@Evowizard25  
The guards went to Twilight in the opener because Cadance is too far away to give orders on an issue that needs immediate attention. They also may not have had a way to get in touch with her quickly because Equestria lacks telephones.

@Ginger_Fig  
True, it’s not necessarily punishment, more of just fixing what you did, but what is classified as punishment is almost entirely based on the concept of retribution, which I personally despise as I’ve never seen it help anything.
 
Well if someone told me they had a magical device to solve my problems, I’d probably laugh at them and say prove it or leave me alone, then again we don’t live in a world where magic is a legitimate thing. As for how skeptical Rarity should’ve been, I really don’t know, it’s hard to put any sort of objectivity on such a thing.
 
The problem with your Fluttershy example, while it is true it is entirely her fault, (that is assuming you can’t assign blame to the parasprites themselves, given that most animals seem intelligent and capable of reason in mlp, it’s very possible they might deserve blame) I don’t think there’s any moral lesson to be learned. Sure something along the lines of telling her to not be so quick to act (same thing for Twilight and spells) would be beneficial, but seeing as she had no negative intentions, I don’t think there’s any moral lesson to come from it. (again, you can’t put someone in jail for being ignorant or unintelligent, even if they’re bound to make a mistake because of it)
 

 
However, I will completely agree with you that the lessons in mlp are poorly thought out, thankfully they’re not my source of morality. (sadly though that can’t be said for kids who are still quite “malleable”)
 
Reading Evowizard25’s comment I remembered that Fluttershy kept a parasprite after seeing how dangerous they were. I’m still not sure of what could be punishment, other than someone telling her to not be such an idiot who was only thinking of herself at that moment (which isn’t really a punishment). Yeah forgot about that but didn’t want to erase what I just wrote as it some some other practical points.
 

 
 
The only thing I can really say about “punishment” in equestria is that since they have magical alicorns that can fix everything with relative ease, perhaps they try to avoid all traditional punishment and simply try to educate and rehabilitate. However it’s obvious that most problems are due to negligence rather than intentions, and I couldn’t in all good conscience want someone to be punished for simply not being that bright, no matter how many times it can lead to bad things. Given they have magical things in equestria, one tiny mistake (one that may have no effect her on earth and thus receive no punishment) can cause huge repercussions, and given the intent of punishment, to change the severity of it depending on the outcome rather than the intent is a difficult decision.
 
 
EX. You’re on earth and you read a book…no punishment obviously.
 
You’re a unicorn and you read a spell book…things get terribly out of hand and you’re in jail for half your life. Now that doesn’t sound quite right does it?

@SaburoDaimando  
He’d wonder who beat him to it?

Now I wonder what would have happened if Discord decided to have a little fun at their expense?

@Ginger_Fig  
I’m going to call the whole ‘Parasprite’ thing more of the writers unable to find a way to prolong the episode.
 
“Darn it! The others were able to find a way to get rid of the parasprite before Pinkie was able to get all the instruments. What do we do?….Make Fluttershy stupid and make her keep one. OF COURSE!”
 
This was probably one of the top ten dumbest decisions in the show, and it was all to keep the episode going and to prove Pinkie right. (Who could have just explained herself.)
 
And yes, Rarity does bear some blame…It’s the same thing Twilight did in Magical Mystery Cure. In a world of magic, especially when unicorns are involved, reading incantations without prior knowledge of them, is a risky move and both times have shown that it can lead to some nasty results.  
I’m shocked both of them did so. (Idiot ball anyone?)
 
I really liked this episode…right up to the ending where Spike quickly said that she wasn’t herself, the spell broke, they hug, and then the princesses (excluding Celestia) had to clean up their mess….Why Cadance had to help is beyond me, seeing how she wasn’t able to help during the season opener, but I’m sure cleaning up Ponyville is far more important then helping Equestria out in a national crisis.

@Techy Pony  
Good points all. It’s nice having an internet debate without people screaming FAGGOT!!! at each other.  
But I hardly see cleaning up your own mess as “punishment”…and in a society where magic is common it isn’t asking too much to expect that magic users (in this case Rarity) consider the consequences of their actions before trying something that looks too good to be true. I’ll make the assumption that you are a responsible human being; if a friend came to you with a magic item and promised “This will solve all your problems and nothing bad will happen” wouldn’t you feel a responsibility to be cautiously skeptical? I feel Rarity does bear some responsibility in this case.
 
Concerning your second point (your 3rd post), I was criticizing the writers’ poor record at showing the Mane 6 accepting consequences.  
I’ll try not to get long-winded, and limit myself to my favorite example; Fluttershy in the parasprites episode.  
She’s supposedly the town animal expert, right?  
Yet she picked up an unknown creature from the forest and brought it to town. Then, once it was known that these things were dangerous she decided to keep “just one”.  
The damage to the town is Fluttershy’s fault…no doubt about that…yet when it comes to moral lesson time at the end of the episode there is no mention of the real reason this calamity happened.
 
