Quit picking on me...Uh huh, often for crimes that would seem trivial or politically correct today?
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Crucifixion As A Modern Death Penalty
- Thread starter mike1952
- Start date
Loxuru
Graf von Kreuzigung
It does not need to be ‘conservative’ to be dystopic :
‘progressive’ dystopic : The population should trust that the government is doing the right thing, even if it needs sacrifices from the population (liberties, privacy, control). Questioning policy could undermine this trust. As what the government does is good for the people, questioning policy is criminalized because it nurtures ideas that are bad and dangerous for the well-being and welfare of the population. A strong example is set by public crucifixion of the criminals, showing that the government takes the welfare of the people serious.
‘liberal’ dystopic : critics could stir unrest among investors, entrepreneurs, businessmen, workers,… Stock markets and profits could go down, jobs could be lost, enterprises could get broke and indirectly the economy could be affected. Anything that creates unrest about the economy is a criminal act. In order to make clear that the government is concerned about economy and the wealth of the population, criminals will get crucified in public. The more crosses, the higher the stock market.
‘conservative dystopic’ Whatever the government policy is, any critical opinion about it could lead to changes and is therefore disturbing for the moral and social stability of society. Anything triggering change or reform is strongly undesired, and to make that clear to the population, such opinions are criminalized. Public crucifixion will show the government’s determination to maintain social stability and to protect the population against all such foolish ideas that could only lead to trouble and chaos.
‘reactionary’ dystopic. Whatever the government policy is, any critical opinion about it is disturbing for the government. And to make that clear to the population, undesired opinions are criminalized. The culprits will be crucified in public. After all the Ancient Romans also did, in these good old times of virtue, discipline, respect, and strong and efficient government of the Antiquity.
Nice rundown of potential dystopian futures at both ends of the poitical spectrum, Loxuru.
I was thinking more of a growth in social conservatism, and the politics that may surround that.
But economic hardship and greater social inequality create ample opportunities for harsh laws and public spectacle to distract the plebs. And of course total civilisation collapse is the stuff of many popular dystopian visions.
Brilliantly worded. Somewhere else I related what I had read where instead of a straight line it should be a circle with the centrists at the top, the left and right 90 degrees down the sides and the extremists at the bottom because whatever motivates them the outcome is always the same!
frost
Assistant executioner
Loxoru arranges dystopias* on a left-to-right spectrum, and Phlebas suggests that the function of cruel public punishments is "to distract the plebs". But there's another way of organizing dystopias, one that's orthogonal to Loxorus's arrangement: from autocratic to hyperdemocratic. At one end of the spectrum, we've got a single ruler imposing his rules on an unwilling populace. On the other, we've got the majority imposing their will on the minority; and without checks on their power to do so, they can be every bit as cruel and domineering as any Hitler or Stalin.
Suppose, for instance, that we didn't have anything like the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which forbids "cruel and unusual punishments". I have very little doubt that we'd have something just as unpleasant as crucifixion** for things like child-murder; and, as we got used to that, it'd be extended to lesser and lesser crimes. And this wouldn't have to be imposed by autocrats or sold to a gullible public by oligarchs; it'd be pure democracy in action.
*Given the number of Romanophiles here, should it be "dystopiae"?
**It probably wouldn't be crucifixion itself, but only because Christians would see that as stealing their Founder's thunder. However, most of them would be fine with, say, drawing and quartering.
The word is pseudo-Greek, so the plural would be 'dystopiai' -
but it goes back to Thomas More's invention, 'Utopia',
which is taken to be based on Greek eu- 'good' (as in Eulalia, 'good speech'
)+ top(os) 'place', turned into an imaginary place-name with the suffix -ia.
dys- is 'bad', the opposite of eu-, 'dystopia' is a relatively modern invented word.
I would put authoritarians at the top, libertarians at the bottom,
centrists in the centre.
The greatest threat is dictatorship of the majority,
with a populist dictator riding on 'the will of the people'.
windar
Teller of Tales
Having written a few dystopian stories stories here, I will pronounce myself an expert.
