Human Events Daily with Jack Posobiec - SUNDAY SPECIAL： THE SINGAPORE OPTION

00:00:00.000 Music

00:00:00.500 In March, news, a Singapore court had sentenced an 18-year-old American to six strokes with a bamboo cane swept round the world.

00:00:20.000 This is the first I've heard of and I'll look into it.

00:00:21.780 And Michael Fay, who insists he was tortured into confessing that he spray-painted cars, was instantly caught in the middle of a raging debate.

00:00:30.640 Yes, says one. People should be responsible for their actions. Let the vandal take his beating, says another.

00:00:37.140 If anybody just put themselves in this position, I don't think anybody would want their kid or someone close to them to be beaten with a cane.

00:00:44.900 After President Clinton personally appealed for leniency, Singapore reduced the sentence from six lashes to four.

00:00:52.120 But that wasn't much consolation for Michael Fay.

00:00:54.860 I was bent over halfway. I mean, my back was bent in a 90 degree and I was buckled like this.

00:01:03.560 And he's whipping it as he's going on each step.

00:01:06.640 Can you hear the whip?

00:01:07.300 Yes, I can. And on the third step, he strikes. And he cuts open your buttocks.

00:01:14.800 And there's a lot of pain.

00:01:15.740 There's a lot of pain.

00:01:16.520 Throughout the incident, Singapore insisted its strict laws made it one of the safest nations on Earth.

00:01:22.260 Well, ladies and gentlemen, welcome aboard to a very special edition of Human Events Sunday special where we're going to be discussing something that I like to call the Singapore option.

00:01:33.800 And you may have seen this going around on Twitter all this week.

00:01:38.580 It's been the debate has been raging on this idea of why does Singapore and certainly many other Asian countries, but definitely Singapore seems to have these luxurious airports, incredible infrastructure, amazing downtowns.

00:01:53.800 Just an absolute jewel in the South China Sea.

00:01:59.400 And the question is, why don't we have those things?

00:02:01.780 Well, a lot of people, including conservative commentator Matt Walsh, a friend of mine, decided to say that it's because Singapore beats their criminals and Singapore executes drug traffickers.

00:02:13.320 And of course, most famously, we remember the case of Michael Fay back in the 1990s, who was caned four times, not six, sentenced to six, reduced to four for vandalizing over 18 cars.

00:02:26.700 It was 50 acts of vandalism total.

00:02:29.020 He pled guilty.

00:02:29.960 He was spray painting, doing all sorts of things, which, by the way, you're told not to do.

00:02:34.280 So we went and looked up what happened to Michael Fay.

00:02:37.920 How's he doing now?

00:02:39.180 What's his life like?

00:02:40.800 Well, guess what?

00:02:41.340 He returned to the United States.

00:02:44.300 He went back to college and he now runs a successful food and beverage business.

00:02:52.420 All thanks to caning.

00:02:55.900 And so to to talk through these issues and go through it, I want to bring on a former colleague of mine at Human Events and currently the senior counsel at the Internet Accountability Project, my good friend, Will Chamberlain.

00:03:08.800 Will, thanks so much for finally joining the show that you, by the way, helped create.

00:03:13.800 That's correct.

00:03:14.800 Thanks for having me on, Jack.

00:03:16.140 I appreciate it.

00:03:17.320 Yeah.

00:03:17.480 So the behind the scenes of this is that when Will was publisher over at Human Events, he gave me a ringy ding ding one time and said, hey, Jack, you should start this like video podcast kind of thing.

00:03:26.160 And I said, do you think anyone will watch it?

00:03:27.540 And you're like, I think so.

00:03:28.440 Let's see.

00:03:28.960 And here we are.

00:03:29.940 What, a year and a half later?

00:03:31.620 Yeah.

00:03:31.960 Something like something like that.

00:03:33.200 You've you've done really, really well.

00:03:35.160 So sort of a little a little bit sad.

00:03:36.740 I can't be a part of it.

00:03:37.640 But, you know, well, you know, things things and things have a way of changing, too, sometimes.

00:03:43.980 Yes.

00:03:44.180 But but, Will, you know, walk me through this.

00:03:47.960 When we see the success of something like Singapore.

00:03:51.560 I mean, I remember if you go back to the 60s, Singapore, it's like a backwater port.

00:03:55.840 I mean, it's it's it's nothing.

00:03:57.760 It's it's just sort of like a little dollop just kind of hung off the edge of Malaysia.

00:04:02.620 You know, it's a city that, you know, nothing necessarily wrong with it.

00:04:05.580 But it certainly isn't this worldwide phenomenon that we talk about now.

00:04:09.480 How did Singapore go from that to this?

00:04:13.360 I mean, you really have incredible statesmanship.

00:04:17.720 I mean, Singapore is a testament to the value of having really, really talented statesmen.

00:04:24.340 Basically, Lee Kuan Yew, who was the founder, effectively, of Singapore as an independent

00:04:29.380 country and president for a very long time, I think, or prime minister, rather, he's prime

00:04:34.020 minister for something like 30 years.

00:04:35.700 And his son is currently prime minister of the country, was one of the most talented and

00:04:40.020 brilliant statesmen of the modern era.

00:04:41.720 And as a result, he took a very, very tiny postage stamp of a country that was, yeah,

00:04:47.000 as you say, something of a backwater.

00:04:49.740 And through his leadership and wise policy in the town industry, the Singaporean people

00:04:54.060 turned it into one of the places that one has one of the highest GDP per capita in the

00:04:59.260 entire world is incredibly wealthy, a beautiful, safe, incredible place to live.

00:05:03.700 Um, and that isn't done by, you know, adhering to like a libertarian utopia or anything else.

00:05:09.720 It's a, it's a number of different, um, sound policies, but one of them was very, very tough

00:05:14.840 on crime.

00:05:15.960 Was it, was it done through social policies?

00:05:17.800 Was it done through handouts?

00:05:19.380 Was it done through improving everyone's economic standing?

00:05:22.700 Was it done through, uh, critical race theory?

00:05:25.640 Because of course, you know, Singapore is a diverse country.

00:05:28.340 It is certainly a multicultural country in a sense.

00:05:30.620 I mean, they have Malays, they have Indians, they have, uh, Hindus, they have, uh, and then,

00:05:34.940 and then predominantly, uh, Han Chinese, but you know, it's certainly not a homogenous

00:05:38.900 society.

00:05:39.380 So was it done through, uh, diversity, equity, and inclusion and critical race theory and handouts

00:05:44.980 and reparations?

00:05:45.620 That's how they did it, right?

00:05:46.580 Um, yeah, I, I wouldn't say that's exactly how they did it.

00:05:50.080 I mean, there is, uh, Singapore is a very, very diverse place and was, um, during when

00:05:55.780 Lee Kuan Yew was taking power and part of his skill was managing the various diverse coalitions,

00:06:02.660 uh, to form a very, very stable government, incorporating them all into his government.

00:06:07.580 Um, but that was done not necessarily as a, you know, based on the buzzwords of diversity

00:06:12.780 makes us stronger.

00:06:13.640 It's sort of, that's a way to tamp down ethnic strife.

00:06:16.900 He always saw that as how do we keep this place as peaceful, peaceful and safe, as strong

00:06:21.280 as possible, and simply excluding one large faction from the government was always going

00:06:26.180 to create a problem.

00:06:27.660 Um, but I think, you know, it is to be fair, to be fair, I mean, Lee Kuan Yew was not some

00:06:32.280 radical libertarian.

00:06:33.120 There's plenty of social welfare in Singapore.

00:06:35.980 Um, but there's also an enormous amount of economic freedom.

