Get Out of Jail Free Card

By: Jonathan Seidel

Meaningless law and elite immunity (Agamben, 50-51)

The power of the law is that it is beholden onto all but what if there are those who refuse to follow it? Well they go to prison. But what if they do not? What if they are able to resist prison? This is the reality of elites. Imprisonment is rare but if confirmed is a short sentence at most. 

Law means nothing if those who legislate do not uphold the law. How many elected officials legislated draconian covid laws and then didn’t follow them. Fined and imprisoned people for not following the rules but for them it was a public apology. A lapse of judgement excused. No further ramifications. A dubious attempt for accountability. This is only the most recent abuse of the law. Politicians rarely follow the rules nor ever follow the rules they endorse. It is purely an area of the people. Yet this places the law in hot water theoretically. The law still matters because there is enforcement. The enforcement comes from people officers. People entrusted to enforce the law. tIf police officers look the other way for politicians then politicians can never be tried. If the judicial system never convicts them they can never be held accountable. There is a systemic problem in the states but it is one of the politically elected aristocracy. With a few connections here and there, one can avoid any jail time. Things can be covered up and no legal consequences will ever stick.

It is for this reason the law remains in practice. Like its medieval counterpart, certain laws applied to different groups. Yet those laws were on the books. Everybody knew the law for each. Everybody knew the law was asymmetric and unequal. Yet today it is supposed to be symmetrical and equal. There is no law that frees an elected official from a crime and yet it happens far too often. While liberals scream for Trump, they ought to also scream for Biden, Obama, Pelosi and others. People who subverted the law for their own gain. There are documented examples and not even a case has been brought. Hearings of some sort have been managed quite inefficiently and no one ever received a slap on the wrist. Supreme Court justices have documented biases, bribes and paid vacations and yet nothing has been said of removing them. The people have accepted it. They know the system is corrupt but yet still fight their opponents rather than fighting the true enemy. This is not democracy but an elusive liar. A deceptive demon hiding the truth in plain sight. It can’t be that obvious, no it actually can. It actually can be that awful. Open your eyes stop being in denial and do something about it.   

The law matters insofar as it is enforced by authorities. If authorities chosen to defend the people only defend those in power there is a greater problem in the democratic system. A NBC CEO decried guns but this CEO has an armed group protecting him. He can hire protection but the citizenry can’t protect themselves. Rules for thee not for me is a slogan but only is relevant when the judicial system follows the slogan. When the judicial system insists it can only prosecute the people. When it differentiates between classes and colour. Such a system is demoralising. The answer to this is not revolution but accountability. The answer is not for a new type of people to enter the governmental status. Crimes have been committed by all types from women to blacks to gays. It is not a matter of colour that determines political grace but character. MLK Jr.’s statement rings true. Power corrupts but unfettered power always corrupts. Checks and balances from other elected officials makes the system ever more problematic. Just as a jury of peers decides the defendant’s fate so too the jury of peers ought to decide the incrimination of elected officials. Journalists of the people for the people expose lies and the people take the elected to task. 

The current state of affairs defends the elites. Whoever can gain the most protection. It is a bubble of elitist beliefs. The rule of law is something to be played with. Most legislations have little to do with the actual merit and impose ridiculous personal desires. It is a spectacle. The bill says for the commoner’s aspiration but within the text it is a bunch of baloney. Their goal is to stay in power. They take so much vacation and do very little. It is a facade attempting to parlay as an actual job. They have immense power and wield it like a tyrant. Their only hope is to help enough that when election time rolls around the people revote them in. It is a game of power and malicious authority. If they are to be entrusted with the security of the country they should be held responsible for all their actions but they are not. They rarely are exposed and when they are it is rushed under the rug. Some of this is on the people who ignore the ramifications in the intense culture war. Bad politicians are bad no matter which side. Yet until politicians are scrutinised collectively nothing will change. The people will continue to live in a two-tiered system. 

