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varkam Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Sep-28-07 04:14 AM
Original message
Sympathy for the Devil
I guess that you could say that I am a little disheartened as of late with respect to some of the things that I have read here on the Democratic Underground. I know that we are a fairly disparate group of people in that we differ from one another (sometimes markedly so) in our opinions. Sometimes it seems we can find little common ground, especially if you venture into the topic forums.

I think what I am about to say, however, is probably uncontroversial: there are such things as fundamental human rights. In other words, by the very virtue of simply being a person we have certain, inalienable rights. It doesn't really matter where you think those rights come from, be it God or society, but simply that we have them. I say that is probably uncontroversial as it is one of the founding principles of the United States.

What that means, then, is that we should be afforded certain protections, enforceable by the state, that are non-negotiable. We have the right to be free in our thought and our speech. We have the right to basic human dignity. I could go on for a while, but suffice it to say that these fundamental human rights are the foundation for both our country and our criminal justice system (in that those who choose to violate the rights of others are punished accordingly).

Now, what I am about to say will probably be unpopular. I will preface it by saying that I am not a perfect person. I have lied. I have hurt and used people. I have made many mistakes and, I suspect, will make many, many more before I go into the ground. I do not claim to be any more moral than anyone else here.

But what I am disheartened by is seeing usually reasonable people proposing rather unreasonable and barbaric courses of action being taken against certain individuals whom you might call the worst among us. People who violate our sense of right and wrong, our sense of decency, our values in some of the most horrific ways imaginable. People who harm the innocent and the helpless. People that harm our children. The murders. The rapists. The molesters. The people who, through their acts, take all that is good and corrupt it. The people who, as a result of their crimes, strip us of our collective innocence and force us into a reality that is uncomfortable for us all. A reality where the bad guy can win. A reality where the good guy, though the cause is just, suffers. A reality that makes us yearn for justice and a sense of fairness.

I'm talking about the John Coueys of the world. The Jeffrey Dahmers. The Charles Mansons. The Osama bin Ladens. Their crimes should outrage us, should make us ill, should make us cry, for I mourn the passing of our society when they do no longer.

They are, however, human beings - and nothing can change that. Not the ruthlessness of their method, nor the remorselessness of their psyche. As I said before, human beings are entitled to certain non-negotiable rights. Rights that should be extended to the Coueys, the Dahmers, the Mansons, and the bin Ladens. Notice here, however, that you can simultaneously do this while affirming that their acts deserve a swift and unequivocal response. I am not a Christian, but the phrase "hate the sin, love the sinner" comes to mind.

I understand our desire for retribution, to visit onto the offender the suffering that they have wrought - for it's own sake. I understand our desire for revenge. But we should not allow retribution to become the sole reason for punishment, we should not allow our desire for revenge to obscure our reason - for I will likewise mourn the passing of our society when they do.

As a closing thought, I forget the source but I recall the parable of slaying monsters. When we slay our own collective monsters, we should take care not to become monsters ourselves.

I take a stand on the principle of fundamental human rights, and do so because I believe if one among us has lost them, then they are no longer fundamental, no longer non-negotiable. Either we all have fundamental human rights, or none of us do.

Thank you for reading.


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Breeze54 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Sep-28-07 04:29 AM
Response to Original message
1. You're a good and empathetic man.
I'd rather people get their ya-ya's out on a messageboard, than in real life.

Execution is not a solution to the problem of revenge or retribution.

But the argument by the money changers is that 'we' shouldn't have to pay to keep such vile human waste alive.

I think, that they should be made to live and be reminded in their daily hell, of what they have done!

Hell on Earth!! :grr:

"But what I am disheartened by is seeing usually reasonable people proposing rather unreasonable
and barbaric courses of action being taken against certain individuals whom you might call the worst among us."


Well, can you blame them? :shrug: That's just human nature, imho.

That's a natural reaction that doesn't have to be acted upon.

Killing your child's killer won't bring her back or rectify what happened.

But talking sadistically about what you might want to do, may relieve the tension for those victims that remain.

In closing, execution solves nothing, in the long run. It will not take away the hurt.

