At the beginning of things, this part of February was called Lupercalia – the Wolf Festival – and ancient Rome had semi-nude men running through the streets, using whips made from freshly-cut goat skins to whip young women into shape, a practice that carried on until 496 A.D.

This weird festival was held February 15 – at the base of Palatine Hill, next to the cave in which – tradition has it – Romulus and Remus had been suckled by that she-wolf had suckled, Lupercalia essentially a fertility rite.

The whole thing was orchestrated by the Directed by the brothers of the wolf – Luperci – kicking things off by sacrificing a dog and two male goats, wiping the faces of initiates with their blood before wiping wool dipped in milk over the faces to remove it. After that, the newly-cut whips would be used by initiates around streets flagellating women and promoting fertility by so doing.

It was actually 496AD before Pope Gelasius eventually I banned the wild. pagan ritual feast, declaring February 14 to be St. Valentine’s Day, though so much confusion over the identity of the patron saint of lovers has always existed, to the point that, in the 1960s, the Vatican dropped St. Valentine’s Day from the Catholic Church calendar of saints.

In the A.D. 200s, three men by the name Valentine lived and died, every one of them in a nasty manner, the first Valentine a Roman Empire priest guilty of aiding persecuted Christians during Claudius II time, and. beheaded on Feb. 14, as was the pious bishop of Terni. The third candidate was guilty of secretly marrying couples in defiance of a ban by Claudius II, this man signing a farewell note to his beloved – From your Valentine – before death by beating and decapitation.

English poet and author of The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer -1340?-1400 – wrote, in 1382 a poem dubbed Parliament of Fowls in which he suggested that  February 14 was the day on which birds chose their mates thus – For this was Seynt Valentyne’s Day. When every foul cometh ther to choose his mate.

In 1415, Duke Charles of Orleans, imprisoned in the Tower of London after being captured by the English wrote his wife Bonne d’Armagnac a rhyming love letter, now part of the British Library manuscript collection and considered the oldest known existing valentine message., even though the lines – I am already sick of love, My very gentle Valentine – were never seen by his wife who died before Charles’s 1440 return to France.

Humans are born with the tendency to retaliate when attacked. This is based on the fight-or-flight response that was first discovered by the distinguished Harvard physiologist, Walter Cannon. This is the body’s primordial, automatic, innate response humans automatically use as a mechanism for survival (Canon, 1914). The basis of this tendency is self-love. Freud (1914) says that every individual is said to be narcissistic in a certain degree. When attacked, a little boy automatically fights back even without the parent’s advice. When this boy calculates that the attacker is stronger, the boy will flee. Either way, the boy chooses to survive because he loves himself whether consciously or not. The moment when humans are attacked unexpectedly is a crucial time for various decisions. First, the individual has to decide whether he wants to survive or not. Most humans choose the first but extreme cases such as sacrifice, martyrdom, suicide, or sheer inanity make others choose otherwise. After choosing to survive, the next dilemma is to retaliate or to flee. When one chooses to flee, next is to choose whether to keep silent afterwards or do something to retaliate alone or without other’s help.

The human desire to retaliate against whoever hurts, according to utilitarian scholar John Stuart Mill, is one of the reasons why justice is erroneously believed to be especially valuable (Clark & Elliot, 2001). While this basic human tendency to retaliate may benefit people well in street fights, it is does not help to avoid legal liability in a corporate setting. Retaliation claims are not new but they are gradually becoming harder to dismiss than more traditional discrimination claims (Lochinger, 2011).

In the United States, does the system of justice provide any mechanism to accommodate that tendency? While Malaysia has Hudud and Qisas, the United States has anti-retaliation provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act, which bans employers from discharging or in any way discriminating against an employee who filed any complaint (Buckley &Hoeppner, 2011). In the Kasten v. St. Gobain Performance Plastics Corp. case, the US Supreme Court’s decision expanded employers’ potential liability for retaliation by explaining that oral complaints to supervisors regarding wage and hour violations fall within the anti-retaliation provisions (Ceglowski, Woodard, & Spruill, 2011). According to the 6-2 decision, Mr. Kasten brought an anti-retaliation lawsuit against his former Valley Forge, Pa.-based employer, stating that he was terminated in retaliation for repeatedly complaining about the location of the company’s time clock (Greenwald, 2010).

