When this guy gets convicted (we hope), he should never again see the light of day.... getting the max from the judge. A true animal!
Why do we punish people as sport, and enjoy feeling righteous in doing it?
Why don't we fix problems, instead of using them as opportunity to commit secondary crime?
Shoe, I share your feeling, but i chastize myself for it.
I've never really understood why inflicting abuse on someone will make up for them having abused.
It just means we're creating twice as much abuse having happened. And it's hypocritical. It makes us guilty also, of the behavior we generally deem as so wrong (example: killing people who kill people to show that killing people is wrong).
I understand the
urge to give someone a taste of what they've given. I feel it all the time, and it can be hard to suppress. But, as I said, there's total hypocrisy in "punishing" people. And of all things, if there is to be justice, it should be thoughtful, not rash impulse. Not reptilian reaction.
"An eye for an eye" is a code of barbarism.
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I want you to consider this: If we discuss crime and our aim is not to stop crime from happening (fix the problem), but instead to engage in an unwinnable "fight" with it, are we not relishing crime? And are we not just working ourselves up the feeling of righteousness to commit our own crime too (against the primary "criminal")? And if we do have means at our disposal of FIXING these people, rather than torture them and enjoy it...how am I supposed to know who is truly the bad guys? When both are committing similarly abusive acts? When those who want to be considered the "good guys" have other options, and know full well that committing secondary abuse does not end the problem at all? (It doesn't. The U.S. has more than 1% of its own populace in cages (1 in 300 people) , and there's still plenty of business, and I reject false claims of "it's working" as they are made by agencies with biased interest and cultured denial.
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Oh I know..."If we don't punish, just what are we supposed to do instead?" Fix the people who screw up, one way or the other. We've got a lot of technology. There's really no excuses any more.
And when we cannot do that, ensure they can't do it again (with caging being an utter last resort we hardly ever do). (Oh yes, jailing people is barbaric. It makes me wonder "what century is this?" Of course with a place like Texas* as an example of how monstrous people can be (relishing killing people as public revenge, letting citizens chase people and kill them for stealing a radio, etc ...I feel like I died and woke up in some nightmare future you usually see in sci-fi. (I never knew about Texas' ways. I've been under a log, yes. And I won't be going there soon, because it sure would be the wrong place to be if some misunderstanding occurred!)
Anyway...having said all that, if I had my way (and we did things thus), a knife-wielding maniac who sets fire to people would be locked up in a psychiatric institution until or unless he was deemed unlikely to recommit. So...under my wished for system, you'd get the same outcome in this case. But i would like to see one difference. I'd like it if we did it with mercy for his problem, rather than despising condemnation for him. He has a soul, and he actually has a large chance of being diagnosed as mentally ill, and then he can't be viewed as "guilty". Dangerous, but not responsible for his actions because his mind is defective.
Well that's an awful birth defect just like any other deformity one could emerge into life to suffer. Doesn't medical science owe it to humanity to try and solve those conditions?
So I say we try to fix him, to end such things. Not take revenge.
*Sincere apologies if you're from there. It's a nice place otherwise. I've been there.