00:06:39.000 Um, and there is, uh, as I said before, extreme, you know, toughness when it comes to crime,

00:06:46.200 vandalism, um, harsh punishments and punishing things that we wouldn't think to punish, uh,

00:06:50.860 like spinning gum out on the streets.

00:06:52.940 Right.

00:06:53.340 And of course, that's, I think most people do think of that.

00:06:56.820 They say, you can't spit gum out on the street.

00:06:58.720 Um, I've, I've pulled some up here.

00:07:00.200 Producer Angelo has thrown some together.

00:07:02.120 Um, small items like candy wrappers are fined 300, um, not sure if that's dollars or UN the

00:07:08.360 first for a first time offense, uh, longer, larger.

00:07:11.880 If you throw a bottle on the ground that you're drinking, um, that's considered defiance against

00:07:18.180 Singaporean law and requires a court appearance, uh, penalties, penalties include corrective work

00:07:24.140 quarters where the offenders clean up a specified area while, while wearing bright green luminous

00:07:29.500 vests.

00:07:30.040 Of course, the chewing gum is the famous one, uh, ultimately began their operations of their

00:07:35.100 MRT, which is a five, uh, $5 billion project.

00:07:39.480 And vandals started putting gum on door sensors.

00:07:41.940 And of course the rest is history.

00:07:43.100 First time offenders.

00:07:44.220 That's a $1,000 fine.

00:07:47.580 Uh, this, this is very interesting, but also will, can you walk us through some of the drug

00:07:53.280 laws of Singapore?

00:07:54.300 Do you have it there?

00:07:55.680 Um, I don't, I don't have it on me, but I can tell you off the top of my head, uh, the,

00:07:59.640 the drug laws in Singapore are extremely, uh, punitive in the sense that if you are caught

00:08:05.180 possessing an extreme, even a very, very small amount of heroin, for example, within Singapore,

00:08:09.020 um, you get the death penalty.

00:08:11.180 Um, and there's a few minor exceptions, uh, but they're, they're trivial.

00:08:16.200 Um, Singapore is extraordinarily hard.

00:08:18.780 Selling or possession?

00:08:20.160 Even possession, right?

00:08:21.580 If you come in with even possession, if you have a possession above a certain amount of

00:08:25.260 heroin, and it really is, honestly, I think the, the total amount of heroin needed to

00:08:29.080 trigger the death penalty is a little more than one does.

00:08:32.000 Um, they're, they're extremely serious.

00:08:33.440 Other drugs, it's bigger because they, they do acknowledge that for things like cannabis,

00:08:37.240 they, they want to get the traffickers, not necessarily the users, um, with this kind

00:08:41.800 of punishment.

00:08:43.140 But, uh, in general, the, I mean, the law, the drug laws in Singapore are extraordinarily strict.

00:08:48.280 Um, and, and they're, they give fair warning to people.

00:08:50.920 Like if you find a Singapore, you'll be given a card before you even land that says, if you

00:08:54.880 come into the country with drugs, you will get the death penalty.

00:08:57.760 Which, and they would consider that drug trafficking.

00:08:59.640 This is, of course, is, uh, Brittany, Brittany Griner going into Russia was, was considered

00:09:03.820 drug trafficking, even though she had like a couple edibles or something.

00:09:06.840 I forget exactly what it was, but if some, it, what we would consider in the U S minuscule

00:09:10.800 or in Washington, DC, by the way, is completely legal.

00:09:13.040 Um, you know, anyone can go buy some great movies about this, by the way, because Singapore

00:09:16.720 is not the only country down there in, in Southeast Asia that has a strict drug laws.

00:09:21.000 They, they do have strict enforcement, but, uh, Thailand, Malaysia actually have similar

00:09:25.920 laws.

00:09:26.640 Um, you can watch broke down palace with Claire Danes or return to paradise, great Joaquin Phoenix

00:09:32.000 film that actually do deal with a lot of these things.

00:09:35.200 Um, it's just, it seems that in the West we've gotten totally away from that.

00:09:38.200 Now, of course, uh, president Trump's come out a few times and stated that, you know,

00:09:42.820 when it comes to these opium opioid dealers or fentanyl dealers, just straight up death

00:09:47.100 penalty, right?

00:09:48.020 And we should, or the, you know, throw them, uh, Duterte of course did this in the Philippines

00:09:52.100 for a long time and was extremely popular for doing so.

00:09:57.300 So a couple more minutes left.

00:09:58.320 Will, why, and, and, and I want to break this down in the next segment, but you know, why

00:10:02.600 did Lee Kuan Yew decide to take this two track approach to revamp and revitalize Singapore?

00:10:10.600 Well, I think on the one hand, he wanted to maintain social cohesion.

00:10:14.740 So he didn't want, you know, a lot of people who were struggling in the, in the streets that

00:10:19.740 would, you know, rise up to his power.

00:10:21.640 And remember again, how incredibly diverse Singapore was, um, there had to be some form

00:10:26.460 of social welfare just to ensure you didn't have that constant factional strife and civil,

00:10:30.480 effectively civil war in such a tiny place.

00:10:32.960 Um, but I think when it comes to why he was so draconian about the drug laws, his, his

00:10:36.480 view is pretty straightforward.

00:10:38.420 Uh, we, and we don't take him, take it for granted, but you got to think about not just

00:10:42.560 how many lives does a single drug dealer destroy?

00:10:45.240 How many families do they destroy in the act of dealing large amounts of heroin or cocaine?

00:10:50.020 They destroy hundreds of families, hundreds of lives.

00:10:52.980 And so from, from the perspective of the Singaporeans, of course, drug dealing should be met with

00:10:58.540 the death penalty.

00:10:59.900 Um, you may not intentionally murder someone in the same way, but you're responsible for

00:11:04.200 so much death, so much sickness, so much harm, um, so much destruction to people's lives.

00:11:09.500 This, by the way, is why, uh, Maurice Hall in the George Floyd case refused to take the

00:11:15.220 stand and took the fifth because his lawyer rightfully pointed out that in the state of

00:11:18.320 Minnesota, if you sell someone a lethal dose of fentanyl and it kills them, then you can

00:11:23.420 be liable for third degree murder.

00:11:25.640 Yeah.

00:11:26.140 I mean, as, as you should be.

00:11:28.500 Um, and I think that the, you know, Singapore just takes it much more seriously.

00:11:32.020 I think Lee Kuan Yew in a famous interview once said that if we could, if we could hang

00:11:35.120 these drug dealers a hundred times, we would, um, that they take it that seriously.

00:11:38.920 Uh, and, and, and it seems like they have a very good reason to a very good moral reason,

00:11:43.960 um, for saying, sorry, no, no, no, this is what you're doing.

00:11:47.600 The activity you're engaged in is causing so much trauma and so much death and destruction

00:11:53.440 that you need to be stopped.

00:11:55.560 And we need to deter this behavior as much as possible.

00:11:57.460 What you're saying is it's, it's pragmatism, pragmatism, pragmatism, that our values are what

00:12:03.660 works is what we're going to use.

00:12:05.700 We're not necessarily taking this from a holy book or a philosophy book.

00:12:10.660 We're going to use what works.

00:12:12.760 Come back next.

00:12:13.580 Will Chamberlain here, human events, Sunday special.

00:12:18.120 And we're back.

00:12:19.120 Will Chamberlain, we're discussing the Singapore option.

00:12:21.440 Now, well, one thing that I want to, to stress, and this is something that I saw getting totally

00:12:25.820 lost in that Twitter debate is that it's not just harsh on crime policies that made Singapore

00:12:32.320 successful.

00:12:33.400 It also was the fact that you're right.

00:12:35.700 They dealt with the intercultural strife as best they could, right?

00:12:39.660 Give everyone sort of a way in.

