Justice (Part 1) | ContraPoints

(strumming guitar) - (sigh) Alright, so what are we looking at? What new hell have we now sunk into here in the United States of...? They ask you how you are and you just say you're fine and you're not really fine, but you can't get into that because I would never understand... - Well, it's a Kentucky police cruiser with a blue life, a thin line blue and a Punisher skull on the hood. Um... There's a lot to unpack here. But let's follow tradition and start by examining the skull. The skull is the symbol of "The Punisher", the vigilante antihero of Marvel comics.

The Punisher's real name is Frank Castiglione, but he changed it to Frank Castle, I guess because he's ashamed of his Sicilian heritage. Disappointing. Frank Castle is a former Marine whose wife and children are murdered by the mob, leaving him an empty shell whose only solace is his obsession with revenge. Nyaa. There have been many television and film adaptations of "The Punisher" and as research for this video, I watched them all. And my conclusion is that the best is the 1989 version where Dolph Lundgren dyes his hair black to pass for Sicilian and runs naked and sweaty through the sewers worshiping the god of revenge in a garbage shrine.

You know, just like the police do. (police chatter on radio) Hello, I'm Nyatalie. Creator of "Catrapoints" and no, I'm not a catgirl. I am a cat woman. I'm sorry you feel intimidated by that. Look, I'm tired of only being valued for my little straight body. I would like to be recognized for my value as a mother, as a wife and (piano music) as a woman with values. Just kidding, I'm trash. Let's talk about

justice

, uwu. Justice is when I get a lot of pats on the head, nyaa. The Punisher's main mission is to kill all the gangsters who murdered his family.

But once he gets his revenge, he can't stop killing because it's the only thing that gives meaning to his shitty life. That's why he wages a one-man war against organized crime. But no matter how many bad guys he kills, it's never enough because new criminals appear and take the place of the old ones. It's like a cycle where violence begets violence and nothing really changes. It's almost as if this comic is trying to tell us something about the nature of crime and punishment. But you know what? Let's not think too much about this. Sure, he just slams a giant skull into the car.

Excellent. Perfect. -Are we the bad guys? - Look, maybe you're assuming I'm one of those ANTIFA-sympathizing, big-government anarchists who sit behind my iPhone with my latte, criticizing the police, even though I could never do a job 1/ 10 as difficult as yours. And to that I say, how dare you assume things that are entirely correct? This is, excuse me, an excellent cup of coffee. There is simply nothing better than waking up in the morning and receiving your first dose of the chemical you are addicted to. They tried to make me go to rehab and I was like, “Nyaa, nyaa, nyaa.” But you seem like a reasonable person, a person of science, an experienced salesman, the free market of ideas.

And as a reasonable person, I'm sure you wouldn't dismiss my argument just because I enjoy pats on the head. As Socrates once said, "Two plus two equals four is equally true whether uttered by a philosopher king or a rogue peasant." Or a nekomimi. Kawaii desu! (laughs) Is this problematic? Shame culture is dead and we have killed it. This is beyond embarrassing. This is cursed, children, cursed. Socrates didn't actually say this quote, I just made it up, but that proves what I'm saying. Then maybe you should listen to me, nyaa. I am making this video at a time when hundreds of videos of police brutality are being shared on social media, spurring a movement to abolish the police and prisons.

And at the same time, there is a growing culture of online vigilantism where

justice

is in the hands of Twitter mobs demanding accountability and consequences for bad behavior. All of this raises many questions, such as: what should be the consequences for bad behavior? Who should impose these consequences? And under what circumstances and for what purpose? If we abolished the police and prisons, what would take their place? Oh my god, these contacts. I'm literally doing a whole video with fucking sideways cat eyes. Ridiculous. Why don't we start with the basics and ask what justice is, Socrates? It's a question that philosophers have pondered for thousands of years without conclusive answers.

