Before And After The Fact
[ Posted Tuesday, June 1st, 2010 – 17:13 UTC ]
It is a great temptation for people in government to mete out harsh punishment after something happens which they do not agree with or support. Whenever some incident bursts onto the public consciousness and raises an outcry, government officials almost always feel the urge to use their power to explicitly punish whoever is responsible. The BP oil spill is just the most recent (and most glaring) example of this right now. But there's one problem with national politicians elbowing each other out of the way to punish individuals or companies in such a fashion -- it's not only illegal, it's downright unconstitutional to do so.