00:12:41.520 But then also that they totally superheated their economy and they were considered one

00:12:46.980 of the four Asian tigers in the 90s.

00:12:49.260 It was Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, and Singapore.

00:12:52.080 And so this idea of, hey, how about instead of everybody getting upset that, you know, that

00:12:59.260 somebody's got more than me or that this is going on or that's going on, we all just get

00:13:02.560 rich together.

00:13:03.320 Yeah, there's an enormous amount of economic freedom and a complete, you know, a very,

00:13:09.840 very serious focus on free trade, getting people to come in and start up companies there, like

00:13:15.740 inviting foreign corporations in, soliciting them.

00:13:18.480 There was a huge amount of focus on a workforce development from the perspective of Lee Kuan Yew.

00:13:23.580 So, for example, the first language in the national language of Singapore is English.

00:13:28.460 And that did not have to be the case.

00:13:30.500 After the United Kingdom left and, I mean, first it was part of the Malaysian Federation and then

00:13:36.520 an independent country, there's not a whole bunch of English people of origin from the United

00:13:43.100 Kingdom in Singapore.

00:13:45.160 So that easily could have been, you know, they could have adopted Mandarin as their primary

00:13:49.000 language.

00:13:49.440 They could have adopted Indian or one of the Indian languages as their primary language.

00:13:54.100 But they adopted English because they knew that it would give them an advantage in the

00:13:58.040 global marketplace.

00:13:58.640 And so you have a slew of very, very wise and sound policies economically that really made the

00:14:05.680 country very wealthy, rewarded, you know, economic industry, kept taxes reasonably low and allowed

00:14:13.160 for you to build, you know, really build Singapore into this economic powerhouse that then when combined

00:14:18.460 with their seriously tough on crime policies has made the place a wonderful place to live.

00:14:22.500 And, and, and that's something that I think we should also get into in the United States.

00:14:28.120 So obviously we have the tension between left and right when it comes to economic policy.

00:14:33.600 I think the right is settling into a place where, okay, we don't want to be full on

00:14:38.940 libs when it comes to, oh, we're going to just hand out everything and we're going to raise

00:14:45.000 carbon credits and somehow that's going to make the planet cooler or stop global warming or whatever.

00:14:49.520 But at the same time, we're also not going to be full on, this is where the new right kind

00:14:53.640 of comes in, where we're not going to be, uh, uh, president Trump came out and I've seen

00:14:58.920 a lot of, uh, conservatives coming out saying recently about, no, we're not going to go Paul

00:15:03.820 Ryan and Mitt Romney and, and shut down or, or cut or privatize Medicare, Medicaid, social

00:15:08.920 security, that we're just not going to touch these things.

00:15:10.620 We're just going to leave them where they are.

00:15:12.100 Obviously it's, it's smart politics.

00:15:14.400 And, and I think really there's, the country's just not ready for that.

00:15:17.760 Um, I think in a lot of reasons, and so finding this better, this better middle ground, whereas

00:15:22.980 Romney and Paul Ryan, we're trying to go full, like, um, get rid of all the entitlement programs

00:15:28.240 right away.

00:15:28.780 Even these ones that people have paid into their entire lives, which I think rightfully

00:15:31.900 so, um, made people lose their minds.

00:15:34.060 But at the same time, you are also seeing, you know, uh, conservatives and the new right,

00:15:40.340 I think, and, and as I wanted to get into the criminal section of it, because it's, it's

00:15:45.880 sort of like, which, which one are we, are we the people that are saying that we want

00:15:49.880 to be tough on crime?

00:15:50.860 Or are we the people who are saying that we support the first step deck?

00:15:53.500 Because it seems like we're trying to do both at the same time right now.

00:15:55.840 And I don't think that makes sense.

00:15:57.560 Yeah.

00:15:57.860 You know, I look back at some of my old tweets about the first step back and I'm kind of

00:16:01.080 cringe, honestly.

00:16:01.880 I, I, I think that they were, uh, I ultimately think that was the wrong policy and that we

00:16:07.380 should, that we need to be stricter on crime and that we've been, we've, we went in the

00:16:11.200 totally wrong direction.

00:16:12.960 Um, like the problem, as I said before, that there, we do need criminal justice reform in

00:16:17.500 this country.

00:16:17.880 We need more people to go to jail and for the penalties to be more severe.

00:16:21.440 Uh, I mean, you know, whether it's like people not getting severe enough penalties for

00:16:25.960 serious crimes, like armed robbery and assault, or whether people aren't getting serious

00:16:30.660 enough punishment for sort of these, you know, crimes of choice and convenience, the sort

00:16:36.420 of protest crimes where people stand in the middle of highways or destroy public patrimony

00:16:40.540 and throw paint on throw or throw tomato soup on paintings, all that stuff should be punished

00:16:45.260 more heavily.

00:16:45.960 And it's the kind of stuff that Singapore would never tolerate in a million years.

00:16:48.560 I mean, they, again, they would give you a thousand dollar fine for spitting out gum

00:16:50.840 on the sidewalk.

00:16:51.420 Imagine what they do if you, uh, threw tomato soup on a painting.

00:16:55.020 Yeah.

00:16:55.400 There was Helen Andrews in DC was counting fair jumpers.

00:16:59.820 She just went down to the Metro and was counting fair jumpers one morning in the DC Metro.

00:17:03.980 She counted 40.

00:17:05.640 And she even asked somebody, she said, well, why do you do this every day?

00:17:08.700 He said, well, it's cheaper.

00:17:09.780 And, and someone else said, I don't think I've ever paid for the Metro in my entire life.

00:17:15.940 Just never done that.

00:17:17.160 And this gets into the broken windows theory.

00:17:19.820 And I've interviewed, um, mayor Giuliani on this.

00:17:22.720 And I've always said that in, you know, in addition to his nine 11 response, it's one of

00:17:28.020 the greatest things he did as mayor was to clean up the city of New York and the broken

00:17:32.220 windows policy, the growth windows theory to break it down for people.

00:17:36.460 I have, um, I have like sort of the textbook definition here.

00:17:39.600 And that was something that Giuliani put into practice.

00:17:42.120 The broken windows theory stems from the work of two criminologists, George Kelling and James

00:17:46.840 Wilson, who suggested that minor disorder like vandalism acts as a gateway to more serious

00:17:51.240 crime.

00:17:51.720 By focusing on small offenses, often referred to as quality of life crimes, Kelling and Wilson

00:17:57.420 thought violent crime and other undesirable activity would decrease.

00:18:01.240 Well, when Giuliani attempted or put enacted this policy, put it into practice, did it work?

00:18:06.980 Yeah, it worked really well.

00:18:08.580 Um, work in Singapore when it was done to, uh, there's, I think there's sort of this success.

00:18:15.380 Yeah, it's wildly successful.

00:18:16.800 And I mean, there, there is sort of an, there are really good art reasons to think that there's

00:18:21.200 a causal relationship between punishing low level crime and reducing higher level crime.

00:18:25.880 Um, you end up with nicer places that people are happier to be in.

00:18:29.820 That's a, that's, let's start there.

00:18:31.040 That seem much safer and cleaner in general.

00:18:33.000 I think people's environment, uh, has some impact on the likelihood that they will want

00:18:37.260 to commit crime in the first place.

00:18:38.400 Um, and then, you know, once you, you also create a culture of, uh, by, you know, abiding

00:18:44.500 by the law and expecting to be punished, even if you break the law in small ways, which leads

00:18:49.200 to further, you know, a kind of culture grows where people just start abiding, you know,

00:18:53.520 you know, abiding by the law on their own.

00:18:55.380 And then once you get there, then you get to the situation where you've freed up your

00:18:59.280 police officers to track down serious crime and make sure that's gets punished too.

