Re: OT: Corpses, etc. (was: Re: Gender in conlangs (was: Re: Umlauts (was Re: Elves and Ill Bethisad)))

Quoting Isidora Zamora <isidora@...>:

> >* Assuming you've got similar ideas of what is nice that I have - I guess
> some
> >Americans would have difficulties to adapt to a society which does not
> >practice capital punishment, but considers automatically justified a
> policeman
> >who kills an armed civilian.
>
> In reality, America barely practices capital punishment today.  People are
> sentenced to death only rarely (in relation to how very many murders are
> committed in this country), and most of those death sentences are never
> carried out.  It's actually a newsworthy event for the entire nation  when
> a prisoner in any one of the 50 states is executed.  It happens that rarely.
I'm aware that capital punishment isn't particularly common in the US. I'm
also aware that a segment of the American population reacts very negatively to
any suggestion that is should be abolished

> Yeah, policemen aren't really supposed to kill armed civilians.  People get
> pretty upset when that happens.  I don't know what it is that the policemen
> are supposed to do in certain situations, but it's always a big problem
> when the police kill someone.
>
> I expect that a Trehelish soldier* who kills an armed civilian would be
> considered justified, in the way that I think you meant armed.  I assume
> that you meant that the arms were being used against the policeman, not
> that the civilian was simply carrying a weapon.
Simply carrying a weapon is perfectly enough. Under Tairezan law, carrying a
pistol in your pocket is, technically, armed rebellion.

Needless to say, carrying or even possessing a gun is something that the
average Tairezan civilian would never even contemplate.

[snip]
> I'm not certain whether
> it [=Trehelish society] 's really what you would term a "nice" society.
My impression certainly is that it's not particularly nice.

> *Trehelan has a standing army which doubles as a police force.  They have
> absolutely no concept that there even could be separate military and police
> forces.  Since they don't even have a concept of "police," I simply use the
> words "soldier" and "military."
Taireza has a variety of weapon-wielding organizations; most are, by our
terms, purely military (the space fleet, for instance), while what we would
consider police work is divided between a number of organizations, some of
which also have outrightly military tasks. For instance, if you started
brandishing a gun on a Tairezan street, you'd most likely be killed by the
_Stezet Telen_, or "Planetary Defense Force", whose primary function is to
serve as a first line of defense against foreign invasion. (These troops are
normally under the control of local planetary governments, in contrast to the
_Stezet Krazan_, or "National Defense Force", which sorts directly under the
national government, and whose chief tasks are to provide extra defense at
important planets, and, in case of need, keep occupied planets under control.
Then there are the planetary invasion forces, known as _Andzhanen_,
or "Hurricanes", and the national security forces, and the neighbourhood cops,
and the ... you get the picture.)

(_Krazan_ BTW, is "national" in the sense of belonging to the state as a
whole - it does not have any ethnic or nationalistic connotations. Cf the
closely related noun _krazol_ "(sovereign) state".)

> ****Somehow or other, we seem to be keeping this thread on its stated
> topic, macabre as that might be.  Why is it that the thread on corpses is
> the one that stays on topic?
We should be grateful there aren't too many Freudians among us ...

                                                 Andreas

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