Crime and Punishment

[Hermit]

Re: Crime and Punishment

 

CKC?

Conquerers, Killers, and Crooks

[wylodmayer]

Re: Crime and Punishment

 

You are confusing authority with power. If you are going to quote Mao' date=' you should pay more attention to what he says.[/quote']

 

Well, this isn't really the forum to school you in the finer points of poli sci, but I have the time to clear up a few things:

 

1) You're exactly correct. I totally misread Mao. The EXACT quote is "Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun." 1938. You'll note how horribly, utterly I mangled it.

2) Power is the ability to impose one's will on another; ultimately, the capacity with violence. Authority is the *power* (see? we just saw that word) to enforce laws, command obedience, etc. "Political power" as Mao uses that phrase is what scholars of government today call "authority." Authority is a special case of power, as relates to political, civil affairs.

3) When referring to the various backwaters of this country where the authority (that is, the power to enforce laws, command obedience, etc - see how we build on what we've learned?) of the government is not well respected, we are dealing with issues of "legitimacy" and "penetration." The former - legitimacy - is what the people confer on the government by giving it their obedience. When the people stop believing en masse that the government has the right to tell them what to do, they tend to stop cooperating with it. And the latter - penetration - is a matter of how well the government can impose its authority on the state (the area under its control).

4) The inbreeders mentioned previously may not like the government, and may have indeed withdrawn their patent of legitimacy - they no longer recognize the government's authority over them. But penetration is a practical matter, not a theoretical one. And, as I mentioned earlier, the withdrawl of legitimacy by a few hicks does not invalidate the government's overall legitimacy, nor does it provide a shield against the bullets and the pepper spray when the government decides to exercise it's authority and give "penetration" all sorts of new meanings.

5) The upshot is, a few citizens who deny the legitimacy of the government may still be subject to its authority, whether they like it or not, if the majority of the nation agrees that the government has authority over them, and that it is using it in a legitimate way. In layman's terms, if enough people get together and decide to let the government come get you in your bed at night, the fact that you don't think it should be able to do so means little or nothing. This is why we have a Constitution; to limit at the outset what sorts of things the people can get together and decide to let the government do to you and me. That comes back to legitimacy issues, though, not actual authority. If the government wanted to come machine gun us to death, and did so, even if it did so illegitimately, the worst that we (or, more accurately, our survivors) could do would be to sue for redress. Maybe charges would be pressed. At no point does the government's authority provide for resistance to exercise of authority that is perceived as illegitimate, whether or not it truly is.

6) As this relates to Nebula, there is a pretty valid argument that states that even if her government hasn't ever *had* to exercise its authority on Earth before, if (a) it claims Earth as a part of its jurisdiction, and ( the people of that government recognize this claim as legitimate, then she (and, by extension) it is acting in a perfectly proper fashion. And at no point would assaulting her or trying to resist the authority be legal or proper - at best, Earth would have to send a representative to sue for redress.

 

Now, I hope you've been paying attention and that you've learned something. Most notably, I hope you've learned that tossing off vague insinuations that someone doesn't know something is almost universally recognized as a poor cover for ignorance (since you, yourself, declined to elucidate the point whatsoever). Jesus man, the least you could have done was looked up the quote. Sheesh.

[The Watcher]

Re: Crime and Punishment

 

6) As this relates to Nebula' date=' there is a pretty valid argument that states that even if her government hasn't ever *had* to exercise its authority on Earth before, if (a) it claims Earth as a part of its jurisdiction, and ( the people of that government recognize this claim as legitimate, then she (and, by extension) it is acting in a perfectly proper fashion. And at no point would assaulting her or trying to resist the authority be legal or proper - at best, Earth would have to send a representative to sue for redress.[/quote']

 

Being that Nebula's government is in the Andromeda Galaxy and isn't even aware of the existence of Earth (she got here by accidentally falling through a one-time wormhole) the validity or invalidity of the point above is moot.

[Guest bblackmoor]

Re: Crime and Punishment

 

You're exactly correct. I totally misread Mao. The EXACT quote is ...

 

I did not say you misquoted him. I said you didn't understand him.

 

Now' date=' I hope you've been paying attention and that you've learned something.[/quote']

 

I have learned that you think "authority" and "power" are interchangeable terms. Despite that point of view being in fashion in certain circles, I beg to differ. Might does not make right.

[wylodmayer]

Re: Crime and Punishment

 

I did not say you misquoted him. I said you didn't understand him...

