They do not deserve to live: Sex offenders and justice

The hue and cry is out, that sex offenders, as a whole, have abandoned their humanity, their human rights, their very nature, by their crimes and misdeeds. The fear is palpable in the air, and political animals tear at the flesh of the law to feed within the confusion. But have sex offenders abandoned their humanity? Can they?

Those human rights are not created, nor instituted by human contract, nor by the essence of the civil society. They exist, rather, in spite of that society, preexisting it, and standing stark and solitary before it. They are the rights upon which societies are founded, the essence and nature of the reasons for free societies. Our American republic was established, not to create new rights, but to preserve the ones we have against intervention by that government, and by interested parties.

We have long stood with forces fearful of freedom and liberty. From the arguments against the slaves, their lack of humanity, lack of souls, the shapes of their skulls showing their inferiority, Every possible excuse was extended, every possible reason that the persons in controversy could not be human, and their 'innate criminality' and 'moral inferiority' were paraded about as fact.
There is ample evidence in the past of the 'humanity' argument. From the 'inhuman inferiors' of the Nazi party, to the 'inhuman' slave races, and the 'inhuman' non-citizens in Rome, in all cases the argument was not about their humanity or lack thereof, but rather of the government's right to control the persons in any or all aspects of life.

Citing the ideals of 'racial purity' and 'removing defectives' and 'criminal existence' and 'imbecility' the worst atrocities of the modern age have been accomplished. Buck v. Bell, for instance, saying 'three generations of imbeciles are enough', pushed through the ability to surgically sterilize human beings, for 'genetic impurity'. The most telling thing in the Buck v. Bell case, sadly enough, was the true reasons behind Bell's pregnancy.. her rape, and the coverup. Moreover, she graduated in the top of her class.

The question at present is what we are willing to do to another group? And how long until it's extended to others, including ourselves? Are we creating a 'civil code' of government, very similar to old Rome before its collapse? Civil law is not the same as criminal law, under the Common Law with which our nation was founded. It had its own limitations, which are long since removed.

Lest we forget, we have had other 'civil' codes in the past, in our own nation that have been implemented to the detriment of human beings, real human beings who lived, breathed, and died under that civil code. From the internment camps of the United States, for the Japanese, and Germans, to the Indian resettlements, and the very nature of slavery itself, civil codes have long been the tools used by those who would tyrannize others and steal from them.

Civil codes, after all, allow seizure of property, under the Roman Law. You are guilty until proven innocent, you can be held until you confess or are executed, and you have no power to appeal the system, as the system itself holds the power to allow or deny your appeal.

Is civil law such a great idea in today's world? They talk of the Constitution as being antiquated, and replace it with a law system that failed, spectacularly and repeatedly, far before our Constitution even came into existence.

How often do we, as a people, 'civilly' punish others for our perceptions, our fears, our beliefs that defy reality? How often do we place their bodies, their minds, and their lives under the heel of the 'majority', and thus validate our own worldview of their innate violence when, under all the responsibiliti es of society, and bearing none of the benefits, they cease to seek reentry?

But after all.. it's not punishment, it's a civil regulation that bears all the hallmarks and trademarks of punishment... just like slavery.

-- Tried By Conscience
Eric L. Hansen.