00:19:02.780 Um, but it's the idea here is that you shouldn't be letting go of the rope, that you should

00:19:07.580 be punishing these low level crimes in order to make people understand that this is a place

00:19:11.520 where you're going to be expected to abide by the law.

00:19:13.940 Um, and I think, I think the idea of a gateway to, you know, once you start breaking the law,

00:19:18.320 maybe you'll start breaking it in, in different ways, or you'll, you create a social expectation

00:19:22.940 that breaking the law won't end up getting punished.

00:19:25.600 And I think, I think we see that you look at the places where they talk about, oh, we need

00:19:28.860 to stop prosecuting these low offenses and they're, they're nightmares to live in now.

00:19:32.080 And they're disgusting to San Francisco, Los Angeles.

00:19:35.380 We're, we're essentially right to get to just explain for folks, what you're saying is that

00:19:39.820 what we've enacted or the Soros prosecutors or the woke process, whatever you call it,

00:19:44.320 we're doing the opposite.

00:19:45.640 We're doing the exact opposite right now in, you know, I'm from the Philadelphia area.

00:19:49.660 You're originally from the Bay area, but our home areas, right.

00:19:53.640 And we're in hometowns essentially are experimenting with the opposite of this.

00:19:57.460 And it's a free for all.

00:19:58.840 It's a free for all of death and murder and blood of, of, of people, of children in many

00:20:04.600 cases.

00:20:05.280 And it seems like we're not even allowed to talk about it.

00:20:08.300 Yeah.

00:20:08.840 I mean, it creates a, it creates a really terrible culture.

00:20:12.100 I mean, I think about, you know, that, that store owner who sprayed the homeless woman with

00:20:16.000 water like that, that shouldn't happen in the first place.

00:20:18.220 He called the police on that woman 20 times.

00:20:19.940 She was breaking the law, but when the police do nothing, you get, not only do you get like

00:20:24.960 increased law ranking, you get vigilantism.

00:20:27.320 I mean, the entire point of having a justice, criminal justice system in the first place

00:20:30.840 is to prevent vigilante justice and the sort of, you know, vendetta type reciprocal murders.

00:20:36.760 That's, that's, that's how, why justice systems came to be in the first place.

00:20:40.460 One of the things, you know, liberals fail the sort of Chesterton's fence argument where

00:20:45.280 they, they destroy something without understanding why it was built in the first place and what

00:20:49.360 problems it solved.

00:20:51.260 What is really for the audience?

00:20:53.960 So Chesterton's Chesterton had a saying about his fence or Chesterton had a saying, it went

00:20:59.480 something like this.

00:21:00.540 If you see a fence and you don't know why it was put up, you shouldn't take it down.

00:21:04.200 Right.

00:21:04.600 You should be able to answer the question of why it was put up first.

00:21:07.920 And if you don't have a good answer to that, then that you don't understand the problem

00:21:12.460 it's solving.

00:21:13.280 It's a good border policy too, by the way.

00:21:14.940 Yeah.

00:21:15.120 It's good border policy, right?

00:21:16.240 You shouldn't, shouldn't take down fences unless you fully, thoroughly understand why they were

00:21:19.300 put up in the first place.

00:21:19.700 To get into your, to get into that further, it's by the way, you know, there's somebody

00:21:23.680 else who, who understood this same issue.

00:21:26.660 And that person was Karl Marx, because if you actually read Marx's theory that it isn't,

00:21:32.880 he doesn't just believe in the, you know, joie and the proletariat, because he also understood

00:21:38.580 something called the lumpen proletariat known as, you know, I would say in English, the criminal

00:21:44.340 class, that there are groups of people who could essentially be just, just geared

00:21:49.260 towards criminal activity or, uh, for a variety of reasons, or you're always going to have

00:21:53.460 criminals in any society.

00:21:54.640 We just know that, um, we can get into the issues why, but also the meager issue, I think

00:21:59.800 is that if you're catching those criminals, when they're committing the minor crimes, if

00:22:05.600 you've, uh, caught the person who is dealing drugs at 14, then maybe they won't become a

00:22:11.180 high level drug dealer at 16.

00:22:13.160 If you've caught them when they're smashing windows, when they're doing vandalism, we've seen

00:22:17.040 this time and time again, and any criminologist will show you that no one starts out, uh, with,

00:22:22.820 with, you know, no serial killer starts out with serial killing.

00:22:25.940 They start out with smaller, uh, and they move their way up through the spectrum of this,

00:22:30.120 the broken windows policy.

00:22:32.200 Guess what?

00:22:32.540 It catches that.

00:22:34.360 Yeah.

00:22:34.680 I mean, it does, uh, it does a lot of good.

00:22:36.640 It helps with rehabilitation, as you say, um, it helps with deterrence.

00:22:41.060 Uh, I mean, I, one of the things there, there's a criminologist, I think there was a study in

00:22:45.460 Hawaii where they were looking at how to ensure that, um, people comply with a drunk driving

00:22:50.200 program.

00:22:51.000 And essentially one of the ways they did it is they made people, they had a system that

00:22:55.100 wasn't super punitive necessarily, but was almost always enforced, right?

00:22:59.580 There was never any getting out of it.

00:23:01.060 Um, and so you could, you just, people knew that if they didn't show up on, you know,

00:23:06.060 to, for their, uh, alcohol test, if they didn't do something, police would be there within

00:23:10.580 hours and they would be taken away.

00:23:12.140 And that was different from other places that didn't have as consistent enforcement.

00:23:15.640 And that was what, you know, that was, what was really necessary for something like that.

00:23:18.660 You need, you need, you need punitive laws that effectively deter the behavior and you

00:23:22.700 need, you need consistency of enforcement for illegal behavior too.

00:23:25.620 Now you certainly need consistency of behavior and we're coming up on our second break right

00:23:29.820 here, but on the next one, I want to get into this question of what is the best punishment

00:23:36.700 for crime?

00:23:37.520 Are prisons what we need for what we need to do?

00:23:40.920 Should we have more prisons?

00:23:41.920 Should we have less prison?

00:23:42.820 Why do we have prisons?

00:23:43.720 Where did prisons come from?

00:23:44.960 Where did this idea come from?

00:23:46.280 That if you do, if you commit crimes against society, that you have to go sit in a room for

00:23:51.460 a certain period of time, uh, we're going to get into that because what's interesting for

00:23:55.860 people that they may not understand is that the history of prisons isn't quite

00:23:59.820 as old as they might think coming right back.

00:24:02.860 Will Chamberlain here, human events, Sunday special.

00:24:07.620 And we're back here, human events, Sunday special with Will Chamberlain.

00:24:11.700 Will, did you know that they censored Aladdin?

00:24:14.340 Remember Aladdin, the movie, the Disney movie?

00:24:16.220 I watched Aladdin all the time.

00:24:18.300 I used to watch that used to be the movie that I would annoy my parents by watching over and

00:24:22.940 over and over again.

00:24:23.620 So I'm sure you remember, you remember the line, um, where they cut off your ear.

00:24:29.800 If they don't like your face is the original songs, the traitor who at the end or whatever

00:24:36.720 is, is singing that song.

00:24:38.720 You know, that line was changed.

00:24:40.760 It was, why is that?

00:24:42.500 It was.

00:24:43.060 And then they say it's, it's barbaric, but Hey, it's home.

00:24:46.100 Um, so this line was considered racist even in the 1990s by 90 standards, sort of like

00:24:51.620 when America had our first dabble with political correctness and like the OJ case came up, um,

00:24:56.240 which is the first time America just decided to let someone off of, uh, off from, from punishment

00:25:01.260 for murder because of the color of the skin and because he was famous.

