The fact is, in the minds of many, Trayvon Martin received the appropriate punishment for a true crime: He was black, male and dared to walk outside. In life, young Trayvon was just a teenager; in death, he has been transformed into a scary, lurking, suspicious, prone-to-violence spook.
If a slave were to raise his voice to his master, he risked all manner of punishment. Yet what was possible in many circumstances was to lift one's voice in song. This was a major ingredient in what is now known as blues and gospel. Slaves may have been regarded as subhuman by their cruel captors, but through music, they were proud and dignified.
Anger should never appear in awarding punishment.
Religion must be a punishment, because nobody gets religion who does not have a bad conscience.
The Lord Chief Justice of England recently said that the greater part of his judicial time was spent investigating collisions between propelled vehicles, each on its own side of the road, each sounding its horn and each stationary.
Banning capital punishment takes us to a higher state of consciousness.
We have carried out the attempted premeditated murder of an entire nation. We were caught in that criminal act and have been obstructed. Now we have to suffer the punishment. . . . In the Balkan Wars, Serbia not only doubled its territory, but also its external enemies.
There's a great line by Joss Whedon: "Make it dark, make it grim, make it tough, but then, for the love of God, tell a joke. " Even for a reader, there's only so much punishment they can take. You've got to give them a break here and there.
As for the "anger" of the volcano, we leave it up to the local populations who create their demons, their gods and their divine punishment.
The opportunity of making happy is more scarce than we imagine; the punishment of missing it is, never to meet with it again; and the use we make of it leaves us an eternal sentiment of satisfaction or repentance.
Its shocking how many people believe hardships are a punishment from God! Every hardship is good for you-if it brings you closer to Him!
Back to thy punishment, False fugitive, and to thy speed add wings.
If they had gotten rid of the apostasy punishment Islam wouldn't exist today.
Every night death came, slowly, painfully, and every morning Maddox awoke in bed, knowing he'd have to die again later. That was his greatest curse and his eternal punishment.
It's not just that humiliating people, of any age, is a nasty and disrespectful way of treating them. It's that humiliation, like other forms of punishment, is counterproducti ve. 'Doing to' strategies -- as opposed to those that might be described as 'working with' -- can never achieve any result beyond temporary compliance, and it does so at a disturbing cost.
The power of punishment is to silence, not to confute.