Retaliation when attacked is a human nature but it is not the sole option. The issue with retaliation is whether it is right or wrong, and if it is right, what is the righteous way to do it. The military theory of retributive justice called lex talionis or the law of retaliation is based on the Biblical passages in from Leviticus 19:18 and Matthew 5:38–39, which says life for life, wound for wound, stripe for stripe, meaning compensation should be equal to the harm suffered.

Disregarding the legality of the killing of Osama Bin Laden based on international laws, his murder is a clear picture of the decision of the US to revenge for an eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth. Whether the justice system in the US, or in any other country, satisfies the human tendency to retaliate, the choice to fight or flight when attacked is in the hands of every human, a choice that sometimes has to be made in spilt seconds.

References:

Boehm, Christopher (2011). Retaliatory Violence in Human Prehistory. Oxford University Press Buckley Jennifer &Hoeppner, Ellen (2011). Fair Labor Standards Act Anti-Retaliation Provision Applies to Oral Complaints. Retrieved from http://www.inhousecafeblog.com/home/2011/4/11/fair-labor-standards-act-anti-retaliation-provision-applies.html Cannon, Walter B. (1914). The emergency function of the adrenal medulla in pain and the major emotions. American Journal of Physiology33: 356-372

Ceglowski, Kevin M., Woodard, David L., & Spruill, Poyner (2011) U.S. Supreme Court Expands Anti-Retaliation Protections for Employees. Retrieved from http://www.natlawreview.com/article/us-supreme-court-expands-anti-retaliation-protections-employees

Clark, Barry S.; Elliott, John E. (2001). John Stuart Mill’s Theory Of Justice. Review of Social Economy

Freud, Sigmund (1914). On Narcissism. The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume XIV (1914-1916): On the History of the Psycho-Analytic Movement, Papers on Metapsychology and Other Works, 67-102

Greenwald, Judy (2011). Oral complaint triggers anti-retaliation law: U.S. high court. Retrieved from http://www.businessinsurance.com/article/20110322/NEWS/110329968

Lochinger, Shawn D. (2011). Retaliation Claims: No Longer the “Hidden” Threat. Retrieved from http://www.rhoadssinon.com/updates-publications-89.html

In many cathoclics school the nuns would whack a student on the hand with their ruler if they were misbehaving.  I don’t think that they do that any more.

In the 16th century judicial punishment were turned into pubic spectacles, hoping that it would be a deterrent to other would-be offenders.  I wonder if that would help in the good old USA, probably not someones mother would probably shoot the flogger.I don’t think that this should apply to children, other children can be quite cruel and small children have now started committing suicide, sad but very true, because of all the bullying they receive from others children.Some people need corporal punishment, but of course people take thingsa for granted and things began to get out of control.

They say corporal punishment is a deliberate infliction of pain

If you’ve left bleeding and scars, then your a little insane.

Your child or teen are not criminals or serious offenders.

Maybe you might not want to make their butts raw and tender.

I know that corporal punishment is used in some schools.

You might want to remind them that this child is not

theirs and that the child actually belongs to you.

Corporal punishment should be for real criminals and

issued by the courts, to let serious offenders know

that a lesson to them must be taught.

The death penalty for criminals and political opponents was used in almost all societies. Other than crime the death penalty was also used to get rid of political dissent. These days, countries that use the death penalty use it only for major crimes such as murder, spying, treason, or drug trafficking. It is also used for military justice. In some countries sexual crimes, such as rape, adultery, etc also lead to the death penalty. Religious crimes such as apostasy, can also lead to execution.

History

The use of the death penalty dates back to the beginning of recorded history. The death penalty was a part of the justice system. However, in those days crimes were rare in the small communities. Crimes such as murder were almost always crimes of passion. People would hesitate to murder another person. For this reason, execution and even banishment were rare. Compensation and shunning were enough as a punishment. However, outsiders were treated more harshly. Even there small crimes were severely punished. The punishments varied from beatings and enslavements to executions.

For most of history, capital punishments were often cruel and inhumane. These punishments included boiling to death, whipping, slicing, impalement, crushing, disembowelment, the cross, stoning, burning, sawing, decapitation, neck lacing etc. Trends began in the 18th century to move to more humane death penalties. France developed the guillotine, which would simply cut the head off. Hanging was developed, where the criminal would have as thick rope tied around the neck and would be dropped a longer distance.

In 1976, capital punishment was removed from the Criminal Code of Canada as a punishment. After many years of debate and controversy, the parliament decided that capital punishment was not an appropriate punishment. The reasons for this were the possibility of wrongful convictions, accusations that the state was taking the lives of people, and there was also uncertainty as to whether the death penalty was effective. The Parliament replaced the death penalty for murder with a life sentence in jail, with no possibility of parole after 25 years, in case of first-degree murder, and between 10-25 years for second-degree murder.

