This may turn up again. I hit an unknown key combination accidentally and a post went awa’ w’ th’ cyber-fairies. If it doubles up, I apologise.
#51 RWE:
Thank you for the kind words. If I may, I’d like to offer a couple of thoughts. When dealing with my former field of endeavor the Left-Right conflict [I realize that the seating arrangements of the French National Assembly are a very imperfect metaphor for political reality. Those on the far "Left" and far "Right" ends of the "spectrum" actually belong side by side with the "spectrum" bent around into a circle. The two "extremes are actually very alike in their contempt for the individual, their love of the collective, their view of rights as temporary grants of the State, and their means, methods, and justifications for the use of the coercive power of the State.] largely plays out in the field of personal responsibility -vs- societal responsibility. The “Left” [including my former Captain and hordes of bureaucratic staff weenies] believes that criminal conduct is caused by a flawed society, that punishment is barbaric, and that the individual will be “cured” of his anti-social tendencies by understanding, education, and compassion coupled with an infinite number of second chances. The goal of the police, courts, and corrections is to enable that cure.
Those of us who actually worked the line tend to believe that if one does the crime, one should do the time. Further, that payback is a bitch. We also realize that there is no “rehabilitation” until the consequences of the criminal life are more than the criminal can bear AND that fact penetrates their skulls. However, while they are locked up, they are not harming the public.
Basic criminological statistic. 80% of the crime is committed by 5% of the criminals. In the 1980′s the cities in Colorado were trying to go the way of Democrat controlled cities back east. Crime was getting out of hand. Parole was all but automatic in our statutes. After a series of murders and rapes by criminals who has been early paroled from murder and rape convictions; the legislature changed hands and some serious changes in sentencing laws and repeat offender laws were put in over the objection of the Democrat governor. Over the next few years, the crime rates went down drastically as more and more of the real bad guys were locked up and stayed locked up.
Our Democrats are screaming still. Besides being against punishment, they cannot get it through their heads that if you lock someone up, even though it costs money it is less than the damage they do to society. They have the governorship and both houses of the legislature and want mass early releases of criminals to save money. It will happen.
In any case, the Khakhan never heard of parole, probation, or deferred prosecution. The Yassa was fairly direct, to the point, and except for the Khakhan’s family pretty much covered everyone without exception.
1. He conquered and expanded his empire so he could impose taxes on more people.
2. He was possibly the very first whacko environmentalist. He hated cities, tore them down whenever he could, and considered depopulating the whole of northern China to provide pasture for his horses.
3. He was very much in favor of unwed mothers, bedding every woman he could get his hands on. The majority of the population that now inhabit this former domain are genetically related to him.
I don’t impute a moral or ideological flaw for his conquests, because that is how every powerful state acted up until the creation of modern Westphalian nation state that separated the state from being the personal property of the ruler. His [and that of his Orluks such as Jebe Noyon] desire at first to level China was early in his career when he first went south of the Great Wall. Fortunately, he encountered and hired Ye Liu Chu-tsai and was convinced that ruling a civilization was better than ruling empty steppe. Once he got that admittedly foreign concept into his head, he promoted civilization.
As for his gene pool, I refer to the conduct of pretty much every ruler of the time, especially since Judeo-Christian morals were not applicable being totally unknown to them. There is the point in the Yassa that declares the children of slaves or concubines to be as legitimate as children of wives. Although children of the senior wife had priority and only they could inherit, all other children were both legally legitimate and treated equally.
Within the bounds of law and Empire though he and his law were far more tolerant in the true sense than the Left is today. ALL religious persons were exempted from taxation, regardless of faith. The Empire did not care who you worshipped so long as you did not revolt or violate other laws. Believing in trade and functionally what we would call capitalism all traders between cities and regions were exempt from taxes. And to encourage trade a system of caravanserai’s was established throughout the Empire. Even in conquest, the idea of equality under the law once peace had returned was present. Although it was such a foreign concept that it did not sink in for a while. Hell, the Democrats don’t grasp it yet.
The Khakhan went to war with Khwarism in Central Asia. It was not a war of expansion. He had sent ambassadors and traders to propose peaceful trade relations along their common border. He was more concerned with finishing off the Southern Sung dynasty and had no apparent ambitions towards Central Asia at the time. His ambassadors were either killed or mutilated and the traders robbed. Repeatedly. So he destroyed Khwarism and its dynasty.
At least one of his actions after Bokhara surrendered [and was spared sacking except for the citadel which resisted after the surrender] was misinterpreted. Yes,he and his troops rode their horses into the main Mosque. And he called for the citizens to bring fodder there for his horses. They took it as an insult. But under Mongol practice of the time, by feeding the horses of his army, they were placed under his protection as subjects of the Empire and not as enemies. Once an area was conquered, so long as it paid its taxes, furnished its allotments for the army, and did not revolt; the Empire did not care how they worshiped, how they ruled themselves under Mongol law, and who was in charge locally. Sounds far closer to what is denominated as the American Right than the authoritarian, corrupt, top-down desire to control every aspect of everyone’s lives that permeates every aspect of the Left.
YMMV
Of course, trying to fit the people of the past, and of distant lands, and their actions into our modern templates is not going to work with any degree of historical accuracy. With different cultures, histories, and the morals of the times; they cannot be expected to have lived in accordance with what we now think.
May I offer the book “Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World” by Jack Weatherford for your consideration?
Subutai Bahadur
