HOME | POLITICS | SPORTS | LIFE | SCI/TECH | OPEDS | HELPFUL TIPS
|
By Brooks A. Mick, M.D.
Feb. 2, 2006 Bear with me a bit, folks. This piece rambles a bit, but it ties together, mostly. I think we need to repeal a few parts of the Constitution, and here’s why. This was brought to my attention by Justice Alito’s first decision as a member of the U. S. Supreme Court. The press is noting that Alito has already abandoned conservatives and voted to disallow the application of the death penalty in a Missouri case. (http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&pubid=968163964505&cid=1138834251963&col=968705899037&call_page=TS_News&call_pageid=968332188492&call_pagepath=News/News) The case hinges upon the phrase “cruel and unusual punishment” in the constitution. The poor murderer is claiming that the lethal injection requires a needle, which hurts, and thus would be prohibited. Why Justice Alito bought this argument is not yet clear to me. The constitutional prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment was not our Founding Fathers’ finest hour. I suspect that it was written in after they had all been 48 hours without sleep or had a few too many ales down at the tavern. Let’s analyze it. Punishment, considering the meaning of the word, must be unpleasant. Otherwise, it’s not punishment! Some would then define “unpleasant” as equivalent to “cruel.” That’s a semantic stretch, but lawyers live or die by convincing juries of these twisted definitions. But let’s stipulate that, unless something is unpleasant, it isn’t punishment! That is, giving a criminal or an errant child or a juvenile delinquent an ice cream cone is not punishment. Pleasant or neutral actions are not punishment, by definition. Punishment is unpleasant. That’s a given. And one should note that punishment has to be unusual or it serves no rational purpose. If a child is spanked every hour, that’s usual, but would it teach anything? Punishment has to be meted out on a sparing basis, when improper actions warrant it, and thus it is by its nature “unusual.” In other words, the Founding Fathers’ phraseology specifically ruled out proper punishment applied properly, if the phrase is taken literally. The Framers badly goofed this one. They completely ruled out EFFECTIVE punishment, if anyone actually took their phrasing seriously. Mostly, over the years, nobody stopped to consider what the words actually mean. I propose that we need, immediately, a few amendments to the Constitution: 1) We need to clarify the “cruel and unusual punishment” phrase to explain that indeed punishment is unpleasant and it has to be applied sparingly, i.e. “unusually,” in order to be effective. It would make no sense to execute a large percentage of the population, thus making it a “usual” punishment, would it? And while we are at it: 2) We need to repeal the 17th Amendment, the pernicious effects of which has transformed senators from statesmen to super-panderers. 3) Repeal the 16th. If there were no income tax, there would be no voluminous pages of income tax regulations and codes. If there were no pages of regulations, there would be no tax favors to dispense. If there were no tax favors to dispense, there would be no lobbyists. If there were no lobbyists, there would be less temptation to corruption by congressmen. Repealing the income tax would be the best method of eliminating the Abramoffs of the world and improving the honesty of our legislators. ------------ About the author Brooks A. Mick: Physician, still practicing medicine but retired from the US Army. Write just for the fun of it, but working on novel in the vein of Tom Clancy's politico-military genre. Email: brooks15@cox.net Comment on this article here! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com and are not allowed to be posted on other websites. ARTICLE THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED! |
||||||
|
|
|||||||
|
