Thinking about the disproportionality of the potential punishment, I was reminded of the case of an Iraqi man who wrote a phone number on a banknote, thereby defacing the image of Saddam Hussein; for which he was sentenced to be dissolved alive in an acid bath. Even the man’s executors felt sorry for him, so they just dipped him in the bath for a few seconds; thus he survived, but with hideous injuries that ruined his life.
At the risk of seeming hysterical, the more I thought about this the less I could see much difference with Canada. Not much in the magnitude of the crime: instead of writing on a banknote, giving it to a cause Saddam Trudeau dislikes, thereby causing one iota of harm. Nor in the punishment: ruining someone’s life not with acid, but by making it near-impossible to work or even eat.
Indeed, invoking the physical/virtual distinction, it seems to me the extra horrificness of the punishment in the former case is largely because it’s physical rather than virtual. Destroying someone’s life via the stroke of a pen, or a few keypresses, seems so much nicer than directly inflicting physical injuries, that it almost seems commendable.
Thinking about the disproportionality of the potential punishment, I was reminded of the case of an Iraqi man who wrote a phone number on a banknote, thereby defacing the image of Saddam Hussein; for which he was sentenced to be dissolved alive in an acid bath. Even the man’s executors felt sorry for him, so they just dipped him in the bath for a few seconds; thus he survived, but with hideous injuries that ruined his life.
At the risk of seeming hysterical, the more I thought about this the less I could see much difference with Canada. Not much in the magnitude of the crime: instead of writing on a banknote, giving it to a cause
SaddamTrudeau dislikes, thereby causing one iota of harm. Nor in the punishment: ruining someone’s life not with acid, but by making it near-impossible to work or even eat.Indeed, invoking the physical/virtual distinction, it seems to me the extra horrificness of the punishment in the former case is largely because it’s physical rather than virtual. Destroying someone’s life via the stroke of a pen, or a few keypresses, seems so much nicer than directly inflicting physical injuries, that it almost seems commendable.