good place to put you...

    That is about as philosophical as it gets...
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  • Posted by chad 5 years, 6 months ago
    Unfortunately when those who would live free and objectively are hopelessly outnumbered by those who choose slavery the ones who are exiled are the freemen. In an objective society police and courts would offer control of those who initiate violence, seek to restore if possible the loss (as in return the stolen car) and prevention (exile) of future acts of terrorism.
    I heard of one method that I thought fair and offering redemption, the criminal could remain on probation as long as he worked toward restoring the damage he had done, if he chose to quit or fail then exile (prison) would be the consequence not the first alternative.
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  • Posted by mccannon01 5 years, 6 months ago
    Probably not a good position for an enlightened Objectivist society, but when I read the question I thought of something I read about Kublai Khan a long time ago. He boasted that a virgin princess on an ass laden with gold could walk unmolested in any way from one end of his empire to the other. The reason is there is only one penalty for molestation of the girl, the ass, or the gold: Death!
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    • Posted by 5 years, 6 months ago
      So you just want to kill all men accused of rape?
      Edit: I just that was what the not for an objective society.
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      • Posted by mccannon01 5 years, 6 months ago
        The word is "molestation", not "accusation". They have different meanings.
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        • Posted by 5 years, 6 months ago
          I don't care about the crime, i care about the accusations of crimes. If the death penalty is the punishment, we need to ensure the criminal is 100% guilty. So what do we do with the accused molestators that are not confirmed guilty?
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          • Posted by mccannon01 5 years, 6 months ago
            You now are apparently are trying to equate "accusation" with "guilt". They are not equivalent.

            "So what do we do with the accused molestators that are not confirmed guilty? " Let them go, of course. Confirmation of guilt can only be reached with evidence, not accusations. "Accusations" and "evidence" have different meanings.
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            • Posted by 5 years, 6 months ago
              I am not trying to equate anything.

              Maybe I should start over.

              Some crimes like theft can be repaid, and an objective court system can balance the values. But some crimes can not be repaid, some crimes are so heinous that to allow the person to walk free on probation will be a death sentence, and if you put them in prison no one will pay to feed them. So why not buy an island and ship those criminals, that believe they can force other men to live for their sake, to live for their own sake by removing them from society.

              Ayn Rand herself said that there is no way to always guarantee the guilt of criminal and thus the death penalty could kill innocent men and thus would not be objective.
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              • Posted by Lnxjenn 5 years, 6 months ago
                I think we had that: it was called Australia! And in some cases America! :) and various other places around the world... French Guiana is another... Some worked out in the positive, some didn't. I guess depends on how you look at things.

                being the french would send people away for not paying taxes... There really is some idea of removing that bad ones from society. I know they aren't Objectivist, but i'm just using them as a known example of sending criminals away to an island. Most of those people were never allowed back into society... some tried to prove innocent or get parole to return to France, but were unsuccessful. When the French Empire collapsed, they were just abandoned there. A lot of those men died of tropical diseases (malaria, etc).

                I am a strong believer in due process, and evidence supporting the crime (true evidence!). I guess i'm trying to rationalize pulling bad, dangerous criminals out of society... I am for punishment that fits the crime, but there is also un-necessary suffering on all humanity if it doesn't.

                I was going to add something else, but it has escaped my mind... and I should probably get back to work :)
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              • Posted by mccannon01 5 years, 6 months ago
                "Maybe I should start over." Yes, it would be nice to abandon the semantic game and engage in some plain speaking. The questions you pose that began this thread are good ones. They are rather difficult to answer and I do not have all the answers and my reference to Kublai Khan offered a solution that is clearly non-Objectivist in spite of the Khan's brag that it seemed to cut down on the crime rate within his empire.

                "Some crimes like theft can be repaid..." Agreed, but what if the thief refuses to cover the loss? Slavery or indentured servitude are not objectivist positions, but what if restitution can only be achieved by some kind of force?

                "some crimes are so heinous..." Agreed. So, should (or could) an objectivist society have a death penalty? IMHO, yes, under very special circumstances. Without research I'm going to assume your statement "Ayn Rand herself said that there is no way to always guarantee the guilt of criminal..." is true. Meaning, on a case by case basis, there are times when guilt can be guaranteed and other times it can not. On those times when guilt can not be guaranteed, there can not be a death penalty.

