The laws are enacted and formulated by the will of the people, and with their implicit consent. In this sense everyone is responsible for the actions of their government. — Hogrider
Nonetheless, the people shall be called upon by outside forces to account for their action. This can express itself in terms of sanctions, terrorism, diplomacy or outright warfare. — Hogrider
And so despite the distance between the people and those that govern them, the responsibility goes to the collective. — Hogrider
No, again, that's the goverment, rather than the people. None of the examples that you've provided are typically directed against the people, with the possible exception of terrorism. — Sapientia
Example. It was only the Japanese government that bombed Pearl Harbour; consequence Horoshima, Nagasaki. It was only the madman Hitler that annexed the Sudetenland , consequence: Dresden, and partition of Germany — Hogrider
Ask yourself what has the US government done in the last 100 years to justify the consequence of 9/11 — Hogrider
I'm puzzled why you want to persist in this fantasy. The truth is whether or not you like it the nation is going to be held responsible. Sticking your head in a becket and pretending its just the governments fault is not going to save you from the "terrorist" who nation has had to suffer from the interference of your government over the last 100 years.
Nor should you be surprised when the tanks from neighbouring countries start to roll in and 'liberate' your nation.
So by action or inaction, those that act in your name, make you responsible like it or not. — Hogrider
Example. It was only the Japanese government that bombed Pearl Harbour; consequence Horoshima, Nagasaki. It was only the madman Hitler that annexed the Sudetenland , consequence: Dresden, and partition of Germany. Ask yourself what has the US government done in the last 100 years to justify the consequence of 9/11. South Africa's apartheid, consequence; sanctions leading to majority rule. — Hogrider
For one, I think many of us would feel good to see such a person subjected to the worst kinds of suffering until he begs for mercy. Would you disagree? Would you not feel good to see such a bastard suffer? — Agustino
To play devil's advocate, just for a sec, is this true?But classical avenging results in death, not torture.
I don't think I'd try to have someone who brutalized a family member of mine tortured, bc I agree with yr Cyrenaic quote but, like, an animal part of me reallly would want that. — csalisbury
Yeah, I mean, again, this thread was occasioned by Agustino's claim, on another thread, that unrepentant adulterous women were no better than unrepentant serial killers and should be tortured. Given that background, it would have been kind of meaningless to respond to this thread by being like 'Why not a serial killer who tormented men, hmm?'No, the person the murderer who deserves torture kills is a woman. Not even a child, mind you, but a woman.
Well there's some truth to that, but Dante's Inferno is heavily populated by people who wronged Dante.I don't think divine punishment and hell is about vengeance, it's something more disturbing than that.
But like I said, I can understand the desire for vengeance and to kill the person who did it, but not torture. I think there's a sense in which people deeply feel that those who violate certain norms that they themselves expect to be held with regard to themselves, they have forfeited their right to exist, which is contingent on those very norms. And so retribution gives people an intuitive right to end that person, and even to get a righteous satisfaction out of it. But torture is just sick and purposeless.
Put another way, when someone dips beneath humanity by committing some atrocity, we feel that since they've let go of being human, they are no longer entitled to life as a human. But torture doesn't destroy their humanity -- animals hate physical torture in the same way that people do. It teaches no lesson, solve no problem, resolves no dispute, gives no closure.
It seems like what you object to most about the serial killer is (1) he doesn't feel remorse and (2) his atrocities are senseless. I think (2) is scary because it bars us from doing what we normally do in the wake of trauma - tell a story that explains what happened. Explanation yields understanding which yields the sense of control that the trauma suspended. If you understand what happened you feel more able to prevent similar traumatizing irruptions in the future.
But if an adequate explanation of an outburst is impossible, then we can at least find some solace in the source of that outburst being as horrified as we are. His or her horror would signal an impulse to stave off any repetition of what transpired. Evil wouldn't be an infinite wellspring but an abberration which recoils from itself and self-corrects.
The serial killer offers neither palliative. He's a mute black hole which is unreachable. (The scariest version of Satan I can imagine is an old man (or young child) in an enclosed chamber, totally still, eyes wide open, transmitting evil into the world, but unreachable through language, almost insentient). He's an ineradicable black hole in those meaning/explanation-generating stories which make us feel safe and in control. Torture isn't about reforming such a person. It's a last resort in a control-crisis, a way of turning that black hole into an object over which we have total power.
The response to infidelity without remorse is similar. It's a panic response to the realization that love is never guaranteed and can always withdraw, no matter how perfectly you strive to deserve it. The desire to punish is an impotent wish to scare love so it will never leave us again.
The thing is, you can torture as many serial killers and punish as many adulterers as you want. But that won't stem the problem. The world itself is a ceaseless and remorseless generator of senseless violence. Serial killers, if you like, are 'places' in which being reveals itself utterly denuded. (Tho the sacred does the same, in a different register.) — me
For one, I think many of us would feel good to see such a person subjected to the worst kinds of suffering until he begs for mercy. — Agustino
A more rational reason is so that other criminals who intend to commit similar crimes see what will happen to them and repent sooner rather than later. And the final reason I have is that such a punishment ensures that justice is adequately done - which is required for people to have faith in the justice system. — Agustino
Yes I agree because of the effect torturing someone has on the one doing the torturing AND also because evil should not be played with, nor its influence allowed existence so that it can spread and corrupt others, so I have changed my position. I would still support that the serial killer is publicly executed, so that other criminals are shown that justice is not to be messed with, especially in such severe cases of inhumanity and barbarity - if you think the justice system is barbarous, what about the serial killer? What about the actions he takes and the way these affect the families of the victims? And yes - there's all the reason to rejoice when justice is done. If the news reports tonight come on and say that ISIS was completely obliterated, what do you think I'll do? Cry for the terrorists? Of course not, I will rejoice that we have overcome an evil, and saved an entire region from its threat...The last two reasons you cite are,in short,deterrence and increment of public faith in the justice system.To deal with the first,observe that an exactly equal amount,if not greater,amount of deterrence would be the result if the criminal was locked away for life in prison.Remember that prison is by no means a nice place,and many criminals would much rather choose a short interval of sharp torture than an eternity of long,drawn out torture and molestation by the not quite so friendly inmates of modern prisons.
