by Joshua Guess
We are people, as different as snowflakes and blades of grass, but now more than any other time, we must remember those commonalities that we share, one and all. The ties that bind us are the skein upon which our future is woven.
Don't let them fray.
Posted by Josh Guess at 11:33 AM
Friday, April 16, 2010
Crime and Punishment
Some days you just can't win. I realize this is an old and hackneyed saw, but the truth of it is inescapable.
Last night, after a long day of what I thought was friendly togetherness, we had ourselves a fight. Not zombies or marauders for once, but a good old-fashioned fistfight. I think that most of us are adult enough to be able to get over a fight with relative ease, brush off the dust and get along. As it turns out, though, some folks just can't get over their hate and anger.
In the aftermath, we found out what the fight was about. But at the time all we saw was fists flying and dust clouding about them. It took quite a lot of us to get them apart, both of them are pretty damn strong.
Darlene held her own pretty well, considering that she got blindsided. Apparently one of the women that we rescued from the hotel has been harboring some pretty harsh feelings toward her. In most of the debates and discussions, Darlene has been siding with the moderates. She has tried very hard to move past the atrocities that happened to her and the other women, attempting to use her reason to decide, rather than her hate.
Darlene was rescued early on, from a smaller group of that had abducted her. This isn't something that she shared very openly before, telling few people, and I have respected her privacy. She feels that she made an error in confiding in others who had been imprisoned and abused, trying to provide a little empathy. Now she wants me to make the message clear: as a victim of rape and torture, if she can overcome, then so can anyone. She implores me to make a point clear: this is not to denigrate anyone, but rather a positive statement about the strength and willpower of the women she has come to know. Her mistake was not in sharing, as she is having me do on her behalf now, but in not making clear her intention to make decisions with the better angels of her nature, rather than allowing hatred and anger, however reasonable, to rule.
Some of the others seem to see this as a sort of betrayal. I see why they feel that way, but it's hard to feel pity for a person that has to solve her disagreement with violence. The fact that her attacker had been drinking only complicates the issue. I mean, all of us around here know that sometimes people disagree and get into fights. I guess you had to see it. It was vicious. She was aiming to injure or maim. So now we have exactly what I was hoping to avoid--a prisoner, someone in detention. I don't intend to imply that we are going to keep her there as a punishment, only that we have to do something with here until we make a decision about what to do.
But we shouldn't have to wait, or figure out anything. We should have been more proactive about what our specific laws or rules would be, few as they are likely to be, so that we could administer punishment and move forward. Now, more talk, more debate. More dissent from many sides, more mired arguments going nowhere.
Damn it.
Posted by Josh Guess at 11:47 AM
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Tedium
We're still working on a solution. For now, our prisoner (for lack of a better term) Ellen, is still confined. Mind you, she's in a bedroom with an adjoining bath, so she's not exactly suffering. But we are still mulling over the options for addressing this sort of behavior. We need to develop responsible but effective deterrents and punishments, since pretty much none of us believe in the effectiveness of the old jail and prison system.
The crux of the matter is this: the majority think that a good general rule is that the punishment should fit the crime. But are we going to administer a beating to this woman who lost her temper and picked a fight? I don't see that doing much good for her. In fact, I would think that particular response would just make her more angry, more likely to fly off the handle, and thus more of a threat to others.
So we're stuck.
And we're debating. Which slows down the work around here, as people talk and discuss. Which is why we should have some sort of rules or laws or what have you set down before shit like this happens. This situation is really making the case for being proactive rather than reactive.
I am only taking a short break to write this, and then I go back out and work on the wall we're building around my block, and do my best to keep us all on task. It's sort of an exercise in futility.
You know, the one thing I thought would be different about living in a post-apocalyptic world was that people would be more focused on the really important stuff, and no one would be fooling around with unneeded rules and laws, interfering in our lives. As it turns out, people will always be people, with all the ups and downs, and someone will always have to be the bad guy and call others out. Someone has to enforce even the minimum rules we have set.
So it's me and the committee together again today, after lunch. Hopefully we can accomplish something.
Posted by Josh Guess at 8:30 AM
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Fits the crime
Once again, I have to thank Patrick for saving our bacon. He has been my best friend for a few years, which is funny since he is as conservative as I am liberal. While all of us discussed our plans forward in respect to what system of justice and/or punishment was the right fit for our growing community, Pat played the part of silent observer. I thought at first that it might be because he didn't want to offend some of us with what he would consider offensive ideas, but after a while he did begin asking questions.