I think the facts don't support your argument. Only a minority of countries still have capital punishment, even by so-called "humane" means like lethal injection. In the US, where capital punishment has been found constitutional, it is declining in usage. In this decade, almost all the executions have been in a small number of states and many states that have the death penalty on the books haven't actually executed anyone in many years. http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/number-executions-state-and-region-1976
frost
Assistant executioner
The decline in capital punishment is, I suspect, principally due to the fact that the laws are made by legislators rather than by direct democracy. When it's put to a public vote, at least in the U.S., there's much more support for a death penalty.
In the U.S. state of Nebraska, for instance, the legislature voted to eliminate capital punishment, with 34 of the 49 legislators voting in favor. A petition was circulated to put the measure up to a vote; it acquired enough signatures to not only put the issue on the ballot, but to suspend the repeal law until the vote could be held. When the election took place in November 2016, voters favored keeping capital punishment by a 61-39 margin. In the same round of U.S. elections, California voters rejected the abolition of the state's death penalty 54-46; Oklahoma voters gave 66-34 approval to a state constitutional amendment that would tend to preserve capital punishment.
The declining number of executions in death-penalty states doesn't appear to be due to declining public support for capital punishment; it seems to be a result of legal and other impediments to carrying out executions (courts ruling that certain forms of execution fail the 8th Amentment test; difficulty of obtaining the drugs called for in lethal-injection protocols).
Loxuru
Graf von Kreuzigung
Talking about dystopia. Some recent news in the press, of a woman being charged for picking up money from the floor :
http://metro.co.uk/2017/02/28/woman...h-a-criminal-record-for-pocketing-it-6477942/
The event reminds me of a scene in my story in the thread 'The Application', where a group of women had to report for a judicial caning. In episode 6, one of the women gets nervous :
“My God, my God, all this, it is so embarrassing. That I have to get this. I could not understand at the entrance. I could not grab it, that I was sentenced for something, sentenced to be caned. I thought corporal punishment was something from the past, from the dark ages. I always have thought we lived in a civilized society. I was proud and I felt good about it. And now they do such things. And why? Because I picked up a banknote of hundred on the street. It was last autumn, it was raining cats and dogs. From under my umbrella, I saw it, just beside the sidewalk. I took it and looked around. There was nobody, but there were apartments all around. It would have made no sense to contact the local residents. If someone would stand at your door and ask if you lost such a banknote, you would ‘yes, it’s mine’, wouldn’t you? Well I decided to go home, dry it in the first place, as it was soaking wet, and then I considered to go to the police. But I had to go to the dentist the next day, so I decided to use the banknote and then retrieve money immediately from the social security and then bring it to the police. But a CCTV camera had spotted me picking up the banknote. I was identified by facial recognition. The police stood at my door and requested the banknote. I did not have it anymore, but I had the money retrieved from the social security, but not as a single banknote. Despite I could return the same amount, they argued that I was a thief and they prosecuted me. They proposed me a guilty plea and to accept a caning. I had no choice. If I had defended my case in court and I would have lost the trial, my life would have been over. I am a school director. A court sentence for theft would have cost me my job and my pension. They are unrelenting for us in such matters. I hope nobody will know what happened to me here. I would no more dare to show me at school if they should know I got stripped, searched and had to walk naked in cuffs. My God, my God, let this be soon over, I hate it to be treated this way. Why are we cuffed? Why don’t they give us some clothing? And all these foreign people! So humiliating…”
I have put the story in a dystopian context, in a zero tolerance society, wherein everybody is under constant survey and hence many try to evade survey, just to get caught and punished. In the story, the woman picking up money 'gets away' with ten lashes. But in Dystopia, zero tolerance could be pushed further, making theft of 20 pounds or 20 euros or so, a crucifiable crime, and picking up money from the street leading also to theft charges. Crosses will never be empty then.