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varkam Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Sep-28-07 04:42 AM
Response to Reply #1
3. I wouldn't go so far as to say that.
I am neither a good nor a bad person. I'm just a person, and there are things that I have done that have been bad and good. Like I said, I don't claim moral superiority over anyone else here.

I would much rather people vent on a message board as opposed to go out and actually commit crimes as well, but I don't think it is an either/or thing. I don't think, if they didn't post, that means that they go out and murder someone. But the purpose of this board is for discussion, and that's what I aim to do.

As far as the financial end of things is concerned, it ironically costs a good deal of money to execute someone (though I'm also anti-DP, but for other reasons). I think the bigger issue is that, so long as we agree that certain individuals need to be segregated from society because of the danger that they pose, or to reaffirm our own social norms, then we should pay to keep them incarcerated - otherwise we wouldn't have prisons.

For the remorseless, for those who will not change, I also think that life imprisonment is also more of a punishment than the DP. Also, it affords those who do have remorse and a desire to change to reform themselves and do some good to pay back society for the harm that they have caused.

I'm not blaming or accusing anyone, though. I do understand the reaction, but I do think that it is disheartening. If there is even one person that disagrees with such a course of action then, I think, it becomes definitionally something other than human nature (given that, ostensibly, it is a human who disagrees).

I could make the argument though that talking sadistically about what one might want to do could serve to normalize such activity in the minds of some who read it. In any event, I think the truth is probably more complicated than either you or I are making it.
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Greyhound Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Sep-28-07 04:34 AM
Response to Original message
2. I stand with you.
This is why we are supposed to be a nation of laws, rather than people. In these cases we cannot count on our reason to remain intact and therefore must rely on the laws.

Over the last 2 or 3 decades, being upset with the way our laws were occasionally administered, we have given in to the desire for revenge and created new laws to take the power out of the hands of those for whom the law is their life, and forced intolerance and draconian penalties, to the great detriment of our society.

These laws are, in no small part, the reason we have seen our nation turning into a police state.



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spoony Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Sep-28-07 06:15 AM
Response to Original message
4. People like them truly put our ideals to the test.
Edited on Fri Sep-28-07 06:15 AM by spoony
My heart stands with those ideals you state, even when my spleen wants to go along with the mob fury type of sentiments we see.

K and R
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varkam Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Sep-28-07 12:34 PM
Response to Reply #4
5. That's a good way of putting it eom
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Bluerthanblue Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Sep-28-07 01:16 PM
Response to Original message
6. horribly
beautiful.

you have presented your thoughts so well. The fact that i share your perspective doesn't change that.

And i also believe that it is normal and natural to find healthy release for the emotional reactions being witnesses to the cruelty of humans usually brings up in us. Those reactions might be thinking and wishing for revenge- most people instinctivly want to hit back when hit. And discussing those feelings isn't bad.

But discussing should also involve thinking through the thoughts and reactions we feel inclined to desire, to their conclusion- And allowing others to present their perspectives and any information which supports why they hold the position they do.

Anger is a difficult emotion to navigate through in my experience. I don't believe there is any 'right' and 'wrong' to feelings- they are- it is in how we deal with them that we can make some poor choices- (imo) As for 'moral' superiority- no one is morally superior to anyone. It is best when we embrace our personal perspectives and cling to or alter them based on reason, rather than emotion or outside pressures.

thank your for your post.

"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."
— Beyond Good and Evil
Friedrich Nietzsche





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Bluerthanblue Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Sep-28-07 02:26 PM
Response to Reply #6
7. the OP is too good for me to
have on my consience.

don't let me be a thread killer~~~


please?
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varkam Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Sep-28-07 04:10 PM
Response to Reply #7
9. Ha! The thread was toast a few minutes after I posted it, I think.
Don't feel too bad :)
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varkam Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Sep-28-07 04:10 PM
Response to Reply #6
8. I appreciate your kind words.
No, I don't think that the discussion of anything is ever bad. Discussion is good, and I don't mean to make people feel like that they cannot or should not share their own opinions on the matter.

But I do agree with you in that I think it is also beneficial to point out other considerations that should be made, along with idle venting.

I think you are also right in that there are no such things as right or wrong emotions. The only things that are either right or wrong are what we do with those emotions.

And thank you for that quote and again for your kind words.
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