00:25:04.020 Um, that they changed it to it's, it's hot and intense rather the land is flat and hot

00:25:12.140 and intense.

00:25:13.080 It's barbaric, but there are tones.

00:25:14.520 Of course the line doesn't make any sense.

00:25:15.680 And then the Will Smith version, it's further changed for 2019.

00:25:19.560 And they also took away the line of what I actually, I don't know why I went down this

00:25:24.380 rabbit hole, but I absolutely had to, um, because it's like, wait a minute, this was in

00:25:27.780 like an Aladdin movie, right?

00:25:28.940 If when he says, I'll have your hand street rat, you know, and it's the great voice actor.

00:25:34.020 Jim Cummings, who's screaming that because he's referring to the practice of chopping

00:25:37.400 a thief's handoff.

00:25:38.540 Um, that line is totally gone from the Will Smith version that came out in 2019, just gone

00:25:43.820 completely.

00:25:44.940 And it is too bad.

00:25:47.380 And so when I wanted to mention the, the history of prisons, because I found an interesting,

00:25:54.000 an interesting article, uh, about this when I was just doing research and, and, and show

00:26:01.620 prep for this.

00:26:02.820 And, and that article was called in defense of flogging and, and it said, and, and to

00:26:10.460 go through, it was, it was written by, by a prison reformer, a guy who had been a former

00:26:13.660 police officer in the city of Baltimore, which, you know, just a paragon of safety and peace,

00:26:18.520 Baltimore.

00:26:19.400 Um, you know, if anyone has seen the wire, we just know how, how wonderful and utopian.

00:26:23.400 I mean, you know, Baltimore is probably the American city that's closest to Singapore,

00:26:26.460 as far as I'm concerned and, uh, yeah, yeah.

00:26:31.020 Very sick sarcasm there.

00:26:32.300 Um, that he writes, so here's what's interesting.

00:26:35.400 He writes that it was the progressive reformers of the past two centuries are responsible for

00:26:42.200 the fact that we have the prison system today.

00:26:44.980 And the prison system originally came about in the 1800s, early 1800s, uh, around this idea

00:26:52.180 of their penitentiaries and reformatories.

00:26:55.780 One of the reasons for this, uh, Michel Foucault, of course, is a huge proponent of, of this

00:27:01.400 type of the, the rehabilitative act.

00:27:03.920 And it's a very progressive, um, idea that you can take someone and rehabilitate them through,

00:27:10.560 through prison, through the use of, of holding someone in a cell for an indefinite period of

00:27:15.760 time, or, or even a definite period of time that you will somehow change their nature.

00:27:19.700 And he writes, he goes, this in the, this in the, uh, Chronicle of Higher Learning prisons

00:27:24.340 today have all but abandoned rehabilitative ideals, which isn't such a bad thing.

00:27:28.960 If one sees the notion as nothing more than paternalistic hogwash.

00:27:32.820 And he wrote, he then wrote for those who are, who are opposed to the penitentiary system,

00:27:37.840 all that's left then is punishment.

00:27:39.680 And we certainly could punish in a way that is much cheaper, honest, and even more humane.

00:27:45.500 We could flog.

00:27:48.120 We could flog.

00:27:49.120 That's an amazing article.

00:27:50.300 I think, I think he's onto something there.

00:27:52.220 You know, there are a lot of different purposes to punishment.

00:27:55.100 Um, and there's deterrence, the idea of deterring other people from committing crimes.

00:27:59.880 Uh, there's re there's a incapacitation, namely just taking someone who's just can't help,

00:28:04.980 but engage in criminal activity and keeping them away from the public.

00:28:08.560 Um, there's about a statement of values about the value of victims and the rights of victims,

00:28:13.720 because, you know, if a victim's life is taken away, it's not, you're almost saying as a society

00:28:18.220 that that life wasn't meaningful if you don't inflict severe punishment on the perpetrator.

00:28:22.420 And then there's rehabilitation.

00:28:23.780 And it really is like the least important thing when it comes to criminal justice.

00:28:27.380 Criminal justice isn't for the good of the criminal.

00:28:30.520 Criminal justice is for the rest of us.

00:28:32.120 Yes.

00:28:32.660 And rehabilitation is something that you sort of, you know, maybe it's something you add

00:28:37.920 on at the end.

00:28:38.640 And it's like, you know, if the other goals are being met, then sure, help rehabilitate

00:28:42.060 people who are going to get out of jail.

00:28:43.500 That's again, probably good for the rest of us.

00:28:46.200 But that's not the focus.

00:28:48.460 That's not why we have the jails in the first place.

00:28:50.440 They're not, you know, there's, these aren't therapy sessions.

00:28:53.120 Um, they're places to incapacitate you and deter others from committing crime.

00:28:57.600 Right.

00:28:58.000 And so what people need to understand is that the current system of the penitentiaries

00:29:02.120 that we have today, it's only been around for about 200 years, uh, for thousands of

00:29:06.200 years that, and everyone can say, well, wait a minute, I've, I've seen, you know, game

00:29:09.620 of Thrones and I've, I've seen old, old books and they all talk about dungeons and people

00:29:14.140 being held down there, et cetera, et cetera.

00:29:16.120 Well, the dungeon or, which of course comes from, from French word for keep, uh, which,

00:29:21.200 which is also the same word as a tower.

00:29:22.740 You'll be locked in the tower, you know, tower of London, et cetera.

00:29:25.520 That, uh, we all know what the tower of London was about.

00:29:28.200 And most people didn't stay there for far too long.

00:29:30.120 Um, especially those princes, um, that if you were awaiting trial or you had finished

00:29:40.020 trial and you're awaiting your punishment, then you were held in the jail or the gal.

00:29:45.480 Uh, this was not, there was no sense that you would be held there for an indefinite period

00:29:50.200 of time, uh, or that would be your punishment.

00:29:52.780 It's that you were, you were there while you were waiting for your punishment to begin

00:29:56.940 or while you were, you know, that logistically needed a place to hold somebody where they

00:30:00.780 couldn't run away to escape trial.

00:30:02.380 That was the whole point.

00:30:03.600 But it's only about 200 years ago, which in, in terms of human history, isn't that long

00:30:08.420 that they came up with this new idea that what if we take away these, I, this idea of punishment,

00:30:14.420 what if we take away, which, which prior to that, uh, forced labor, I mean, forced labor goes

00:30:18.400 all the way back to the Roman empire, um, home, they used forced labor.

00:30:22.240 I mean, build the aqueduct, build the road, you know, you always need someone to do that.

00:30:27.060 Um, you know, paying your debts, uh, transport, of course, which of course is, as goes back

00:30:31.520 to the founding of Australia, botany Bay, uh, punishment by transportation was, uh, huge

00:30:36.920 in the British empire because, well, we have colonies that need building and you're going

00:30:40.060 to be sent down to build those colonies.

00:30:41.640 It's building colonies sucks and it's hard work and nobody likes it.

00:30:46.980 Um, you, you hear the, the, it's kind of, that's another debate on Twitter right now,

00:30:50.620 the ruralist debate and say, well, just, you know, just go, go live on a homestead and

00:30:54.560 be a peasant.

00:30:55.240 I said, why are you glorifying the peasant lifestyle?

00:30:57.220 That sounds awful, you know?

00:30:59.120 And, uh, you know, there's a reason we have society the way we do today and we've, we've

00:31:02.620 built upon it.

00:31:03.260 We're trying to fix society.

00:31:04.440 We're not necessarily trying to return to peasantry and, and husbandry and, and, and hunter

00:31:09.260 gathering that, that, not that I have anything against hunter gathering, uh, by all means,

00:31:13.100 but, but, you know, I was about to go hunt somebody on the streets of Arlington.