I think I can probably figure this out in a YouTube video because philosophers were dumb and I'm really smart, nyaa. Ra ra Rasputin. One, revenge. "The Punisher" represents a

part

icular idea about justice that is symbolized by the skull he wears on his shirt so that bad guys know that they are about to be punished. "The Punisher's view is that justice means harming people who harm people. An eye for an eye. This is called retributive justice. The idea that people who commit crimes deserve punishment in proportion to their crime. It is a very emotionally powerful idea of ​​what justice is.

This is because it is rooted in our instinct to hit back at someone who has wronged us. Social animals like humans and chimpanzees often practice it. revenge, probably because it serves an evolutionary function if another monkey in your troop of monkeys steals your bananas and you don't get them Revenge, then other monkeys will learn that you are a doormat monkey. But if you get revenge on the thieving monkey, I don't know, letting your boyfriend remove the parasites from your skin, that will send a message to the other monkeys. It is not profitable to mess with you.

So our little monkey brains have developed a taste for revenge and even in cases where in. It doesn't really benefit us, our desire for retribution is strong and our little monkey brains reward us with one. pleasant feeling of catharsis when justice of this kind is done. So, of course, there is a lot of content dedicated to relieving this itch. For example, there is a subreddit called r/JusticeServed with 1.5 million subscribers. I first came across JusticeServed when the popular channel showed me this post of two teenage thieves, stripped naked, humiliated and photographed as punishment and all of this celebrated under the title "Police Justice." In fact, before the murder of George Floyd at the hands of the police, the description of the community was, now with 20% more police brutality!

Fun fact, that's not all, boss. Point point. That's the tweet. Of course, I subscribed to JusticeServed right away thinking someone should be keeping an eye on these people. Here's a typical Justice Served post, a woman sets her P-E-D-O husband on fire after catching him R-*-P-E, her titled seven year old daughter, this man got what she deserved. Instant regret, predator exposed. To be honest, when I wrote this

part

of the script, I forgot that he was going to wear cat ears. I'm actually here trying to have a conversation about sex offender immolation while dressed like an old bargain bin, Belle Delphine impersonator.

Well, dress for the job you want. I mean, who among us wouldn't set her husband on fire under those circumstances, right? However, let's look at the comments on that post. Let's read the room. She is a hero in my opinion. She should have broadcast it live on television. Give him a medal. Give him two medals. So, most people are in favor of setting fire to predators, but you know, there are always a couple of rumors complaining, as always, about "oh, maybe we shouldn't be encouraged to burn people alive without due process and without evidence." "A lot of men like to fuck my wife because I'm too busy crying about due process" But those people get yelled at pretty quickly.

They call them fart-symptoms. (laughs) Fart-symptoms. That's why JusticeServed is a community for people to come together and unite over our shared love of extrajudicial violence. But of course there is always someone who goes too far. In this video of a thief getting kicked in the head until his face is a bloody pulp, one commenter says: "That's a boner of justice for me. I dream of the day I catch the thieves who robbed me and give them kick life away." to them." Criminal failure, prank gone wrong. So when righteous zeal for justice turns into a cloak of bloodlust, that's off-putting to some people.

As one disgruntled former JusticeServed subscriber said, I wanted to see stories and videos of morons getting their comeuppance. Instead, they bombarded me with angry, toxic moral absolutism. It's all black and white for them. If you don't support irreparable mutilation of someone, then you should support slapping them on the wrist and letting them. fuck your wife. Unsubscribed. But even this liberal cuckold still wanted to see "videos of assholes getting their comeuppance." I think practically everyone is capable of enjoying some version of this type of content. You have justice porn, play stupid games and win stupid prizes, instant karma, bad parking lot revenge and predator poaching - Why don't you shoot me Serial killer sentenced to death and the whole train applauded, justice was done. instant, karma fails, stupid people get what they deserve, karma!

