ADDED: That case, from Saudi Arabia, made me think about what Justice Scalia has said about flogging in the United States:
You’ve described yourself as a fainthearted originalist. But really, how fainthearted?
I described myself as that a long time ago. I repudiate that.
So you’re a stouthearted one.
I try to be. I try to be an honest originalist! I will take the bitter with the sweet! What I used “fainthearted” in reference to was—
Flogging, right?
Flogging. And what I would say now is, yes, if a state enacted a law permitting flogging, it is immensely stupid, but it is not unconstitutional. A lot of stuff that’s stupid is not unconstitutional. I gave a talk once where I said they ought to pass out to all federal judges a stamp, and the stamp says—Whack! [Pounds his fist.]—STUPID BUT CONSTITUTIONAL. Whack! [Pounds again.] STUPID BUT CONSTITUTIONAL! Whack! STUPID BUT CONSTITUTIONAL … [Laughs.] And then somebody sent me one.
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Submit or feel the burn. Saudi version Islam in a nutshell.
I think it's supposed to hurt.
The idiot religion is the problem.
This is just another of Islam's ways of threatening the West. Submit or be lashed to death. Or crucified in the public square.
When they stone somebody, it isn't with marijuana.
Hey Titus! When the mullahs come get ready to be thrown off a tall building. You'll be conscious all the way down.
Whipping of a man tied to a post is an old slave master's favorite.
The hard part is getting them caught and tied up first. Which is why Mohammed's followers preach submission and order their slaves to prostrate themselves 5 times a day while their total submission is chanted over them..."from prayer towers."
The darkness over the miserable lives of Moslems is only bearable by the fun of looting celebrations after a season of robbing and killing infidels as ordered by allah.
Is that Medea Benjamin of Code Pink holding the sign, "No Flogging for blogging: stop Saudi persecution of activists, bloggers and women drivers."
"Women drivers". Wasn't that a ubiquitous comedic refrain from the 1960s?
I do not find this sexy.
I am Laslo.
And then somebody sent me one.
Roberts has asked to borrow it for an upcoming ruling.
1) If they didn't allow the guy to heal, continuing the flogging would be a death senetence, and he wasn't sentenced to death. In their eyes, they are being merciful.
2) Flogging can't be unconstitutional, it was legal in all the colonies and the US military when the Constitution was written. If you consider it cruel or unusual by todays standards, get your state to pass a law banning it.
3) We need to return the idea of punishment to prison. Rehabilitation has been a failure. Prison is now a finishing school for gangs and criminals. Hell, you aren't really made in some gangs until you have served your first stretch.
I do not find this sexy.
You're slipping, Laslo.
Washington catches some flak because he, on occasion, ordered his slaves to be flogged. Well, he also ordered the enlisted men who served with him at Valley Forge to be flogged on occasion.....Wellington was also known to be a firm believer in flogging and used that practice far more than Napoleon. On the other hand, if you wanted to survive a war, it was far better to serve in an army of Wellington rather than that of Napoleon. Also, if you didn't want to get raped, it was far better to be occupied by a Brithish rather than French army. There are trade offs......We in the west criticize Saudi Arabia for public floggings, but, on the other hand, we allow our children to drink big gulp sodas........I think that if, instead of colonizing them, the west had given the primitive societies they encountered trillions of dollars, then we would have more countries willing to cleave to their ancient ways.
Just think how colorful and exciting it would be to watch the Aztecs perform the rites of their ancient religion. And then the merriment and the feasts afterwards......Due to be intolerance of the Spaniards, we'll never be able to share in that variety of religious experience. But, thank God, the Saudis still get to practice their faith in its original, up modified form.
Gahrie- I agree with your sentiment- but I'm not sure how you confine lots of really bad people together and not have it become a finishing school for gangs and criminals.
Blogger Flogger
That's good work if you can get it.
William:
Those rites are carried out today, but infidels are precluded from observing due to privacy laws, or the First Amendment's religious protection, really. Stupid but constitutional...
