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.

Bigger Foes

By: Jonathan Seidel

Two types of power: parental power and sovereign power—enforced by birth v. enforced by wrongdoing (Agamben, 88)

Power or rather authority is vested in the hierarchical archetypes of society. Yet despite their prominence they are enforced differently. Parental power is birth and sovereign power is wrongdoing. The basis of authority is nested in the type of authority needlessly dependent on the rules of the game.

Parental and sovereign authority are unique to the obligated. They are unconditional forms that demand submission. God may be included here as well but the state is the political equivalent. To some degree God is volitional depending on the religion. Nevertheless, authority of teachers or employers is measured by a conditional relationship. So long as a student is in the school or classroom the teacher has authority. It is dependent on location and/or genre. If the teacher is seen at the local hotdog stand down the street her authority is reduced and if the student is a former student from years back as well even visiting in her classroom has reduced authority since the relationship has changed. The casual conversation is indicative of changed roles. The same courtesy of old is not as relevant outside the typical model. The same can be said of an employer. The employee is only in submission while he works for the employer outside the office or even outside his job the boss deserves little. 

The dependency on circumstance defines selective authority. Just as some people are experts in certain fields so too some people have power in certain situations. If the frame is constructed in the hierarchal function, then insofar as that frame exists do they have power. The classroom frame holds up in the classroom yet outside the classroom it doesn’t. Teachers become strangers on the street. They dress differently and buying store goods. They are human but the frame defines them by the relational aspect that being a teacher. The frame is powerful as it relativises relations into bunches. A prince may hold sway over his underlings. He speaks as he wishes while his father is away but once the king returns the prince is silent lest he be ridiculed by the king himself. The visor is the prime ridiculer in the name of the king. When the king is away the prince may boss the visor around as his royal blood towers over the lower status visor. When the king returns the visor’s voice for the king elevates his status beyond the prince. Though he may only speak out in the name of the king. Critiquing the prince is not from the visor’s own admission but the kings. 

The hierarchy is everlasting. There is always someone over someone else. Even the president has to answer to someone. The tyrant answers to someone. It is all relative. Take the case of a CEO. An employee answers to another employee and it goes up the ladder to the CEO. The CEO answers to the board and the board to the investors. The investors to their board and their investors. It is an interconnected web where someone answers to someone else. It is a check with the balances. The same goes for teachers and principles. The spider web links one with another. Even if the board itself doesn’t technically have a boss it answers to the collective who have their own bosses. Their situations and feelings in the totality of life affects their judgement. The tyrant himself doesn’t really have a boss except to submit to his cabinet lest they rebel against him. A single individual is incapable of hoarding so much authority as long as those in his inner circle are handsomely compensated.

A parent doesn’t answer to anyone other than their spouse but this hierarchy is less vertical and more of a seesaw. There are some hierarchal relationships but the parental relationship is about rules and order while a spousal relationship is about opinionated primacy. It is not all about power and authority and even if it is about power, the spousal relationship doesn’t have the authority of a parent child endeavour. A parent is in charge like a king over a country the parent is the king of the home. Lest the child believe he can do as he wishes. Even with more liberalised notions of parental relationships there is a clear vertical distance between parent and child. The parent has near control over the child. In early antiquity control was absolute. Over the years authority has become more symbolic than legislative. Questions about how far does the state intrude in the parent’s duties is debated. What is the extent of parental culpability? Danger is usually the correct mark but it is a debatable mark? The symbolic forum need not derive from the legislative output. Legislation isn’t to cultivate that which is not but instil that which ought to be. The law isn’t to make sure children respect their parents but that reflects the aspirations of respecting one’s parent. 

Reducing the horrid laws were to minimise the parental assault on children. Not to rid the authority of the parent but to delimit it to the legislative sphere. Respect need not be coordinated to the state punishing scale. The state need not be responsible for the parent’s respect. Instead that ought to be rendered to the household. The state rescinded its legislative authority on behalf of the parental link. The authority of the parent elevates in its mythos over its practical publication. The vested interest is more the power of the unsolicited enforcement over the state’s interjection. The state wouldn’t punish the child but the parent still could. There may be no order cementing the parental authority in the state death sentence but the solitary of parental capability remained. Parental power was the model of symbolic orchestration. One’s submission to parental rule from youth is the canister of deep devotion. The rebellious aura sets in absent legislation to experience but such freedom can never truly overpower the parent only reject them. The mature child lashes out to regain independence but can only succeed at the expense of abandoning the home. Parental authority is absolute in its intent but not so in its decision-making. It is a submissive yet respectful genre.