Much of this content has a right-wing feel. Unmarked police justice, criminal shot after fighting with cop, home invader shot in the balls with shotgun, Arizona, just Arizona. What is there more to say? Arizona. Justice served, punished. Reminds me of the NRA people who spend 10 hours a day fantasizing about how they'll kill intruders with the gun they keep in the bathroom. But I don't think this longing for retaliation is distinctively right-wing. People on the left have exactly the same emotional response. They just have it in different situations. Think of the jubilation on Twitter when a racist Karen was fired.

Remember that ugly bitch Lisa who harassed a black man in front of an apartment building? Karma. And she got her husband fired. The dumb bitch really should have taken care of her business. I love watching him. She'll probably end up with community service and a fine, but I'd love to see her in jail for at least six months. Firing them was not enough. Life in prison! (laughter) Life (applause) in (applause) prison (applause)! An example I personally enjoy is that video of Daniel Holtzclaw, the police officer who abused his power to sexually assault a series of black women, crying in court as he is sentenced to serve 263 years in prison.

He just can't believe that he's actually facing consequences for this. And, of course, there were the much-relished punches of N-A-Z-I Richard Spencer. Let's see it now. Please try not to enjoy this. Remember, this is for educational and monetizable purposes only. -It's uh Pepe, he has become a kind of symbol- (crowd noises)-That was informative. But let's be honest, the reason the video was so popular is because people simply enjoyed watching an N-A-Z-I get what he deserves. Justice has been done. Punished. Imposing. He sounds very happy gay, uwu. Remember to hit Subscribe. So this punitive and retributive impulse, however fair it may seem, is still basically a situational form of sadism, of schadenfreude.

The satisfaction of justice served is the pleasure we feel when inflicting or witnessing the suffering of someone who deserves it. Now the phrase "deserves it" is doing a lot of work here. The correct use of that phrase is the difference between a morally well-adjusted person and someone who hides bodies in the basement. He puts the lotion on his skin, nyaa. But people generally agree that those who harm others deserve to be harmed themselves. That's why we love stories about revenge. Stories like "Mean Girls," "The Raven," "Old Boy," "Titus Andronicus" and "Matilda." - Too good for kids!

Revenge is such a popular plot because it's easy for people to identify with a protagonist who seeks revenge. And it's just the easiest way to get people excited about spectacles of violence. This technique was used in one of the first books in history, "The Odyssey" by Homer. I stole this copy from my high school and I stole this copy from my college. I'm still just reading SparkNotes. Well, let's read it now. Look, I knew this would come in handy someday. God, he's a bastard. What does Athena see in this man? He must be very good. Okay, I'm ready for my book report.

So the hero of the story is Odysseus and the whole book is him trying to get home to the island of Ithaca after... Okay, so in the prequel, Odysseus' shitty friend Menelaus throws a tantrum. after his wife lets him run away. going out with a Turkish guy she was really attracted to, how dare he? So Menelaus dragged an entire nation into war instead of doing what any normal man would do and blow off steam at a Femboy Symposium. Anyway, when Odysseus finally returns to Ithaca, he discovers that his house is full of men who eat his food and drink his wine and try to marry his wife.

So Odysseus, and this is the hero of ourstory, he murders all of his wife's suitors as revenge and then rounds up all the slaves who slept with the suitors and has them all hanged. And there is a suitor, Melantius, Odysseus ties him up and cuts off his ears, nose and feet and then tears off his genitals to give them to the dogs. And reading this, I guess I'm wondering if this was really necessary. As a test reader, my comment to Homer is perhaps this workshop. I mean, a super unlikeable protagonist, it really kills me. I guess he's a male lead and you can get away with making him unlikable because men love to hear about assholes.

That's why they watch my channel. But the crazy thing is, I don't think Odysseus should be a jerk. The text seems to approve of what he does to the suitors and their uh... his slaves. Wow, disappointing. Casual reminder that Odysseus kills his slaves. It doesn't look good. Wow, this blew up. I don't have SoundCloud, give me money. Oh my god, this contact is completely horizontal. This is the last time we make cat eye contact. Fuck this! It just seems disproportionate, you know? Like it wasn't even an eye for an eye because the suitors didn't kill anyone.

