That was something I posted on the CBB. The translation:
Quote:
A lot of people think of Kankonia as an anarchy because its government does not make any laws. But we do have generally agreed-upon rules of how to behave, and we even have a few associations that fill roles similar to government entities in other nations.
Kankonians have eliminated their code of kamandra through the khemehekis/devesis wars that lasted from 925 to 1277. It is true, we have no rules against tending to a vegetable garden after 12:00 or requiring you to stand upright when entering a room anymore. But most people agree that is it wrong to murder, or to take personal property, or to destroy someone else's pets or even his/her beloved objects, or to assault someone, or . . . I could go on, but I take it that you get the idea. The way I see it, when we cut it down to the basics like this, we get something that almost everyone can agree on. Religion plays a major part in forming values: the Wintar, the holy book of Musefism, says that the first time someone is caught shoplifting, his/her left thumb shall be cut off; the second time, his/her right thumb shall be cut off; the third time, his/her left index finger; and the fourth time, his/her right index finger. This is not often applied in practice today, except sometimes by the Vigilante Squad, which I will get to soon, but people take the proscription against stealing very seriously. Even atheists, of whom there are not as many on Kankonia as on some planets, usually arrive at atheism because they think one does not need God to be ethical, unless they became atheists because their parents were.
We have an entity on Kankonia called the Vigilante Squad, which has fought the Ratharians and the Dantonese before. This is an all-volunteer squad of people who are devoted to keeping the Kankonian way and putting their lives at risk for it. They were founded in 1331 by Asie Boron Khard. The Vigilante Squad is not affiliated with the Kankonian government, i.e. our president or the president's advisors. They were originally formed to protect Kankonia against attacks from people of other planets, and to foil attempts by Kankonians to overthrow or destroy their own planet. Although they are a global organization, they have many chapters. If someone kills or threatens another person, or tries to rob a store, the Vigilante Squad's local chapter may step in and fight him/her. They are often brutal in their quest to fight for justice. They will sometimes fight shoplifters, but not if the person is shoplifting from a place whose prices are too high. They are skilled in bezists, psezens and sukinaps, the weapons of the hoishand, enduring 14 months of training before becoming a squadder. Should they be fighting somebody who knows how to use these weapons, they will use such weapons as table bombs that only a few people know how to make. Their motto is "Drebeket rimavaik, ad adaz as maik" (Get out the arsenal, for what is right).
Another organization not affiliated with the president is the Planetary Investigation Association (Koshetz na Apar Nahuzhus, or KAN). The KAN was founded by Hoko Platinum Gary in 1468. They maintain a computerized database with information on over a billion living Kankonians. Their database includes information on birthdate, full name, aliases, fingerprints, residence, phone number, cellphone bills, race (Kankonian, Tentan, Shaleyan, Hitan, Bodusian, Chatonian, etc.) and place of birth, physical appearance, hobbies, political views, family relations, past brushes with the Vigilante Squad and papers they have written. The KAN is able to find out quite quickly who someone is, and can solve homicides, thefts, etc. when someone's been wronged but the Vigilante Squad doesn't know whom to attack.
And finally, we have the Kankonian Conservation Corps (Baka na Antwan Kankonik, or BAK). This was founded in 1797 by Waed Sodium Gwendi. She declared its mission statement as "To preserve the ecosystems, plant species and animal species that form Kankonia's planetary heritage". The BAK has 1,400,000 members, who will fight to save gwanars and gwanars of land. Members of the BAK are known to climb trees to prevent them from being cut down. They will stand atop buildings to prevent them from being razed, and will take over the machines that are being used to chop trees and develop land. The BAK will sometimes team up with the Vigilante Squad, who will beat up or shoot loggers who are trying to cut down plants in areas where lots of endangered plants and animals live. In recent years they have been involved in saving the crystal waterdrill.
In somebody was destroying merchandise in a store, the Vigilante Squad could very easily be called in if the shopkeeper knew the cellphone number for the leader of the local chapter, and with modern Kankonian technology of automated driving and arcane knowledge of teleportation they would usually be able to make it in while the patron was still in the process of destroying the merchandise. Once they are sure the person is indeed doing what the shopkeeper said s/he was doing, they can get out their fists and weapons. We have had this happen in my hometown of Spanitz before, and the Vigilante Squad beat the patron until he agreed to pay for everything he destroyed -- all 4,305 pokhals of it. The shopkeeper was quite grateful to this non-government force. You want to know what will happen if someone tries to sit in the shop after it closes. We would get the Vigilante Squad to come in and wrest the person's arms out of the store long enough for the shopkeeper to lock the shop up. The reason they would do this is that it would prevent the person staying in the store from stealing, destroying or eating the merchandise.
Kankonia is a friendly place, I will not deny that. But all that friendliness goes out the window when someone decides not to abide by our common values. The values are more permissive than those on/in many other planets and countries, such as Danton and Kebsabhaz, but they still exist.