As for the second reason,I don't see how people would end up having faith in a brutal criminal justice system which relishes torturing people.What,in reality, would happen is quite the opposite.The public would see this uncivil justice system itself as the enemy,and thus would no longer feel comfortable handing over their squabbles over to receive what they would,not unreasonably,see as warped judgment.Instead then,they would start "settling'' their disputes on their own,which would lead to mafias,clan wars and later,the disintegration of the entire fabric of society. — hunterkf5732
I would still support that the serial killer is publicly executed, so that other criminals are shown that justice is not to be messed with
Public execution is reserved for the worst of crimes as I have illustrated, NOT for all criminals or small crimes, and public means it is shown to the public not that it occurs in the middle of the public square. When dictators were executed during the fall of communism, videos of their deaths were released to the public, and people celebrated the end of oppression and the fact that justice had been delivered.As the saying 'might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb' attests, criminals were prone to upping the ante committing more serious crimes on the basis that they were risking everything anyway so they might as well make it worth their while. — Barry Etheridge
It depends on the crime. For the most serious crimes, where the doer of the crime is a clear evil - like ISIS terrorists in today's world - there is no playing around. They have to be dealt with adequately and swiftly, and their evil prevented from being spread. The rest is up to God.In any case, I have never understood the logic of death as the ultimate punishment, especially in an increasingly atheistic society where there is no question of hurrying someone on to face divine judgement (always a dubious theological justification in an event). Far from facing the perpetrator with their own guilt and remorse death simply releases them from any responsibility for reparation. It is those who are left behind who are being punished in reality and on the flimsiest of excuses, guilt by association. That is not justice, at least not by any sane, rational definition. — Barry Etheridge
It's not a cessation of the decision at all. Extreme violence, barbarity, murdering, raping, pillaging, etc. are evil. And God doesn't decide what is evil whimsically. You still seem to think of God as some man in the sky ordering you around. Rather we humans get to know God as we understand better what is good and evil, and freely choose to associate with and defend that which is good. In fact knowing God and loving goodness are one and the same. What did Jesus say...It seems a tad convenient that God apparently doesn't mind in the slightest ceding the decision on what is evil (if indeed such a thing even exists) and who should live and die as a consequence to a bunch of hubristic judges and then picking up the pieces after they're done. — Barry Etheridge
No.Should unrelenting torture of the worst kind be a punishment for such a person UNTIL and IF they repent and feel sorry for what they have done? — Agustino
Because I don't want anybody to have to suffer torture. Further, it would be disgusting and abhorrent to me for such a barbarity as deliberate torture to be conducted by a state of which I was a part.Why or why not? — Agustino
I agree that that many feel like that. But I don't feel like that, and I regard it as sad, and a source of much of the misery in the world, that many people feel like that.I think many of us would feel good to see such a person subjected to the worst kinds of suffering until he begs for mercy. Would you disagree? — Agustino
No, I would feel very distressed.Would you not feel good to see such a bastard suffer? — Agustino
That might be rational if there were any empirical evidence to support it. But none has been provided. To me it sounds like wishful thinking.A more rational reason is so that other criminals who intend to commit similar crimes see what will happen to them and repent sooner rather than later. — Agustino
These are two assertions - both provided without rationale or evidence. The first is just an assertion of what you feel to be just, and so lies in the undebatable realm of feelings. The second is contrary to my impression of what the available empirical evidence says. The countries that have lower rates of crime tend to be those that have less vengeful justice systems. Finland has lower crime than the US, which has lower crime than Afghanistan.such a punishment ensures that justice is adequately done - which is required for people to have faith in the justice system. — Agustino
Answering a very old question to its asker, when the said asker has changed his position, is simply pointless.No. — andrewk
Yes I agree because of the effect torturing someone has on the one doing the torturing AND also because evil should not be played with, nor its influence allowed existence so that it can spread and corrupt others, so I have changed my position. I would still support that the serial killer is publicly executed, so that other criminals are shown that justice is not to be messed with, especially in such severe cases of inhumanity and barbarity - if you think the justice system is barbarous, what about the serial killer? What about the actions he takes and the way these affect the families of the victims? And yes - there's all the reason to rejoice when justice is done. If the news reports tonight come on and say that ISIS was completely obliterated, what do you think I'll do? Cry for the terrorists? Of course not, I will rejoice that we have overcome an evil, and saved an entire region from its threat... — Agustino
A polite way to put that would be:Answering a very old question to its asker, when the said asker has changed his position, is simply pointless. — Agustino
The countries that have lower rates of crime tend to be those that have less vengeful justice systems. Finland has lower crime than the US, which has lower crime than Afghanistan. — andrewk
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