They were basically rude to Odysseus. But I guess you have to understand this kind of thing in a cultural context. They broke into his house and disrespected his wife and she probably liked it, but whatever, we'll play along. So that was an affront to Odysseus' honor. And on the island of Ithaca in the year 1000 BC. C. or something like that, honor was everything. Because this was a pre-legal society. No laws, no courts, no police, school's out, fuck 12. (horn honk) So honor is a code of conduct reinforced by reputation. And that's what kept people from stealing, lying, and murdering each other.

Although it was also often what led them to murder each other. Because back then honor was the only thing that protected people from being taken advantage of. If you're an ancient Mycenaean king and someone invites himself into your house, drinks your wine, and seduces your wife, well, you can't let her get away with it. Because then people will walk all over you. So you need revenge to protect your honor, to maintain your reputation as a person not to be messed with. It's also the point of tough masculinity in honor cultures. Tough masculinity is a defensive posture, an intimidating posture.

Show strength and hide vulnerability. We now call it toxic masculinity because in our society it is destructive and dysfunctional. We have gone beyond the need for this, and that is why it is possible for me to exist. If society collapses and we return to Achilles in Odysseus, I am in danger. I am too delicate for this Mycenaean savagery. In Homer's time, I would be, well, I would be a slave at the Femboy Symposium. Sounds extremely sad gay, nyaa. But for people in situations where appealing to community or state law enforcement is not an option, such as kings of ancient Mediterranean islands or gangsters who need to resolve conflicts outside the law, or cowboys of the wild West, tough masculinity has a function.

It's a warning sign, like a T-shirt with a skull or the stripes of a poisonous snake. And poison is revenge, justice was done. Revenge, then, is arguably the most basic form of retributive justice. Philosopher Francis Bacon defined revenge as "savage justice," according to the first paragraph of the Wikipedia article on revenge. Investigation! I'm very smart, nyaa. But in most modern legal systems, revenge is frowned upon, and for very good reason. An eye for an eye will blind the whole world, didn't you know? If someone hurts you and you retaliate by killing them, then their family will try to retaliate by killing you.

It is a cycle, a cycle of destruction. At the end of "The Odyssey," the families and suitors that Odysseus killed come together and plot to take revenge by killing Odysseus. And literally the last thing that happens in the Odyssey is that the goddess Athena, who has an inexplicable female erection for Odysseus, intervenes and saves him simply by making the families forget that Odysseus killed his children. So only divine intervention and amnesia stop the cycle of violence. But that doesn't really happen much. Therefore, these cycles can last decades or even centuries. In Albania, there is an ancient code called El Kanun that requires a family to commit murder to preserve their honor when another family offends them.

Life for life, blood for blood. Historically, this led to blood feuds between families that could last for generations. And in fact, it still happens sometimes in some parts of northern Albania. There are documentaries on YouTube about families who are trapped at home, possibly for the rest of their lives, because there is a vendetta against them and if they leave the house, they will be killed. Historically, blood feuds led to a high mortality rate among young men, which may have contributed to the tradition of so-called Albanian sworn virgins. These are assigned women at birth who would take a vow of chastity in exchange for being able to live as men.

There are still some of them out there, and in a very patriarchal society they are socially recognized as men, allowed to wear men's clothing, use a male name uwu, act as head of the family, inherit family wealth, and generally have the rights and privileges of a man. Trans sounds extremely happy uwu. I mention this only because I think it shows how devastating the blood feuds must have been. Because only desperation would lead a European country hundreds of years ago to support trans rights. Nobody wants that, so you know it was a last resort. - Um, sworn virgins weren't transgender, most were required to provide... - Yeah, I know sweaty.