Law is meaningless if only one side follows it. A basketball game where one side continues travelling is not basketball. Yet if the referee only penalises one side then the rules do matter only to that team. The rules do matter to the referee but to only a single side. In Remember the Titans, the Titans are continuously penalised while their opponents are not. The referee’s bias expels one side while allowing the other to continue doing so. The other team can exploit the referee’s bias. Until the assistant coach blackmails the referee, there is not much they can do. They can quit the game but then they lose. In order to win a rigged game, the referee needs to be threatened. He needs to remove his bias. Yet such a threat doesn’t work with police officers. The judicial system doesn’t have the incentive lest they are exposed and imprisoned. If the people could leverage the system then more accountability would take place. For now it is an uneven game of red light green light. The elites break the rules but they are given more chances and their breech ignored. The subjective consequence gives the people no leeway.

The law is important but if all follow it. The power of the ancient prophet was to challenge the leadership. To ensure the monarchy was in line. The prophet was the pure divine agent sent to expel the sinful king. A curse would be brought if he didn’t change his ways. The story of Naboth best illustrates the leverage. King Ahab illegally took Naboth’s vineyard. Doing so, his life was fated to be killed thereafter. He was cursed for abusing his authority to hurt the people. Pharaoh was also tortured for harming the Israelites. The bible specifically points to his genocidal actions and backbreaking efforts. More than just slavery was the attitude and execution of it. Ahab was an idolator but he is reproached most for this. His devilish action to another Jew. The law is necessary but abusing for one’s own rights is a horrid event. Elijah holds Ahab accountable and his demise soon comes with his dynasty wiped out. There are no prophets today. Most so-called prophets are false ones. They protect the elitist system. When push came to shove during corona they defended the draconian efforts. They placed the illegal needs of the elite ignoring their wrongful efforts before the people they swore to protect. 

The people are entrenched in a system with no assistance. No matter who they elect will be irresponsible. There is little that can be done. It may be why people saw much in Trump. He was the anti-establishment. He went abasing conventional ways and went after the establishment. The entire Russiagate scandal was an effort of the establishment to deflect their own issues that Trump was ready to expose. The people believed the media who continued to propagate the fabrication. Trump has his own problems but the elite circle do not like him. He is not part of the establishment. He is not a member of the elite anymore. Though he is afforded some niceties nonetheless. It is not about money but status. The Romanian government can arrest Andrew Tate despite his hundreds of millions. The US government can try to imprison Assange for leaking their atrocities. Yet the US is not prosecuting anyone for their role nor is the Pentagon being investigated for its failure to complete an audit. It really depends on where you stand in the circle. How much protection is afforded. This isn’t a cabal but an interconnected atmosphere that protects its own. A sense of authority that brews looking the other way. Authority that breeds irresponsibility. 

The law is effectively meaningless in the sense that it does not apply to everyone. Democracy is a farce. Only some are actually beholden to the law. Some more than others. The judicial system continues to operate but in a biased manner. Only certain groups are prosecuted while others remain free. There is a system for aristocrats and a system for commoners. For the establishment and for the people. The law is meaningless when unequal but is still practical. Without authenticity but with veracity. As long as there is law enforcement and law enforcement does its job. As long as the judicial system incriminates and judges the law even if only directed to one side of the aisle. 

Incarcerated Explosion

By: Jonathan Seidel

Crime punishes long after release: no distinguishing between types of crimes or that the debt was paid (Nietzsche, 53)

Prison is supposed to be a temporary time-out for transgressors yet it turns into lifetime of judgement. Davis’ prison abolition hits the mark of tenuous prison sentences. It is this demeanour that further devalues the individual.

Davis makes some impressive points concerning the flawed incarceration of non-violent crimes and its impact on race and gender. The issue with ideological tenants certainly plays a major role in the mass influx of prisoners. Locking people up for using drugs or for being black. False charges to hurl those different away. Yet Davis opens pandora’s box without supplying a solution for violent criminals. The idea of prison is itself a modern notion away from sovereign punishment. An idea modernised with the shuffled gore. Harris argued that free will is an illusion and those who commit heinous crimes couldn’t have done otherwise. Promoting psychiatric help over isolation. While Davis supposes the racial aspect even insinuating that much of black crime is racially initiated. To some extent Harris would concur but he hasn’t incorporated the nurture variable insofar as the neurological falsity is a failure. Since people are a byproduct of both nature and nurture, their neurological pathology is not their fault, thus they must be helped instead of prosecuted. 

