Hammurabi

The remarkable Code of Hammurabi (1760 BC) is considered the first written public law. It is genius in its simplicity, yet it is exhaustively complete. 282 paragraphs cover the whole of civil and criminal law. Contracts, Sales, Probate, Taxes, Torts, Property, Evidence and Administration. It's all there.

Of course,bits of it are barbaric, at least by today's standards. However, perhaps, what we need today is a bit more barbarism...

Here are a few of my favorite bits:

8

If any one steal cattle or sheep, or an ass, or a pig or a goat, if it belong to a god or to the court, the thief shall pay thirtyfold; if they belonged to a freed man of the king he shall pay tenfold; if the thief has nothing with which to pay he shall be put to death.

21
If any one break a hole into a house (break in to steal), he shall be put to death before that hole and be buried.

196

If a man put out the eye of another man, his eye shall be put out.

[ An eye for an eye ]

197
If he break another man's bone, his bone shall be broken.

200
If a man knock out the teeth of his equal, his teeth shall be knocked out.

[ A tooth for a tooth ]

So, then, under the code, what should be done, what is just, when someone breaks my things and steals my stuff? Because really, that is my button. That is what gets my goat. That is the one penal peeve that particularly gets on my very last nerve.

I have a high degree of tolerance for insult and offense. I can turn my cheek with the best of them.

But, when it come to my stuff, the stuff that I work for, the stuff that I care for, the stuff that becomes an extension of me, what should be done to the violator?

There is nothing noble about a thief. A thief is a coward. A lazy piece of shit coward. And when a worthless cock-sucking piece-of-pig-shit son-of-a-whore shatters windows in my car and takes my things, leaving my wife and my daughter stranded; what action would not be justified?

Oh sure, the goddamn good-for-nothing jizz-guzzling chicken-fucker will never be caught.

But if he is... If he is...

I can at least fantasize about horse tranquilizers, duct tape and baseball bats, can't I?

My last fucking nerve. I'm telling you.