It was just a joke, okay, calm down. Cycles of revenge also occur on a larger scale between communities, nations, ethnicities and religions. I'm worried that if I give a real example I'll get canceled for appearing neutral in a conflict in which I'm supposed to take sides. So, for the sake of cowardice, let's say cat girls bomb dog girls and then dog girls bomb cat girls and that cycle repeats for a few decades. And at that point, both nations have such a long and bitter list of mutual grievances that reconciliation is almost impossible. He sounds extremely angry gay, nyaa.

So a code of honor based on revenge is not really an ideal justice system. It is bloody, chaotic and produces endless cycles of violence. So at some point in the growth of a civilization, something has to be done to control the chaos caused by revenge. And the most popular way to do this is to create a state legal system. Two, retribution. The extremely nice and valid German sociologist Max Weber defined the State as the organization that has the monopoly on the legitimate use of violence. In an honor society without the rule of law, anyone can kill someone as long as he does so according to the code of honor.

But once you have the state, usually only the government can kill people. In ancient Babylon, there was a king named Hammurabi who promulgated one of the world's first legal codes around 1750 BC. C., an era that scholars refer to as Historical Times. Hammurabi's code was as follows. The laws were crudely etched into stone by some primitive attempt at writing. I mean, it was like a thousand years ago, so I'm sure they were doing the best they could. It's very good, honey. I'll hang it on the refrigerator for you. I was expecting this replica to be larger, sort of a Spinal Tap "Stonehenge" situation.

Hammurabi's royal steles were about two meters tall and were placed publicly in the city so that everyone knew what the laws were, although most people were illiterate, but hey, they tried. Let's read some of Hammurabi's laws. That's content, right? Catgirl reacts to Hammurabi's code, queen nyaass! We don't deserve rights (laughs). So there are 282 laws and they are all in if-then form, so if you do X, then the punishment is Y. Law 22, if someone is committing theft and is caught, then he will be executed. That is extremely valid. If the son of a lover or a prostitute says to his adoptive father or mother: "You are not my father or mother," he will have his tongue cut out.

At least they are defending the adoptive parents. If a man puts out another man's eye, his own eye will be put out. Now we get into some of the classics. If he breaks one bone of another, his bone will be broken. If a freedman hits the body of another freedman, he must pay 10 shekels in money. But if a freedman's slave strikes the body of a freedman, his ear will be cut off. Oh, so there are different punishments for different classes. It's like our legal system, except it's honest. If a builder builds a house for someone and does not build it correctly and the house he built falls down and kills its owner, that builder will be sentenced to death.

If he killed the owner's son, the builder's son will be executed. I love that. Well, by modern standards, Hammurabi's code fails the vibration check. The vibrations are very negative. It's a lot to cut off people's hands and burn them alive. Just a great vibe killer all around. But you have to give Hammurabi's code credit for solving the problem of honor-driven revenge cycles. You know, if you live in Babylon and someone wrongs you, instead of retaliating against their family and potentially starting a blood feud that lasts generations, you take your complaint to the city elders, who reach a verdict and impose a sentence. sentence, and justice is done.

So the involvement of a neutral third party is an important difference between vigilante revenge and a state legal system of retributive justice. Let's list all the differences. Revenge is personal in the sense that it is the victim who takes revenge. It is often emotional, an act of passion. It can be disproportionate, as when Odysseus kills the suitors for occupying his palace. And it is sadistic, satisfying for the avenger. Revenge is sweet. On the other hand, a legal system of retributive justice is impersonal in the sense that the punishment is imposed by a third party, the State, and not the victim.

He is therefore selfless, so in theory he is not motivated by emotion and also lacks the sadism of sweet revenge. It's also proportional, again, in theory. You know, an eye for an eye sounds brutal, but it's an eye for an eye and nothing more than an eye, and that could be considered humane compared to, say, revenge killing someone's family for an eye. And it's also consistent. Therefore, it is assumed that different criminals will receive the same sentence for the same crime. I mean, unless you're rich, in which case don't even worry about it, just pay some gold, it's fine.

