Thursday, July 24, 2003

Killing your enemy's family - consistent con policy:

http://www.nationalreview.com/derbyshire/derbyshire021501.shtml
Chelsea is a Clinton. She bears the taint; and though not prosecutable in law,
in custom and nature the taint cannot be ignored. All the great despotisms of
the past — I'm not arguing for despotism as a principle, but they sure knew
how to deal with potential trouble — recognized that the families of
objectionable citizens were a continuing threat. In Stalin's penal code it was a
crime to be the wife or child of an "enemy of the people". The Nazis used
the same principle, which they called Sippenhaft, "clan liability". In
Imperial China, enemies of the state were punished "to the ninth degree":
that is, everyone in the offender's own generation would be killed, and
everyone related via four generations up, to the great-great-grandparents, and
four generations down, to the great-great-grandchildren, would also be killed.
(This sounds complicated, but in practice what usually happened was that a
battalion of soldiers was sent to the offender's home town, where they killed
everyone they could find, on the principle neca eos omnes, deus suos - let God sort them out

No comments:

Blog Archive