Not wanting to delve too deeply into Weinergate; The Daily Show has done a surprisingly good job there. But this particular story caught my attention:
It didn’t interest me for the pedestrian, tawdry sex-chat. What interested me was this:
Please understand i am a very important man. I’m always busy, but I promise i will make time for you soon!” Weiner wrote to Nobles in an email dated May 6, 2011.
Urk.
“I am a very important man.” I put this in the same category with “Don’t you know who I am?” In other words, indicative of an attitude often seen displayed by celebrities and politicians… expecting special treatment.
Fuggem.
The United States is a rare thing: a nation formed not on ethnic lines, or language lines or religious lines or even necessarily geographical lines, but on a shared ideal of a government that treats every man the same as every other. Obviously it’s an ideal that often isn’t lived up to. But… “I am a very important man” is, it seems to me, the very antithesis of what it means to be an American.
Isn’t it about time we had an agreement in this country that there should be some sort of response to “Don’t you know who I am?” At the bare minimum, pointing and laughing. And the right, nay, obligation to kick out the self-important celebritard from whatever establishment they are in and trying to dominate. But I’m thinking something more drastic. Anyone who is documented using their self-importance to cut in line, or demand free goodies or services, should be declared in a very limited self Outlaw.
Back in the Viking age, what passed for governments in the Norse lands didn’t have the resources for things like prisons. So if someone was a lawbreaker, they could be declared Outlaw. Which meant they were outside the law. Which meant that if someone else clubbed an outlaw over the head, stole his gold and cut his throat, the legal response would be… nothing. The Outlaw had decided that the laws didn’t apply to him; and thus, the authorities decided to let him have his way. The result of this was that it led to a lot of voyages of exploration, as Outlaws decided that it was a good time to hightail it out of town before the people they’d pissed off decided to come calling.
Clearly, that would be excessive. But a limited version would seem appropriate. Start with… loss of image and identity rights. Celebrities of course loses a lot of rights to maintain their image and privacy rights by simple virtue of being a public person… but they can control the way their image is used. Celebrities can’t prevent their image being used in parody and satire, but they can file legal claims against, say, fraudulent claims that “Celebrity X endorses Product Y” or “Celebrity X supports stomping puppies.” Perhaps losing the ability to sue for damages over libel or slander for a set period of time would be an appropriate response to anyone who announces that they are more important than the average slob?
Or perhaps declaring them Outlaw insofar as they can be pelting with rotten veggies or cream pies or some such.
Am I alone in this? If not, feel free to post your own ideas.
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There’s an apocryphal story about a man who pushed his way to the airline ticket counter, ahead of several dozen people who had been waiting patiently. “I need to book a flight now! he told the clerk.
The clerk responded, “Sir, please go back to where you were in line and wait your turn. We’re trying to untangle this mess, and we’re doing the best we can.”
“Not good enough,” the man said. “Do you know who I am?”
Without missing a beat, the clerk spoke into her microphone, and the PA system boomed out: “Could I have your attention, please? We have a man at the Southwest Airlines counter who does not know who he is. Can anyone identify him?”
A related concept is the “Streisand Effect:” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Streisand_effect
“The Streisand effect is a primarily online phenomenon in which an attempt to hide or remove a piece of information has the unintended consequence of publicizing the information more widely. It is named after American entertainer Barbra Streisand, whose attempt in 2003 to suppress photographs of her residence inadvertently generated further publicity.”
Here, the self-important try to throw their weight around, with the end result that they get the exact *opposite* of what they were after.
“Paging Lorena Bobbit…”
There’s another story like that. A new Petty Officer at a shore station had something go Very Wrong, so he called the offending office on the base to complain.
P.O: [complaint, loud and valid and “salty’]
Person Who Answered: See here, you can’t talk to me like that!
P. O.: Oh, yeah? Why not?
P.W.A.: Because I’m Admiral Xyzzzz!
