From: Zenarchy (J.R.Molloy@shasta.com)
Date: Tue Dec 01 1998 - 03:34:47 MST
From: Paul Hughes <planetp@aci.net>
>Ha! Perhaps. :-) Although in reality this is due to the fact that we
have
>more economic prosperity to *spend* in housing our criminals. Where as,
the
>Chinese government *makes* money by killing them off.
This implies (just a little bit) that every culture has approximately the
same proportion or percentage of criminals -- regardless of how many
actually get convicted or sent to prison. The diverse ways in which
populations deal with criminality, without managing to completely eliminate
crime, demonstrates the perennial quality of crime and punishment. However
accurate this premise, journalists continue to write about rising and
falling crime rates as if criminals conduct themselves in the manner of
stock market speculators, responding to environmental and societal forces in
deciding whether or not to commit some heinous crime.
But if the Bell Curve of crime varies from one society to the next, as most
sociologists hurry to inform us, that clearly justifies the ongoing search
for governmental remedies. The idea of heritable inclination to crime does
not set well, except with a few socio-biologists, led by E. O. Wilson.
Crime, including violent crime, seems to furnish some evolutionary
advantage, or else the behavior would get de-selected by natural biological
process. Since violent criminals haven't got themselves bred out of the gene
pool, then maybe we all have it in us to do a most dastardly deed if the
opportunity presents itself. Remembering that crime plummets during wartime
supplies a clue as to the real nature of crime: It has a situational
character. People don't abhor violent crime as much as they pretend.
The schizophrenic angel/demon, Jekyll/Hyde profile of the human race argues
best of all for a transhuman movement. Enough of this lunacy. The time has
come to transcend the whole ugly past of human history. In five thousand
years humans have waged a hundred thousand wars. Ascension beckons to
everyone who would turn their backs on the killers and the executioners
alike.
Oops... seems like I got carried away there. <blush> -zen
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