In Davis’ world, if funds are adequately relocated then crime will end. Crime does connect with wealth. If everyone was wealthy then nobody would have an issue with anyone else. Yet there is crime from jealousy or lust. It isn’t only greed. Middle class people can do so out of religious or political leanings. It is not always a racial nor an economic point. Though Sowell points out that Jews were hustled every time they succeeded while other denominations failed. Koreans and Lebanese have also faired in the same way. Excelling and then persecuted for their success. He dubs these people middle-class middlemen. Looking back to the Middle Ages peasant Christians in disgust of Jewish success would riot and kill Jews pushing the monarch to expel them immediately. Under this guise, it wasn’t that Jews killed Jesus but that they were excelling so Jews killing Jesus came to the forefront. This didn’t occur in every conflict but it was frequent. Economics is the root of evil. Raise the poor and the problem will be solved.

Such a solution to Sowell’s socio-economic theory has never worked. For this to occur, redistribution would be done so expansively, compelling a government to steal assets from the middle-class and the rich for the poor. It also suggests that economics would salvage the issue. Also, the world doesn’t work that way. People will find difference. Even if all the houses and cars are the same, otherness will be discovered. A dystopian reality were eden lies is still riddled with desire. Just because economics are good doesn’t mean everything else good. Bullying is not from economics but power relations. While mass scale polemics have an economic backdrop that doesn’t indicate that other problems will desist. Economics is but one variable of jealously. A crush lost to another man or envious of another woman’s beauty. The competitive aggressive spirit is lodged in the human brain. Neurologically, violence is seemingly inevitable. Desire is the root that stretches into various branches. Cutting off one branch does not end the foundation. Erasing prisons does not end crime. Solving the economic issue which is a big if, would lesson crime but may also aggravate other areas.

Preoccupied with the economic side forgets the other elements stifling peace. Difference is sowed into interpretive conclusions. Each side has two adequate personas. A debate of which should be prioritised. The duality is an inherent part of humanity. The dialectic only serves the oscillating prognosis. One side may win but it doesn’t make the point objectively true nor usher in the utopia. If anything, many a time the theme of the old is manifested in the new. The south practiced slavery and the north wage slavery. Even Douglass argued that it may have been better to be a slave in the south than a freeman in the north. There are tradeoffs. A master provides for his slave lest he die and not work. An employer doesn’t care. Do the work get paid and leave. The master is responsible for the slave not so much the employer. Having a brutal master versus a brutal empower. The slave must endure while the employee can resign. The employee is free outside the office while the slave is always under the master’s command. Is slavery an ontological evil? Maybe, maybe not. Is slavery wrong? Depends on the circumstances. Many westerners may not like that answer but there is a truth to the pro-slavery side. Just like communism is evil in most minds so is slavery. 

A world governed by duality will reveal its flaws even in an economically sound reality. Peace doesn’t emerge from economics. The racial barrier is an ontological problem. How to change peoples minds? It is impossible. Their ideological desire is baked into their personality. There is no critical thinking, it is an obvious marker to them. Of course Jews are trying to control the world that all muslims wish to blow up the world. The level of conspiratorial nonsense is never backed up. At least believers in the fake moon landing and JFK attempt to back it up instead of stubborn yelling. So for Davis, establishing institutions to prevent crime is the way to go but what are these is unclear. The ideological foothold prevents these apparent institutions from doing anything. A novel idea but one that fails to comprehend the depth of people’s emotional linkage to their ideas. Preventing crime ideologically must seek to campaign against parental education. If parents teach their children that black people are bad then that slogan on repeat will persist in the child’s mind through their teen years. Therapy for all children to escape the clutches of indoctrination is itself indoctrination. The level of bias exists in the home, school and government. There is no escape. No level of wealth will end this. 