I have learned that you think "authority" and "power" are interchangeable terms. Despite that point of view being in fashion in certain circles, I beg to differ. Might does not make right.

 

For the hard of thinking, that is precisely the upshot of Mao's statement; he argues that the political right to do something is only what can actually be enforced, and vice versa (that is, what the government can do, it has the right to do). I never said I agreed. As for the definitions of "power" and "authority," you can take up your argument with the discipline of political science, not me. Unlike some, I don't come here with nothing but my own opinion and limitless arrogance. The definitions I quoted weren't made up by me. That's the way these things are discussed in circles where people think seriously on such issues. "Beg to differ" all you like. I don't begrudge you your opinion. But opinions are hardly unique or rare commodoties. Unless you can come up with some substantive argument for an alternate take on these ideas, your opinion is so much meaningless nothing. And if you do come up with a substantive alternative, as I said before, this is not the forum for discussing it. That would be something that you might, say, do a dissertation on.

 

You've twice now asserted that I don't understand Mao's statement. Of course, you've yet to illuminate in what way I've failed to understand, or offered an alternative explanation of what he might actually have meant. If you were in one of my classes, I'd have flunked you out by now. You want to have someone listen to your hot air? Try filling your posts with actual information, rather than carping. Read up on Lockean consent and the limits of authority, for instance, and tell us how it relates to Mao's (in)famous maxim. At least make some show of effort to convince us you know ANYTHING worth hearing, hm?

[wylodmayer]

Re: Crime and Punishment

 

Being that Nebula's government is in the Andromeda Galaxy and isn't even aware of the existence of Earth (she got here by accidentally falling through a one-time wormhole) the validity or invalidity of the point above is moot.

 

True, although it is always possible that her government has some sweeping idea of its own authority that includes Earth. That sort of thing happens in the real world, too, such as when one government claims authority over a certain area, the native inhabitants of which deny that any such authority exists. This differs from the backwoods example in that (a) the government does in fact suffer from a lack of penetration to the area in question and ( the people of the area are usually not part of the "nation" as such - that is, they don't self identify as the "same sort" of people who make up the government under discussion. Lots of great colonial period examples. Although, me personally, I play her government home a lot closer just so we can engage in precisely these sorts of sticky considerations. With her government way the hell out there, she is a little more of a lone nut, but then that begs the question of why she would even bother going about enforcing the galactic law out here. There must be something that makes her believe she has jurisdiction, even though she's not even in the same galaxy as where she's from. Oh well - who knows?

[RDU Neil]

Re: Crime and Punishment

 

1) You're exactly correct. I totally misread Mao. The EXACT quote is "Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun." 1938. You'll note how horribly, utterly I mangled it.

2) Power is the ability to impose one's will on another; ultimately, the capacity with violence. Authority is the *power* (see? we just saw that word) to enforce laws, command obedience, etc. "Political power" as Mao uses that phrase is what scholars of government today call "authority." Authority is a special case of power, as relates to political, civil affairs.

3) When referring to the various backwaters of this country where the authority (that is, the power to enforce laws, command obedience, etc - see how we build on what we've learned?) of the government is not well respected, we are dealing with issues of "legitimacy" and "penetration." The former - legitimacy - is what the people confer on the government by giving it their obedience. When the people stop believing en masse that the government has the right to tell them what to do, they tend to stop cooperating with it. And the latter - penetration - is a matter of how well the government can impose its authority on the state (the area under its control).

4) The inbreeders mentioned previously may not like the government, and may have indeed withdrawn their patent of legitimacy - they no longer recognize the government's authority over them. But penetration is a practical matter, not a theoretical one. And, as I mentioned earlier, the withdrawl of legitimacy by a few hicks does not invalidate the government's overall legitimacy, nor does it provide a shield against the bullets and the pepper spray when the government decides to exercise it's authority and give "penetration" all sorts of new meanings.

5) The upshot is, a few citizens who deny the legitimacy of the government may still be subject to its authority, whether they like it or not, if the majority of the nation agrees that the government has authority over them, and that it is using it in a legitimate way. In layman's terms, if enough people get together and decide to let the government come get you in your bed at night, the fact that you don't think it should be able to do so means little or nothing. This is why we have a Constitution; to limit at the outset what sorts of things the people can get together and decide to let the government do to you and me. That comes back to legitimacy issues, though, not actual authority. If the government wanted to come machine gun us to death, and did so, even if it did so illegitimately, the worst that we (or, more accurately, our survivors) could do would be to sue for redress. Maybe charges would be pressed. At no point does the government's authority provide for resistance to exercise of authority that is perceived as illegitimate, whether or not it truly is.

