If something is to stay in the memory it must be burned in: only that which never ceases to hurt stays in the memory.

Man could never do without blood, torture, and sacrifices when he felt the need to create a memory for himself; the most dreadful sacrifices and pledges…all this has its origin in the instinct that realized that pain is the most powerful aid to mnemonics.

The severity of the penal code provides an especially significant measure of the degree of effort needed to overcome forgetfulness and to impose a few primitive demands of social existence.

–Friedrich Nietzsche, The Genealogy of Morals, 2nd essay, section 3

The other day G put her stuffed animal in the sink, after Beckie told her not to.   Then I told her not to, and she did it to another one.   So I scolded her and shrugged her off.   She threw a fit and cried with shame for 5-10 minutes.   Beckie tried to calm her, and that usually works but this time did not, until finally I told her it was ok just don’t do it again.   Then she chilled.

I knew this wait was making her upset, but its just like teaching her to climb the monkeybars, she has to take some hits to learn. Punishment to a child, where it can be infused with an emotional connection, can be tempered.   The feelings G has to the victim — in this case, me — internalizes the sense of wrong and enhances the impact of the punishment such that it need not be extreme.   A society, however, can only offer a conceptual and anonymous connection to the victims of most crimes.   For its punishments to be effective as revenge and deterrent, it must inculcate in the perpetrator an appreciation for an abstract wrong and an abstract victim.   It must replace emotions and empathy with common currencies – time, money, and most of all cruelty – to develop a notion of right and wrong.

The average person who has no experience with the criminal justice system and its role of building deterrents out of abstractions may be unmoved by the idea of penalties, and they do not understand their full severity until the weight of the law is upon them.   By then the deterrent is only useful for future violations.   What remains is vengeance, and a brutal, blunt, yet effective means of establishing a morality.

I think of this every time I think of getting busted. I had no appreciation for Arizona’s status as the toughest state in the nation on DUI, the mandatory minimums, or their role in crafting a behavioral model for society. I think how minor my transgression really was, how close I was to home, how quiet the street was at midnight, how i was not reckless, and how I was cooperative and polite with the cops.

My lawyer wrote me: “Both Officers indicated that you were incredibly polite and both were impressed with how honest you were with them in every aspect of your case. Unfortunately, the City of Mesa prosecutors will not give any weight to this information.”

I wasn’t blowing a .20 and driving a boat home from the lake on a holiday weekend. I got caught by a fluke, no one was close to harmed, and had things been just a bit different I might have been let go. The cops kinda felt bad about busting me, were as easy on me as i was on them, and wished me well with my new daughter.

Singular, monolithic, uncompromising. Systematic.

Its unfair, overkill, and impossible to separate the motivations for reform and revenge from the cash cow its become.   But it is effective.   I will never drink and drive again.   The punishments are too severe to ever risk it, and their punitive effects go far beyond what is listed on paper.   Each one comes with so much overhead and bullshit that the reality of its impact far exceeds its description.

Thank gawd my suspension started at the end of April instead of the end of June, I was on my bike so much. My knees ached, my back was sore, and I was unable to get to regular yoga classes or my chiropractor.   My license is also maxed out on points for 2 years, so any minor moving violation during that window and I’m handed another suspension. After my conviction, I received another notice that my license was being suspended, but DMV just made a mistake on this one triggered by Mesa’s resolution to my case. Yay, process! I rode my bike to the DMV after my 30 days were up to get my restricted license enabled, to find the next day that they had automatically mailed it to me anyway.    The   DMV is quite good at handling this since they do it so often.   Mornings lost with Genevieve, love lost for my bikes, any ability to contribute outside the house. I tried to go shopping with the bike trailer, things melted, and fell out. Beckie showed infinite patience, due to her getting a DUI 15 years earlier.

Interlock, day in jail, lawyer, courts, paperwork, fines, counseling, fees, insurance, police profiling and shame for about $10,000. Every time I get mad, I struggle to point my anger back at myself:   I was the one who fucked up, no one else.   But its really hard to acknowledge one’s guilt and mistakes when the penalties and consequences are so out-of-line with the effects.   What choice do I have?   The only good to come out of this is if it never happens again.

Would I be so motivated to never let this happen again if it only cost me 1k, some points on my license, and a 30-day suspension?   Honestly, no.   Would I have been motivated enough…yes, probably.   Having no car and 2 little kids for a month in summer in AZ, then paranoia that every time I do take them to daycare might be construed as a violation of my restricted license, has quite an effect on your attitude.   Having tasted the sample, the serving for a second offense is more than enough to deter me.

One has only to look at our former codes of punishment to understand what effort it costs on this earth to breed a “nation of thinkers.”   — Friedrich Nietzsche