Plea Bargain-State Terror
During the Inquisition,an edict would be read at a special Mass,It
described various heresies,besides the main two,Islam and Judaism.
It then called forth all who might be guilty of,'infection.'
If they confessed during a period of grace they might be accepted back into
the Church without undue penalties.A penance would usually be enough.
However they would be obligated to denounce any guilty parties who would
not come forward.This was an essential prerequisite for being let off with
just a penance.To denounce oneself as a heretic was not enough to be able
to benefit from the terms of the edict.It was necessary to denounce all
those accomplices,who shared the error or who had led one into it.
In 1578 an Inquisitor recorded,"We must remember that the main purpose of
the trial and execution is not to save the soul of the accused but to
achieve the public good and put fear into others.'
Anyone could denounce anyone and the burden of proof was on the accused.The
fear levels would rise so high that neighbor would denounce neighbor as
pre-emption from being accused themselves.Whole sections would confess
en-masse binding themselves over to the control of the Inquisition.
Those who would bear false witness had their anonymity protected.
Something almost exactly the same occurred in the death camps of Pol Pot's
Kampuchea.And something similar is at work in the US with the plea bargain
system of Justice.Trials are to be avoided at all costs,the maximum amount
of pressure is applied to an accused in order to make them dob in,or squeal
on their friends,neighbors and relatives.
There are to many examples to list here,but one might involve an innocent
person being required to give false testimony against another with the
threat of five years or more hanging over them if they fought the case.The
evil that men do lives on and this is a pernicious evil of state power that
returns again and again where the state grows beyond the bounds of decency
and normality.Where the unfettered state knows no limits no one is safe.
Ref.'The Inquisition.' by Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh. Penguin books.