When we came to agreement that it would be unwise to just go for the old "eye for an eye" routine and would have to create some system of graded responses, Pat was the one to suggest the most practical and pragmatic route. Old school military style justice.
Allow me to explain:
The military handled a lot of discipline problems in-house, because in combat situations, even in simply combat-ready situations, every soldier counts. You can't just lock a guy (or gal) up for every crime, you need them to be ready if needed. Our situation is, in all practical ways, the same.
It breaks down into three basic levels. (Bear with me, as this will be a dynamic and loose system, changing as circumstances require.) For first offenses of crimes that do not endanger the group or cause serious injury to a person, the violator will be held for a period of no longer than a day in confinement while awaiting judgement and sentence (or release if found innocent). Ellen has been held longer than that already, but we weren't really prepared for this, which is why we set that limit for any future cases. Sentences for these crimes will include confinement when not on duty, hard labor, and when deemed necessary by the committee, extra "combat" duty, or any situation in which the danger of serious injury or death is elevated.
For crimes that cause serious injury or endanger the group or compound, as well as other undefined serious offenses, punishment can include any of the previously stated, and may also include a number of lashes.
This might seem to go too far, and there was a lot of argument about it, but I think this is the direction we will have to go. Merely the threat of lashes, historically, has been enough to demure most people from committing serious crimes. And we agree that in cases, for example, where a person might accidentally let information slip that would lead to danger for the group would not fall into a category punishable in this fashion. We see whipping as the option reserved for those who willfully cause serious injury to others without just cause, willfully endanger the group, etc.
The most serious crimes (and again, this is by no means a complete list at present) are punishable by all of the previous, plus special punishments reserved for the type of crime. In cases of obvious and provable rape, the offender will be castrated. Messily. For cases of rape in which the facts cannot be clearly proven, we reserve the right to severely punish the offender short of ca
stration. This one is tough. The abuse or molestation of children, premeditated murder, and deliberate sabotage (treason) are all punishable by death.
It has been suggested that we keep banishment as an option, but to be honest, I think that doing so to our looter captives before was a bad idea, from a pragmatist's point of view. It made a lot of sense at the time, politically, as it satisfied the majority and kept the peace, but the consensus among us in the committee is that ultimately, it created more danger for the group. Outsiders who come to us with the hope of coexistence will be welcomed. Those who come looking for a fight will get one. If they survive the experience, they will be our captives from then on. Doing useful work for us, mind you, but never to leave again. There is the chance that such a captive would be allowed to become a citizen of our little community here, if they manage to convince every member of the committee of their sincerity and of being truly rehabilitated.
Whew! I didn't plan for this post to become such a dissertation on our plans, but I am glad. We all want you to know that we are thinking about our needs as we grow into a true community. If our numbers continue to increase, we will need to spend a lot of time on thinking about things like this.
All punishments are to be made public, as are the acts that required them. Ellen, for her assault on Darlene, will be serving one week of hard labor, chopping wood. She will be required to stay in her room at her home when off duty. The particular form of labor for this offense is being used due to our current effort to clear all of the trees from this block, and to stockpile the wood for cooking down the road. It is my wildest hope that we will only need to resort to this type of judgement system sparingly. I trust that most of our group will act, if not in a totally civilized manner, at least in their own rational self-interest. We don't want to gather to pass judgement, nor to punish if we can help it. But we will.
Off to help Pat with putting up the post that will serve for holding anyone who receives lashes. Just seeing it there will likely be enough to deter most serious offenses. I know thinking about it makes my stomach go cold, and I haven't even done anything.
Oh, one more thing, totally unrelated. Just another example of the giant pile of awesome that is Patrick--he has been keenly interested for a long time in blacksmithing. When my brother David found this out, he made a little trip to some of the horse farms out on Versailles road. Bless those rich bastards for having the greenbacks to keep ferriers on duty. We now have all the important bits to start a smithy. Pat has some practical knowledge of how this works, and a great deal of self-education on it, so hopefully he will be able to teach himself the fine art of working with metal the way the first smiths did--by trial and error, and experience.
We also plan to go steal those horses. Gas is still fairly plentiful, but every day takes us that much farther from a time when refineries were running and tanker trucks were still delivering. So, horses seem like a good idea. Thoroughbreds, champion horseflesh just sitting there munching grass, waiting for someone to come take them for a ride. Got to love Kentucky.
Posted by Josh Guess at 5:55 PM
Monday, April 19, 2010
Google Lives!
