Citizen
Founder's Club Member
Did the idea that a crime is an offense against the state ever bug you?
When did the idea that the state can be offended by a crime against an individual get established in English law?
What sort of expansions of government power could this idea lead to?
Origins of the Fifth Amendment: The Right Against Self-Incrimination, by Leonard Levy. This book won the Pulitzer Prize in History. I've read that book a few times, but only recently did I notice a particular passage. I'll quote that passage below, but first let me paraphrase a bit of history from the book.
In medieval England, trials were held locally by the clergy and local lords, barons, earls, etc. Trial by ordeal. Carrying a hot iron in your hand for so many paces, thrown into water to see whether you would sink or float, etc.
When the Normans arrived in 1066 from France and took over, they brought with them trial by battle.
Here is the passage from the book:
What was long an irregular and in some respects an extraordinary procedure became under King Henry II (1154-89) normal and systematic...Henry II increased tremendously the jurisdiction of the royal courts [by sending royal judges on circuit into the country-side]...More boldly than his predecessors he regarded breaches of peace or threats to life and limb as offenses of a public nature, warranting more than private retribution. Crimes of a serious nature he took to be offenses against the king's peace, requiring settlement in the king's courts by the king's system of justice...(bold emphasis added by Citizen)
I think I just found the culprit, or one of them, for the idea that a crime is an offense against the state. Private offense vs offense against the state. Besides anything else, look at how upside down things have gotten: consider the movement for victim's rights over the last 20 years and the opposition to it.
Where does collectivism fit into this picture? How about government being the means for social change? How about regulating firearms?
Here's a question that's sure to ruffle some feathers. How about when some fellas in 1776 shifted from the king being the state to the people being the state?
When did the idea that the state can be offended by a crime against an individual get established in English law?
What sort of expansions of government power could this idea lead to?
Origins of the Fifth Amendment: The Right Against Self-Incrimination, by Leonard Levy. This book won the Pulitzer Prize in History. I've read that book a few times, but only recently did I notice a particular passage. I'll quote that passage below, but first let me paraphrase a bit of history from the book.
In medieval England, trials were held locally by the clergy and local lords, barons, earls, etc. Trial by ordeal. Carrying a hot iron in your hand for so many paces, thrown into water to see whether you would sink or float, etc.
When the Normans arrived in 1066 from France and took over, they brought with them trial by battle.
Here is the passage from the book:
What was long an irregular and in some respects an extraordinary procedure became under King Henry II (1154-89) normal and systematic...Henry II increased tremendously the jurisdiction of the royal courts [by sending royal judges on circuit into the country-side]...More boldly than his predecessors he regarded breaches of peace or threats to life and limb as offenses of a public nature, warranting more than private retribution. Crimes of a serious nature he took to be offenses against the king's peace, requiring settlement in the king's courts by the king's system of justice...(bold emphasis added by Citizen)
I think I just found the culprit, or one of them, for the idea that a crime is an offense against the state. Private offense vs offense against the state. Besides anything else, look at how upside down things have gotten: consider the movement for victim's rights over the last 20 years and the opposition to it.
Where does collectivism fit into this picture? How about government being the means for social change? How about regulating firearms?
Here's a question that's sure to ruffle some feathers. How about when some fellas in 1776 shifted from the king being the state to the people being the state?
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