The W.O.R.M proposes to institute rattan caning in America. 

This isn’t a joke.  It will even be my first audio-visual presentation, whenever the studio is set up.

And hold me to this:  before anyone else’s buttocks are lashed and bloodied…the W.O.R.M. volunteers for the first caning.

Am I serious?  But of course.  Do you have a rational objection?  No.  I’ll prove it.

Thought experiment:  pretend I framed you for drugs.  Planted the evidence, gave false witness, etc…and it worked.  Imagine you’re being sentenced for a crime at this moment.  And the judge says, “Thanks to the W.O.R.M., you have a choice–twenty lashes of a rattan cane, or ten years in prison.”

What punishment for yourself?  Horrible, but relatively brief pain…or ten years severed from your family, career, and life? A decade living among predators?

You tell me you’d take that ass whuppin’, or I’ll call you a liar.

And what about a loved one?  Would you see your brother or sister off to prison, your beloved child locked up with rapists and murderers rather than suffer one single whipping? 

Like hell you would.

This never occurred to you, did it?  That rattan caning is far more merciful than what we do to our non-violent criminals?

The W.OR.M. will see the idea into the national dialogue.  This post was triggered by the embedded video (via the Blogfather), but I’ve given it a lot of thought the past few years.

So, regarding likely questions/objections—if recidivism increases, we revisit the policy.  Expense? Tell you what: I’ll pay 100% of increased expenses, you pay me a 1% commission on savings. What can I say? I’m no Paul Krugman.

Caning is for non-predatory offenders only, and only at that offender’s choice.  

As for anybody who whips out the “racism” card…seriously?  You don’t want people of your skin color having the option?  Er…okay.       

Much more on this in the future.  But be honest…who’s more merciful, the legal system or the W.O.R.M.?