Accordingly, her comments about the justice system are quite fare. Is prison a problem? Yes. Is it biassed? Yes. Should many non-violent crimes not be prosecuted? Yes. Does that mean that they should be obsolete? No. Davis fails to provide a sector for the violence and even non-violent dangers. She fails to demonstrate how crime can be erased and prisons can be demolished. Violent people have to go somewhere. Even Harris conceded that while empathy should be accorded, dangerous people need to be removed from the public scene. The jarring case of the dead South African girls’ parents is truly astonishing. Yet that is subset of people. What they did is abnormal. Their level of mercy is unmatched. Yet should one be so forgiving despite the circumstances. Obviously context is necessary. If someone gunned down my brother because he was Jewish or black I wouldn’t forgive him so quickly nor potentially ever. People can change but until that change happens, there will be no mercy from me. There is nothing wrong with bearing a grudge against one who has wronged you terribly. More so, their crime deserves a punishment. Though maybe it should be up to the individual instead of the government. 

Whether a murderer has the capacity to choose or not is debatable. Though it is the state that imprisons people. It steals the burden away from the victim and takes charge of the situation. One may be prosecuted for murdering the murderer. Revenge killings in the west are illegal. Even if they are first provided due process there is no salvation for the family. The family suffers while the murderer lives off taxpayer money. Why is that fair? The victim has lost his wife and the perpetrator can still breath? Maybe the state shouldn’t have that ability. Maybe it should be in the hands of the victim. The scenes from Law Abiding Citizen only further fit into the corrupt legal system. Murderers don’t even go to jail striking a deal with the state. The state chooses who goes to jail not the law. Though a fictional movie this takes place in the real world. The tragedy is that bad guys do not always get locked up. Bad guys go free and the victim suffers. Yet even if the bad guy is rotting in jail how is that any remedy for the victim? Just deal with it. Isolating the bad guy releases him from sight but not from this world. He is still mooching off of the victim’s taxpayer money. Hurting him evermore for the rest of his life. 

Are prison’s obsolete? Maybe. Yet Davis’ crime-less utopia is a paradise of buddhist overhaul. Suppressing desire and overcoming the obstacles of yore. The justice system needs to be reformed for wrongfully and dubiously persecuted citizens and for scandalised and rebuffed victims. Prison is a problem but its job is the state’s power not humanity’s devil. 

Victim Justice

By: Jonathan Seidel

Pain as justice: reciprocated violence and comfort (Foucault, 127, 136)

Prison is the decision of the state to curtail the desire of the victims. The victims want his head but the law prevents it. The law acts as the moral order of man to suspend his vengeful hatred. An ethical society doesn’t murder evil men it imprisons them. The state protects criminals while the victim suffers awaiting salvation in the next life.

Every life is sacred except the one that was taken. Everyone deserves a second chance. Everyone makes mistakes. No one has the authority to take a life. Not even the state itself all the more so an individual citizen. Those wronged are powerless against the state’s suppressing power. The criminal is another citizen who was led down a broken road. Poverty is a rationale for his horrid actions. Destiny was predicated for him. His fated sealed at birth. He was bound for this life. With repudiation and rehabilitation he can be changed. He deserves that much sympathy. He was a robot deprived of freedom to act otherwise. A murderer on a mission. A man deeply neurotic. No man is evil just a screw loose. It is on the victim to provide a second chance. For the perpetrator to pay for his crime and rehabilitate. To make something better of himself. An error that will be paid in full. Isolated from society for such destructive action. He is not evil just mistaken. A man in need of direction.

Prison will guide him elsewhere. He will be rehabilitated under the state’s watch. Marking him on the sidelines alienated from any positivity. In a backwater hellhole he has little to better himself. He will be provided for on the taxpayer. He messed up but he can change. The disastrous joint will alter his perspective. Time to reflect and decide to do better. The devilish guards demeaning the mistaken are assisting the situation. The guards who treat them like insects are inspiring positive change. A hellhole as a punishment for his crime. He must demonstrate that he has changed. Overcome the obstacle of his treacherous act. The excessive disciplinary persecution is horrifyingly counterproductive. A rehabilitation of coercion torture and displacement. Isolating the criminal to specific guidelines. An extended time-out with more physical punishment without compliance. Babied into submission with little recourse. The time-out is measured by limited hope for hope. 

