Reply #130: A response [View All]

[varkam]

I think the main difference in our viewpoints is that I would be less inclined to care if a sick, violent person met with a gruesome punishment, because I feel to a degree that you DO forfeit your rights to humane treatment when you have committed a gruesome crime, like throwing acid in a woman's face and literally burning the skin off her bones, blinding her, and disfiguring her horribly. Try as I might, I cannot muster up a huge objection to the thought of giving someone like that an equally horrific sentence.

For me, it is a question of whether or not one stops being a human being regardless of the things that they have done. Even though I am not a Christian, the phrase "Hate the sin but love the sinner" comes to mind. People do monstrous things, on that I'm sure we both agree. That does not, however, turn them from human beings into monsters. Prisons are filled with people who have done monstrous things, and yet many of them are able to have remorse for their actions, accept their punishment, reform, and reintegrate into society.

All of that is not to say that we should applaud this man's actions. Indeed, they should be roundly reviled and rejected as part of a civilized society and punishment should be swift and harsh. Personally, I cannot understand why people do the things that they do to one another. So don't get me wrong - it isn't that I am without emotion. I have been the victim of violent crime, and someone very close to me was recently raped. I sympathize with the emotions that many have, as I have them myself. Thoughts, even dark as they may be, are just those - thoughts. I try to let them go and to forgive others, because my experience has been that hatred usually ends up injuring the owner as opposed to the subject. I digress.

But, those are my own personal feelings - not necessarily the way I feel the state ought to handle it. I think if we all rack our brains, we can think of an instance where we would not be opposed to horribly, violently killing someone in return for an unspeakable act. A good example, is what person would not be inclined to want to tear limb from limb someone who raped or murdered their child? It would cross the mind of even the most timid person, I suspect.

Personally, I cannot think of such an instance - even with individuals who commit truly depraved and inhumane acts themselves. As I said above, thoughts are a different story. I have thought of murder, of torture, and I'm not particularly proud of it. However, we're all human and I think such reactions are normal, are healthy. The line for me comes, though, when people want to turn those thoughts into acts. I have met people whom many, even here on DU, said that they would like to see ripped limb from limb, drained of their blood, set fire to, et cetera - brutal stuff. I have met killers, I have met child rapists, I have even met the occasional puppy abuser. For the most part, they seem to be people that made a terrible mistake. They seem to regret the things that they have done. Not all of them - mind you. There are some, a couple whom I have also met, that seem to shirk any sense of personal responsibility, of morality, of remorse. Such people frighten me, but thankfully I believe those to be in the minority.

The difference between "not caring too much" when imagining a violent offender being tortured, and advocating that it actually be DONE by the state is that one is a personal "feeling" (that often can't be helped) and the other is an acknowledgment that it is the preferable and right thing to do, and encouraging it.

I agree.

I have a fierce sense of justice, but I'm not a vigilante. I have an intense dislike toward violent criminals, but don't necessarily feel that the state should be using whatever creatively grotesque means they can to punish them, simply because there needs to be checks and balances on the state's power.

I agree, but for different reasons. I agree that there needs to be checks and balances on the state's power, but I arrive at the conclusion via a different path.

On the same note, if I found out the perp accidently fell into a vat of acid, I could live with that. Would I go so far as to urge someone to pour it on him? Probably not. So, the nutshell version of it, is if he met with doom by accident, I'd feel he deserved it, but I wouldn't necessarily feel comfortably giving the state the right to do it themselves.

I don't want anything "bad" to happen to anyone, even people who have done bad things (bad being relative, of course). Would I lay awake at night crying if something did happen to this person? No, though I might feel different were I his mother or brother or friend.