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Funny, except the US, despite being a supposed fascist dystopia, currently has the opposite problem: people trying to enter and stay illegally, hence the wall-building (to keep people out, rather than in) and ramping up of immigration enforcement. How bad must the GDR and its ilk have been (and in some cases, still are) that it's the other way around?
Disney made a movie about this called Night Crossing in the early 1980s. More recently, there's a 2018 German movie about it called Balloon. [0] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082810/ [1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7125774
The 2018 film is a really good movie, I would highly recommend checking it out!
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Dustpile of history, sure, but gallows first. Bleeding out on the pavement is also acceptable. Way too often, connected ("powerful") people manage to escape proper punishment, sometimes in the name of a "peaceful transition of power".
A peaceful transition of power is nothing to sneer at. After a revolutionary change, they are rare.
There should be things you don't come back from.
For example, if you imprison people for political reasons, the time they spent in prison should be added up, multiplied by a punitive constant (2-3) and given to the offenders. And if that is a just punishment (I believe it it), then not doing that to them is unjust. Simple as that.
2) We should be looking for ways how to have both a peaceful transition and just punishment for the offenders.
Look at Unit 731 as an example ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731 ).
The people most responsible got away for free by skillful negotiation (immunity in exchange for data).
Instead, the proposition should have been a) you give us the data and graciously accept your death penalty b) we repeat the experiments on you, nonlethal first. That's harsh and will make many people today recoil (because they've been indoctrinated into a 1-step moral system which seems to correlate with stability but injustice), but it's fair and just. They think those experiments were OK to perform on innocent people, so they are very much OK to perform on them (guilty people) by their own logic.
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The 2018 film is a really good movie, I would highly recommend checking it out!
+1 to this! I wonder if some of the horror in it (the constant threat of the Stasi and its implications) translates well to non-German audiences. In case you're wondering about Germany's strict privacy laws - this is part of why they exist.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundesbeauftragter_f%C3%BCr_di...
One of favorite escapes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Papago_Escape They built boats to sail down the Salt River, to the Colorado River, and to Mexico. Of course the salt river is almost always just a dry river bed. It's shocking to me that no dramatization of this escape exists
The thing that makes this balloon escape story is so enthralling is that it actually worked.
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If that's the case the theocratic monarchy in UAE takes the cake, I think, although maybe there are similar amounts elsewhere. Pretty much all the highest % immigration countries are monarchy that I can think of, since in those country another tax payer is an easy win and immigrants that cause problem can be instantly booted so there is very little downside to taking anybody with $1 or a job who cares to come. Top Co…
I think "immigrants" is the wrong statistic here, since it includes workers with no path to citizenship. (In some cases, they can't leave because their employer stole their passport.) It confuses "this is a good place to resettle" with "here I can arbitrage higher wages in order to send money back home."
One of favorite escapes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Papago_Escape They built boats to sail down the Salt River, to the Colorado River, and to Mexico. Of course the salt river is almost always just a dry river bed. It's shocking to me that no dramatization of this escape exists
I don't think the Great Papago Escape was that great - "Over the next few weeks, all of the escapees were eventually recaptured without bloodshed." The thing that makes this balloon escape story is so enthralling is that it actually worked .
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Dustpile of history, sure, but gallows first. Bleeding out on the pavement is also acceptable. Way too often, connected ("powerful") people manage to escape proper punishment, sometimes in the name of a "peaceful transition of power".
Hm. I am not sure if a lynchmob and more blood would have helped the transition. The main important thing to the people was, that the wall was down and Stasi (secret police) out of power. There has been prison time and the careers of anyone important connected to the Stasi ended.
That silliness is how you get Jim Crow, it's how you got Trump 2.0
In a civilized country I can believe jail time would be good enough, but the US still uses capital punishment, so seems to me that if you want to be taken seriously some of those responsible have to be executed
In practice I remain doubtful that such an orderly transfer is likely. If there's chaos, for even a few days, that's how you get France's "Wild Purge" in the period when German withdrawal and Allied liberation are happening one town at a time. The accused are punished, sometimes even executed, without anything resembling due process.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Dustpile of history, sure, but gallows first. Bleeding out on the pavement is also acceptable. Way too often, connected ("powerful") people manage to escape proper punishment, sometimes in the name of a "peaceful transition of power".
Hm. I am not sure if a lynchmob and more blood would have helped the transition. The main important thing to the people was, that the wall was down and Stasi (secret police) out of power. There has been prison time and the careers of anyone important connected to the Stasi ended.
Obviously, if you intend to abduct ("imprison") or kill ("execute") somebody as punishment, then you should have very high certainty they deserve that punishment. One of the methods of achieving that is giving them a chance to defend themselves ("court process").
I don't see any difference between individuals and monopolies on violence ("states") doing this, as long as they both have sufficient levels of certainty.