Resolved: That justified acts of vengeance ought to sanctioned by the government.

I'd like to start by thanking Ragaxus for posting a such a thought provoking topic - and by apologizing in my delay for producing this argument. Weekends can be a fairly distracting time. My opponent has not made certain whether or not he is describing a civil lawsuit, or a criminal cases so I will attempt to respond from the instance of both kinds. I have had the rare virtue of being involved in both kinds. In my argument I hope to show the audience of debate.org that not only is our trial system fair, but that it is the only reasonable approach to handling the disagreements between two parties. The injured, and the at fault. The criminal, and the victim. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In the matter of a criminal case, we observe a long standing tradition that began even before the time of Socrates. The trial by jury to bring conviction was invented thousands a years ago when according to legend, Athena sought to determine whether or not Orestes held guilt in the murder of his mother. This tale was made famous throughout many retellings in Greek drama, notably by Aeschylus ( http://en.wikipedia.org... ) In Aeschylus' version of events, Orestes father Agamemnon returns from the battle of Troy with a prize by the name of Cassandra. After nearly a dozen years of absence, Agamemnon returns to discover a less than ideal living situation at home. His wife, Clytemnestra was quite enraged at the sacrifice of their daughter Iphigenia to placate the gods at the beginning of the Achaean campaign against Troy. So, Clytemnestra having found comfort from the loss of her daughter in the arms of another man in her husband's absence immediately murdered Agamemnon and Cassandra on their arrival home. Orestes, the son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra found himself in an odd place. Expected by tradition to avenge his father, he would have to do so by the murder of his mother. A crime so unthinkable that many ancient cultures had no word to refer to it and when needed Romans described it as "Patricide of the Mother" even though matricide was a perfectly Latin term. To make matters worse, he had to avenge the fate of his sister who had been married off to a poor farmer to avoid her loyalty to her father from causing any issues during her affair. Two very grave offenses. Apollo - one of the deities of justice, being himself a good son known for defending his mother's honor to an extreme ( http://en.wikipedia.org... ) immediately dispatched his Furies. (http://en.wikipedia.org...) As the Furies hunted Orestes to his death while also trying to drive him mad, he fled to Athens where he threw himself upon the mercy of Athena, the best choice for this due to the fact that she was a goddess who was born without having a mother. Athena convened the first trial by Jury known to western civilization at this point. A group of twelve Athenians were asked to sit in judgment of the fate of Orestes. The twelve split their votes evenly down the middle, and Athena was called upon to cast the deciding vote in the guilt of Orestes and she with her jury found the actions of Orestes to be justifiable and there for Just. Apollo, though angered by the verdict, dismissed the Furies. This was the first time in myth that an individual was acquitted of a crime. Now Orestes had committed murder and until that point there was only one fate for murderers and that was to be killed. To the Furies and to Apollo it did not matter that Orestes was simply avenging his father's death. The invention of the trial and of the court system was the only reason why his life was not forfeit. If Orestes had been put to death by the Furies with out a trial, it would have created another wrong that Electra, his sister would have been forced to avenge. To bring justice back to her family, she would have had to bring justice upon the Furies and Apollo - unless of course you believe that gods are above the justice of mortals. This is an example of a criminal offense of one individual against another individual - but unfortunately there are likewise crimes against societies as a whole. Socrates himself was tried in such a fashion by the Athenians. He was charged corrupting the youth of the city as well as impiety. The result was a conviction and his death (largely caused by his mockery of the court.) His crimes were not crimes against an individual, but crimes against the society. In such a case, how would you propose that the society "give to each man the exact measure of his due" when dealing with an offense such as corrupting the youth of the city, and impiety? There is no way for the Society to punish Socrates in a way which is an equivalent - so they must invoke a system of tit for tat in order to have justice at all. Death provided for corrupting the youth of the city, and fines to punish impiety. ------------------------------------------------------------ In the matter of a civil cases it has been a measure of tit-for-tat for likewise thousands of years. If one actually consults the Code of Hammurabi in it's entirety, you'll see that the first written legal system likewise imposed financial punishments for crimes against other individuals. To again use the example of murder the Greeks practiced a custom referred to as a blood price. Where as a consequence of the death of someone, the family of the murdered was allowed to seek retribution. Either in the form of the death of the offender, the banishment/exile of the offender, or the offender could pay a price demanded as compensation for the loss of the family member. In some extreme examples of this, an athlete once killed an individual who stepped in front of his javelin after it had been thrown, and the family chose to have the javelin exiled to bring justice for the death of their son. If one were following a true eye for an eye style of justice system attempting to give each man an exact measure of their due, the athlete in this case would likely have died for an unintended accident. But the notion that a persons crime represented a material value has been around for ages. It has been around longer than the impressive state buildings, many of which which were constructed as an attempt to bring work folks in the 1930s. ----------------------------------------------------------------- When one consults the founding philosophies behind our modern court system, they'll find writers such as Thomas Paine remind their readers that the protection of life is more important than the protection of individual property. A civil society cannot create a justice system where life becomes secondary to vengeance. Revenge pits neighbor against neighbor, and family against family. The Justice system gives them a means to settle their grievance without bringing greater harm to the society. What one person merits as a reasonable punishment, may not merit the same with their peers. The injured may not be of sound mind to exact equal punishment. Anger often results in escalation rather than fairness. What you call for as fairness is simply to grant individual tyranny to one party over another and to call that justice. It is always within an individuals rights and abilities to seek greater retribution than the civil society allows for but these actions are not legal and not condoned in order to better create peace between neighbors. Government is meant to limited the tendency that drives one person to seek ultimate power over another so that a society of equals can continue to flourish. Simply put, tit-for-tat is the only way in which a justice system can be constructed and expect to function. If you wish to be judge, jury, and executioner you must leave your civil society and enter into a state of nature where there is no expectation for you to abide by the agreed upon laws and customs of your soci