The only method of execution in Canada, before 1976, was hanging. In 1859, offences punishable by death in Canada included: murder, rape, treason, administering poison or wounding with intent to commit murder, abusing a girl under ten, buggery with man or beast, burglary with assault, arson, casting away a ship, and giving a false signal endangering a ship. This was changed to three by 1859: murder, rape, and treason.

Pros and Cons

There are many pros and cons for capital punishment. The pros of capital punishment seem to be reasonable. The cost of keeping a person in prison for life is more expensive than executing the same person. Another pro is that since the criminals that receive capital punishment are violent then it would be better for the society if those criminals were executed, that way it would not impose any danger to the police as well. Another pro is that many people believe that the punishment of a crime should equal the crime, also known as “eye for an eye”. Therefore the person that kills should also be killed.

The cons of capital punishment are just as reasonable as the pros. A prison’s job is to rehabilitate a criminal so they can be released back to society. This means that capital punishment has no place in a prison. Another good point is that if somebody murders somebody else and the murderer’s punishment is the death penalty, than what is the difference between the murderer and the law. The murderer killed somebody and so did the law. In other words 2 wrongs do not make a right. Some cultures prefer suffering to immediate death.

Solutions

One solution is the “eye for an eye” theory, where the criminal’s punishment is the same as the crime that they committed. This solution seems reasonable because the criminal is experiencing the same pain that he/she has given others. Another solution is that a criminal who commits a capital offence shall be given life imprisonment as an alternative to capital punishment. The last solution is that they are sentenced to death.

Preferred Solutions

The solution that I believe is right is to have life imprisonment as an alternative to capital punishment. I believe that no crime deserves death as a punishment, even if the crime is murder. In fact, I believe that life imprisonment is a much more severe punishment than capital punishment. This is because if somebody is given life imprisonment than they are suffering every day of their life in prison, they will be begging for death.

1. Satere-Mawe

   This Amazon tribe performs an initiation ritual where young men really place their hands into mittens filled with hundreds of bullet ants. The bite is approximately 20 times more painful than being stung by a wasp. The tribal men will gather the ants and submerge them into a solution that temporarily knocks them out. The ants are then woven into the mittens. Upon waking up, the men will place their hands into the mittens and dance for 10 minutes. The ant’s sting prevents the body from protecting itself from pain. The body begins to convulse, and the pain can last up to 24 hours. The crazy thing is, many men will repeat this ritual many times to prove their manhood.

2. Sharro

   Among the Fulani people of Nigeria, young men must partake in a ritualistic beating of one another before they are able to marry. Without enduring this rite of passage and bringing pride to their family, a young man will not be able to marry. Boys from surrounding village come to partake in the initiation. Families circle two young men who must face off inside the ring. The boys chose rods from trees that are flexible enough to whip. The boy of the opposing side must take his stance, arms raised in the air. When he is struck, he can neither move, nor sway from his position. He is then struck twice across the chest. Then the other boy takes his turn. If one of the two should fall or break his stance, then not only does he bring disgrace to his family, he is still considered a boy, regardless of his age. And worse yet, his wanting to become married to a girl of his liking will be prolonged until he is man enough.

3. Crocodile Scarification

   Many tribes in Africa and Papua New Guinea perform this ritual. In the East Sepik River of Papua New Guinea, many young men partake in a painful rite of passage that has a lasting effect upon their bodies. Not only does this ritual test their strength and discipline, but it also tests their resolve. While they can receive hundreds of cuts upon their chest, back, and buttocks, they are not allowed to remove themselves from the ceremony. The cutting causes profuse bleeding which can cause shock and convulsions, not to mention infection in some cases. After the cutting, oils are rubbed into the skin to help with healing. When the keloids form (usually a year after healing), the marks of the crocodile are left on the men.

4. Female Genital Mutilation

   Many anthropologists argue as to whether this should be considered a rite of passage. Some consider it nothing more than female circumcision. But if you happen to ever witness one of these, you’ll realize that it is not. Practiced in Egypt, parts of Africa, parts of Europe (although it is illegal), and now gaining popularity in Muslim religion, young girls are forced to undergo painful mutilations on their genitalia to “control” their sex drive. Female genital cutting, depending on the culture or religion, requires either a clitoridectomy, partial removal of the labia, or all of the above. Stitching of the vaginal opening is also common, whereby a small hole is left. The girls are often cut with non-sterilized utensils (in parts of Africa). Their legs will be bound for weeks making them immobile. If their vaginal opening was stitched, a twig is placed into the small opening to allow them to urinate. Hundreds of girls, if not thousands, die from such procedures, and those who survive suffer irreversible damage from these atrocities.