00:31:17.660 I was looking for a deer.

00:31:19.540 Go for it.

00:31:20.180 I don't know.

00:31:20.440 Clarendon doesn't really have many deer.

00:31:21.780 It's too bad.

00:31:22.240 No, not really.

00:31:22.920 No.

00:31:23.140 But you know, we have this nice thing called supermarkets.

00:31:25.480 Um, yeah, but venison good.

00:31:28.760 Excellent.

00:31:28.980 So it's, it's, so the, the first state prison in England was Millibank prison.

00:31:33.220 It was only open in 1816 and prison.

00:31:36.700 The prison system is not old.

00:31:38.040 It's not old at all.

00:31:39.440 And so the question I would have is, you know, and then let's go back to Michael Faye

00:31:42.960 and let's go back to Singapore because that's the overall discussion here is would you, or

00:31:47.680 could you even think of anyone who, if they were offered the chance between, so he got

00:31:52.920 four lashes, right?

00:31:54.000 He was sentenced to six.

00:31:55.380 He ended up getting four.

00:31:56.520 Would you take four lashes or would you rather sit in prison for four years, four years of

00:32:03.140 your life?

00:32:03.560 I mean, I think any criminal and any person would rather take the lashes, right?

00:32:06.680 You don't want to lose four years of your life.

00:32:09.440 Um, I think what Singapore gets right is interesting is it's not an, they don't see it as an either

00:32:14.120 or though they do both.

00:32:15.780 Right.

00:32:16.180 And they're, and both have different aspects of effects on the potential criminal, right?

00:32:20.940 Like maybe some criminals aren't that scared of prison or they, you know, say, okay, whatever,

00:32:25.180 the risk of prison isn't that bad, but they're particularly scared of cap corporal punishment,

00:32:28.960 um, or vice versa.

00:32:31.380 So they just, they don't, you know, I think what Singapore gets right is they do both.

00:32:35.480 They, they do both.

00:32:36.440 And, and it's, and it's good and just to do both.

00:32:38.480 It's, it's the right thing to, to punish truly awful behavior.

00:32:42.520 Um, it's not, you know, it's not beyond the pale to say, to use as the Singaporeans do

00:32:47.480 caning.

00:32:47.800 And, and that, that is an interesting piece for us that we, as a society, when we do talk

00:32:54.480 about this, and then the fact that America has got, we've got more people in prison right

00:32:57.700 now than we have in our entire, uh, military.

00:33:01.420 And so my question is, is this something where, where the right and the left could actually

00:33:06.080 come together a little bit to say, yeah, you know what, it is kind of silly that we're

00:33:09.540 just shoving people in prison, assuming that's going to help.

00:33:11.640 And by the way, I've, I know people I've, and you can read studies about this where, uh,

00:33:17.800 people have said that, you know, hitting rock bottom, uh, getting that, you know, scared

00:33:22.460 straight, uh, experience is actually quite useful for them to say, you know what?

00:33:26.800 Yeah, I had my brush with, with that.

00:33:28.920 And I definitely don't want any more of that whatsoever.

00:33:32.200 And so the question though is, so it works for some people certainly, but what about people

00:33:36.140 who are repeat offenders who don't have anything left to lose?

00:33:40.040 I mean, what, what really is prison for them?

00:33:43.420 And then you also have the problem of, um, who's the guy in, uh, you know, uh, uh, in

00:33:48.920 Shawshank, he, you know, he comes out and after being spending entire, his entire adult

00:33:52.340 life in prison, then he commits suicide because he doesn't know how to live outside an institution.

00:33:58.220 Yeah.

00:33:58.380 And in a way prison is, is a way to sort of take criminal justice and put it out of sight,

00:34:03.540 out of mind.

00:34:04.760 Uh, it's a way to make it something we don't think about and see compared to, you know, other

00:34:08.900 forms of punishment.

00:34:09.780 I think that the analog is to capital punishment where we, where we use things like lethal

00:34:13.900 injection to sort of medicalize, um, capital punishment when it's, when it's an execution.

00:34:19.160 And I think there, Alex Kaczynski, Judge Alex Kaczynski in California, um, you know, he,

00:34:24.840 he long, he's a very, a libertarian and, and definitely not somebody who was just a, a

00:34:29.600 reflexive authoritarian by any means, but he said, we should go back to firing squads.

00:34:34.300 Um, they're more humane cause it happens quicker.

00:34:37.000 There aren't any mess ups and they don't, they stop us from pretending that what we're

00:34:40.520 doing isn't capital punishment.

00:34:41.680 And I think the, the analog here is, uh, when you're, we shouldn't pretend that criminal

00:34:47.240 justice isn't really criminal justice and that we're better than caning and that that's

00:34:52.100 somehow less humane or more humane than, you know, putting somebody in a, in a cell for

00:34:57.220 30 years.

00:34:59.260 Yeah.

00:34:59.740 And I don't think it's humane at all.

00:35:01.320 And it, it, and maybe it makes us feel better.

00:35:03.240 Maybe it makes people say, Oh, I'm not sure.

00:35:05.880 You know, I hear people, I hear other people say like, Oh, the, the, you know, life sentence

00:35:09.700 is worse than death penalty.

00:35:11.080 And I don't think so.

00:35:12.660 I certainly don't think so at all.

00:35:14.360 Um, no, I, I think the death penalty is definitely worse.

00:35:16.520 That's why people are against it.

00:35:17.800 You know, that's why, that's why the reformers hate it so much.

00:35:20.580 Um, but this, you know, three hots and a cot for the rest of your life.

00:35:23.780 That's not bad for some people, depending on where they're coming from.

00:35:26.460 So that is something that I'd like to get back into.

00:35:29.580 And we're talking about corporal punishment in general, as well as other forms of punishment

00:35:33.560 that aren't necessarily prison, which is what Singapore is doing.

00:35:36.780 They're saying, look, we are, you, you have broken our laws.

00:35:39.680 You've broken our trust.

00:35:40.840 You've acted in willful defiance of our system and our system matters.

00:35:44.220 And if you have done so, we are going to correct you.

00:35:48.160 We are going to correct you in a way that's going to make sure to get it across.

00:35:50.860 And by the way, we don't spank in our house for my two boys.

00:35:54.100 You know, we don't spank at all, but you know, we, you know what, maybe just maybe for adults,

00:35:59.160 maybe they, what, what they need is a good adult form of spanking through a flogging or

00:36:04.420 a caning and what, because in Singapore, guess what?

00:36:06.380 It works.

00:36:06.800 But in the next segment, I want to get into that thorny question of the death penalty.

00:36:09.940 And we're back here at Human Events.

00:36:14.500 Now, Will, I'd like to read a quote for you from one of the, the, the great death penalty

00:36:20.320 advocates in, in the world.

00:36:23.120 And that of course is Pope Pius XII of the Catholic church said, whoa, wait a minute.

00:36:28.540 I thought the Catholic church was against the death penalty.

00:36:30.680 Well, Pope Francis is against the death penalty, but prior to that, there's a little something

00:36:35.260 called the entire history of the Catholic church.

00:36:37.940 And it's, I think it would be, it would be kind of silly if you know anything about the

00:36:41.920 history of the Catholic church to say that the church has always been against the death

00:36:44.620 penalty when I can point to a lot of instances where that's just quite not the case.

00:36:49.660 But here's, but, but the church has always stated, and this, this is something with, I

00:36:53.380 will be serious about that, that, that is up to the state, that it's always been up to

00:36:57.580 the state.

00:36:58.380 And here's what Pope Pius says about this.

