jon brown
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In the current Socialist Standard in the Book Review section Adam Buick revirews "Who's Afriad of the Easter Rising?". He states people who are prepared to die for their beliefs deserve some respect. Cannot and do not agree with this. I am sure Adam didn't this to intend support for suicide bombers etc. I think we should reserve our respect for those who are conscripted against their will or even more so for the really courageous who refuse to be conscripted and take all the consequences for refusing.
And consider if you will the fate of John Amery, hanged for treason. In essence his behaviour differed little from that of the uncrowned and unelected Edward VIII.
Losers are forgotten. Sometimes the "winners" are forgotten too.Remember Thatcher's victory parade after the Falklands when the wounded and invalided were not allowed to join in less the sight of them would be upsetting? Equally the American's building hospitals in Greenland, even more isolated then than it is now so that their WW II wounded and maimed would not upset morale at home.It would be churlist to deny that some soldiers from all conflicts have fought with great courage, but what if that had shown even more courage and refused to take part? Such courage might have a place in socialist society, gas and oil resources at present considered too inaccessible to be profitably tapped will no doubt require such pioneers to utilise.Sorry, I digress, my point was that several of the war criminal in Nuremberg had behaved no differently to their Allied counterparts, the Allies got in many cases medals and the losers were hanged.
Test v 20/20. Sport has a history of competing with itsself, rugby Union and league for one example but for different reasons. Workers have so little leisure time that on a nice Summer or Spring evening it is a treat to watch a 20/20. Different forms of the game demand different skills e.g in 20/20 its better to be 110 all out than 100 /0 at the end of the 20 overs. For a bowler it is better, usually to have figures of 4-4-0-0 in 20 /20 than 4-0-50-9 (so long as someone does a job at the other end. What is undoubtedly true is that whilst batsman may succumb to ambitious shots in 20/20 fielding standards have improved immensely. I dont think there is any doubt in deep rooted cricket lovers minds that the 5 day test is still the holy grail so to speak. You can be battered for 14 of the 15 sessions but when numbers 10 and 11 hold out for a thrilling draw it takes some beating. Additional leisure time in socialism will mean that all forms of the game will be available to all to watch or play. It will be a personal choice if you specialise in one form of the game rather than the other.
YMS- I think if we were robbing, murderous cads we wouldn't have bought about socialism in the first place. In spite of all the barriers which are put between us, race, religion, colour, white collar, blue collar etc etc we remain a remarkably cooperative species. Remove the barriers between us and I expect the cooperation to be even better. A police service may exist to talk us out of jumping off a bridge when a personal relationship goes wrong, but when posessions become common ownership the police service may well have little to do. A bit like a fire service, efficient and brave when they have to put out a fire but more effective when they prevent fires and can sit in the station and play cards or chess.
ALB- peer pressure certainly not, at 14 I refused to be confirmed inspite of the sticks and carrots. A situation which lead to a stand off with me and my mother for the rest of her natural. Formal punishment? Well given that capitalism is a system which runs on legalised robbery and legalised murder it is not too hard for the 5% who own almost everything to indulge in behaviour which would see members of the 95% who own nothing imprisoned or worse. Whether it is a crime or not seems to depend which class you belong to, its not a case of one law for the rich and one for the poor so much as no law for the rich. Were I to drunkenly drive my car and kill or maim people then I would expect to be punished, whether I am capable of such logical thinking after the tenth pint is another matter. Maybe without the pressures of this evil system I wouldnt need the first pint let alone the tenth. In the present system the landlord is acting in his own interests to sell me more alcohol. Were it to occur in socialism I rather hope he would take my keys and call me a taxi or recommend a brisk walk to sober up.
Socialist Punk- I think in a socialist society the only motivation would be to ensure there was no repeat of the act. None of the available evidence shows that it acts as a deterent, in fact quite the opposite. Of modern capitalist societies in the west only USA retains it in some states. Your chances of getting it commuted to life imprisionment depends not just on how good your lawyer is but on whether the governer is facing (re)election. If s/he has an election imminent and wants to appear to be tough on crime then your chances are much slimmer.
ALB- I hope you are correct. Although many capitalist states have abolished the death penalty I suspect that in some cases the reason is that they are afraid of being sued by the relatives of someone later found to be innocent. It is also true that capitalist states spend a lot of time and money in brainwashing members of their armed forces to overcome their inherent abhorence at being ordered to kill fellow human being. But whilst i realise that opinion polls can be geared to produce the "correct" answer many unfortunately do seem to show that a majority would be happy with a return of the death penalty. I would hope in a more tolerant and open society that the maximum would be to incarcerate them to protect society and themselves. It may be the one area where capitalist "solves" a problem better than socialism in that in current society a paedeophile who has enough money can go to places like Asia to satisfy his whims whereas in socialism no woman or man will ever be forced to prostitute themselves to ensure that they can pay the gas bill. Also the concept of paedeophilia is relative, the ages of consent being different in different cultures and countries. it could also be argued that arranged marriages when one or both parties is/ are unwilling is also a form of paedeophilia. It goes without saying that in socialism noone will be forced to marry (if the concept of marriage still exists in socialism) or live with someone against their will. Even in the most religous of communities the arranged marriage has it's origin in financial terms rather than religious ones. I would hope that people who are rational enough to organise themselves and bring about a socialist society are also rational enough to ditch religion but a few fanatics may survive even this and continue to carry out their rituals.
Given that private property would cease to exist in socialism 95% of the raison d'etre for police would disappear. I agree that people will still fall in and out of love and there will still be cases of unrequieted love – these exist now but it is rather unusual and uncommon for people to murder after this. And the emotional anger in this society is in 99% of cases entwined with financial battles over who gets what and who lives where. Remove the financial aspect from the equation and things might just go a little more smoothly. Where I suspect socialism may have problems is if a lynch mob decide to take justice into their own hands and kill a suspected paedeophile e.g. I also do not discount that a socialist society may democratically decide that there should be a death penalty for paedeophiles. Socialism will not be a utopia but the very alienation inherent in capitalism may go some way to solving some of the above issues.
Dead people cannot issue libel writs and there is enough dirt on the old witch not to have to worry about libel. Why don't they privatise the funeral? Sell tickets to attend it. Those too rich or too daft can then subsidize it or it might even make a profit. Surely this would be in line with her principles? Just make sure M.P.s don't claim their ticket on expenses.
