It occurs to me in light of the recent financial clusterfuck that we might have been too hasty in getting ride of things like the stocks, public lashing, and tar & feathering as they probably would come in handy right now. Wouldn't things be much better if certain high level executives, CEOs, and even politicians responsible for this mess were punished in that way? After all, it's not like they're going to receive any sort of punishment that even come close to the mess they've created. Like what are we going to force them to do? Give up their Christmas bonuses? Be forced to resign? Sent to jail? Like that would mean anything-- a Christmas bonus would be a drop in the bucket compared to their salaries, resignations would come with golden parachutes, and jail would be some minimum security prison that's more of a day camp than anything. Thus, tar & feathering. Wouldn't things be better if, say, the idiots who run the Big 3 automakers be put in the stocks in the middle of downtown Detroit? Or all those people whose houses have been foreclosed to get at least one lashing at the head of Citibank or Fannie Mae?

Like executives would try and fleece poor people into ridiculous loans or lay off people right before buying the naming rights to some stadium if they knew it could end up with their being dragged threw town on a horse with people throwing their garbage at them.