[kstenerud]

> Real regimes don't mildly torture problematic people and then keep them around at length, as if they were boys[1] enforcing a boarding school hierarchy

That's precisely how it's done in China and North Korea, as well as many other places, and almost every terror regime in history. It's also used in America whenever prosecutors / prison operators want to "send a message."

There's great value in keeping a population cowed when a small percentage of them can recount the horrors they've suffered for disobedience to authority. Execution is only reserved for actual threats to the regime, and the odd show trial.

[idoubtit]

And that's nothing new. One of the most famous examples in History is Caesar's cruelty act when the Gaul was almost totally conquered. He wanted to discourage the few inhabitants that may rebel against Rome's authority, so he "resolved to deter others by inflicting an exemplary punishment on these. Accordingly he cut off the hands of those who had borne arms against him." Thousand of men were mutilated and scattered across Gaul to send this terrifying message.

The main account about this is in the last chapter of Bellum Gallicum, probably written by one of his lieutenants. A translation to English: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Commentaries_on_the_Gallic_Wa... from the Latin: http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/caesar/gall8.shtml#44

[082349872349872]

Regimes that execute at all, judicially or extrajudicially, are outside the pale from where I sit.