This punishment is destroying the criminal’s soul. Even more than temporary bodily punishment is the literal soul crushing psychological warfare perpetrated by the state. The state honours judgement by employing a corruptible and tragic system. One easily overwhelmed with exploitation. The guards are the enforcers of rules. Yet these rules are discarded for disembodied felons. Giving felons a beating for their status. They are caged animals to be treated as such. If they step out of line they are punished but they may also be punished for just being criminals. A negative aura shines on their heads. Prison is a dangerous place where all the bad guys are locked together. A criminal may receive some ill-treatment from seasoned veterans, from a rival gang or part of new hazing procedure. Locked up is already a deprivation of human mobility. On top of the forced isolation they are enclosed in a facility that is surrounded by angry mean criminals. A hub of correspondence and violence. The destination is not the country club but the boxing ring.

The state takes responsibility by isolation this person and even offers indirect violence as compensation. Yet it is the state that decides this matter. The individual has too much emotion as stake. They are not thinking rationally. Only the law can provide the adequate response. The stable apathetic legal quandary. The mark of order. Yet the law follows the state’s agenda. The state is not innocent of its feelings to the situation. The law has a purpose. To propose order. To ensure logic and reason prevail over heated emotion. No desire for victim regrets or obtuse revenge plots. Stability is necessary. The state is looking out for the family. Her generosity is limitless. She is representative of the people. She is a loving mother looking out for her children. So Cain screwed up and killed Abel. God doesn’t kill Cain he banishes him to wander, reflect and develop. The criminal screwed up, the state in its divine compassion offers a second chance. The humanism, the empathy is off the charts. A true revolutionary reform that values human life in its totality. 

Such apologetic responses for the state make her to be a woman of valour. A righteous queen. Yet she may be the devilish queen Jezebel in disguise. The state seeks stability for its own cause not for the sake of the victims. She incarcerates her citizens in epic proportions. Dealing a detonating blow to any contact between victim and perpetrator. The feds have outflanked the local police. The perpetrator is protected by the state against any harm from the victim. The victim is powerless against the treacherous villain. The law must prevail. Yet the law only decides the verdict of the case. Imprisonment is an added bonus punishment that is forced upon the citizenry. The death penalty played the same role aligning due process with fatal consequences. The inhumane violence has been repudiated. What if the accused is innocent? Lies are woven but this doesn’t take away from the genuine cases that have no retaliation and have no rectification. The victim is left to watch the state haul the perpetrator out of sight. Protected from their anger and vengeful spite. 

Where is the victim’s say in all of this? How is the victim to cope? Is he to stand by while the perpetrator breathes? Sully the memory of his tragic loss? The humanistic reform seeks to overrun the savagery of old. Humanity is no longer archaic nor barbaric. Humans are civil. If one acts barbarically it isn’t on the victim to respond in kind. That is animalistic. That is unenlightened buffoonery. Humans have transcended their devolved devils. With the intellectual prowess there is no more harm to be done. Be the bigger man and send him off to prison. Prison is the evolved form of punishment. Killing a foetus no big deal killing a murderer big deal. The parasite may be kicking at your tummy but it ain’t ending your loved ones in cold blood. Evolved humanity blames society for the rampage. So it is society that will take the reins. Society will compensate for the loss by punishing him. The victims sit there in terror as the state marshals him off to live freely. The victim stands idly by with his dick in his hands. The state ties his hands behind his back. He is chained by the law. The cuts need not restrain him since the legal consequences are scary enough. 

Phobic hysteria refuses the victim to vengefully retaliate. Revenge only leads to lawlessness. It is an inevitable chaotic jungle. Only the Leviathan can act accordingly. Preferring incarceration over the death penalty. Preferring living devils than dead ones. On the off chance one may be innocent but at the core it’s reformed humanity. Encasing the soul away in isolation is the greatest hell the state can ask for but not the victim. Prison is the greatest option for a state that demonstrates control. Capital punishment turns uncool to reformers. Especially with the false imprisonments. She controls the societal order by dividing the innocent from the guilty. The guilty are placed in facilities away from the innocent. Provided nourishment but stolen freedom. Plaguing the emotional with soulful surgery. Stability is necessary, the state is the honest protector. Yet even so, the victim is left helpless. Forced to move on while the perpetrator enjoys his taxes in prison. He breathes and lives off his money. The victim is employing the perpetrator. The murderer continues to haunt the victim. The state has control but the victim does not by any regard. Time is the only imperfect healer. 

