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| Image by William Thorpe |
We can debate if it is. But what we experience and observe is, Virginia's Imprisonment Scheme is based on the hypocrisies, suppositions and illiteracy of the White-Evangelical which is a variant of intercessor Judeo-Christianity. This work will not be that waste of time by playing that game of stating and restating that the universe of White-Evangelical hypocrisies, suppositions and it's contextual illiteracy which is what we all encounter its minutiae in our daily existence as such even when we lack the language of its articulation and expression we still experience and observe its antagonisms in full display. Before I get into this work, I need to say this on the value of empiricism, reactionaries and their idea manipulators apply a technique that results in the average socio-person, second-guessing the fundamental meaning of experiences at the expense of its instinctual cognizance without having or being filtered through the "cultural" expectation of having an intercessor ply that antebellum sophistry of Northern agitators were the ones corrupting and filling the heads of enslaved Black People with facts of freedom, liberty and agency. With this said, I BEGIN: Virginia's Imprisonment Scheme as participant and expression of a set of authority activities upon the organized emergence of the Industrial Revolution of the 19th Century had to present a logic and justification or in other words a purported value set, which as all things pro forma of the Human and Socio-person development of the business of existence, played and plays the role of concealing its actual intent which is political-economical. With the dictates of political-economy requiring a specific medium of establishing a hierarchy for the business of human existence with proximity to its quantification determining the extent of access to its benefit and substantial consumption of its quality as a affirming formula of the exponential intensification of the satisfaction experience. In other words if the value of the Socio-person is a gradient according to the political-economy construct of the Industrial Age, then the closer existence is to the quantification production process, the more the need for opaqueness and deception increases along with the sophisticated nature of the mystifying narrative that is ingeniously developed and formulated to bind the Socio-person to that required proximate political-economy construct point of the business of human existence. So we begin to experience the speech of the approximate Justice Infrastructure and its Imprisonment scheme as the First Born of the Industrial Age, as it imposes and necessitates an increasingly mystifying narrative of its existence, which is also a no holds barred dictatorship of its intent. Precepts of human social behavior pre the Industrial Age were already a determining presence and the only demand for the supremacy of the nascent political-economy as it transformed its Feudalistic-Liege Lord speech, was its innovative ability to fuse those pre existing, ancient precepts of Human social behavior into a pliable convention for ensuring the utilitarian binding of that expendable human processors of hierarchical quality from quantity. In other words the Carrot and the Stick had to get a garb upgrade in that metaphorical coat with a set of new colors. The Stick as it concerns this work is Virginia's Imprisonment scheme, specifically post-Civil War and the destruction of Virginia's political-economy of the chattel slavery of Black People. Because prior to the Civil War and the subsequent destruction and pseudo dismantling of the overt chattel enslavement of Black People Imprisonment didn't exist as it did post.
So if pre destruction of overt chattel enslavement, antebellum Virginia didn't evidence and assert a particular care in structuring a theological defense for imprisonment but post its destruction, the Imprisonment Scheme begun to attain a White-Evangelical theological defense along the lines of a critique and analysis of the Crucifixion of The Nazarene. So we begin to encounter a para-Theological formulation, that Human Sin requires the Legal Penalty of Death and Wrath, which The Nazarene Jesus Christ, assumes the penalty by way of the Crucifixion so Divine Justice is fulfilled. The mechanistic operative is Justice as absolute entity requiring a inexorability of Punishment for sin which is then conveniently transferred to its Human Conditional sibling, crime as agent of that first born Imprisonment Stick of the Industrial Age. Crime, which then as mechanism matures into a tool for returning the freed, formerly enslaved Black Person, by separating them from agency and reducing them to the dictates of the political-economy of slavery, by criminalizing existence in "free" society via the newly acquired agency of behavior as Socio-person, which we see in the emergence of Black Codes and the exploitation of that insidious loophole of the 13th Amendment to The Constitution of the United States, specifically-- "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction". At this juncture I have to say this, despite the common appropriation of JUDEO by Pauline Christianity, because ISLAM and its Muslim believer can just as easily combine JUDEO as prefix, because ISLAM is as much a Abrahamic progeny of Judaism and Christianity minus the Pauline filter, notwithstanding its purported Gentile legitimacy and considering a commonality both JUDAISM and ISLAM have and share in rejecting the Nazarene as Godhead Jesus Christ. My point is the transposition of Christianity onto a purely speculative enterprise as Imprisonment encounters unforeseen facts. The interpretation and application of the Christ Crucifixion as logic for the Imprisonment objective of a justice infrastructure is denominative doctrinal leaving us with the conclusion it is purely an arbitrary indulgence, transacting at that dictatorship of intent. An intent which I will show is purely political-economic, because if during the political-economy of chattel slavery, not only didn't Imprisonment exist as it came into its own, post, but antebellum theology was specifically concerned with the theology supporting and defending the psychosis of slavery, which the only "Great Commission" it was concerned with was maximizing its political-economy extractive focus. So even as White-Evangelicals structure imprisonment on Human sin and its Justice Punishment as Jesus Christ being crucified upon the process of guilt so the Guilty are absolved. We find the Christus Victor interpretation held by the Eastern Orthodox that the Christ Crucifixion isn't even about Punishment but Liberation as Jesus triumphs over Death to vanquish sin and evil through his death. Because humanity is captive to Death and Demonic power and by Jesus dying Death "overreaches" by claiming Jesus as innocent which then subsequently breaks Death legal claim over humanity. Then Catholicism gives us this, that Sin dishonors God and humanity owes a debt of honor that cannot be repaid but Jesus accomplishes the payment by perfect obedience and the suffering of the Crucifixion.
