(snip)

> I have given due consideration to those motives and beliefs that make people spineless wishywashy shirkers of responsibility and responded in the manner such motives and beliefs deserve.
>
> You completely missed the point of my post. You apparently think I've got this case of bloodlust or something. No, actually I have total intolerance for idiocy getting in the way of justice. I'm not going to apologize for calling this flower power "if somebody does something bad, it's SOCIETY'S FAULT!!" crap the vile stupidity that it is.
>

There are people who think like this. There are also people who think, "What matters more, whose fault it is or what the best way to resolve the situation is?"

I fall into the latter category, and for all the noise made about the former category, I think most people genuinely fighting for a less retributive justice system fall into the latter category.

I even agree with you. For most murderers, what they did was entirely their fault, as far as the simple meaning of "fault" is concerned (who is directly responsible for causing it, not who might have prevented it). Great. Now what are we going to do about it? (Punishing people who do bad things because it's their own fault doesn't seem to do that great a job of stopping other people from doing bad things that are their own fault. If the only concern is just retribution, then that's obviously not a problem, but *my* concern is mainly how to lower the overall number of bad things that get done.)

> > I respect the pro-DP position...because I understand their reasoning. And I couldn't in good conscience post anything resembling either the examples I gave above or this example Sam just posted. Which, again, with all due respect, I can at best think of as something from a moment of weakness. Because that's *not* something I could respect.
>
> That post was not a pro-DP post. As a sidenote I mentioned that I *would* support the death penalty sentence in this case, but my outrage was that there was practically no punishment given out at all.
>

That was because the judge considered that in this case the boys were not mature enough at the time to have a full consciousness of what they were doing.

They probably didn't; no kid would. The question is how great their partial consciousness of what they were doing was.

For what it's worth, I wouldn't have made the punishment as light as that judge did either. But that judge was in full possession of the facts, and I'm not. And my primary concern is safety, not punishment.

Besides, I wouldn't call what they have gone through and will go through no punishment at all. It almost certainly isn't the punishment most would wish on them, and doesn't approach a full extraction of justice (if there is any such thing), but I certainly wouldn't want to trade places with them right now. Just because it's not as bad as you might wish doesn't mean it's all cherries and roses.

> > Do you really think that this whole thing is about dodging responsibility?
>
> Yes. Although I don't credit the people in power with the self-knowledge that that is in effect what they are doing. People who believe in this crap tend to delude themselves by conjuring all sorts of supposedly rational reasons not to face the decision to administer a harsh but just punishment to someone. "It's society's fault!" or "It's the parents' fault!" or just plain old "It's not their fault!" is generally the (ir)rationale used. If you think holding people accountable for their actions is immoral, we have nothing further to talk about.
>

Then, from what your definition of accountable, I guess we really don't. But I'll go on, not for the sake of convincing you but for the sake of helping others understand where I come from. It's rare to convince an opponent in any kind of debate, and not really the goal; the debate is for the sake of the audience.

I believe in realistically facing bad things that happen and trying to deal with them. I believe in doing anything possible to reduce the amount of crime in the world and to support and help those who are victims of crime. I do not believe thoughtlessly handing out punishments helps this process, nor do I believe there is evidence to show that it does. If that means I'm deluded, then so be it. If the delusion seems rational to me, all I can do is be happy in the delusion.

For what it's worth, I don't believe what I believe because of a squeamish fear of blood. I will honestly say that I would have a very difficult time killing a person, and I imagine all of us probably would. But if I believed it were the right thing to do, I'd do it; if I believed it would save lives, I'd do it; if I believed what most of you believe, I'd do it. It's not fear that makes me not want to execute criminals or toss them into prisons and throw away the key, it's a genuine belief that it's wrong and that it wouldn't do any good.

You can accuse me of rationalizing my irrational prejudices if you like. I could do the same to you. But I'd rather not go down that road.

> > ...he was doing the most responsible thing he could by trying to help these two individuals out as best he could while doing everything he could to protect the rest of the population.
>
> Oh, sure. By releasing premeditative torturers and killers (no, these are manipulative terms, they are accurate adjectives to describe what they are known to have done) into the general populace again. Where do you get the idea the criminal justice system is set up to "help" the convicted, anyway?
>

That's one of my presuppositions, I guess. I think we're all here to help everybody; that's my interpretation of the Golden Rule. Hence the criminal justice system is here to help the convicted as well as the victims. Not necessarily to make the convicted happy or to do what the convicted wants, but yes, to help the convicted. I believe that's the fundamental duty of humanity.

