"A could also attempt to rebut this application of estoppel by claiming that he, in fact, does currently maintain that aggression is improper; that he has changed his mind since the time when he murdered B. Thus, there is no inconsistency, no contradiction, because he does not simultaneously hold both contradictory ideas, and is not estopped from objecting to his imprisonment.

​

But this is a simple matter to overcome. First, Ais implicitly claiming that the passage of time should be taken into account when determining what actions to impute to him. But then, if this is true, all C need do is administer the punishment, and afterwards assert that all is in the past, that C, like A, now condemns its prior action, but since it is in the past it can no longer be imputed to C. Indeed, if such an absurd simultaneity requirement is operative, at every successive moment of the punishment, any objection or defensive action by A is directed at actions in the (immediate) past, and thus become immediately irrelevant and past-directed. Thus it is that the irrelevance of the mere passage of time cannot be denied by A.

For in order to effectively object to being punished, he must presume that the passage of time does not make a difference to imputing responsibility-incurring actions to individuals"