These are the people Duke wished to appease with the call to prayer broadcast. Their hatred of their own culture is so strong that anything, no matter how vile, that corrodes is eagerly advanced. I suspect that the confrontation shaping up will not be easy on pussified-americans no matter how it's resolved.
I am relatively certain that Scalia would rule that this particular flogging sentence violates the Constitution. There is an immense difference between 10 or 15 strokes and 1000.
But it's not going to come before him, so it will remain an unprovable hypothesis. I still believe it. Facts matter.
Scalia, in a studded leather harness with leather codpiece, wearing pointed crotch-high leather boots with spiked heels...
Whack! [Pounds his fist.]—STUPID BUT CONSTITUTIONAL. Whack! [Pounds again.] STUPID BUT CONSTITUTIONAL! Whack! STUPID BUT CONSTITUTIONAL …
The law is his bitch.
Interesting pairing: the death penalty vs. 1000 lashings.
If the 1000 lashings were because this man had brutally killed a child, and yet, after he had healed, he would live out his natural life in prison, it would an interesting discussion whether that's better or worse than the death penalty.
But this man did not do anything that those of us in the civilized world would see as a crime in the first place.
Flogging in the U.S. Navy was outlawed in Sept. 1850.
Same Constitution; different times and interpretation.
I think there's an argument to be made that flogging should be an option for certain prisoners who wish to shave time off their sentence. No one would get flogged without agreeing to it. It would be an option offered to prisoners for whom harsh punishment is appropriate but the need for incapacitation isn't as compelling.
Our prisons are overcrowded; it could help ease some of that.
Maybe 100 lashes for every five years?
SCOTUS composed of 6 Roman Catholics and 3 Jews, no Protestants, no Hindus, no Muslims, no Buddhists, and no Mormons will decide the right of gays to marry.
Wham! STUPID BUT CONSTITUTIONAL.
SCOTUS composed of 6 Roman Catholics and 3 Jews, no Protestants, no Hindus, no Muslims, no Buddhists, and no Mormons will decide the right of gays to marry.
Wham! STUPID BUT CONSTITUTIONAL.
Caning is an excellent alternative to short term imprisonment for juvenile offenders. Its over and done quickly, it does not throw them in to live with bad peers (usually even worse than the ones "outside"), it is humiliating and instructive as prison may not be.
STUPID BUT CONSTITUTIONAL!
Shouldn't "BUT" be "AND" here? Or would that make the redundancy too obvious?
We, as westerners, MUST respect the inherent superiority of non-western cultures.
Or so I've been told (lectured). Endlessly.
Churchill as First Secretary of the Navy, when asked about tradition in the Royal Navy, supposedly replied that Royal Navy tradition consised of three things: Rum, sodomy and flogging.
jimbino
We have quotas for SCOTUS as it pertains to race, gender, sexuality and intelligence (the Wise Latina.) There is already a homosexual on the court. Now you want it for religion? How about geography, a carve out for vegans?
What I found encouraging with the
Snowmen deemed "anti-Islamic." post is that younger Saudis fought back using Twitter.
Does this signal the beginning of a turning point in attitudes of young Saudis and the breaking away from, and disavowing of, rigid fundamentalist view of Islam to a more free, democratic or humane view?
I think that is the right stance to take. If a law is stupid, it is the job of the legislature to change it. If they are aren't changing the law fast enough to suit you.....Welcome to America!! The system was designed to prevent mood swings, otherwise, we'd have a unicameral legislature.
The issue is not whether young Saudis will choose to break away from and disavow a "rigid fundamentalist view of Islam to a more free, democratic or humane view". Rebellion is the natural tendency of youth.
The issue is whether they can actually change the system. S.A. is not the U.S.A.
I am old enough to remember when one state still flogged wife beaters.
At the time our Constitution was written short/no-drop hanging and such floggings were "constitutional".
Please advise me where "evolving standards of decency" is to be found in the Constitution!
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