P.O.: Oh, really? Well, do you who *I* am?
Admiral Xyzzzz: No.
P.O.: Thank God for that! [slams phone down]
The essence of the problem is, to me, that America has created aristocracies. Congress is an aristocracy in that it doesn’t have to follow the laws that affect the voters. Affirmative Action created aristocracies of birth. Hollywood, businesses, universities, and the media create (temporary) aristocracies of those who fit a profile that will result in profit to the creators. The separation between guys like Weiner and the voters will continue as long as they can feel apart from — and, it seems, superior to — everyone else.
I like the idea of Outlawing. If, for example, all illegal immigrants were Outlawed, what would happen?
> If, for example, all illegal immigrants were Outlawed, what would happen?
Civil war and mass death. If you (fedguv) decide that its okay to rape, enslave and murder a whole vast group of people… that’s what a *lot* of assholes are gonna do. And even if you decide that you’re ok with illegals being massacred, keep in mind that:
A: They’ll fight back
B: Their allies will fight back
C: Those who decide to go hunting illegals will on occasion hunt *non* illegals, like American citizens of Hispanic ethnicity
D: And that will give the allies of the illegals even more cause to fight back, and pre-emptively.
No good could come of that.
Now, if instead you made a more limited form of outlawry, it could work. Instead of being outside the law entire, set them outside laws related to workplace safety and compensation… and all other forms of financial renumeration and access. Granted, they already are, pretty much by definition; but here it would be *legal* to rob them blind or pay them ten cents an hour to work in a blazing hot field while being attacked by flying bears. Plus, there’d be no legal way for the *government* to pay them… no welfare of any kind would flow to them as they would now be outside the system.
with the exception of welfare, this would not be a whole lot different from the current situation. A downside would be that hiring illegals would then become *more* legal, not less.
What triggered the idea was the report of a friend who had done some research into seat belt laws. He found that as the states enacted those rules, insurance companies considered not covering those who were harmed because they weren’t wearing their seat belts. That has some obvious problems, and if it was enacted it didn’t last long. Perhaps forcing companies that hire them to pay for deporting them would be sufficient.
I didn’t have in mind killing anyone. I don’t even want to kill my brother, who took a lot of money from me by manipulating our senile father. Not even Jerry, who stuck a pencil in my tongue when I had a seizure in 10th grade. Maybe, though, the last HR weenie who smiled a lot and told me I was too old…..
> I didn’t have in mind killing anyone.
Well, the concept of “outlawry” has certain inevitable consequences. General, overall outlawry would lead to murders… because it *can.*
While the concept as a whole made *all* kinds of sense a thousand years ago, when there were no cops and no prisons, today… not so much. One old Norse legal custom that *does* make some sense today is the Danegeld concept. Basiclaly, if you killed someone, and you announced it publicly (didn’t try to hide it) and paid a set amount of gold to the family of the deceased… that matter was, legally speaking, settled. Of course, *this* wouldn’t work today, because you’d have rich rappers or drug dealers or politicians simply kill people they don;t like and get away with it by paying what to them is a pittance. But the basic idea that a criminal act can be simply paid for makes sense to me.
Attend: if an arsonist burns your house down, what serves *your* interests better: that he spend the next ten years in prison at taxpayer expense learning to become a worse monster, while you scratch in the ruins to rebuild your home… or *he* pays to rebuild your home? Certainly, if you do not have home insurance, the arsonist being in prison does you not good at all. If you *do* have insurance, having the arsonist pay back the insurance company for their expenses would be better for everyone. It is, after all, presumably not the insurance companies fault that the arsonist burned your house down.
