Lady Sidhe: “What about taking people to task for their actions? ... Plenty of people are poor. They aren't criminals. Plenty of people were abused as kids. They don't murder. People who murder have something missing. It's not the parents' fault, and it's not society's fault. It's all them. They make a choice. They should have to pay for that choice.”
The question of choice.
This is Nature vs Nurture. Is an individual consciously responsible for his actions; ruled by instinct? Or are these actions ultimately a product of environmental socialisation? One could argue that nurture does not come into it, not least because nurture can only ultimately arise
from nature, and, like you say, people respond differently to a similar (never the same) social situation, hence not everyone who is poor/psychopathic/asymmetrical resorts to murder. Are we all born the same? Your argument predisposes that we are not; that a murderer is an anomaly – they have ‘something missing’ – and murder is executed (forgive the pun) with intent and rationality (nevertheless based on irrational emotional experience, e.g. abuse etc.). Your argument for capital punishment can only hold strength if you believe that WE ARE BORN DIFFERENT. That a person has a predisposition to murder, be it genetic or sociopathic, and there is NO CURE. If this is the case,
how can you advocate punishment? It would serve no purpose, achieve no reparation and could not function as a deterrent. It is an incredible paradox.
"I suggest we work with criminals ... to establish the root of the crime and eliminate the cause, not its product."
Lady Sidhe: "And how do you suggest we do that?”
So little is known about the cause, or at least the dominant set of characteristics inherent in a murderer. We must use the symptoms (criminals) to establish the root (cause) of the phenomena, like any scientific experiment. Cause and effect: nothing just
happens – life, while unpredictable, is not arbitrary – there is always a cause, always a reason. Ergo treating insanity (murder) with a punishment that assumes sanity (i.e. that the individual exerts choice) is ineffectual.
The ultimate objective is to eradicate the phenomenon of murder. Utopian maybe, but surely the purpose - the end result - is for murder (and other violent crime) to cease to exist. The only way this can be achieved is through ongoing scientific research to determine WHY murder exists. Once we know the cause, we can treat it, respond (not react) to it and finally obliterate it.
Logistically, I would retain perpetrators in a secure environment whereby detailed physiological and psychological study could take place. Life would mean life: that would also be the deterrent/punishment.
And tell me, how old were YOU when you realized the difference between right and wrong? Did it take you until after you were a teenager to figure that out? I doubt it.
This depends on whether my morals are inherent, or educated (see above). To answer that question with authority would be incredibly arrogant.
Happy Monkey: When a human life is taken, nobody gets it
Quite. You cannot refund or replace a life, therefore it should not be treated akin to material crime. Like for like only works with quanitifiable objects - life is not a possession, therefore the issue of reparation is a non-entity.
Happy Monkey: I don't consider economics to be relevant when discussing whether to kill someone.
Economics have become an issue because people have attempted to quantify life (see above). As this is impossible, the influence given to the means of financing the death or life of a criminal is deplorable.
Lady Sidhe: Course, we could send them all to Europe, and let you guys rehabilitate them....
Good ole' USA: you are innovators, instigators, creators. You create the problems: we (and our Middle Eastern/African/Asian compatriates) deal with the consequences.
(*PS. I refer more to Western values in general than America itself.)
Lady Sidhe: But if we KNOW someone is guilty, I say FRY 'EM.
Fry 'em.
Fry them? I just cannot comprehend this brutal animality. It is vulgar, reprehensible and reduces everything you have said to the same level as these vile individuals you would so relish seeing 'fried'. You are as guilty and sadistical as them:
If someone killed a member of my family, you bet I'd pull the switch, drop the floor, inject the drugs, pull the trigger, whatever. Like LadySyc, I'm vengeful by nature. I'd want to look into their eyes when I did it, too. Why should they live when my loved one is dead? It may not bring them back, but it would be a start on the healing process for me.
And you know what? I'd sleep like a baby afterward.
Sidhe
Remorse and forgiveness - terrible burdens, eh?
Ladysycamore: So what then? Just make that person deny their true feelings for the sake of people who don't agree?
I would never advocate denial as therapeutic or antidotal. By all means
experience these emotions, just don't act on them.
Why is it so difficult to comprehend that some people are going to feel that way..period? Just because YOU wouldn't DARE feel that way, don't say that others don't have the right to do so.
"Your right doesn't make me wrong." (told to me by a very wise man)
Of course- no doubt I would feel just as much hatred, anger and desire for revenge as the next person, but emotions should not necessarily be translated into action. They are subjective and not a reflection of fact, or reality, and thus can only perpetuate the cycle of crime.
Lady Sidhe: I'm not pointing fingers at anyone
But you're quite happy to point guns?