If the victim was provided the choice that would change the dynamic. There are biases but this isn’t a permitted open season hunt. Trial must precede the execution. A relative may chase a murderer and kill him in his rage. This redeemer must wait for the court to decide its verdict to hunt the perpetrator down. Once the court finds the perpetrator guilty, the avenger may take his revenge in earnest. Violence is consigned with legal stability. This isn't the king nor the state doing the deed. The court carefully fairly deduces the trial. The verdict is capital punishment. His death is not by a random firing squad nor an electric chair. Lethal injection just removes the pain entirely. How ethical to create a paradigm where the monster receives a fraction of the pain that he caused the victim. So much equity present, really have turned over a new leaf. Where are the feminists? The liberals? Really anyone who claims to stand up for a victim. Nowhere to be found since every life is sacred unless it applies to some ethnic standard. The perpetrator deserves the suffering he caused to others and who better to do than the victim himself. 

Is the victim out of place for acting in revenge? Should he be prosecuted for a state failure? Clyde killed Darby in cold blood. Was he wrong? Darby killed his wife and daughter. The state then let Darby off to catch a bigger fish. Making a deal with murderers. Ensuring their safety on the streets of the innocent. The victim shocked by such betrayal. Uncertain of their case so his lawyer circumvents and causes the victim more harm. The bastard isn’t even imprisoned. The victim in his anger at the failure of the justice system takes matters into his own hands. He murders those who killed his family. Mr corrupt lawyer comes back and tries to take down this murderer. Clyde turns into a cold calculated murderer by murdering random people to make a point. While his descent into madness may be off-putting and diabolical, his autonomy to rid the devils that roamed the street is sympathetically accepted. On the legal round maybe he shouldn’t even be processed. If incarceration is a time-out then we're all just babies needing parental judgement but if it is to remove the dangers from the street then the victim isn’t a danger since his job is done. He doesn’t need punishment for the sake of learning a lesson. The state failed so he took matters into his own hands. 

An avenger is perceived with disgust. Barbarism is the old. Only the state punishes. Yet it doesn’t even punish well. Prisons are problematic and the justice system imploded. Election isn’t necessarily the answer nor is criminalising drugs. The one size fits all theme is dangerous and disastrous. The victim must inflict pain to receive some compensation. If the state takes all the credit it does the victim a disservice. The victim consensually participates in the punishment of the perpetrator. The state is a reflection of the victim but is not the victim. It may be a big brother but not the   victim. The big brother can protect the little brother from the bully but the little brother must learn to fight the bully on his own. He must show the bully he means business. The victim must violently respond to the violence done to him. The goal isn’t ignorance but showing dominance. With the help of the state the little brother stands a top and teaches the bully a lesson. Maybe it's lashes maybe it's a few punches. The physical punishment endured must be countered equally with pain reciprocated. Forcing the victim to bottle up his feelings is a deplorable psychological travesty. Violence is only barbarism when unprovoked. Done in reciprocation is self-defence. Barbarism is unsolicited while retaliation is compensation. A way to elevate the victim to salvager. 

The state's prison system cages the body for the cornered soul. It steals the holistic body from the victim who is wounded terribly. The victim sits at court brokenhearted as the perpetrator snarls at him as the state hauls him away from the victim’s clutches. A reformed system would rekindle the violent reciprocation suppressed in the name of asymmetric warfare. Permitting the murderer to exit unscathed. Such moralistic elitism strangles the victim and defends the perpetrator. Harming the innocent and benefiting the guilty. Instead, the victim is voluntarily provided a defined outlet to reciprocate. To harm the perpetrator just as he harmed him. To provide the solace to the victim and elevate his dignity he must avenge his loss. He must retaliate for his sanity.