Pensions for Poppers

I'm imagining a conversation.  "I am also willing not to shoot people for a thousand bucks a month.  I mean, contingently.  There may be the odd month where somebody really just needs shooting.  But I've got a pretty good record going, so..."

"That's just why you're not eligible.  Your good record is pretty uniform.  We only pay people who kill people sometimes.  You weren't going to shoot people anyway."

"Well, probably, but now I'm thinking that I need to get on the list of people you want to pay off..."

They say they've had good results.  I'm sure they have.  What I wonder about is whether this is the sort of thing that doesn't set up perverse incentives over time.

5 comments:

E Hines said...

The New York Times: a leading satirical newspaper.

Eric Hines

Assistant Village Idiot said...

What could go wrong?

In fairness, I think it's part of federalism to let smaller bits of government experiment. I see the same perverse incentives (and Monty Python routines) that you do, but hell, let 'em try.

Grim said...

Fair enough, as long as it's not my little town that's paying off murderers!

Ymar Sakar said...

This is merely a potential pretense for a bounty system.

Since the logical next step is to pay killers to kill people who break the rules. That way the group devolves down to a handful of restrained individuals, as they self police, rather than evolving into a Viking clan that sucks the money out of the communities via extortion and evolution.

Then again, Diversity Casey confiscated AKs from Iraqi militias and he thought it was a good idea. Confiscation of citizen guns via registration lists is also the next step. Not by the same faction, different faction.

Grim said...

Well, that may or may not be "the logical next step," but it's a felony. There's nothing that says I can't pay somebody not to kill someone, but flipping the switch on that turns this into a capital crime.