From: Adam Back <aba@dcs.ex.ac.uk>
Date: Fri, 31 Oct 1997 23:25:47 +0800
To: T.G.Griffiths@exeter.ac.uk
Subject: Re: democracy?! (Re: Terrorism is a NON-THREAT
In-Reply-To: <43e6aee147%Tim@tim01.ex.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <199710311328.NAA02878@server.test.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain




Tim Griffiths <T.G.Griffiths@exeter.ac.uk> writes:
> > Jim Choate wrote:
> > >Which means we should have the lowest number of incarcerated individuals
> > >instead of the most.
> 
> Does it? Or does it mean that we potentially have 49% of the population
> in jail for any particular act, deemed to be a crime by the remaining 51%?

Sounds about a reasonable an outcome as can be expected from a
distortion of market economics such as democracy.  Probably it would
stabilize somewhere below 49% unless methods can be found to extract
enough money from people in jail by having them work.

The real problem as I see it with democracy is that not only do your
neighbours get to vote to have you locked up for something which is
none of their business, and has no conceivable effect up on them; but
they actually get to vote for you to be charged for the "service" of
being locked up to protect you from yourself.

There is a trend of making the "criminal" (the real victim in many
cases) finance his own persecution.

For example we have licensing regimes which are not in our interests,
and you know what, they charge for a license, and they lock people up
for not buying licenses.  And what is really galling is that the poor
sods who get locked up actually fund the process, lose money by being
locked up and pay two or three times for someone elses control
freakish whims.

The wild west was better than this state of affairs -- people didn't
have the energy or inclination to waste their own resources being nosy
parkers, and those that did were apt to wind up full of lead.

Perfect.

(Crime rate was reportedly pretty damn low too.)

Adam
-- 
Now officially an EAR violation...
Have *you* exported RSA today? --> http://www.dcs.ex.ac.uk/~aba/rsa/

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