http://metro.co.uk/2017/02/28/woman...h-a-criminal-record-for-pocketing-it-6477942/
The event reminds me of a scene in my story in the thread 'The Application', where a group of women had to report for a judicial caning. In episode 6, one of the women gets nervous :
“My God, my God, all this, it is so embarrassing. That I have to get this. I could not understand at the entrance. I could not grab it, that I was sentenced for something, sentenced to be caned. I thought corporal punishment was something from the past, from the dark ages. I always have thought we lived in a civilized society. I was proud and I felt good about it. And now they do such things. And why? Because I picked up a banknote of hundred on the street. It was last autumn, it was raining cats and dogs. From under my umbrella, I saw it, just beside the sidewalk. I took it and looked around. There was nobody, but there were apartments all around. It would have made no sense to contact the local residents. If someone would stand at your door and ask if you lost such a banknote, you would ‘yes, it’s mine’, wouldn’t you? Well I decided to go home, dry it in the first place, as it was soaking wet, and then I considered to go to the police. But I had to go to the dentist the next day, so I decided to use the banknote and then retrieve money immediately from the social security and then bring it to the police. But a CCTV camera had spotted me picking up the banknote. I was identified by facial recognition. The police stood at my door and requested the banknote. I did not have it anymore, but I had the money retrieved from the social security, but not as a single banknote. Despite I could return the same amount, they argued that I was a thief and they prosecuted me. They proposed me a guilty plea and to accept a caning. I had no choice. If I had defended my case in court and I would have lost the trial, my life would have been over. I am a school director. A court sentence for theft would have cost me my job and my pension. They are unrelenting for us in such matters. I hope nobody will know what happened to me here. I would no more dare to show me at school if they should know I got stripped, searched and had to walk naked in cuffs. My God, my God, let this be soon over, I hate it to be treated this way. Why are we cuffed? Why don’t they give us some clothing? And all these foreign people! So humiliating…”
I have put the story in a dystopian context, in a zero tolerance society, wherein everybody is under constant survey and hence many try to evade survey, just to get caught and punished. In the story, the woman picking up money 'gets away' with ten lashes. But in Dystopia, zero tolerance could be pushed further, making theft of 20 pounds or 20 euros or so, a crucifiable crime, and picking up money from the street leading also to theft charges. Crosses will never be empty then.
windar
Teller of Tales
What an absurd story. There must be no actual crime in Staffordshire that they wasted time prosecuting this.
I was once snorkeling in Puerto Rico and saw a $20 lying on the bottom of the ocean at a depth I could reach, so I picked it up (true story). What was I supposed to do, walk along the beach asking if anyone lost $20? "OK, sir, can you identify it?". "Yes, it has a picture of Andrew Jackson on it." "Well then, I guess it's yours."
joseph roantree
Condemned
crucify paedophiles
cruxlover
Tribune
Eulalia said: "Murder by crucifixion is, mercifully, rare though it probably has happened."
Yes too right it has - see :http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-year-old-plumber-lived-mother-confessed.html
Happened near Florence, some weird shit happens near Florence as in "The Monster of Florence" murders.
Yes too right it has - see :http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-year-old-plumber-lived-mother-confessed.html
Happened near Florence, some weird shit happens near Florence as in "The Monster of Florence" murders.
I hope, he is not a CF-Member. The phe public would condemn all of us.
cruxlover
Tribune
I don't think that was the case Eulalia, apparently he had tried it on another girl previously. However some people heard her screams and he ran away as they approached, thus saving her from a horrible death.
JanB2
Assistant executioner
Okay - I've always thought that executions should not shy away from being painful. Crucifixion should be an option for the convicted.
But women should also be able to choose electrocution, specifically electric clips to the nipples and clit, and an electrified phallus. In fact, this kind of punishment could also be used in place of a jail term - just make it non-lethal. That way, the woman could serve her sentence, be punished and return to her proper duties quickly.
But women should also be able to choose electrocution, specifically electric clips to the nipples and clit, and an electrified phallus. In fact, this kind of punishment could also be used in place of a jail term - just make it non-lethal. That way, the woman could serve her sentence, be punished and return to her proper duties quickly.
Dorothy Brown
Brown Sugar
Now that electro idea is brilliant, she has to report twice a week
for "electro treatment" say for six months. her treatment is
carried out in a soundproof room, because her agonising screams
would upset some people. after her treatment she is taken into a
room to come round and be able to walk properly again,given a
drink and sent home with her next appointment date.Now first
time she would not really know how bad her punishment would
be, but imagine how she would feel going for her second and the
rest,knowing the agony she will have to endure. and on top of
that she can`t have sex ,her pussy is so sore and tender
JanB2
Assistant executioner
I wasn't even thinking in terms of repeated "treatments", but that is brilliant too! I can only imagine what would go through my mind as I'm driving to the facility for the next session. I really like the idea of voluntarily surrendering myself for punishment regularly like that.