You seem to base quite a lot of what you believe on the idea that a murderer ceases to be human and loses all human rights from his actions. I can understand that idea, but you haven't given a source for it. Could you please humor me?

BTW, as I understand it there will be quite sophisticated measures to monitor these two afterwards. That's where all the tax dollars are going that you were complaining about before. It might not be quite adequate in your eyes, but *more* sophisticated measures (including life in a prison) would cost more tax dollars, not less. And (for various reasons) applying the death penalty could cost most of all. Money isn't really the issue being discussed here; for those who believe in keeping someone alive, money is no object in that end; for those who believe in executing someone, money is no object in *that* end. Life or death, they're all worth more than any amount of tax dollars.

> > And there *is* a difference between dodging responsibility and having a different idea of what the responsibility is.
>
> In this case, it is the difference between honest immorality and denial.
>

No; both of those are still the first. Do you really think it's impossible to honestly come to a conclusion different from your own from looking at the evidence?

> > (In fact, from our POV, leaving justice aside, it seems to me killing them or tossing them in prison is abdicating our own responsibility in the surest way possible; we don't want the responsibility of rehabilitating them...
>
> This does not deserve comment.
>

Okay. Your choice.

(My problem with this kind of reaction is that it kind of assumes everyone else already agrees with you, and if they don't then all it does is leave you without a defense for your own POV. If that's okay with you, well, then, fine.)

Is it that offensive or weird an idea? The stuff about tax dollars and risks to prison guards and risk to society that keeps coming up all seems to boil down to the fact that keeping these people alive and making them change should not be our responsibility, killing them or making them suffer should. And many of our arguments are just the inverse of that one. It is what much of the argument boils down to.

> > Often it's forgiving that is the absolute hardest thing to do.
>
> Forgiveness has nothing to do with failing to administer justice. God doesn't do that. Christ had to die for us to receive mercy. Of course we should forgive them -- in particular the family of the murdered child should do what they can to try to forgive them. That does NOT mean they don't at LEAST go to jail for life.
>

I wonder that this point keeps getting glossed over. Christ *did* die; we *did* receive mercy. If someone still has to die for her sins after Christ died for her then Christ's death was in vain. That seems self-evident to me.

What does your definition of forgiveness entail? Just not hating them anymore after they've been punished? While that's admirable, that's not forgiving; that's forgetting. (There's a reason the saying goes forgive *and* forget.) That's a passive thing, doesn't entail any action to the person being forgiven, and by itself is meaningless. (What did James say about mercy shown in the heart but not with the hands?)

Forgiveness is treating a person as though he were sinless because you know his sins were already taken by another. It's what God does for us; how can we do any less for others?

I wouldn't bristle so at the life sentence suggestion if the implication weren't so clearly that you thought life sentencing would cause them to suffer more than parole. I'd support life sentencing on the issues of safety for the people and a better chance to control the prisoner's environment and help change him. In that respect I don't think merely agreeing to a "life sentence" is a viable compromise between our points of view.

> > While we're on the subject.
>
> We weren't and aren't. Televising McVeigh's execution is not even closely relevant to this discussion.

We were on the subject of things that make us sick to our stomachs. Of things that go so sharply against our ingrained beliefs of right and wrong that we can hardly stand it.

You spoke quite fervently and eloquently for your point of view by giving your example. I thought it only fair that I should give mine. (A childish thing to do, perhaps, but I won't deny that I was quite emotional when writing my response.)

If, to you, those who support rehabilitation seem to be at times morally repugnant and at times to be hiding from the consequences and implications of the beliefs they hold, it's only fair to point out that the same applies to people on my side when viewing supporters of retribution. It's not an argument, as such, just a leveling of the playing field. You are not the only ones with the emotional high ground; we are not necessarily the emotionally weak ones. And I resent the implication that we are. Again, for what it may be worth, I am certainly not going with the flow in my beliefs, here or elsewhere. Most of my friends are conservative, and have the rather poor habit of abandoning debate for psychoanalysis; it isn't easy to present an honest statement of what I think and feel when I get surrounded by barrages of name-calling and guesses to the quality of my upbringing on the basis of what I have worked out in my own mind and my own heart to be right. I don't appreciate that, and one of the things I've liked about Rinkworks is the relative lack of that sort of thing that goes on.

Ar"this is degenerating fast, I can feel it, but this isn't one of the times when I'm strong enough to just shut up and let it slide"thur