Expulsion
Ben is keen to settle the big problem that may arise when faced with dealing with someone who is guilty of a serious misdemeanour. Rachael jokes that if a certain person, Dave, doesn’t get a move on with the jobs they have been assigned they will be expelled. In all seriousness, the principle is to prevent a reoccurrence of the same crime. Punishment is secondary for the clock cannot be turned back and many crimes cannot be undone. The group wants to make sure it doesn’t happen again. Getting someone to say sorry and incarcerating them for a period does not guarantee that they will not reoffend. Racheal is keen to recommend that any person who defies the aims and does something terrible would be ejected. However, the others point out they would not want to have a reject from another island landing here, so neither would other people want to deal with their problematical characters. If someone is to be locked up, then there will not only be a timed based system for working out the point of release but also an assessment of the risk of them repeating previous wrong doings. If the probability seems very high, then the release would be postponed.
A probation period checking for potential problems is common, but some people are synonymous with the proverbial scorpion and the frog with a sting that is always going to harm others despite any repercussions for themselves. They can’t be helped; the innocent need not pay the price for allowing someone another chance. Protecting potential victims is the priority. That is diminished when we attempt to forgive and forget about nasty events in the hope that the unchangeable will moderate their behaviour. They will work while detained to earn an early release. Refusal to work will mean no time reduction of the sentence. Misbehaviour will increase it.
There is a flood, a major flood and the deluge will soon put the prisoners in jeopardy. Do we release the inmates to ensure they do not drown? Many will suggest they do, despite the warning that innocents will be potentially harmed or killed by highly volatile convicts. We have our own morals. They are personal inventions with much of it handed down to us from the elders. Many see it as morally dubious to allow someone out when knowing that the chance of a major offence on law abiding citizens will be close to certain. Harsh for the prisoners as they will perish. However, people can justify their thinking. They know who they have the greatest concern for. You can put your head in the sand and avoid dwelling upon the plight of all the wrongdoers.
Not only are many keen to eject those causing trouble, but some get wrapped up in a utility argument. They believe that anyone too old, or too feeble should be discarded. Once your usefulness comes to an end you are taken to the scrap heap, for nothing eclipses the importance of the supposed prosperity of the zone. There is no room for frivolity. Everything is set to expand the grandeur of the bigger cause. Heaven forbid, your form of entertainment, that you foot the bill for, doesn’t meet the latest guidance announced. For their entertainment, their pleasure is truly gleaned from controlling your every move. They love it. They get great satisfaction from devising more restrictions. They enjoy tinkering with ever more things, dictating what you can and can’t do in your private life.
Some will say that you can pass any law you like, just do not enforce it. When you see somebody doing something wrong, you have a choice between intervening or walking on by. If everyone turns a blind eye when they see a mugger or thief in action, the system breaks down. A small but significant percentage of the population who are prepared to get involved is usually positive. If you are not willing to step in from time to time, your community becomes less favourable for you, your friends and family plus your postman, your doctor, your repairman and everyone else that contributes to your way of life. Once in a while, when you feel it is right to play your part, you act to keep your island, your corner, a nice place to live.
Do you avoid interfering when you see troubling events unfolding on other islands? Do you let them get on with it, or do you try to bring order to a seemingly chaotic situation? You would certainly want a discussion with people if they were storing flammable material close by or polluting the water upstream. If you become aware that they are beating each other up or witness killing aplenty, it is quite a dilemma with no definitive answer. Do you have the means to break up the fighting, will it make it worse, and do you understand what the fighting is really over? There is something to be said for steering well clear until you are absolutely sure on all three counts. If there are ten people fighting and you send in fifty to break it up, chances are they will quickly capitulate, and no harm is done to your peacekeepers.
It can seem silly to think of things on the scale of a small island. There will be no hospitals, no government to check standards and nobody impartial to check the quality of produce on offer. There will be far less opportunity to retire and relax in the twilight years and the power of diversification, people specialising in complex fields is all but forgotten. A decent government can mediate and ensure a reasonable level playing field is kept and provide more real freedoms than a place where things are a mess. It becomes harsh if your personal safety is forever in jeopardy and only the fittest toughest make it through each day.
The one thing you can be sure about is how lines can get blurred. There is never any finality in an argument. Ideas flex and new problems emerge that couldn’t be envisaged at an earlier time. The thought processes these people had on setting up this island may be agreeable or repulsive but give a hint of the quandaries we face. Either way there is one heck of a muddle and confusion with one doctrine overriding another. We will always be stuck with some difficult compromises. There will be times where better weather outshines frustration with the political framework in deciding what island to remain on. The debates rage on with different intensities bringing up new and old problems into the mix, and so be it. The mistake is to think that we are more than just insects building a nest and adjusting to the ecosystem.