6) As this relates to Nebula, there is a pretty valid argument that states that even if her government hasn't ever *had* to exercise its authority on Earth before, if (a) it claims Earth as a part of its jurisdiction, and ( the people of that government recognize this claim as legitimate, then she (and, by extension) it is acting in a perfectly proper fashion. And at no point would assaulting her or trying to resist the authority be legal or proper - at best, Earth would have to send a representative to sue for redress.

 

So the gist of this is (and I'm not trying to be smart here, just to clarify) that since a body has the power, in raw terms, to claim authority through ability to penetrate a certain populace (all questions of legitimacy aside) then what is "legal and proper" is decided upon BY that authority. Essentially might DOES make right. (Right in the legal sense, not some kind of squishy moral absolute sense, as laws are just the arbitrary rules made by those who have the power to make you follow them.)

 

So... does authority end when "penetration" is no longer feasible? If the "inbreeders" can successfully resist the government's imposition of force... if Earth can kick Nebula's butt, and effectively keep her gov't from forcing it's collective will on Earth... does their authority then ceases to exist (for Earth at least)?

 

If not, I'm confused. Even if a governing body claims authority, and its populace agrees (legitimacy) if they can't actually penetrate and impose that will on another populace, how can their authority be right and proper, or exist at all?

 

If one government tries to impose it's will on another who can resist, at that point, aren't you at war with another state? Earth wouldn't sue for redress... they'd defend and attack in whatever martial way was effective? War,

 

Only if Earth couldn't resist Nebula... were thus "penetrated" effectively by her/her government, would we then have to comport by their rules/laws.

 

What am I missing here?

[wylodmayer]

Re: Crime and Punishment and RDU Neil's points

 

You aren't missing anything, RDU; you've pretty much summed up the core problems in political theory, there. And the gist of those core problems is that there is, at bottom, no such thing as the power to actually make someone comply with authority (in the real world, at least - HERO folks have Mind Control). At best, you can threaten them with the alternative of death. But you can't make anyone obey. The corollary to this is that civil government exists only so long as the whole of society doesn't just suddenly stop agreeing to let it exist.

 

You touched on the very fascinating point of where claimed domain and penetration of power do not coincide. Such cases exist all over the world today. In pre-invasion Iraq, the ruler claimed rightful authority over the whole of the country, but in practice, there were areas under Kurdish control where the authority of the government could not really reach. So what happens there? Would a ruler who used force to impose the rule of law on such areas be exercising legitimate authority? Or would he have been making war on what was (as the Kurds claimed) a separate nation? (for clarification - nation usually refers to a people who self identify as a unified group, while state refers to a geopolitical division. Sometimes, as with the Kurds, a nation has no state; alternatively, sometimes a state encompasses more than one nation.)

 

Now, in the case of the fella who used to run Iraq, the whole point is complicated by the lack of legitimacy his government had in the first place. But even setting that point aside for a moment, the question of whether he would have been just putting down some hicks in the backwoods or actually trying to conquer a separate people really would depend largely on, well, what everyone else thought. If the international community failed to recognize the Kurds as a separate nation, well, they have a bit of a problem, don't they? A similar incident once occured in American history, by the way. Called today the Civil War (although this is not technically correct - a civil war conventionally means war between two factions of the same government). Was the United States exercising legitimate authority over rebellious provinces? Or was it actually making war to subjugate a separate state? The answer is "yes and no" to both. Politics is ultimately nothing but perception. If the South had maintained it's independence then the answer would have become by default "making war on a separate state." In case you're interested, the chronicles of how concerned the South was with recognition by foreign nations as a separate state makes for some fascinating reading. Ultimately, of course, they were not recognized by any other countries, but if they had been, it would have changed the entire character of the war.