Girl, these contacts, like- (ominous music) So there are supposed to be these differences between revenge and retributive justice. That's why it's so inappropriate for law enforcement to identify with the outlaw Punisher. Modern criminal sentencing accepts retribution as the goal and rejects revenge as illegal. However, I feel that retributive justice is still spiritually similar to revenge. Scratches the same emotional itch. It's basically revenge for power. If revenge is savage justice, then retributive justice is tamed revenge. In both cases, there is an impulse to restore the moral order of things, to balance karma by harming the person who caused the harm, sometimes in a form of poetic justice.

As in Hammurabi's code, there is this symbolic retaliation of punishing the part of the body that you offended, cutting off the hand that hit the father, cutting off the breasts of the wet nurse who changed the babies, cutting off the tongue that renounced her parents. There's a kind of aesthetic dimension to this, an appreciation of this symmetry between punishment and crime. For a modern example, here's a post on poetic justice from r/instantkarma. "Mugshots.com posts mugshots of people online and then demands payment to remove them. The founders of the site were just arrested for extortion.

Here are their mugshots." There is something metaphysically pleasing about poetic justice, this sense of beautiful cosmic harmony. And my guess is that this way of thinking originates from some primitive human instinct that is difficult to get rid of. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't question it. The logic of retribution has been questioned for thousands of years by philosophers, reformers, messiahs, you know, fancy people who think they're too good to enjoy violence. A school of anti-retribution he thought we could call a school of love and forgiveness. And the main character of love and forgiveness is a preacher you may have heard of named Jesus of Nazareth.

In biblical times, the Hebrews had laws of retributive justice similar to Hammurabi's code. As in the book of Exodus, God gives Moses plenty of laws, including some retellings of Hammurabi's classics. Viewers at home can now open their Bibles to Exodus 21:22. If a pregnant woman is fought and beaten and she gives birth prematurely, but there are no serious injuries, the offender must be fined according to whatrequired by the woman's husband and permitted by the court. But if there is a serious wound, you will take life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.

Head kicks for head kicks. Welcome to Catgirl's Bible study, nyaa. She sounds extremely devotional gay, uwu. I feel very spiritually excited right now. My third eye chakra? Drip. Macaroni in a pot. (Macaroni moving sound) I need Jesus. Very sorry. So the law of Moses is quite grounded and unfounded. It's basically an eye for an eye, don't be homo, you know, basic common sense. But then Jesus appears and is riding the great horse of his love and forgiveness. In Matthew 26:52, a disciple tries to defend Jesus from arrest after Judas betrays him, but Jesus tells him, "Put your sword back into its place, Spartacus.

Whoever draws his sword will die by the sword." Now, some people interpret this as saying that violence begets violence and should be renounced even to the point of not fighting back, which is the ultimate in radical centrism. Deny the right of the marginalized to defend themselves? Reconsider this. It gets worse. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you." Do you love your enemies? But I don't want to love my enemies. Without love, crushing! But perhaps Jesus was not so literal-minded. You know, religion is a very subjective thing and I have my own interpretations of the Bible.

And my personal opinion is that a lot of what Jesus says is actually sarcasm. For example, consider Matthew 5:38. Why doesn't anyone talk about Matthew 5:38? Jesus says, "You have heard that it was said, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But I say to you, do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other to him as well." Think about the drama of what he's asking you to do here. Someone punches you in the face and you're like, "Uhhhh." This is not pacifism. This is passive aggression, a kind of early Hebrew nuance.