Today's post will have to be short, but there is good reason. Overnight, as many of you who use Gmail might know, Google sent out a mass message to every user of their services. It seems a big group of engineers and other employees have made the google campus into a bit of a fortress, and since they added all those solar panels and other renewable energy sources, they have been able to keep blogger and other services up and running. I have managed to contact them back, and have been learning some very interesting news, most of which I will have to share later. But for the record, that is why I am posting so early and so short. I don't want to waste a lot of time, just in case we get cut off from them.
Updates: since my post yesterday and the subsequent announcement to our group of the decisions reached by the committee, several people in the compound have expressed their unhappiness at, most particularly, the idea that we would whip someone as punishment. I will say that this idea was a bone of heavy contention even among the committee, but let me assure you, once more.
We do not want to use this option, if at all possible. But it IS an option. I have said before that we live in a harder, more brutal world. While we strive to be as civilized as possible, when one of us steps across that line, endangering the group or selfishly harming a person (thus reducing our capacity to defend ourselves), strict and severe punishment needs to be available. Because none of us want to die, or for the community to die--so we set a harsh deterrent. This is universal; it applies to me just as much as any other person. It applies to my own mother. But if we act with reasonable restraint and continue to do as we have done to defend and protect each other, I see no real issue.
Moving on: we have established contact with a few smaller groups, thanks to the team at google. These survivors have no internet access, but the google crew have managed to take control of several of the telecom systems abandoned around the country, and have been able to track the movement of cell phones near us. They handed us the numbers, we called them. A few seem promising, and relatively close to us; one group is in Cynthiana, another in Winchester. One is in Ohio. We are actively trying to gauge numbers and see if any of them want to pull up stakes and come here. I'm still a bit wary of bringing in strangers, but to really start over, to have some chance to rebuild against the constant threat of herds of zombies coming against us, we need to be united. Many scattered groups are much weaker than one large group standing as one.
More to come tomorrow, I am trying to coordinate too much at once. Hopefully, this is just the first step.
Posted by Josh Guess at 7:32 AM
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Anniversary
Today is my first wedding anniversary. This isn't the world I thought I would live in on this day, but there's no use crying about it. Just letting you all know, as today I will be spending my time with the wife. Back to normal on the morrow, but for today, I am all hers.
Posted by Josh Guess at 8:04 AM
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Dust Settles
Over a long enough period of time, you can get used to anything. Looking back over the last month, I realize that I have slowly acclimated to the threat of constant attacks, by man or zombie. I also sort of got used to the idea that it seemed like there were no large groups like ours left that weren't out to rape and pillage.
But man, was I wrong.
One of the "small groups" I contacted the other day has turned out to be a lot bigger than ours. More than a hundred. They are the reason this part of the country still has power and thus, internet. They have made a power station their home (about half of them worked there before the fall) and keep it running. They tell me that this won't last for much longer, perhaps two months if they can continue hauling coal from the local storehouses. Once those caches are gone, no more electricity unless we make it ourselves or go mine more coal. When that happens, they might come here, they might not.
A few of the other groups are bigger than expected. The crew from Cynthiana is waiting on Little David to get there (he's from there originally) and then they head toward us. Forty people, all packing supplies, weapons, and a strong willingness to work. I couldn't be happier.
Some of them managed to check out this blog on their phones, and I guess they shared with the others. It took a few hours to convince them that we aren't interested in ruling anyone's life, nor especially wanting to punish folks. There was a lot of worry among the various groups about some of my posts, what it might mean. Some of these people haven't had to fight a living person since all this began, and maybe think that we are just crazy for fights. I hope that our talks with them have alleviated at least some of this, but I do understand why, based on what I have written, people would be afraid. I scare me too, at times.
So far, no new conflicts have popped up. Ellen seems to be dealing with her anger...perhaps chopping
wood when she would normally be off duty is teaching her something. Maybe swinging an axe is just a great way to blow off aggression. Or, less likely but admittedly possible, she's just enjoying the practice for a bloody spree of axe murders.
Kidding!
She's doing fine. I have talked to her quite a bit, she still feels as strongly as she once did, but realizes the error in taking out her frustration the way she did.
Darlene is going with Little David. It'll be good for them to get away for a while.
Other news...
Patrick is being followed around by several women now, and he's just as oblivious as ever. Which is funny, since he reads this blog. One of them will trip him eventually. Hell, maybe all of them. Hope they give him breaks in between.
My brother Dave is working on some designs for new buildings he wants to start work on sometime down the road, after we get the manpower. He wants to tear down some houses and build new structures in place of them, sort of like apartment buildings but designed around our current needs. We'll need them if we keep getting more people rolling in. He's also working on the logistics and final design of the wall we're going to put up around the entire compound. That is priority one.
