Posts by Stephen Judd
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3410: I'd start making inquiries of Bruce Wileman at BB Internet Group in Johnsonville, judging by theinformation here.
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What is the mechanism that prevents utu devolving into permanent blood feud? What can you do with aggrieved parties who will never be satisfied? The fundamental problem I have with restorative justice is that some losses can never be restored - the loss of a beloved family member - and so to me this is a sort of cheat from the get-go, where we tell people they will be recompensed but then we have to set limits.
Why set limits? This is why.
In Germanic tribal societies, where Anglosaxon common law has its roots, the concept of wergild was a marvellous innovation. Wergild (person-money) is what an offender has to pay a victim for an injury, or their family for a murder. The purpose was NOT to make whole a loss. The purpose was to symbolically limit an otherwise unbreakable cycle of vengeance.
If you read or hear the old stories of our Paheka tribal past, there is no end to feuding. The Atreides are cursed. The Volsungs are cursed. Every single Irish heroic figure is cursed. And mostly because they are stuck with the problems of reciprocal vengeance that can't be solved until every single member of one party is killed.
So I'm extremely leery of restorative justice, to the extent that it legitimises vengeance. Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord, because it is imprudent to delegate this to humans.
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As far as I can tell, there's no auto-tuning in this setting of Bush's last press conference:
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Oh, that's too accurate. Too painfully accurate.
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So does that mean I should call off my team of colleagues who are at the High Court at the moment with an application for an injuction gagging further criticism?
Bring it on! I shall represent myself!
(Yes I know what they say about people who represent themselves).
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ScottY: just teasing. But you must admit that the market that lawyers operate in is hardly a very free one. I have as much scope to cause serious financial (and other) loss as the average lawyer through incompetence or malfeasance, and yet the market for programmers is practically Hobbesian by comparison.
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Lawyers are paid what they're paid because that's the value the market puts on their work. All praise the market.
Really? I thought it was because like all rent-seeking "professionals" they have formed a cartel to create legislative barriers to entry and hence artifically limit the supply of services.
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Islander, I would love to know more of the Rabelaisian dustmen.
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Peter Hoar: Project Gutenberg has Urquhart's translation of G & P online.
Coincidentally, just the other day I was looking up the bit where Gargantua expounds on the best means of wiping your bum.
I have no idea what Rabelais' French is like but Urquhart's English is hilarious. My daughter thinks so - I've got her hooked on it now.
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This too shall pass
I always understood that the king had asked his sages for a saying that would be true in all circumstances...
... I certainly hope it is in this one.