The state demands obedience from its subjects. Similarly, a citizen can avoid the legislative restrictions by moving to a different country. The authority can never be breeched but it can be nullified. In the same vein, an employee can absolve the obligations of the job. Yet while that contract ends the relationship the same cannot be said of a citizen or a child. To some degree a citizen can move to a different country and thus he has absolved of his native home but such abandonment is never fully erased. Yet the state lies in the citizen’s debt to the state. He may switch states and then he will be under a newfound contract One with new rules that impinge his life. The state is a macro level employer. The state is itself a rehabilitation of the master reincarnated into a national authority. It was the king, emperor now politician. Authority of the state is relative to each state. The state is one of many absolute authorities. Within their given range they can employ a wide range of ability. The same goes for a parent of his child and now another’s. The state’s vitality is within its borders to those who are bred into it. The rules are embedded non-negotiable and obligated. The state is the environmental cocoon that demands much from the citizen. An authority that surrounds his every move.

The state is the combined father-employer. The state is a bargained group but it is also a fated construction. Born into the state obligates not only the legal components but the non-legal inspirational facilitation. A prison so long as the citizen remains a part of the system. The modern period is the mature child able to travel freely. To rebel and question his native homeland. To look abroad for new options. The liberation of newfound chaos. The mature child is open to new ideas, choosing his destiny as he sees fit. If the state is distasteful he can travel abroad accept a new citizenship similar to a new job. Jobless life is the Sahara. There are areas of no man’s land. The grown up can choose to heed or not but he cannot overpower the state. The state will demand and he can walk out and run away from home but he will come upon a new territory with new rules. The absolute power of the state demands what the parental obligations require. There is only so much that can be trifled. The state is a compressive force that can control the fate of the individual that the job cannot.

An employer can fire an employee but the citizen cannot fire anyone. The state is required to care for the citizen in all areas. Even incarceration is a state’s duty. The basis of homeostasis is a familial obligation. The state covers the citizen’s needs so as long as they are in her jurisdiction. The state is fused with the citizen. Birthed on soil is an obligation till death. A fundamental metaphysical link that demands but concerns. The state or the parent may not follow through on their care but it is imposed on them to do so. As the protector they are to guide their children. The entire premise of authority rests on faith for guidance. Authority at work is mechanic but for the state it is ethical. Laws exist for stability insofar as stability is a moral ladder for excellence. The state like the parent runs after his child when he leaves and when is unwell. Even when he abandons the state searches for her child to return. She is far gone but awaits her return. There are demands and at times exceedingly transactional but there is a parental component ideally at least. The state is the collective people. Politicians are the representation of the people. To guide the next generation. It isn’t solely to tax but to raise. 

The state is not only a social parent but the adopted parents of the citizen. The entire creation of child agencies is for the government to protect the children when parents cannot. Not even non-profit organisations but the governmental extensions. Social services can overrun the familial homeland. The child is the state’s insomuch as he is the parents. The parents take priority but once they act nefariously, they may be relieved of their parental duties. While dangerous conditions whether violence or poverty may be invoked to salvage the child such democratic abstinence is unique. Many states invade the social fabric of one’s lifestyle. The child is of the state’s and therefore is under the state’s thumb. Whether that be a draft or schooling. The basic necessities or the state’s decisions characterise the nature of the child to the state. In the western world, parenting takes precedence. Biology and stability defeat nationalistic paradigms. Yet this is not the case in less democratically inclined areas. Yet the more federal power, the more parental power the government has. Take the case of underage drinking. Each government defines the age permitted despite inconsistencies whether a parent believes their child is old enough to drink is irrelevant. Even in the confines of the home the government intervenes. 

Nationalism brings the children so close to the state. Patriotic impulses sway the child from their mainstream calmness. Propelling jargon towards the youth. They are inspired. The second parent is overwhelming the first. Yet the child tends to disobey both parents. The child drinks and speeds. He fails to take proper precautions and pushes the envelope over the line. The state has its own form of timeout. It locks the “child” away from society. The parents act in the country’s best interest. The nation is called the fatherland or the motherland. Nationalism puts a face on the nation’s bulky mountain range. Yet the state is an employer. It may be the supreme authority but doesn’t always act charitably. It doesn’t always demonstrate love. It is a mechanical parent. One that keeps the child at arm’s length. Punishing the child severely for wrongdoing. The child cannot escape, they move to a new adopted parents. The bond is as strong as the emotional link between state and citizen. The state can act earnestly or devilishly. Either act as a parent or an enemy.