 

So, to bring this back around to Nebula in order to justify our existence here on the Hero Boards (grin), would Nebula be exercising legitimate authority or not? Well, let's assume she thinks she is, and her government would agree. Assume they have some sweeping idea of their own domain, like "all inhabited systems," or something. If Earthlings fought back against her, they would be, in the eyes of her government, resisting rightful authority. Now, if they were somehow able to find out about this, then they would likely respond to this. Imagine what would happen if we claimed, say, the islands of Tuvalu. No one told the Tuvaluans. But we did it anyway. And then, years later, a sheriff washes up on the Tuvalu shore and starts arresting people. They shoot him. Since we live in a world where we have to be concerned with what the other guys with guns think, we might not act precipitously, but the government that produced a chick like Nebula might think it's the only player in the game. I bet they would respond in force, first by sending some of the local equivalent of Marines to secure the situation or something like that. Now, of course, if they don't even know where she is and have no way of finding out what's been happening, she's pretty well screwed, as our putative sheriff might be.

 

There's all sorts of ways that this could be made interesting. Not only could Nebula be a precursor to an alien invasion, but her people could be... WRONG... in their assumption that Earth lies in their jurisdiction. What if another galactic empire considers the Earth part of its "buffer zone," like the USSR and Eastern Europe in the cold war? (that's a whole other can of worms, RDU - the concept of "national interest," a doctrine which says that nations have the right to a say in what goes in places it doesn't even claim as part of its own territory, but which are "pertinent" to its "interests")

 

Anyway, that's probably enough for now. I'm going to watch the West Wing.

[RDU Neil]

Re: Crime and Punishment and RDU Neil's points

 

You aren't missing anything, RDU; you've pretty much summed up the core problems in political theory, there. And the gist of those core problems is that there is, at bottom, no such thing as the power to actually make someone comply with authority (in the real world, at least - HERO folks have Mind Control). At best, you can threaten them with the alternative of death. But you can't make anyone obey. The corollary to this is that civil government exists only so long as the whole of society doesn't just suddenly stop agreeing to let it exist.

 

You touched on the very fascinating point of where claimed domain and penetration of power do not coincide. Such cases exist all over the world today. In pre-invasion Iraq, the ruler claimed rightful authority over the whole of the country, but in practice, there were areas under Kurdish control where the authority of the government could not really reach. So what happens there? Would a ruler who used force to impose the rule of law on such areas be exercising legitimate authority? Or would he have been making war on what was (as the Kurds claimed) a separate nation?

 

"SNIP"

 

But even setting that point aside for a moment, the question of whether he would have been just putting down some hicks in the backwoods or actually trying to conquer a separate people really would depend largely on, well, what everyone else thought. If the international community failed to recognize the Kurds as a separate nation, well, they have a bit of a problem, don't they?

 

"SNIP"

 

Politics is ultimately nothing but perception.

 

"SNIP"

 

So, to bring this back around to Nebula in order to justify our existence here on the Hero Boards (grin), would Nebula be exercising legitimate authority or not? Well, let's assume she thinks she is, and her government would agree. Assume they have some sweeping idea of their own domain, like "all inhabited systems," or something. If Earthlings fought back against her, they would be, in the eyes of her government, resisting rightful authority. Now, if they were somehow able to find out about this, then they would likely respond to this.

 

"SNIP"

 

There's all sorts of ways that this could be made interesting. Not only could Nebula be a precursor to an alien invasion, but her people could be... WRONG... in their assumption that Earth lies in their jurisdiction. What if another galactic empire considers the Earth part of its "buffer zone," like the USSR and Eastern Europe in the cold war? (that's a whole other can of worms, RDU - the concept of "national interest," a doctrine which says that nations have the right to a say in what goes in places it doesn't even claim as part of its own territory, but which are "pertinent" to its "interests")

 

Oh man... don't EVEN get me started on the concept of "national interest." The fact that such a concept is considered a "doctrine" of any kind is proof of might makes right. National interest only exists because at least one governing body is strong enough to exert influence outside it's territory AND strong enough to tell other nations to "back off, or else!"

 

Thanks for the info... I was just worried I had forgotten everything I learned as a Polic Sci major some fifteen years ago. Glad to know I still understand the gist of it, and that I was right to get the F*** out of politics. My own perceptions are warped enough... I don't want to have to worry so much about everyone else's!

[wylodmayer]

Re: Crime and Punishment and Poli Sci Majors

 

Ha ha, no problem RDU. About Majoring in Poli Sci and getting out of politics, I understand what you mean. I started out in social and political philosophy; nowdays, my work is more in ethics and religion. I just felt... icky... too often.

[Kristopher]

Re: Crime and Punishment

 

Odd...before dropping out, my major was poli sci. Between frustration dealing with the idiocy at the core of higher education and the raw stupidity of the administration where I went in particular, and the complete loss of interest in my major after three years, I really had no reason to keep going.