Question

[Antigen]

From the most ancient times justice has been a two-part concept: virtue triumphs, and vice is punished.

We have been fortunate enough to live to a time when virtue, though it does not triumph, is nonetheless not always tormented by attack dogs. Beaten down, sickly, virtue has now been allowed to enter in all its tatters and sit in a corner, as long as it doesn't raise its voice.

However, no one dares say a word about vice. Yes, they did mock virtue, but there was no vice in that. Yes, so-and-so many millions did get mowed down--but no one was to blame for it. And if someone pipes up: "What about those who..." the answer comes from all sides, reproachfully and amicably at first: "What are you talking about, comrade! Why open old wounds?" Then they go after you with an oaken club: "Shut up! Haven't you had enough yet? You think you've been rehabilitated!"

...

It is unthinkable in the twentieth century to fail to distinguish between what constitutes an abominable atrocity that must be prosecuted and what constitutes the "past" which "ought not be stirred up."

We have to condemn publicly the very idea that some people have the right to repress others. In keeping silent about evil, in burying it so deep within us that no sign of it appears on the surface, we are implanting it, and it will rise up a thousandfold in the future. When we neither punish nor reproach evildoers, we are not simply protecting their trivial old age, we are thereby ripping the foundations of justice from beneath new generations. It is for this reason, and not because of the "weakness of indoctrinational work," that they are growing up "indifferent." Young people are acquiring the confiction that foul deeds are never punished on Earth, that they always pring prosperity.

It is going to be uncomfortable, horrible, to live in such a country!


The foregoing is an excerpt from The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn. I'm only about 1/4 of the way through this book and I have to wonder if the Semblers, Walter Loemburg, Art Barker et al actually studied this book? And if they jacked off to it?

Here's where you can get a copy

[Anonymous]

Is it virtuous to punish?

When, for example, the family of a murdered person seeks the death penalty for the murderer, is it justice they want? Or revenge?  (I don't see revenge as virtuous.)

Justice, in my mind, is a redress of wrong.  For example, the Semblers and others responsible for the Straights would pay each and every one of us an amount of money compensating us for lost childhood, lost adulthood, lost wages due to our residual difficulties, and so on.

This would not fix what I have already lost, but among other things it would help pay for any kind of therapy I might need and it would pay for a college education that I could never finish before in large part because of emotional problems from Straight.

What does it help society to lock people up?  It helps when people are dangerous to society, which many of those responsible for the Straights still seem to be, since they got shut down as "Straight," failed to learn their lessons and opened up new cruel institutions.

Otherwise, jail time is punishment, a form of torture, and we might as well have racks or thumbscrews.

I think I would be most pleased, and feel the wrongs of Straight were in a way mended, if each of those responsible somehow realized what horror they brought into my life, apologized to me in person, and set forth to making public all of the secret, hidden, and denied histories of the Straights.  In that way society could understand what happened and never repeat it.  That would truly right old wrongs.

I welcome debate on this.

[Carmel]

I totally agree.  Monetary reimbursement for time lost and pain suffered is nothing but a cheap way to buy out of guilt. (pun intended)They would still continue on with their philosophies and ideas at the expense of the next generation.  Our payoff would be funded by tomorrows teens.  

They say even in the program...allbeit contrary to what they ultimately required of us....that drugs and alchol were only a symptom of the real problem.  AA says that.  Until we can bring the "real problem" to the surface...no amount of money would do anything more than be a temporary fix.

If you want to get down to the bare bones of my personal opinion......The world is over-populated, under-fed, ultra-violent, and so forth.....It seems people of today care nothing for tomorrow...only what they can get out of right now, this moment. Punishment is just someones cheap shot at gaining their own spot in the afterlife or what-not.  They think by following the order of "the law" that they automatically receive "good-guy" status.  But in reality they dont care about the meaning of it all, so long as other people smile and nod and fill their pockets.

[Scott Free]

Good description of some greedy fools.

THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT IS NEITHER - bumper sticker :wink:

[Antigen]

On 2002-05-28 12:21:00, Anonymous wrote:
I think I would be most pleased, and feel the wrongs of Straight were in a way mended, if each of those responsible somehow realized what horror they brought into my life, apologized to me in person, and set forth to making public all of the secret, hidden, and denied histories of the Straights.

In that way society could understand what happened and never repeat it. That would truly right old wrongs.

I welcome debate on this.

 

The chapter I was quoting was about the difference between the way Germany has dealt with the Thrid Reich and the way Russia has dealt with Stalinists.

One interesting thing the author related was that sometimes during the German tribunals, a defendent would just hang his head, refuse to offer a defense and state that facing his crimes had made him no longer want to live.

He goes on to explain that it's the crime, more than the person, that's really put on trial. And it needs to be done. I just posted in another thread the latest article by Dan Forbes. He's a real bulldog and one of my personal heros. He's uncovered how Betty Sembler, the governor of Ohio, the brothers Bush, Partnership for a Drug Free America et al have gone about subverting the democratic process in Ohio. He also (bless his heart) included the detail that executives from Phoenix House seem to have been in on the plot.

Well, that's what happens when ya' don't smack `em down! They just go on with their mischeif.