A J PHILIPS...

You are right, I am clearly wrong, my over 32 hard years in the police amount to nothing, neither my rank of Detective Sergeant of 17 1/2 years nor in country training with the Federal Bureau of Investigations, Quantico VA nor the RUC 'Hadrian' Project, Belfast Northern Ireland, nothing, zip, squat ?

Dear o sung wu,

Come on you silly old thing, no need to go all third person on me.

While the claim that a victim's father would be repeatedly imploring you to bring back the lash sounds a little too manufactured, for the sake of the argument I will take it as stated.

If this person had wanted with every fibre of his being to see the perpetrator dead we do not see him as a murderer thus it is a quite disingenuous of you to try and claim my statement is painting him as a sexual sadist.

The biggest impediment to having this barbarity banned in England was the House of Lords. Then almost exclusively filled with old men, many afflicted with various stages of impotence, many who secretly frequented places where sadomasochism offered some hope for stirring some spark of sexual excitement.

That impotence was not only of a physical nature but also one of a diminution of power over others. Those who spend part of their lives with authority over the lives of others can experience deep frustration when that power is taken away. That frustration and anger can boil over with cries for the infliction of physical pain on those who transgress them.

I'm not sure old coppers are immune from either.

Cont...

Cont...

This from De Quincey back when the banning of corporeal punishment was progressed over a hundred years ago;

“All corporal punishments whatsoever, and upon whom-soever inflicted, are hateful and an indignity to our common nature, which (with or without our consent) is enshrined in the person of the sufferer. Degrading him, they degrade us . . . Thanks be to God – in this point, at least, for the dignity of human nature – that, amongst the many many cases of reform destined eventually to turn out chimerical, this one, at least, never can be defeated, injured, or eclipsed. As a man grows more intellectual, the power of managing by his intellect and his moral nature, in utter contempt of all appeals to his mere animal instinct of pain, must go on pari passu.”

The reverse would seem to be true thus amply illustrated by your diatribe against intellectualism, since it does indeed seem to go pari passu with your calls for flogging to be reinstated.

Perhaps we should leave the last word to Herman Melville;

“ We plant the question, then, on the topmost argument of all. Irrespective of incidental considerations, we assert that flogging is opposed to the essential dignity of man, which no legislator has the right to violate; that it is oppressive, and glaringly unequal in its operations; that it is utterly repugnant to the spirit of our democratic institutions; indeed, that it involves a lingering trait of the worst times of a barbarous feudal aristocracy; in a word, we denounce it as religiously, morally, and immutably wrong.”

Dear AJ Phillips,

I don't think it is your fault, o sung tends to get a little irascible when challenged. I'm sure by the next topic all will be fine.

AJ Philips, if you wish to be taken seriously by real people, you will have to learn how to control your arrogance.

You don't have to tell us every post that you are blinded by the glitter of your own brilliance. It is so obvious it is painful.

STEELIE...thank you so much, I've won the bet ! You see my peculiar friend, one of the diagnostic features of protracted symptomatic narcissism, is the urge and need to be heard ! I can't begin to enumerate how often you seem to find it necessary to jibber-jabber on with your ego soporific chatter by using more of your allotted 350 words ? By the way, did you manage to fix your car ? Has one or both of it's pedals, come adrift ?

At the risk of becoming absolutely exasperated with you ad nauseam - Not once did I advocate; the lash, cat 'o nine tails or any other instrument hitherto used as a punishment medium, several centuries past ? The model I would offer, was that which is currently employed by Singapore, Malaysia and Brunei. It's my understanding there are several nations in the Middle East, who use corporal punishment, by what method, I've no idea ?

You know, it's pretty easy for one to quietly sit back while in a state of repose and contemplation, and consider the terrible physical and psychological harm that might occur, should an offender confront corporal punishment ? I wonder whether there's any similar thought apportioned to the victim, with the same level of concern, I've certainly not heard it, other from police members ?

Having followed this debate with great interest I am now prompted to take back my remark about it being conducted without sarcasm and venom. A bit or arrogance? yes, but as long as it's uttered with some logical conviction I don't mind. At least on this occasions some depth of thought has been applied and a measure of erudition, which I find pleasing enough to read with some amusement !