This is the Christianity of, okay, well, I'll pray for you. But if we take Jesus at face value, then I would say that his endorsement of love and forgiveness as a response to wrongdoing is not justice at all. It is an alternative to justice. In the absence of justice, forgiveness is an emotional relief from the resentment and anger experienced by victims of injustice. And religion often provides this liberation, instructing people not to worry too much about serving earthly justice, because justice is really God's business, and he will take care of it when judgment day comes. It's a bit like in Hinduism and Buddhism there is the idea of ​​karma, which is like a cosmic law of moral cause and effect that exists independently of any God or human institution.

You basically reap what you sow, so maybe don't worry too much about injustice because karma will take care of it. This type of thinking is sometimes called the just-world fallacy, the cognitive bias that sees the world as inherently just and good. "Everything happens for a reason." If something really horrible happens, like the murder of a child, people say, "There is a special place in the kingdom of God for little angels who are taken away so soon." And then they'll fantasize about the killer going to hell and being completely demolished by fire demons or whatever. People calm down this way because it relieves the stress of enduring unresolved injustices.

In the Bible, the book of Job addresses the problem of injustice. Why do bad things happen to good people? And the answer is: don't worry about it. It is part of God's plan. Everything will work out in the end. Alright. Everything's fine. The alternative is to carry the awareness that the world is simply not good at all. In which case you might start getting ideas in your head about, I don't know, maybe changing some things. I guess I have to deny that #NotAllReligion and obviously many political activists have been influenced by faith. But let's leave that for now.

Three, utilitarianism. So there is also a centuries-old tradition of anti-retaliation thinking that attempts to define justice as more than retaliation. Utilitarian reformers have argued that the goal of criminal justice should be to improve society and not to punish for the sake of punishment. Utilitarianism is the moral theory that says that the right thing to do is to do that which causes the greatest proportion between human happiness and human suffering. So the utilitarian approach to punishment looks forward to prevent future crimes, while retribution looks backward to punish past crimes, revenge by proxy. Some utilitarian objectives of punishment could be deterrence, punishing criminals as an incentive for others not to offend, or the incapacitation of criminals in prisons, or the rehabilitation of criminals, trying to educate or discipline them so that they can reintegrate into society. society.

Many people consider these utilitarian goals to be more rational and scientific than retribution, which is largely based on emotions. Furthermore, the utilitarian idea of ​​justice makes sense even if you don't believe in free will. Because retribution really only makes sense if you believe that people freely choose their actions and are therefore guilty of their behavior and may deserve punishment. Because punishing someone for something he didn't meaningfully choose seems like, well... Greek historian Herodotus tells a story about the Persian king Xerxes ordering the sea to be lashed with 300 lashes after a storm destroyed his bridge. Which seems irrational, right?

Punishing a force of nature. Leave my beautiful wet wife alone! It's debatable how free we humans are, as if we are at least partially products of our genetics, our environment, our upbringing, our Hogwarts house, the placement of Venus in our birth chart, dry, oily, or a combination. And modern criminal sentencing attempts to take all of that into consideration. You could get a lighter sentence if you argue that, you know, your mom never took you to Disneyland, it was a crime of passion. Through no fault of my own, she was high on bath salts at the time of the tax evasion, your honor.

Much of the language about punishment in our legal system is utilitarian. For example, prisons are called "correctional facilities" and not "retaliation cages." But "correctional centers" is a euphemism because the fact is that these centers are not correcting much. I'm sorry. In the United States, 2/3 of released prisoners are rearrested within three years, and 76% are rearrested within five years. And just think about the way we talk about incarceration. For example, if someone really evil gets a long sentence, we say, "Well, I hope he rots in prison." Like when the last time you heard about a criminal sentencing and someone said, "Well, the proven effectiveness of our correctional facilities will rehabilitate this man and release him as a contributing member of his community." So even the institutions we have, which are supposed to fulfill a correctional or rehabilitative function, obviously still satisfy our need to punish.

