The entire concept of "setting an example" seems like a bit of fascism that has snuck its way into liberal democracy.
If you think about it, retribution is pretty petty. It doesn’t accomplish anything and a civilized society should do away with it.
The only reasonable basis for punishment then is the “educate millions” rationale above. To the extent that it is effective in establishing rails for a stable society, I think it’s morally acceptable to do so.
You accurately summarized the crux of the argument: it’s all about your views on the dignity of the individual.
Sadly this isn't the case in the West anymore. Most people come from a rather meaningless and mind-numbing job, turn on the TV and expect to be entertained. And seeing your neighbor from a different political camp punched in the face is the oldest form of entertainment the humanity came up with. Look at many social justice programs now: "group X has been suffering historically, so let's now make group Y suffer in some other way to make it fair" as opposed to "let people from X and Y build shit together for the sake of prosperity".
This way will inevitably bring poverty, people will eventually wake up and start asking the right questions about the dropping quality of life and affordability of assets, but it can take decades more of arguing on who's shitpost was more offensive.
Citation needed.
"African-Americans have had worse access to educational resources, so let's shut down gifted programs for everyone." https://edition.cnn.com/2021/10/08/us/new-york-gifted-and-ta...
"The population of certain high-status schools is not demographically identical to the population at large, so let's stop using objective criteria in university admissions." https://www.cbsnews.com/news/harvard-test-optional-sat-act-s...
"Girls do worse in math class than boys, so let's change the curriculum to be less about math and more about social justice." https://www.independent.org/news/article.asp?id=13658
The last article doesn’t mention word “girls” or “female” at least once on the page.
Likewise, there is an ongoing court case about Yale (which is also spilling over into discussions about other schools) discriminating against students by race. See https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/13/yale-illegally-discriminates.... They have been trying to transition to more subjective methods of student filtering for a while now to hide this better. Rather than include an entire bibliography of the context behind the change, I just linked to that change being enacted, since that's what I considered the important thing being asked for (the proof of systems being made more unfair/objectively worse).
I can't give you bulletproof explanations of why these changes are being made - no one can. No one has come out to explicitly say, "We're changing the math curriculum because [group] is doing worse and we need to tilt the field in their favor." It's always couched in "better world" language - it's more just, more equitable, allows students to learn better, etc. But the claim was that social justice reforms are more focused on destroying something providing value to a privileged group than trying to come up with ways for everyone to achieve better outcomes together. That's what these changes, in general, show.
Instead of having the opportunity to go to a specialized gifted program, even if it's harder for people of some races to get in, no one gets one.
Instead of auditable, comparable, and clearly defined criteria for college acceptance, it's entirely subjective and based on the Admissions Office's biases.
Instead of a math class that teaches actual math, even if some students find that boring or difficult, we have whatever California is doing.
Assuming zero-sum scenarios (such as hiring or school admissions) this is the basic premise behind affirmative action, and is why Ivy league schools (such as Harvard) and state schools (such as California) attempt to suppress Asian and white admittance in favor of black and brown:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/15/us/university-of-californ...
In other cases, it is directing tax payer money away from general funds towards specific groups:
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-03-29/palm-spr...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/02/25/reparations...
Finally, there are times where subordinates are treated differently for the purposes of promoting the new in-groups:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10663977/Clover-Par... (sorry, I couldn't quickly find a better article than the daily mail, though the video speaks for itself).
The most particularly pernicious idea to become a meme is "decentering whiteness". The net result is that contributions from white people are devalued and deprioritized, effectively dehumanizing white people as though they were nothing more than the sum of their skin color. Examples from various organizations preaching it:
https://nonprofitquarterly.org/decentering-whiteness-buildin...
https://www.uua.org/worship/words/decentering-whiteness-wors...
https://blogs.shipleyschool.org/decentering-whiteness-at-hom...
https://www.gettingsmart.com/2021/11/11/decentering-whitenes...
https://journals.aps.org/prper/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevPhysE...
There are no shortage of examples like these in classrooms, workplaces, churches and government services and training, expanding into every facet of society at an increasing rate. The core idea- that many of these things don't need to be structured around a particular culture- is fine. The implementation details, however, rarely are.
Not that I disagree that setting an example is a part of liberal democracies, but at least in the US, we've been "setting examples" since forever. It's just that as a society we deem most of the people who the courts have historically used to "set an example" expendable.
Anyway, the notion of deterrence, in the United States, if you consider this a modern liberal democracy, is codified in the federal sentencing guidelines: https://www.ussc.gov/guidelines/2021-guidelines-manual/annot...
irrelevant technicality: I suppose setting an example could also be construed as general deterrence based on a instance of specific deterrence.
No, it's an ideal that some countries claim to aspire to, and some seem to be moving away from. (Those lists of countries are not as disjoint as they might seem).
It’s always people. Biden is a person. Putin is a person.
Hiding behind language like country or state is part of the propaganda and mind virus such people rely on, insuring agency defers to concept. They’re self serving people, not concepts.