00:37:00.520 He says, even in the case of the death penalty, the state does not dispose the individual's

00:37:06.660 right to life rather public authority limits itself to depriving the offender of the good

00:37:13.700 of life in expiation for his guilt.

00:37:16.940 After he threw his crime deprived himself of his own right to life.

00:37:24.480 We'll unpack that for us.

00:37:25.960 What does that mean?

00:37:27.160 Well, I mean, it, it means that, you know, that the idea that it's like somehow an immoral

00:37:33.000 or unlawful killing is just wrong.

00:37:35.120 I think that, you know, people often say, at least to Catholics that it's like, oh, you're

00:37:39.600 pro-life.

00:37:40.040 Well, then you can't be for the death penalty.

00:37:41.460 Then it's like, no, the death penalty is, is appropriate in certain circumstances because

00:37:45.560 it's about respecting the fact that, you know, they have violated someone else.

00:37:49.240 Generally it's because somebody killed someone, um, or they did something so against the moral

00:37:53.540 order that it was responsible for other people's death.

00:37:55.640 So it's the idea that you have violated, you know, God's law.

00:37:59.120 Um, you've deprived yourself of your own right to life and, and that's the, the state is

00:38:03.920 just ensuring that you don't get something you don't deserve.

00:38:06.700 I've seen you, uh, you use on Twitter and I've definitely adopted it, but I'll credit

00:38:10.900 to where it's due that you've used on Twitter that the death penalty is pro-life.

00:38:15.160 Yeah, I think, I think the death penalty, yeah, the death penalty is pro-life.

00:38:18.760 I think there's a great, another borrowing from Kaczynski again, when he talked about, um,

00:38:24.280 that he had something very, very interesting to say about the death penalty, which is that,

00:38:27.680 you know, people say it's like, Oh, how could you, that's so inhumane.

00:38:30.040 And it's like, if you actually read the briefing, he says, like, you could hear the piercing

00:38:34.740 cries of the victims in between the lines of the dry legal text, like what the cases where

00:38:39.420 the death penalty is brought up, you know, involves such incredibly appalling and horrifying

00:38:44.160 behavior that it's like, there's no other, there's no, no other worthy punishment.

00:38:47.740 And, um, and by the way, we're talking about horrific rapes.

00:38:51.600 We're talking about, uh, the violation of young children.

00:38:55.180 We're talking about, um, just, just cold blooded murders in many, many instances.

00:39:02.640 Um, and, and, and by the way, well, let's, let's know, Bill is a lawyer.

00:39:08.020 Um, and, uh, walk me through a little bit, you know, the, the question of what, what about

00:39:13.640 when the state gets it wrong?

00:39:15.060 So, and I always hear that argument come up.

00:39:17.080 What about when the state gets it wrong?

00:39:18.340 What about DNA?

00:39:19.200 What about when people are exonerated?

00:39:20.760 You know, did these people get a chance, uh, in modern society to have a, an appeal?

00:39:26.440 Do they have other people look at it?

00:39:27.740 What's, what's going on with all that?

00:39:29.760 I mean, I think in the modern world with the current technology we have, um, it's now, so

00:39:36.260 I'm sure absolutely people should have access to DNA evidence to prove their innocence or

00:39:40.840 to overturn prior convictions that may have been wrongful, but that doesn't mean that

00:39:45.420 the death penalty isn't still called for when somebody is clearly guilty of the crime.

00:39:49.380 That's kind of a double insured, isn't it?

00:39:51.340 Yeah.

00:39:51.920 I mean, yes, it means that on occasion the state will execute someone that is innocent.

00:39:55.800 I mean, you, but that's, I mean, I don't think that's an indictment of every form of criminal

00:40:00.860 justice that there is.

00:40:02.060 I mean, it's basically saying any, you know, there's always the possibility of wrongful punishment

00:40:05.880 when you're running a criminal justice system.

00:40:07.600 Um, is that with the technology that we have, that everyone should have access to it to prove

00:40:13.140 their innocence, but the state also has greater access to highly advanced technology to prove

00:40:18.100 guilt.

00:40:18.900 And that is the type of evidence that comes out on appeal after appeal in court after court

00:40:26.000 after court that in, even in our system, we don't, you know, and I think we all know

00:40:31.660 this, that because we don't really, even in states with the death penalty in the United States,

00:40:35.760 I suppose with the exception of Texas, even though Texas has gotten a little wobbly on this,

00:40:39.420 if you look at the Rodney Reed case, um, which I've been covering for years, um, where it's a guy

00:40:44.360 that, I mean, they got him dead to rights.

00:40:45.800 They've got, they've got semen, they've got blood, they've got saliva, they've got everything.

00:40:50.280 And yet they keep trying and Kim Kardashian gets involved to, uh, find a way to, you know,

00:40:56.560 to get this guy off.

00:40:57.920 Meanwhile, these, they've just got him dead to rights.

00:41:01.280 Yeah.

00:41:02.480 Um, that's, I think that's actually the, I mean, if anything, the, the problem with our,

00:41:08.140 our system is that it's, it's a little bit too, there's a little bit too many opportunities

00:41:12.920 for appeal.

00:41:13.520 And, and as a result, the, the process for getting through and death penalty law has been

00:41:18.100 made very convoluted by the Supreme court.

00:41:19.900 Um, and as a result, you end up with people on death row for something like 30 years and

00:41:24.020 that's not justice for the victims.

00:41:25.700 Uh, and also those extraordinarily expensive and, and arbitrary.

00:41:29.400 And it also leads to very perverse outcomes where it's like, it really does suddenly depend

00:41:33.660 on the quality of your legal counsel, whether or not they actually go through the conviction,

00:41:36.540 because if you have quality legal counsel, you can just delay, delay, delay, delay, and

00:41:40.980 avoid it.

00:41:41.700 So that's not just on an economic grounds either.

00:41:43.920 So there's, there's all sorts of problems with the way our system works in, in, in reality.

00:41:49.900 But I think people, you know, liberals often use the troubles, the difficulties of our

00:41:54.360 legal system in reality, to make objections to the death penalty in total.

00:41:58.740 And I don't think they undermine the basic moral case for the death penalty, which I feel

00:42:02.380 is fairly, fairly strong.

00:42:04.420 Well, and, and it's amazing too, because you also see these cases like Rodney Reed that

00:42:09.140 Kim Kardashian took up and she championed for years until I got involved.

00:42:12.960 Now you notice that she's completely shut up about it.

00:42:15.360 And he's, by the way, he's lost his appeals, um, all of them.

00:42:18.580 And, and in fact, when, uh, in, in cases where they've gone and done the testing, um, like

00:42:23.200 Julius Jones or some others that Kardashian has been involved in, the testing always comes

00:42:27.540 back and only further incriminates the, the person who was convicted.

00:42:32.360 Uh, you've also got a case that she's turned into a Spotify podcast now called Kevin Keith,

00:42:36.800 where the, this is like this huge thing, massive push behind this corporate push.

00:42:41.740 And yet the victims, some of the surviving victims of that case have never come out and

00:42:47.000 recanted anything that they've said.

00:42:48.340 And they've said, no, the justice system got this right.

00:42:50.140 Uh, in the Rodney Reed case, the family has always said that, no, they've got this exactly

00:42:54.040 right.

00:42:54.880 Uh, our court system does have this incredible appeals process that you go through.

00:42:59.200 So for any, for any instance where people say that the death penalty isn't necessarily

00:43:02.720 a deterrent, I think that that's only because our justice system is so incredibly porous that

00:43:08.440 we're not actually applying any of these things the way they're intended to be.

00:43:12.400 Indeed.

00:43:12.960 I mean, I've actually been reading about criminal justice.