                "So why not buy an island..." In a sense, prisons are islands where the inmates are, for most practical purposes, exiled from society. The question is who "buys" the island (or prison) and who makes sure there are enough resources to cover the survival of the residents (inmates) and make sure they don't get loose? Should the residents (inmates) be required to be self supporting in some way? Should they be required to make restitution of some kind to their victims?

                I suspect dealing with crime in an objectivist society won't be a lot different than what you see in most civilized countries today. I doubt if perfection in dealing with criminals will ever be achieved, but that doesn't mean an effort shouldn't be made to protect the innocent. I would like to see more restitution for victims, but I can't see how that can be easily done in all cases.
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                • Posted by LibertyBelle 5 years, 5 months ago
                  Slavery,according to the 13 Amendment is prohibited "except as punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted". Because he (supposedly) did something to deserve it. The same should apply to indentured servitude (temporary slavery).
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                  • Posted by mccannon01 5 years, 5 months ago
                    This assumes the slavery exception for criminality in the XIII Amendment of the U.S. Constitution would be adopted by an Objectivist society. Hopefully, IMHO it would be, but it doesn't have to be in a society adamantly opposed to slavery in any form for any reason.
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  • Posted by DeangalvinFL 5 years, 6 months ago
    I can only speak for myself.
    If a society, via an objective court system, uses it's collective force to put someone in prison, then they are assuming the responsibility to provide basic care to that person. The benefit/value to society is that a destructive person is not allowed to roam free, thus the general public that is being taxed to provide for the prisoners are giving value for value.

    An objective legal system would not allow forced labor. Such concepts are foreign and lead to, or are, slavery. Slavery, in all of it's forms, is what Objectivism is ideally trying to destroy. No one should be forced to work for the benefit of others.

    Furthermore, conditions for the release of the prisoner should be clearly identified before a prisoner is released. If they are not willing to ever work by providing positive value to others, than they should stay in prison forever. Or exiled if that is practical.
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    • Posted by 5 years, 6 months ago
      No offense, but I don't want your opinion, I want to discuss the philosophy.
      I won't say that an objective court system uses "collective force". Collective force is more akin to democracy. An Objective government would use objective retaliatory force.
      Taxation is theft, under an objective system there would be no taxation, so who pays to keep the criminal locked up?
      There may be some benefit to paying the system to keep the prisoner locked up, but for how long? Under what conditions am I paying for a criminal to live? If I am a father who's daughter was raped and murdered, should I be the one paying so my enemy can eat three meals a day and live a comfortable life. Should I expect others will pay to keep him lock up?

      I agree that forcing someone to work for you is slavery, but by violating the rights of others, the only fair exchange is the loss of your rights. The criminal would be forced to survive on his own, because the criminal chose to force others to survive for his sake by force. So either we force a criminal to survive on his own and also become an indentured servant to pay for our prison, or we send the man to a deserted island to survive for his own sake. I think exile may be the objective answer.
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  • Posted by LibertyBelle 5 years, 5 months ago
    What do you mean? There is proper punishment for initiating force. First, a trial, to see if the person is guilty or not (and if not, he must be set free);if guilty, he is to be given appropriate punishment, depending on the nature of the crime (which could be jail, prison, penal servitude, payment of a fine),and possibly making restitution to the victim; and if absolute proof is possible, in some cases, death. (Although I having been turning away from the death penalty because there have been too many mistaken convictions; there was a case in
    Virginia of a man spending 34 years in prison for a rape he never even did).
    In fact, for rape, I would advocate something rather worse than death; that is, a certain type of amputatory surgery. But my problem with that is the same as my problem with the death penalty; it is irreversible in the case of a mistake, and there have been too many mistaken convictions.
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    • Posted by 5 years, 5 months ago
      I mean, if prison costs money, and criminals cannot pay it, we are forced to pay for those that violated the law so that they can live comfortability with 3 meals a day etc. So prison has immoral issues of forcing the innocent to pay for the guilty, or forcing the guilty to indentured servitude.
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      • Posted by LibertyBelle 5 years, 5 months ago
        If they are guilty, they shouldn't complain about "indentured servitude"; they shouldn't have committed their violation of rights of a fellow man, and brought it on themselves.
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