Many teenagers pipe up and ask why we need rules at all. A free for all is not outside the bounds of possibility. Everyone-for-themselves situations do spring up in places from time to time. A motion for the dissolution of government and have it replaced entirely by private enterprise has been mooted as well. It is suggested that all work for the disabled and infirm is carried out competently by the charities. Businesses self-regulate, and people provide all their needs for themselves. Like all ideas of this nature there are pros and cons, with the cons being troublesome, people free to rip one another off. There will be a vast number of things to sort out, no police but a subscription to a private security force instead to name but one of them.
Claudia has indeed been surprised that we don’t have more lands with a free for all. Rachael is more surprised that there are so many lands with the bulk of the population accepting the current status quo and tolerant of things the way they are. Ben asks how many people have grown up in their community and assumed that everything is normal and just the way it is. We say “they”, they are inventing, they are coming out with, they are proposing and they, this hard-to-put-your-finger-on body, knows what is best for its citizens. You may know no different and haven’t had exposure to other ways, nor have even considered other possibilities. A presumption pervades that this is the how it is and always has been, only ‘they’ have the power to change things. Constitutions have been written, legal frameworks put in place and only a mythical figure could ever realign them to a new age. Who are these great historical characters that set things in place? Many were spun out from humble ordinary beginnings with chance and circumstance that put them up on a parapet. There comes a point where amendments or complete rewrites are needed to our statutes, the control structure, that are more befitting of the way things have moved on. The underlying laws of the land can be changed if enough of the right people want it. However, in the same way that only a few people change the name given to them at birth not many want the inconvenience of going against the grain. It all happened bit by bit. One change after another that gradually shifts our mindset. If the changes were imposed in one afternoon we would notice it. As the changes are so slow and gradual we accept them, live with them, and abide by the new rules.
No state that we build will be problem free nor perfect in all respects but if you were to start over or repair a system you might consider one cornerstone to be a device that dispels artificial rankings. It is evident that some show great delight in giving some people a ‘type’ and thus having a higher or lower status than the rest. People preserve their caste, class, and social orders to maintain the differential and be the ruling elite. We like the idea of progression through education and training. We like the idea of being above others based on heredity reasons more so, as no effort is required. Nothing beats that which gives a clear demonstration that we have equal validity, neither looking up nor down at one another. It is well known that the more we mingle the more we realise that each of us are fundamentally the same. We all eat, sleep, and defecate as animals of the same species.
Dave came up with a couple of ideas, one has merit, the other highly misguided. As their children turn into adults, they will be given a plot of land on the island for which to build their shack. Just a small square piece with no assistance in the construction but an approval to build something of a reasonable size. The cost to the community is small, but the benefit of having a stake in the island is huge. The repellent idea that Dave proposed is that each person would be given a daily allowance of one coconut, one fish and some bread. This would be applicable to everyone including those with a stack of coconuts piled up high by their front door and fifty fish dried out in their back room. It ignores the fact that someone has to get the coconuts down, someone has to fish, and someone has to labour kneading and baking the dough. Worse still the reward system only works when you go and do something to get it. People become lazy, dissatisfied with life. They get greedy and want ever more things for free. Having something to do, compulsion just to survive, is not just about making the time pass quicker it pleases the soul.
This simplistic tale of setting up and running a small island could run to thousands of pages. Thousands of pages would still not cover the basic things let alone the finer details. Yet whilst this screed is very simplistic, it provides a means to think about what we would do in various situations and then apply it to the problems in bigger societies. When you consider how a policy would be constructed with a tiny number of people, it can be transposed in its entirety to a huge country with a new form of unsophistication. Ignore what is included, ignore what has been missed out. What would you do on a small island? Work that out then apply it your nation’s orthodoxy.
The group kept a list of motions that were agreed on by all. Whilst vague they were held as being the spirit of the law. Freedom to leave, unencumbered. Respect other people’s desire to live. ‘What is the harm to others?’ standpoint on doing what you like. Freedom to express our opinions but avoiding slander- make it safe to explore ideas, promoting mockery to dissolve ideological grandiosity. Place the welfare of the general populace above those that have done harm. All people are equally valid in all things. Recognise that morality is opinion.
Contribute a sensible proportion of time, effort, or resources for the benefit of all. Many hands make light work principle – enlist every hand/mind possible. Fixed term chairmanship. No person can linger in the role. Welcome visitors to view the geography.