I think the problem with utilitarianism is that, while it is very rational, it is often offensive to human emotions. And you can say that facts don't care about your feelings, we shouldn't base our legal system on whatever sadistic whim passes through your mind. And I agree with you, but the fact is that if someone hurts your child, you don't want to rehabilitate them. You want to set it on fire. And this disconnect between the legal system and human emotions also affects law enforcement. A YouTuber named José has a video called "Why Some Cops Think They're The Punisher," which argues that some cops and soldiers admire "The Punisher" because they relate to his military training while fantasizing about the moral simplicity of his vigilantism.

José cites interviews with military Punisher fans who say things like: "Castle doesn't see the shades of gray that, unfortunately, the American justice system is plagued with and that tends to delay and sometimes even make it difficult for victims of crime to get justice." . The justice they deserve. Frank Castle is the definitive definition of Occam's razor for the military. Don't worry about uniforms, inspections, or restrictive rules of engagement. the dream." That's why these police officers and soldiers feel burdened by the rules of engagement and restrictions on the use of force that prevent them from exercising swift and brutal justice.

You know, enforcing the law would be much easier if we didn't out for all these pesky laws. There is a childish simplicity and dualism in this moral view of the world. Find the bad guys, kill the bad guys. Again, it reminds me of the NRA rhetoric about needing a good guy. with a gun to stop a bad guy with a gun. They sound like eight year olds playing cops and robbers. That's my impression of an eight year old. appeal of moral simplicity. People love Justice Served and Instant Karma videos for a reason. We thrive on quick, decisive, and graceful retribution.

But law enforcement and criminal justice procedures don't allow it. There are all these tedious obstacles. Right to a lawyer, right to remain silent, right to a fair trial, presumption of innocence. Many police officers wish they could simplify things by being judge, defendant and executioner. But the police's role is supposed to be limited to making arrests and initiating criminal investigations. Not supposed to be walking avatars of karma freely meting out retaliation in the streets at will, justice was served, now with 20% more police brutality. But many people defend police when they behave like this because thin-armed civilians are just as emotionally frustrated by due process as police officers.

Wow, did I just say "All lives are bastards"? I'm doubly cancelled. Well, look, all lives are bastards, but only some bastards are armed by the state and have a license to run around town like bastards. The rest of us have to be bastards in our free time. I also think a secular version of the just world fallacy applies here. People like to think that if the police kill someone, it must be because that person did something wrong. Karma in action, justice served. Victim blaming is an expression of the just world fallacy: you get what you deserve, so if something bad happens to you, you must have been asking for it.

And obviously racism is a big part of this. You know, there's structural white supremacy that occupies black neighborhoods with police instead of investing in communities, and people are biased and more likely to think black people are criminal thugs and therefore deserving of police violence. . So we have this "no angel" speech that comes up every time the police murder a black person, where they bring up the victim's criminal record or a photo of them looking like a scary thug, as if that proves they deserved to die. . . The problem with this, of course, is that no one is an angel.

There are no angels walking this earth. We all have flaws, we have all made mistakes, we have all done bad things. That doesn't mean we deserve to suffer a violent death. And then there are people like Breonna Taylor and Elijah McClain who, as far as we know, were as close to angels as humans are, but that didn't protect them. Although that's beside the point because black people in America shouldn't literally have white feather wings and bright halos to deserve not being killed by the police. In fact, people of all races have the absolute right to be low-life, drug addicts, petty criminals who contribute absolutely nothing to society and still not be executed by the police because that is what it is supposed to mean to live. in a free country.

So, things need to change. The Punisher police have to go, and much of the rest of our justice system with them. We need to imagine a whole new approach to justice. And to be honest, that might take more than one YouTube video. I know at the beginning I said I was going to explain what justice is, but... I lied. I'm sorry I can't fix America. I'm just a lonely cat. I guess the only solution is... revolution. And by revolution I mean voting for Democrats and then bullying Democrats into actually doing something. And if they don't listen, well... (phone rings) Wait, let me take this.

Moshi moshi? Hello, desu! (whistle) ♪ "Catgirl Army" by Zoë Blade ♪