This Catholic tenet is then transformed into it isn't that God needs to punish Humanity, but the social-moral order requires satisfaction. Then we have before us the Moral Influence Theory of Liberal Protestantism, that the Crucifixion isn't about Punishment. But a ritualistic display of Gods love intended to transform human hearts. Because humanity misapprehends God as wrathful, vindictive. But Jesus shows that God is love through self-sacrifice, causing a moral transformation in the human heart with the Crucifixion as ritual, a penultimate criticism of Humanity's violence propensity towards, in particular, the innocent which God exposes. What these positions show is, there isn't any one Christian Doctrinal explanation of imprisonment as a vector of Justice. What we have are four competing doctrines, each with its own specific interest. In other words Christianity itself is at odds with the construct punishment and its moral necessity, which also impugns its metaphysical assertions. Leaving the only conclusion that it is a human projection onto God. This brings us to what I started this work with that Virginia's Imprisonment scheme has nothing to do with "a" theological morality of punishment, but is squarely and firmly in the employ of the business of human existence, a secularized first-born of the self-interest of the Industrial Age. Deploying the exploitation of Theology for its merits (which I take no position on),an appropriation of the theological logic and twisting it.(again I take no position on Theology, its merits of belief).We see this twisting of the theological logic, because the other primary Christian Doctrines actively undermine the type of imprisonment scheme practiced by the Commonwealth of Virginia in principle and in general the entire philosophy of imprisonment. In the Christus Victor Doctrine: Jesus isn't punished instead is resisting oppressive power, his sufferings reveals and defeats domination systems. The connection to imprisonment scrutinizes the Crucifixion as State violence not God's Justice hence exposing imprisonment as a Power system and not a moral necessity. In the other major Doctrine of Satisfaction viz Anslem, Jesus restores Honor not by Punishment but by Obedience. Suffering is incidental and not objective. The Moral Influence Doctrine posits Jesus Christ suffers because Humanity is violent not because God requires it. The Crucifixion exposes Human cruelty. This Doctrine reveals that the Punishment logic of imprisonment is a Human projection not a divine objective with the conclusion affirming that the imprisonment scheme only confirms human hunger for violence and not Justice and this confronts Christianity with the fact that Crucifixion or Capital Punishment is State execution and it destabilizes the entire penological construct. Because Jesus is arrested by the State, charged by the State, tried by the State, sentenced by the State and executed by the State. Which is what Christianity subsequently has to reconcile. Because if the central figure of Christianity is a wrongfully executed person, what as commentary is it on the legitimacy of State Punishment, even as adherents to the faith are instructed to submit to State authority as a surrogacy of the same wrongfully executed God? . This logically proves and shows that the imprisonment scheme as vector of applied Justice serves only one Master, the political-economy speech of the Social Contract within the Human Condition. Because Jesus is executed to preserve social order, right ?.