Why is this important? Because picking up strange animals is something little girls actually do! The writers had a chance to teach a meaningful, relevant lesson about a real danger inexperienced kids face…yet they went with something nebulous and honestly, pretty meaningless.  
That’s what I was referring to.

@Jackarunda  
Did you watch today’s episode?

Gold? Amber? What are they collecting and why?

@Ginger_Fig  
As you may have noticed, every major villain has been punished (the things I listed) in any way other than retribution. They have not once (in any serious or petty situation) resorted to personal vendetta since it’s entirely emotionally and subjectively based, which is no way to run a court.
 
(okay I’m done now)

@Ginger_Fig  
Say right in the beginning, when spike realized the consequences, he stopped it, though a bit of damage would’ve been done already, I wouldn’t call either of them morally responsible for anything that happened. Though spike was stupid, he most certainly had no malicious intent or even the knowledge to know the repercussions of his actions. To punish him at that point would be simply for retribution. It wouldn’t be incapacitate of a dangerous person, (unless you consider being stupid dangerous, then many people should be in jail) it wouldn’t be deterrence as it’s not really possible for someone to make the same mistake, it wouldn’t be rehabilitation, and it wouldn’t be restoration is it’s possible only the princesses could actually do anything to restore the damage.
 
So I think to punish him at that point would be absurd and solve nothing, unless you’re someone who just wants revenge even if it does no good.
 
However, he realized the harm in what he did, so he certainly should hold some blame because at some point he was aware of the situation and didn’t take action to fix it. However, none of those reasons I listed (which are the “supposed” reasons for punishment) would be any more applicable. So again, community service would really be the only option as it would serve as “restoration”. (as far as we know, he was punished, or they’re advanced enough to realize current forms of punishment are absolute shit and they’ve tried something different)

@Ginger_Fig  
No, because that’s like saying if someone is given a mind altering drug without their knowledge, they should be held accountable.
 
If someone takes drugs, unless they’re mind numbingly stupid they know they’ll lose mental control. Rarity had no prior knowledge, it would be absurd to punish her for something completely out of her control.

@Techy Pony  
@Background Pony #5A8D  
That’s like saying a person who commits a crime on drugs or alcohol shouldn’t be held accountable for their actions.
 
It just irks me that the show regularly does a terrible job of showing consequences for negative actions. They love patting themselves on the back about the show being a positive influence on its audience but honestly, FiM does a very poor job at conveying moral lessons…particularly in the area of personal responsibility.

@cheezedoodle  
Probably not in Ponyville. It’s a bit of a farming backwater, and even if a third of the population are unicorns they’re mostly working and tradesponies. Check how much of a crowd Trixie’s show drew.
 
Presumably the high-achieving students go off to study at Canterlot or Manehattan or Cloudsdale and subsequently move out. Give it 20 years or so and there’ll be a functioning local university based at the rediscovered castle, though. This whole princess business could reverse the brain-drain and improve fortunes in the area no end.

@Background Pony #06C1
 
“Revenge of the dark magic” incoming in about 36 hours.

Spike ate the book so it’s no longer a danger. That helped.

@unicornlord  
Oh, if anything that gives more credence to spike having done the most damage.
 
@Background Pony #74F3  
Yeah, might not have been possible for regular unicorns, even if it was I’m not sure how much they’d help given it supposedly took 3 alicorns an afternoon to clean.

@Techy Pony  
I was pointing out twilight’s mind rape spell might be easier to reverse because it’s not dark magic.

Rarity and especially Spike might have deserved to clean up the mess, but there is reason why 3 princesses were needed to clean. Dark Magic was involved and I don’t think your regular pony could fix the town like that.

@unicornlord  
Yes, your point would be valid if I was blaming Rarity, which I wasn’t, the cause of the trouble in this episode was spikes lapse in reasoning. (Just like twilight’s lapse in reasoning on that episode)

@Techy Pony  
to be fair, the want it need it spell wasn’t dark magic, it was Twilight’s personal mind rape spell.

@Ginger_Fig  
And then they would finally finish cleaning it all up right at the start at the next episode!

@Background Pony #5A8D  
Soo, my point was that spike hasn’t done much in the way of “cleaning up messes”, never said twilight didn’t cause her own. Besides, the only “mess” I can think of that Celestia had to “clean up” was the want it need it spell. (which wasn’t a literal mess mind you) Celestia fixed it in 1.5 seconds, clearly not that big of a deal, when it takes “lesser” alicorns (3 of them) all day to clean up your mess, you can bet those alicorns are a bit annoyed.

@Techy Pony  
Celestia picked up Twilight’s mess when she destroyed the town. Just saying.

@gittonsxv  
You’d think they’d already be worthless (as currency), but apparently not.

@Background Pony #5A8D  
Picking up some books is a far cry from repairing an entire town, which Spike has caused the destruction of twice so far.