5. Subincision (Mardudjara Aborigines)

   When a young man becomes of age, his tribal elders lead him into seclusion. The men will lay down surrounding the boy facing away from a fire. An assistant will sit on the boy’s chest, while another elder will pull and twist the boy’s foreskin and proceed to slice it off. The men will take the boy to kneel upon a shield over a low-lit fire and made to eat “good meat.” Essentially, the meat I am speaking of, is the boy’s own foreskin. He must swallow without chewing it, and once he has succeeded, he as eaten his “own boy,” and become a man. When the circumcision heals, the young man will go through a subincision. His penis will be sliced on the underside, sometimes to the scrotum. The man is then made to stand over a fire to allow the blood to drip into it and purify it. Apparently men do this to sympathize with their female counterparts. And although they will now have to squat to urinate because of these incision, when they become married, some men will often times repeat the same blood-letting process.

The Tragic Incident in South India

The child’s ear was poked with a rough needle, used for stitching jute sack bags, causing profuse bleeding. For which a piece of old dirty cloth was inserted by a cruel country quack. A hen was offered to appease the evil spirit that caused the disease and the blood of the killed hen was applied to the wound on the ear!

Kandasmy, who was working in a cracker factory in a small village near Sivakasi the “Cracker town” in South India, took his eighteen month old male child to the primary health center near his village for a urinary complaint. The child had some urinary problem and the doctor there in the government health center diagnosed hernia. A surgery was suggested. But frightened by a local people that the child’s disease was due to a curse from a demon or some evil spirit, the illiterate parents took the child to a quack who readily suggested a torture therapy. The ignorant parents had no other alternative except to follow the quack. Moreover, they were afraid of the expenses for the surgery and the other formalities in a government hospital!

Even in the Twenty-First Century 

There are still lot of such torture treatments going on! Torture, many times, is still handled as a tool of therapy. Flogging, caning, whipping with certain plant sticks, bleeding caused in some way, burning, amputating, etc. have been followed by some ancient tribes in the human history and are still followed as methods of treatment in some ignorant communities all over the world especially in Africa and Asia. Stating that they are purifying the bad energies in the body and mind or purging the stomach, or causing better circulation of blood, these torture therapists inflict all these tortures on ignorant victims who are already mentally prejudiced.

Here are some examples of torture therapies:

1. It is quite common even in these days to find insane patients treated with such cruel methods of flogging, whipping, binding in chains, etc.
2. In the history of Europe we have seen how flogging was used as a therapy. In the fourteenth century, during the Black Death plague in Europe, flogging was recommended both for preventing and curing it. This kind of torture is still followed in India in treating insane patients. There is a belief that the evil spirit can be cast away and the insanity can be cured by flogging with “erukkau”(calotropis gigantee) sticks!
3. If a person is attacked by epilepsy, he is branded in his hand with a hot iron.
4. The practice of scarring with hot iron for jaundice is still alive in many parts of India!
5. Many follow frightening therapies which I have not included in my list above, which are still more dangerous and complicated!

Why these Torture Therapies?

Illiteracy, ignorance, superstitions and prejudices are the main causes of such torture treatments. Traditional practices have a stronger role to play in these therapies. People still have the belief that diseases are caused by the anger of gods or by some evil spirits!

It is time for the Global Family to come forward to put an end to such torture therapies! Education, awareness, encouraging friendship among nations, cooperating with the good hearted Good Samaritans, etc. only can bring these practices to an end.

Jamie Brown was born July 3, 1840 in Little Horn, Texas; Jamie was kind, sweet girl who was just wanting to have fun and be a good girl. In 1858 the state of Texas pass a law that anyone who helped a slave to run away from his or her masters would be whipped in town square. Jamie Brown hates slavery and she was very kind all people regard of race. In June of 1859 Jamie Brown met a kind girl named Amanda and the only problem Amanda was black slave who have ran away from her master in Arkansas, but Jamie did not know Amanda was a run slave. Amanda and Jamie met in Johnson’s store one day, Amanda was trying to get some food, but Mr. Johnson hated all black people, so he refused to sell Amanda food. Jamie was in the store buying her monthly supplies for her ranch that she got from her father the year before. When Jamie’s father died, Jamie got the ranch and much of the land around town; Jamie was a rich girl for that time. Jamie set all her father’s slaves free and gave them jobs on her ranch. Many people around town did not like what Jamie had done.

