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apostate
I think it needs to be kept current and relevant because I see it as abusive and disregarding of the rights of another. I could, for example, ask about the disabled child in the wheelchair that Dave disconnected the battery on, or the fact that Dave continues to forbid his wife to see her children and grandchildren.
I think the thing that was frustrating me about the questions being asked about the whipping thing, not just by you but by alot of people, was that it was continually being raised as a question to Dave and then people acting surprized or newly disgusted when he didn't answer. Everyone knows he's not going to answer, so asking the questions over and over seems like beating your heads against a wall.
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apostate
However while reminding us of the difference between rights and privileges don't forget the rights of those who were clearly abused by the JC's dispensation of justice. I am curious, if you are prepared to answer, whether you see the whipping of the Kenayn as an appropriate action or as an infringement of his rights as a human being?
This is an issue were all I know of the story is what I've heard. Here's the facts as I've heard them
Someone from Kenya stole from the JCs
The punishment for stealing in Kenya is somethink like 20 lashes
The JCs gave the guy a choice,
a. Get turned into the police for theft
b. Take 5 lashes from the JCs
c. Have a JC take them for him
The Kenyan chose option c
I am assuming all of these things are true. I have no other option since I wasn't there and have never heard anyone contradict the facts of this story.
I should also say that I don't see reasonable corporal punishment as being inherently immoral. So I don't have a problem with the government of Kenya giving 20 lashes for theft rather than a jail sentence as long as the accused has the option of a fair trial. Do you disagree at this point? Do you think the Kenyan government is out of line giving lashes for theft?
So then, since I think it's ok for the government to give lashes as a punishment for theft the question is Is it ok for someone within that country to issue a similar punishment for a similar crime?
Governments can have no legitimate power that the citizens of that country didn't already posses prior to the creation of that government. In the absense of a government people have the right to defend their property from theft. So any punishment that is legitimate for the government to take on and use against the citizenry MUST have been derived from the people it represents if the punishment is legitimate.
So then I believe the JCs would have the right to whip someone that stole from them in the absence of the government. So the next question is Does the fact that the government exists nullify the citizens right to redress wrongs outside of court? I think yes, sometimes, but not always.
This is where I think the JCs could have went over the line. Vigilate justice is not something that is accepted. The reason being is that it bypasses a fair trial. The accuser cannot accuse, convict, and punish the accused and call that justice. If the JCs had accused the man of theft, decided he was guilty and then whipped him, I would say that they had denied the man his rights and were in the wrong. What they did, however, was a little bit different.
The JCs accused the man of theft and feeling he was guilty offered the man a deal to avoid going to court. The man could be whipped himself or have someone else be whipped for him. The man could have always chosen going to court and have a trial rather than accept the JCs deal. He chose to take the deal. So then the question is, were the JCs within their rights to offer this deal to the accused? I think the answer is yes.
In court cases the prosecution, representing the people of the state, is allowed to offer a deal to the accused. Usually this is a reduced punishment in return for not having to go through the trouble of the actual trial. The accused is not forced to take this deal, he can take his chances and continue on to trial. So since the procecution has been granted the legitimate right of the people to offer deals to the accused to avoid going to court does that nullify the right of individuals to offer deals to people that have wronged them to avoid being taken to court? I don't think so, infact this happens all the time in civil cases, usually with a cash payment.
So the only way in which the JCs situation differed from a normal court case settling out of court is that the JCs offered corporal punishment rather than asking for a cash payment and they performed the punishment themselves.
I don't see the moral difference of who was swinging the whip. If the JCs had struck the deal and hired an employee of the state to swing the whip using tax funds to do the hiring I don't see how that would be more acceptable. And as far as offering corporal punishment rather than asking for a cash payment, since the man wasn't forced to take the deal I don't see how the JCs were wrong for offering whatever kind of crazy deal they could dream up.
So while I think there are better ways to handle the theft than the way it was handled, I do think that the JCs did not violate anyones rights in handling it the way they did.
The end.