Passage Summary: You can't say 'the punishment should fit the crime' while also giving repeat offenders extra time. Doing both forces you to look at a person's whole history to judge a single crime, which makes the rules too messy to actually work.

Conclusion: It is impossible to simultaneously maintain that punishment should be proportional to the offense and that repeat offenders deserve harsher penalties.

Reasoning: Combining these views implies that past actions are relevant to current offense seriousness, which would logically require considering so many factors that the proportionality principle would become impossible to apply.

Analysis: The statement in question is an intermediate step used to show the logical consequences of a specific position. The author uses it as part of a 'reductio ad absurdum'—showing that if you accept the premises, you are forced to accept this claim, which then leads to an impossible result. Focus on identifying it as a claim that the author argues is a necessary implication of the position being attacked.