Kana -> RE: Punishment Retribution Rehabilitation (12/15/2012 10:26:38 PM)
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Kana . . . social morality is not measured in dimes and quarters. What sort of people are we if we become executioners of the insane? Why not? We kill everyone else. quote:
Are we a moral civilization? Nope. Never have been, never will be. We're a nation founded by venture capitalists intent on despoiling the new world, massacring the natives, built on slave labor, farmed by indentured servants and convicts, grown by robber barons, brought to empire by illegal wars (Turns out the whole Maine fiasco was a staged accident, kinda like the Tonkin Bay accident, and don't even get me started on the Mexican War-read Thoreau for that) and suppression/mass murder in the third world, despoiling our neighbors, barbarous killings in South America, Asia and the Middle East in the name of fighting communism,befriending dictators, teaching them to torture and imprison their own populations, raping the poorer countries of their natural resources, overthrowing democratically elected governments (look into how the shah came to power)-yeah, I think it's safe to say that our hands aren't clean and never have been-that any supposed moral stance we take is nothing but flagrant hypocrisy. quote:
Or is death delivered too easily in our names both in our prisons and in foreign villages? Possibly quote:
Down the slippery slope. We're already there, been there for a long long time, and ain't moving up anytime soon-see my comments re false sanctimony. quote:
Now we are prepared to execute the mentally deranged? Yep. When the harm others, lots and lots of them, to a great degree, I have no moral problem with that. And if those were your kids,or that was your wife a freak like Bundy raped and committed necrophilia on, I suspect you'd feel otherwise. And you'd be right to do so. Some people got no excuse to keep breathing. quote:
There is a difference between Evil and evil actions by the mentally deranged. The difference is a question of responsibility. Isn't Justice defined by responsibility? I think it is. Nope. I vehemently disagree. Justice is justice, and defines itself. You wanna do some small crime, steal from stores because you're a klepto, that's one thing, but when you go into a mall with a gun and start blasting, or when you rape loads of kids (Cuz you know, those poor pedophiles, they're just sick too. Once you start opening that door, you gotta draw the line somewhere. Or else nobody is evil, no actions are reprehensible and everything is acceptable), or start chopping up, coeds en masse, I don't care whether you claim to be responsible or not, I think you should be held accountable for your actions.You know, like the rest (Big banks obviously excluded here by some sort of strange political fiat)of us. Besides which, while I may agree with you in the idea that societies are judged by how they treat the least fortunate in their mix (In which case, all Americans are burning forever because it's utterly shameful how we treat our poor and mentally ill and pretty much always has been), these cats ain't unfortunate (And ain't it strange how most of them are middle class whitebread bitches)-they're mass murderers. quote:
Execution will not make us safe. It will deprive us of the opportunity to study the 'monsters' and try to find predictors. And once again, you can't comprehend the incomprehensible or make sense of the insane. And you've already argued here that sometimes, frequently, there are no predictors-these cats just snap. In many ways, this is a pointless argument-in most cases like Connecticut, these guys are on a one-way ticket. They almost always commit suicide at the end. Their goal is simply to cause as much damage and take as many people as possible with them. The Colorado cat is far more the exception than the rule while the Swedish guy was trying to make some bizarre political statement (Which I just don't get. If he had a problem with Muslims coming into his country, why go into a school? Why not go into a mosque? At least that would have made some sort of sense or statement. Hell, considering the current sentiment against Muslims in many western nations, some media driven, some deserved, lots of people would have supported his cause if not his actions. For crying out loud, it's OK for them to behead us on camera, take hostages, roll bombs into churches- turnabouts fair play, or at least that would be their rationale), kinda like the Oklahoma City bomber or OBL his bad self. These guys are marching to the beat of an entirely different drummer than the mall/school shooter types. But all of em are equally responsible and accountable.
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