The best argument about why and how governments punish people was. If you consider the hoary old governments that implemented this stuff you find that contrary

The best argument about why and how governments punish people was. If you consider the hoary old governments that implemented this stuff you find that contrary to what you might assume they can't even begin to care about a the guy that got in a fight and died. The farmer whose chickens were rustled. Life is cheap and the peasants lives are barely worth the paper to mark their existence. What do they care about. The the system keeps functioning. Someone does something like beating a man do death in a drunken brawl, stole some chickens. That causes problems if unchecked. So what do you do. You reserve retribution to you and you alone. So that exacting private retribution is a challenge to your authority. You also reserve truth, only you get to say a man is a badie or not. And once you've done so you force his community to accept him back. If you accept the above punishing his family makes things worse not better. You gave him 20 lashes and he's butthurt about that, so what. Give his family 5 lashes each and they hate you not him.