GaryYou can judge whether or not someone is guilty of a violent crime, and therefore can't be trusted with his/her freedom, without judging that person's worth in the larger scheme of things.
I think that’s a matter of opinion. What is someone’s worth in the larger scheme of things?
You can look at a situation and try to decide what happened without comment on the basic humanity of the people involved.
That depends on the situation though, doesn’t it?
And the way we set up our prisons in a way that allows the strong to rape and abuse the weak is an example of how we as a society have no respect for the humanity of our prisoners.
But what does that say about our society where people are running around free, yet the strong continue to rape and abuse the weak?
crayonsI don't find it distasteful, I find it just plain wrong.
Depriving a human being of his/her life is not within the rights of another human being. We can say, "You're not fit to live in civilized society," because we other humans have created that society and we can make the rules. So we can send them into exile or, more practically these days, lock them up. But we can't say, "You're not fit to stay alive," because we didn't give the person life in the first place.
Well, If someone is threatening my life and the life of my friends or family, I most certainly think I can take them out of this life because that’s what they were planning on doing to me – or have done or plan to do to others. They have shown they have no respect for others – so why send them to a prison where – as Gary pointed out – they will continue to try to do inside a prison as they have done outside?
I'm agnostic. But if there is/are God(s), I'm pretty sure he/she/they would say that's not our job...
I’m atheist/agnostic friendly, but in the end, I’m polytheistic/animist and believe the gods know life and death is quite natural, as is self-defense and protection in whatever form and
I’m pretty sure they do not smile on anyone who commits heinous crimes against innocent people.
I do see it as distasteful to have to provide food and shelter for someone who's done a horrible thing. But what are you gonna do? Unless there's a fantasy island available -- or a habitable planet -- where we can just dump all the bad guys and let them fend for themselves, that's what we're stuck with.
Well, see, those who support the death penalty don’t agree that you’re
stuck with just a prison sentence. We support other options – the death penalty for heinous crimes.
GaryIt worries me that on a message board at a site dedicated to the film BBM there are people who trust the state to decide who is and who isn't worthy of life.
Why does BBM bear into this?
We trust the government with war and making sure our water and food isn’t contaminated, so in many ways, we already trust them with life and death.
Throughout history ordinary citizens have had much more to fear from their governments than any individual psycho.
But how about your neighbor? Or abusive husband/father? Don't forget, the person most likely to kill you is the person you love.
And it was only just a few years ago that it was against the law to engage in gay sex in a number of states in the U.S. As a gay man I certainly want the likes of Jeffrey Dahmer removed from the streets, but I don't want the state to have the right to kill Jeffrey Dahmer because there's an awful lot of assholes out there that confuse me with Jeffrey Dahmer.
Gay = cannibalism?
Someone mentioned Ayan Rand's quote, "Judge and be prepared to be judged." That sounds a lot like don't do anything you wouldn't want to see printed in the papers. HA! I do lots of stuff I wouldn't want to see printed in the papers, and if my neighbor were to find out about some of that stuff I wouldn't trust him to judge me with an eye toward fair play any more than I could throw the S.O.B.
Perhaps you want to be re-thinking how you live your life then
Seriously, women have had this problem for millennia. It's been documented in rape trials that jurors had a hard time convicting rapists because the woman just happened to be wearing a short skirt or had been divorced or was in a bar or - believe it or not - wearing animal print underwear. Some members of the jury found it hard to believe she was raped. Her underwear told them she was asking for it.
And God help me if he had the state with the power to kill me on his side.
That’s a pretty big jump from your neighbor knowing your dirty laundry to suddenly turning into the Gestapo living next to you, isn’t it? And remember, we're talking heinous crimes. Does your current life-style lead you to such things?
"Judge and be prepared to be judged" only works if you're in the majority. If you're part of a disdained minority you can judge all you want, but you had better be prepared to get stepped on like a bug by a group of people who think they are absolutely right in getting rid of you.
So, how does a minority become a majority to avoid this problem? They don’t. They have to have laws that protect them from the majority.