Town Meeting

[john-adams-1776.livejournal.com]

John awoke at his usual early hour on the morning of the town meeting. He dressed with slightly more than usual care in his suit of clothes from home, broke his fast with a light meal, and headed to the Golden Horseshoe to ensure that things were the way he wanted.

The chairs and small tables were already perfectly arranged, but John dragged a podium he found backstage out to the front of the curtain. Then he bustled about in the kitchen area setting out drinks and whatever small snacks he could find back there.

Before long, interested citizens began filing in and he went up to the podium. There was no microphone because he'd never heard of such a thing, but John Adams never had difficulty making himself heard.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome. If you would please pick up any refreshments you'd care for and take your seats, we'll begin in just a few minutes."

Comments

[thebadboyfriend.livejournal.com]

"I think you'd be discussing it because to make this little powerplay jackoff of being the thin blue line work, you need to believe we all want you in charge," Logan said, smirking viciously.

"And as a matter of fact, I wouldn't agree. People are better off backing the hell away from the psychos out of their own common sense than expecting the cavalry to come and save them. Especially since you haven't explained how the hell you expect to deal with these people who are 'quite powerful' yourselves."

[kzadbhat.livejournal.com]

"Actually, it was never our intention for this police force to be anything official or powerful," said Carrot. "And while we don't think this meeting is a bad idea at all, we didn't call it, either. We were more planning a group of people with experience and training in law enforcement to be available if anyone wanted our help. But it would be better if people wanted a police force around. And as to your second question, we'd find away. The Watch I work for in my world has arrested dragons, golems, entire armies, or our own ruler when we've had to. It's possible because people know we don't represent ourselves but the law.

[kuchiki.livejournal.com]

Rukia stood up, frowning. "Forgive me if this has already been asked," she said, trying as hard as possible to be polite and courteous in her curiosity. "But what, in theory, happens to people who are arrested by you guys? Do they get a trial? How are they punished? Who determines the punishments?"

[swordandchalice.livejournal.com]

Setsuna snickered to that and said, quite loudly and plainly, "I wish them luck arresting 75% of the park's population."

[kuchiki.livejournal.com]

Rukia nodded, taking his comment very seriously. "That too," she said thoughtfully. "Most people here have been involved in some degree of physical altercation. What exactly approaches the level of requiring police intervention?"

[kzadbhat.livejournal.com]

"No, it hasn't, and it's a very good question," Carrot said, looking grateful for Rukia's civil tone. "Our thoughts were that we would only arrest a person who presented a clear threat to the well-being of others, such as a man who attacks another man with a sword with the intent to harm him. This wouldn't include sparring, and we wouldn't arrest someone without judging the situation. We have a place we think could hold such people, and the idea would be to bring the question of punishment before the people who live here, in the same way the question of having a police force has been brought before the people here. Where I come from at least, a policeman never decides the punishment of a criminal."

[kuchiki.livejournal.com]

Rukia was silent for nearly a minute, considering Carrot's words. They did make some sort of sense, but she still had questions and some things still bothered her. "How would you judge a situation? What place would hold people?" she asked. "And don't you think that bringing the fate of an individual before a lot of people is different than bringing the fate of an organization before them? For one thing, I think it could humiliate both the perpetrator and victim of the crime to have their business aired in front of everyone, and for another, people are biased creatures who don't always act fair. Isn't it possible that, if someone well-liked demands an unreasonable punishment, others could back them up?"

[kzadbhat.livejournal.com]

"I think you bring up some good points," Carrot admitted. "My experience isn't in governing people, just police work. So the system of trying people I thought we might use is clearly not the best system. But I don't think it would be a bad idea to set up such a system before we have criminals who need to be tried rather than wait until afterwards."

[kuchiki.livejournal.com]

"Thank you," said Rukia, with a slight nod. "And thank you for answering my questions so graciously. It's comforting to know some thought has gone into this process, at least." She smiled.

[thebadboyfriend.livejournal.com]

"Well, excuse me, but you've just said your intention is to keep people from being physically hurt, and if you're going in with the idea that that's not going to involve power than you've got a hell of a lot more optimistic view of human...or whatever...nature than I've ever even seen. Forgive me if I don't find 'oh, we'll find a way' too much of a comfort."

"And exactly what law are we talking about here?"

[kzadbhat.livejournal.com]

"Since property isn't much of an issue here, our idea of law would be simple-- we'd stop people from doing things that would hurt other people. And since it was brought up before, sparring and that sort of thing wouldn't count."

[under-arrest-d.livejournal.com]

"The police where I come from at least don't typically deal with emotional damage. We've got no authority to deal with things that aren't physical in nature. The child spanking question I'm going to consider rhetorical, as I haven't seen a plethora of children running around at this time, but unless you were beating the child, then no, I don't think it would count. Lightly backhanding also does not count as a beating. Other cases, we'd take case by case."

[kzadbhat.livejournal.com]

"I come from a city where people from entirely different cultures and species manage to live together in relative peace. I think there's a big difference between varying customs and things that should be wrong no matter what the culture, and those differences are mostly clear. I'm a dwarf myself, by adoption, and I wouldn't support any law in Ankh-Morpork that challenged most dwarfish customs, but I still would support the police stopping gang violence between dwarfs and trolls."

[kzadbhat.livejournal.com]

"If you'd heard what I'd just discussed with Rukia," Carrot said pleasantly, with no trace of condescension in his voice, "Detective Orcott and I were never promoting a system where the police would decide what would become of the people we arrested. We'd leave that up to everyone, so our biases wouldn't be an issue in that case."