Of course, your average arsonist might not have the funds to rebuild your home. That’s fine, though, since the United States has a Consitituational remedy: slavery. Oh, sure, you may *think* that slavery is illegal in the US, but it’s not. The 13th Amendment reads: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”
Anyone who has driven through Massachussetts has very likely seen slaves at work on the highway. They’re not called slaves, of course, but “chain gangs” or whatever the modern euphemism is for convicted criminals who are put to labor. So… put the arsonist to work until he has paid off his debts. Not some crappy 25-cents-an-hour job in the prison license plate factory, but whatever real job he is able to hold down. Lock a tracking/explosive shackle around one of his ankles; charge him rent for the thing, charge him the hourly rate for the fees involved in tracking him, then set his to work and take some set percent of his take-home pay. When he has paid off his debt, let him go.
I’ve heard another version. A college student is taking a final, and he keeps writing after the TA calls time. When the TA approaches him and says his test will be a zero now, the student looks up indignantly and says, “Do you know who I am?!?” The TA says no, at which point the student says, “Good!”, shoves his paper into the middle of the pile, and runs off.
I actually prefer the idea of shunning. The minute someone starts in on “do you know who I am?!?” the proper response should be, “you’re nobody,” and he should be ignored accordingly thereafter. After all, the entire reason someone starts in on the “do you know who I am” sphiel is because they think they’re more important than other people. Therefore, what could possibly be a more appropriate punishment than declaring such a person to be nobody at all?
> what could possibly be a more appropriate punishment than declaring such a person to be nobody at all?
A good point. The problem is that with some people, being ignored is the ultimate horror; with others it’s being mocked. Might be hard to tell which one to apply. Mockery I like because it’s an active process that anyone can get involved with.
Being ignored/shunned could go by un-noticed. Me, for instance… if I made some horrible social blunder and all the women in the world decided to ignore me…. hell, how would I even *know?* Mockery I’d pick up on real fast. Of course, I’m neither a celebrity nor a politician nor a person of any recognizable wealth or power, so I’m unlikely to try the “don’t you know who I am?” bit anytime soon.
I recall an episode of The Twilight Zone (or one of those shows) from the 80’s or early 90’s that involved a legal system that stamped some symbol on the foreheads of certain criminals… who were then let back out the door. The purpose of the symbol was that anyone who wore one was to be ignored by the rest of society, under pain of having their own foreheads so stamped. ISTR that the criminal at the heart of the plot started off enjoying it… he could go anywhere, consequence free (womens shower, IIRC), and could not be stopped; but he got injured, and the medics would not help him.
Just because someone doesn’t like being mocked doesn’t mean that they *would* like being shunned. Solitary confinement has been a punishment in every human culture; *nobody* likes being completely ignored, even if they might enjoy mockery even less. And being isolated is not the same thing as being shunned. After all, I’m a woman and I’m not ignoring you; I check your blog every day. We even talk, in a roundabout sort of way 😉
Also, a proper shunning wouldn’t go so far as to refuse to permit others to protect life, property or privacy from the one so shunned. You’d be allowed to prevent him from taking your things for example, or kick him out of the women’s shower. Though if you were only shunning to punish someone for being an officious a**hat, then I’d be against going so far as denying medical treatment (provided of course, that the offender hadn’t wounded himself in an attempt to break the shunning).
I recall an episode of The Twilight Zone (or one of those shows) from the 80′s or early 90′s that involved a legal system that stamped some symbol on the foreheads of certain criminals… who were then let back out the door. The purpose of the symbol was that anyone who wore one was to be ignored by the rest of society, under pain of having their own foreheads so stamped.
To See the Invisible Man. One of their better episodes.
Admin wrote:
“Back in the Viking age, what passed for governments in the Norse lands didn’t have the resources for things like prisons. So if someone was a lawbreaker, they could be declared Outlaw. Which meant they were outside the law. Which meant that if someone else clubbed an outlaw over the head, stole his gold and cut his throat, the legal response would be… nothing.”
The Vikings also came up with the concept of fines for wrongdoing as an alternative to having people who were wronged killing the people who wronged them, and thereby cutting civic blood fueds down.
That, and a early version of jury trials were two major contributions to what would become English law.