Jamie saw Amanda crying outside the town; Jamie asked Amanda what was wrong; Amanda told her she could not find food or work. Jamie told Amanda to come back to the ranch where work and food was waiting for people who needed it. Amanda went back to the ranch with Jamie; she loves it there because the people were so nice to her. Two days later a man come to town, he claimed his slave ran away about a week ago. He went to the sheriff, and the sheriff told him that a black woman had come by the town a few days later. The sheriff told the man to rent a room and he would go out and look for the run away slave and let the man know what he found in a day or two. The sheriff went out to the Jamie’s ranch and asks her did she know about any run away slaves in the area. Jamie told the sheriff about Amanda. The sheriff told Jamie that she must turn the run away slave over the man in town. Jamie did not want to do that, so she asks the sheriff if he could may be get the man to sell Amanda to her. The sheriff warned Jamie of the law about helping slaves, but Jamie told the sheriff she was not worried about that law because she was a woman and women never got whipped before for breaking the law. The sheriff told Jamie that times was changing and she may get fooled one day soon.

The Sheriff went back to town, and he found the man. The sheriff told the man about the he had found out on the ranch. The man demanded his slave be return and told the sheriff that he would never sell a slave to someone who might free a slave. The sheriff went out to the ranch and told Jamie that Amanda had to be return to her owner by sun down or he would have to take Jamie to jail. Jamie told the Sheriff Amanda had left the ranch and was not coming back. The Sheriff took Jamie to town and put her in Jail.

The jail was in the back of the sheriff office, it was four rooms with bars for doors and walls; it was a place anyone wanted to go to. The floor was cold and the rooms were poorly lighted. The sheriff told Jamie he was sorry but she had to be treated just like all the other prisoners. The sheriff told Jamie that she had to be searched and bathed before she could be put in her cell. Jamie was taken to a room that has a table and big washtub in the middle of the room. The sheriff told Jamie to take all of her clothes off and put the clothes on the table. She took off her clothes and stood there naked in front of the sheriff. Sheriff looked at Jamie’s body closely and saw she was clean and she have nothing to hide. The sheriff told Jamie to get in the washtub and take a good long bath. After the bath, Jamie was told to put on a long shirt and that was what she would wear in the jail. The shirt came down to her knees; Jamie went to sleep in her cold dark cell that night.

Early the next morning Jamie was woke up by the Sheriff. The sheriff told Jamie she was going before the Judge at 9:00 am. The courtroom was a big room where all the town meeting was held. The court was packed full because everyone in town came to see what would happen to Jaime. The Judge asked Jamie if she help the slave run away and Jamie said yes. The Judge say ok, I order you to pay the master of the slave 200 Dollars and you to be whipping in the center of town tomorrow. Everyone in the court was shocked that a Judge orders a woman to be whipped.

Jamie went back to here cell in the jail. The sheriff and the doctor came to Jamie’s cell to talk about what was going to happen to her during the whipping. Jamie was told that she would be led to the center of town by the sheriff. At the center of town people would watch the whipping happen. The Doctor would be the one to do the whipping and do the treatment after it was over.

At 9:00 am Jamie was led to the center of the town by the sheriff, Jamie saw that everyone in town was there to see her be whipped. The sheriff read the orders of the whipping for Jamie. Jamie was told by the Doctor to take off her shirt; Jamie did as she was told to do. Jamie was completely naked; she was tied to a post, with her back facing the Doctor. The Doctor took the whip and pops it few times in the air to warm up his arm, and then he started his job of whipping Jamie. The first lash hit her back, Jamie yell loudly, but the third lash Jamie was crying begging for them to stop. With every lash the whip made a cut in her skin, and Jamie cries and yells got worst. After about 100 lashes the Doctor stopped and cut Jamie down from the post. Jamie had cuts from the top of her back all the way down to top of her legs; she was crying and bleeding. Everyone in town just watch as the Doctor treated Jamie for about an hour. Some of the ranch hands took her home to recover from her whipping. Jamie made a full recovery in about month. Jamie lived on her ranch for many years, helping everyone that needed help every chance she got. She show out her scars to anyone who want to hear of the story of the only woman to be whipping in her home for helping a run away slave until she died of old age.