What is wrong with this narrative?
Jan Svoboda beats up his son's teacher;
police arrest Svoboda;
he insists that they call his friend, Theron Wolfe;
the police call Wolfe who comes to the jail;
Wolfe explains that Svoboda is the Psychologics Commissioner's son;
a respectful policeman releases Svoboda and offers to bring charges against Tse.
So there is no longer any pretense of justice or of the rule of law. Although I oppose the death penalty, what I like about the case of Alfie Rouse is that Rouse was executed for killing an unknown man and, at least according to the law, would have received no worse treatment if he had assassinated the King or the Prime Minister.
6 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I agree, Jan Svovoda was released on specious and unworthy grounds despite indisputably assaulting another person. Another bit of evidence showing us the decay of the World Federation and its civilization.
And, if I'm recalling rightly, a madman did assassinate a British PM in the early 19th century, but his life was spared because the court ruled an insane person could not be held responsible for his acts. Which I agree was the right decision.
Sean
Sean,
Yes and again the madman would have been treated in the same way whoever he had killed.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
And that is the way the law should be enforced, with even handed impartiality.
Sean
A recent phenomenon.
If you read 18th century British novels ("Clarissa", for example) it's taken for granted that a nobleman can set his footmen or hired pugilists on a commoner and have him beaten senseless without consequence, or abduct and hold a girl as long as he does it in the country on his estate and nobody but his servants sees it.
Of course, it's also taken for granted that if a mob in London stones a Minister's house, the Minister has no recourse except to put up the shutters and wait it out, or arm his servants. No police, and no governmental forces of order, except for the Army, which is only used in very exceptional circumstances.
It was the need to call out the army and militia so often in the post-Napoleonic period that led to the formation of a uniformed "preventative police" (police in our sense of the term) in England. (Ireland got one earlier, and it was used as something of a model for the English forces, though the latter weren't armed.)
And prior to the 1850's, the reputation of the English was that they were a riotous, violent, law-disregarding people given to assaulting their superiors and forming violent political mobs at the drop of a hat.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Oh, I knew of the phenomena you discussed here, of Britain lacking the MEANS needed for truly enforcing law and order, of checking both mobs and powerful persons.
I had occasion not long ago to mention the Gordon Riots of 1780, a perfect example of Englishmen "forming violent political mobs at the drop of a hat." And the Army did have to be used to suppress the riots.
And so, as the Federation decayed in ORBIT UNLIMITED, we see society regressing to the kind of situation you described.
Sean
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