Our Legal System Is Really A Relic From The Past.

I discussed this next one a little on a message board too a while back. Our legal system, everything about it, is really nothing more than a relic from the past. The inaccurate way people looked at things in the distant past. Ancient England and the rest of Europe, which ever legal system you are talking about. The inaccurate things people thought back then, they said. Their religious misconceptions, their false scientific beliefs, their brutal outlook on life sometimes.

Women had no rights, stealing a pig could get you the death penalty, the death penalty was slow and painful sometimes, harassing and abusing witnesses was allowed, etc. Like voluntary manslaughter. The idea that if you come home and find your wife in bed with another man, of course you would kill him in the heat of passion. No you wouldn't. At least today that's not true. Or involuntary manslaughter, the idea that your reckless behavior could result in a homicide. I read somewhere a while back that actually began as a way of dealing with people's reckless behavior. Today we would call that endangerment instead. Or the whole idea of conspiracy, accessory before and after the fact. If you harmed someone, you did the crime. If you aided in some way, it gets more complicated. If you drove the get away car for a bank robber that's one thing. But what if you were just the gas station attendant who pumped the gas for him that morning? It's all vague and questionable logic, and sometimes it's even ridiculous.

Like the death penalty. Doesn't our justice system require people pay an equal price for what they did? people ask. No it doesn't, no it doesn't at all. And like Jeremy Bentham pointed out all punishment is mischief, unless it's meant to protect society and prevent harm. Because when you are punishing you are only trying to hurt those who hurt you. That's all you're doing.