RTH, 

It's all been tried before.  In medieval Europe inanimate objects were sometimes hauled into what passed for courts of law at the time, then tried and sentenced to all sorts of creative punishments if found guilty.  And if you wish to venture REALLY far into the past, there is the well-known tale of Persian King Xerxes I (aka King of Kings), who, to show his displeasure with the sea, ordered the waters of the Hellespont whipped 300 times.  That  event occurred about 2,500 years ago.  It seems obvious many of us humans haven't acquired a lick of good sense since.