00:43:17.040 The, it seems as though the primary deterrent is that death row is just, is such a worse

00:43:21.440 form of imprisonment in the sense of the way you're treated by prison guards on death row

00:43:25.680 and the type of amenities you get as a prisoner are much, much, much worse.

00:43:30.600 And so that, that almost is the deterrent.

00:43:32.940 It's like almost, you don't have to, you don't expect to be executed.

00:43:36.160 You expect to have a much worse experience when you are in prison.

00:43:39.840 Um, that's not quite what we're going for.

00:43:42.260 I think, I think the idea of the death penalty is that some crimes deserve the ultimate punishment

00:43:46.700 and we're not really getting that out of our current system.

00:43:50.220 Well, and it's, and it is about respect for the society.

00:43:52.780 And as you said, the respect for the life of the individual who was either, I mean, there's

00:43:58.020 this case, this horrific case that Mia Cahill over at town hall has been discussing in

00:44:03.020 and, and reporting on and really revealing down in Atlanta, Georgia, where two pedophiles

00:44:07.660 were able to adopt two boys and, uh, repeatedly raped them over a period of several years.

00:44:13.180 And we're pimping them out on Snapchat and other, uh, internet functions.

00:44:17.200 And I, I, I look at that and I just say, death penalty, just, just death penalty.

00:44:21.840 I don't even want to have a conversation about it.

00:44:23.300 You know, that's what, that's what it exists for.

00:44:25.060 Horrifying crimes like these, the sexual abuse of children.

00:44:27.260 Like, no, we don't tolerate that in our society, period.

00:44:30.660 And stop.

00:44:31.120 You do that.

00:44:31.620 You die.

00:44:32.420 That's the proper attitude to have.

00:44:34.500 Um, and yeah, it has to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

00:44:37.300 And the victims are, you know, the criminal defendants are entitled to due process.

00:44:40.760 All that is still true.

00:44:42.200 But after the due process has been had, it's, you know, this is something we shouldn't tolerate

00:44:47.480 at all.

00:44:48.080 Due process is not endless process.

00:44:50.200 Right.

00:44:50.620 And I, you know, criminal justice reformers are saying, oh man, the punishments are just

00:44:54.820 too draconian.

00:44:55.520 It's like, no, they are not.

00:44:57.120 They need to be more draconian.

00:44:58.900 You're not talking to anybody outside of your little bubble.

00:45:01.480 Those, those, by the way, those, those child rapists down in Georgia, uh, you know, they

00:45:05.560 have iPads right now while they're in prison.

00:45:07.360 Yeah.

00:45:08.180 They have iPads that are hooked up to the internet.

00:45:10.500 Yeah.

00:45:10.860 This is the level of our prisons.

00:45:12.440 I mean, it's, it's ridiculous.

00:45:13.500 These are like country club.

00:45:15.340 Uh, yeah.

00:45:16.160 I mean, they haven't been convicted, so I can sort of see their argument like, well, we

00:45:20.320 haven't been convicted yet.

00:45:21.240 So, cause the purpose of imprisonment before judgment is to, you know, incapacitate, just

00:45:26.420 prevent you from doing anything in the short term, because we think you're dangerous to

00:45:29.140 the public.

00:45:30.100 But, you know, I think, you know, hopefully those get taken away.

00:45:34.040 I, so I haven't mentioned it much here, but my, um, my prison experience was spending

00:45:40.220 a year deployed at Guantanamo Bay.

00:45:42.200 So I've been inside the Guantanamo Bay detention facility.

00:45:45.620 I've interacted with detainees, uh, when there were, there were almost 200 detainees when I

00:45:50.320 was there 2012, 2013, um, under the Obama administration.

00:45:54.180 And, uh, it was fine.

00:45:57.420 It was totally fine.

00:45:59.100 There's these stories about torture and these stories about, um, uh, you know, calling,

00:46:04.840 calling enteral feeding torture, by the way, which is when they, you know, they, when, when

00:46:08.760 people go on a hunger strike and president Obama ordered us to not allow the prisoners

00:46:13.400 to cure the detainees to kill themselves.

00:46:15.240 So what the medics would do, and I got to see one of these, what the medics would do was

00:46:19.480 place a, a catheter, sort of like a lubricated catheter down the nose through the throat into

00:46:25.540 the stomach and then, and basically take, you know, those like ensure, um, like the

00:46:29.940 protein shakes and then just pour that down.

00:46:32.100 And this is a basic medical procedure that's done to accident victims in the United States

00:46:36.840 at a car accidents, trauma, people going through surgery, um, every single day.

00:46:41.400 And they, they turned around and called that torture.

00:46:44.440 Um, they go after DeSantis for this a lot, by the way, because he was a JAG, um, who was

00:46:47.760 stationed down there at one point as a lawyer, you know, you know, in all of this, but you

00:46:51.500 know, I'm, I'm sitting there looking at it and say, this is a medical procedure.

00:46:53.860 It's not torture at all.

00:46:54.800 None of these things with literature.

00:46:56.340 Um, yeah.

00:46:56.740 Like why are you, why are you entitled to the right to hunger, strike yourself to death

00:47:00.000 while you're in prison?

00:47:00.580 We don't, we don't agree with that as a society.

00:47:02.840 Like, right.

00:47:03.160 And, and, and when it comes to those guys, by the way, you know, there were some, I know

00:47:07.140 as an intelligence officer, of course, I, I did certainly enjoy the perspective of being

00:47:11.920 able to, to have them available for interrogation and intelligence collection.

00:47:15.800 But then again, prisoners of war are slightly different than, you know, a domestic prisoner.

00:47:20.920 Um, sure.

00:47:21.580 That, that, I mean, the argument for a domestic prisoner, like say a domestic prisoner goes

00:47:24.820 on a hunger strike, you know, does he, does he have the right to, that, that argument would

00:47:28.900 ultimately justify like applauding the prison guards who allowed just Jeffrey Epstein to

00:47:33.280 kill himself, right?

00:47:34.660 Like, you know, that's, that's, thank you for surfing for surfing eBay and not, uh, not

00:47:39.980 fixing the cameras.

00:47:40.820 Thank you so much.

00:47:41.740 Right.

00:47:42.060 Yeah.

00:47:42.220 Good, good for letting him kill himself.

00:47:43.620 He had the right to do what he wanted with his own life.

00:47:45.500 No wrong.

00:47:46.800 He did not.

00:47:47.480 He had forfeited that right.

00:47:48.480 He needed, he needed to face justice.

00:47:50.600 Well, I do think though that, and as, as we're about to wind down here, I do think that

00:47:54.660 this is, it's a hot debate.

00:47:55.980 I think that as the new right is kind of defining what it is and what it stands for and what

00:48:01.720 it doesn't stand for.

00:48:02.780 I think this is really something where the reformers, the criminal reformers, the just

00:48:08.380 us reformers and the Kim Kardashian types of the world, you're just losing because we're

00:48:13.260 trying and it ain't working and people are dying.

00:48:16.340 And if, and one thing, if you're violent, definitely get you off the streets.

00:48:21.320 But another thing, if we're going to talk about the prison issues, we need to bring back a

00:48:25.640 little something called corporal punishment.

00:48:28.480 Will Chamberlain, where can people find you?

00:48:30.560 I am online on Twitter, primarily at Will Chamberlain on Twitter.

00:48:34.520 All right.

00:48:34.840 At Will Chamberlain on Twitter, former colleague here at Human Events and the Senior Counsel at

00:48:40.100 the Internet Accountability Project.

00:48:41.920 Ladies and gentlemen, as always, you have my permission to lay ashore.

Human Events Daily with Jack Posobiec - January 29, 2023

SUNDAY SPECIAL： THE SINGAPORE OPTION

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