Rome, as specific indictment as participant in the Crucifixion of Christ ritual, but also the stand in for the generality of State violence, uses Punishment to cower the People, the Innocent, which is also collective punishment in maintenance of State authority. So now we deal squarely with this: No amount of sophistry refutes that punishment is a subjective experience. Pain, suffering, obedience are internal states. No amount of Virginia Prison Official "evidence based" verbiage can deny the fact that there isn't a Universal Scale, Unit or measurable threshold. No objective equivalence. There isn't a 30 units of obedience, an hour of suffering equals Justice (considering if there is its subjective measure, beyond physiologic generalizations), X amount of pain equals Y amount of moral repair (considering that it is measurable, besides the self-interest of Psychologist and their speculations that adjudicated convictions are consequences of amoral social behavior).Still the Justice Infrastructure of Prison and the Judiciary act as if such metrics exist. Despite the fact that the Justice Infrastructure is reduced to the corrupt logic as proxy for the "collective punishment" dictatorship intent of social control, (which I will show is all about keeping Labor or the Worker subordinate) expressed as X amount of Years or Time imposed as sentence is enough Punishment for conviction of (make your pick). Time is just Time. Any number of humans experience sentence similarity differently. So the Justice Infrastructure entrenches its corrupt and idealistic logic with fake metrics based on opaque mystifications and it's twisted theology. This is evidenced with the Sacrifice ritual as proxy in Christian Doctrine. Christ suffering is treated as a quantifiable "payment", which Martin Luther idealistically, with the certitude of zealotry critiqued, its stylized surrogate practice by the Catholic Priesthood in his edicts, consequently bringing forth Protestantism at the expense of the fact that it's Speech of "intercession" is the comprehensive sum of the Abrahamic belief system, culminating in the Christ Crucifixion ritual. We encounter its tension unmitigated, without obfuscation as the antagonism of hypocrisy of "faith", reduced again to, the subjectivity of crass " interpretation, exposing that, "dictatorship of intent" within and upon that legality of "Standing" as Social Contract governing formulation, is gambit intending to conceal its political-economy function, or that business of humans existence crystalized. Continuing, while the amount of suffering is never defined. The value is symbolic, not measurable with imprisonment. But the system never and cannot measure whether the imprisoned is changed, actually or feigning, because for one this exposes among many other inconsistencies, the underlying supposed logic of the entire Justice Process to the scrutiny of what exactly was anomalous of the behavior that necessitated the initial process, when the process accorded the behavior was selective and conditional in its application, again reminding us of its farcical and fraudulent metrics. Again we encounter the jurisprudence of Penology in compliance as proxy for obedience. However obedience, notwithstanding outward display which The Virginia Department of Corrections for its own nefariously ad hoc and extra-judicial reasons speaks to in a number of its Operational Procedures dealing with its STEP DOWN program, with the mind set and I'm paraphrasing, that even if a prisoner is infraction free, in compliance with rules e.t.c, respectful and all that, it could very well be a sham, to be free of the solitary confinement conditions of THE CLOSED POD. So how much clearer can we get in recognizing the fake metrics claimed as "Evidence Based".
.But allies of the Virginia Prison Official and the defenders of their practices of dehumanizing the Virginia Prisoner have claimed a fictitious justifying narrative, that Prison measures behavior, not internal states, which they point to rule-following, (which I've already stated that the Department mocks and dismisses in its Step Down program Operating Procedures), idealistic and speculative prison programming attendance, silence, submission, compliance (again the Department mocks and dismisses as metric) all formulated as stand ins for obedience. But "compliance", "obedience" is just behavior under coercion. Another fake metric rationale specifically serving the Virginia prison official's economic self- interest under the exploitational pseudo-scientic "evidence based" verbiage. Virginia's Imprisonment scheme upon the hard sell of its Legislators and Politicians who only see "political opportunity", in it's hustle, assessed and sold its Legitimacy on the "measurability and evidence based" narrative to a Virginia citizenry who are so frazzled by the political-economy terms of that business of human existence demands of Virginia's Social Contract, that their challenged attention span to the gambits of Virginia's imprisonment scheme is understandable. Nonetheless it is a purposeful obfuscation that they must see through, because it is structured as they are the workers and labor to keep and maintain their subordination. Now we get to the nakedness of the narrative, because if Punishment depends on subjective states and subjective states cannot be measured, then Punishment cannot be rationally calibrated or defended. Which then destroys the idea of Proportionality, Just Desert, Equivalence, Fairness, Moral Balance because you cannot balance that which you cannot measure. PUNISHMENT IS NOT A SCIENCE IT'S INSTEAD POLITICAL THEOLOGY. We encounter this contradiction in all sorts of works theorizing punishment by Scholars [from: REVISITING BECCARIA'S VISION:THE