Guilt and punishment

Just ganna jump right into it today.

There are lots of philosophers who believe that humans are naturally wicked, so everyone needs rules enforced by a strong authority figure to be good.

Even though lots of other philosophers disagree, we are raised to expect punishment in return for doing something we know to be wrong. We affect something negatively, and some our own lives are affected negatively.

In a way, our parents enforced an external form of guilt. Guilt doesn't just mean the opposite of innocence, being responsible for something, it can also mean feeling bad about being responsible for something.

That's why most people go easy on you if they can tell you have remorse for what you've done. Feely guilty is an internal punishment so you require less external punishment.

As a person with a rather vocal Jiminy Cricket, I really resent authority figures trying to make me feel even worse about it when I screw up.

Bad enough that this is a Western society that won't allow people to bow to make up for whatever it was, but if a formal and heartfelt (and usually very long) apology is coming, (not that that will spare the remorse feeler their internal raging torrent of self loathing) than any other punishment is just overkill. Overkill that they daren't object too. Afterall, don't they deserve it?

Not really.

I mean, okay. There are cases when it's best to turn things over to whatever authority figure is in charge of dishing out external remorse. It can be a problem though, if someones job is making sure people get what they deserve.

Suddenly some poor guilt ridden saps are "made and example of", which is another way of saying "treated unjustly".

All this has been talking about matters of things like writing something mean on someones facebook, or other teenage drama crap. When you get into things that can get you capital punishment, things get really skeevey.

Note: The word "Skeevey" is a regional expression used exclusively in Upstate New York. Apparently it comes from some Italian verb. Did you know that Upstate New York is loaded with Italians? Seriously.

"Skeevey", adjective. Untrustworthy, distasteful, deserving of contempt, gross, immoral.

Anyway, you know you're ganna have problems when you get into capital punishment. Now you're stuck asking yourself why we even have a criminal justice system? Should we take criminal and turn them into honest men, or are we protecting society? How far does the rights to Life, Liberty, and Pursuit of Happiness stretch?

Side note: There is some really unnecessary capitalization in the Bill of Rights. Proper nouns and beginning of sentences only, guys.

So, uh, don't kill people, and if they aren't in court and they're sorry, let it go. Kthxbai.