ENLIGHTENMENT, AMERICA'S DEATH PENALTY, AND THE ABOLITION MOVEMENT--4 Nw. J. L and Soc. Poly 195 by JOHN D.BESSLER....Rev. JOHN SUTHERLAND--MANHATTAN DECLARATION: A CALL OF CHRISTIAN CONSCIENCE----8 THEOLOGY TODAY 194-201....VULNERABILITY AND JUST DESERT: A THEORY OF SENTENCING AND MENTAL ILLNESS---103 J.CRIM. L. and CRIMINOLOGY 147 by E. LEA JOHNSTON....A CASE AGAINST THE KANTIAN RETRIBUTIVIST THEORY OF PUNISHMENT A RESPONSE TO PROFESSOR PUGSLEY---11 HOF. L .R. 273 by LEON PERC....OBJECTIVE PUNISHMENT----89 U. CINN. L.REV 628 by ANTHONY M. DILL OF....THE UTILITY OF DESERT---91 NEV. U.L .REV 453 by PAUL H. ROBINSON and JOHN M. DARLEY....THE SUBJECTIVE EXPERIENCE OF PUNISHMENT----109 COLUM. L .REV. 182 by ADAM J.KOLBER....EVALUATING THE CONSEQUENCES OF CALIBRATED SENTENCING: A RESPONSE TO PROFESSOR KOLBER----109 COLUM. L. REV.SIDEBAR 1 by MIRIAM H. BAER].So an observable perspective is Punishment as it stands is not measurable intervention but symbolic ritual justified by inherited Theological logic. Pain cannot be measured. Obedience cannot be measured. Suffering cannot be measured. Again to emphasize, what I'm saying, the varied theories on Punishment of, Proportionality is fiction, Just Desert is fiction, Paying ones Debt to Society is fiction, Sentencing Guidelines are fiction (and a Federal Judge JACK B. WEINSTEIN, didn't shy away from expressing his ire at the hypocrisies of SENTENCING GUIDELINES, in his court decisions and writings see: FIFTY YEARS OF REFLECTION: BROWN v. BOARD OF EDUCATION AND ITS UNIVERSAL IMPLICATIONS: EVERY DAY IS A GOOD DAY FOR A JUDGE TO LAY DOWN HIS PROFESSIONAL LIFE FOR JUSTICE---32 FORDHAM URB. L. J by JACK B. WEISTEIN) ,Moral Balance is fiction.
What I have so far established is that Virginia's entire Justice Infrastructure, which Prison and the Imprisonment is its primary and fundamental Speech has this mythological pseudo-scientific verbiage of "evidence based", as claim to measurable metrics as Scientific quantities, but is anything but. Then what exactly is the function or Speech of Virginia's Imprisonment Scheme and in extension, the Nations? The answer is not as complex or complicated as the extent and ends to which those who benefit from obscuring and distorting it go to, along with the myriad schemes, gambits and machinations they employ and deploy, which is nothing less than the very narrative of the Human Condition. In so many words the work of distorting and camouflaging the function and speech of Imprisonment has more in common with the deceptive insurgency of an auto-immune phenomenon. Where the speech or work of a healthy Immune system and function turns on its Homeostatic inclination. I BEGIN: As I've shown in the preceding sections, that the cloak of Judeo-Christianity, is pure shibboleth for the work and speech of IMPRISONMENT, which is a simple enforcer, compelling the dicta," THE PEOPLE " must orient proximate to the befitting processing point of production of quality from the quantification of the business of human existence according to whatever variables possessed, which is to mean, skills, acumen, adroitness and dexterity. So the sum is Imprisonment has the social value of being the stick that keeps Labor and the Worker in line with the narrative of the applicable Political-economy and its Social Contract, construct. Once there isn't any hedging over the inherent character of political-economy as a construct For Itself, then we can begin to interrogate its varied systemic consequences without causing and requiring whatever redemption humanness finds in Faith and Belief systems to suborn their selves in its operation. As I've shown there isn't any social positive in the Imprisonment scheme as currently structured. Nothing I'm saying is suggesting that silliness of an accountability less set of relations and interactions. Because as humans we are always in a constant flux of interactive accountability. What I critique is the fraudulent dialectic of the Social Contract as it crystallizes in the Virginia Imprisonment scheme. On a behavior that is all about the political-economy imperatives of our existence. If the reader is struggling with seeing tie ins to the dictates of The Industrial Age which I laid out in the earlier sections, then this might make things a bit clearer, what was the primary driver of The American Civil War? Yes the abhorrence of the existence of the chattel enslavement of Black People impelled Abolitionist, however that in itself wasn't substance enough to cause the economic forces of buying and selling to subject their prosperity to the vagaries and unknowns of War. So humanness being as it is, self-centered, had to suppose an existential threat that was jeopardizing their livelihood by embarking on a Civil War, which to date has the distinction of being the bloodiest. Which considering that the Nation embodies Trotsky's thesis of perpetual war, albeit, Revolution, says a lot about the level of carnage achieved during its work. My point being whatever it was that could Marshall such destruction had to have been an existential dynamic, which we only find within our Human Condition as the diametrical speech of competing political-economies. Which it was. The confederate States and their slave based political-economy was in direct opposition to the industrial emergence of The Union.
By William Thorpe
I'm William Thorpe Virginia exiled me to the Texas prison system. I'm solitary confined at the Wainwright Unit and if you feel any kinda way about this work contact me by Securus email using the Texas prison number #2261982
What Thorpe Is Actually Doing in the “Dictates of Political‑Economy” Section
§ 40.1‑44.2 — “Standards for Heat Illness Prevention”
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