++ [ originally posted by mikhail ] ++
I don't feel that the right to life, or anything else, is sacrosanct. You earn it by living within the bounds of your civilisation. Anyone who lives outside civilisation - bounded by human responsibility - has no more right to life than a lab rat. You don't kill it without reason, but its death isn't going to keep me awake at night.
That depends, though. Are you saying that a person's human rights are determined by their society? (to take it to a huge extreme), If I lived in a barbaric society where by law, you
had to murder two people per day, otherwise you get executed... If I refused to murder those people, would my human rights be forfeit, simply because i don't abide by the laws of my respective society?
Okay, maybe the murdering society wasn't a good example, but I don't think it's for the government or lawmakers to determine whether a person has done enough to forfeit their human rights. Where do you draw the line? If a man embezzles $1,000 maybe you wouldn't punish them
that severely, but if he steals $1,000,000... does that make his worth as a human so much less that he deserves to die?
++ [ originally posted by mikhail ] ++
You talk about locking them up as justice - how many people on the street get food and water and shelter garuanteed for the rest of their lives. You might take away their right to liberty, (but that's okay? Why is that, if their right to life is irrevokable?) but you garuantee them the basics of living that many, many people all over the world don't have.
Think about all the little kids starving to death even as we debate this. Think of the people dying because they can't afford medical treatment, or who have nowhere to live because their homes have been destroyed. How does a murderer, who is a threat to people as long as he or she lives (and that is a significant distinction over just anyone who's killed someone), have more right to the resources needed to keep people alive than these people? A prisoner costs as much to maintain in the western world as an entire African village. While we still have hunger and disease on this planet, holding a man in prison for life is a crime - not against his right to liberty, but to all those who he deprives of the resources for life.
The question is, will it make any difference? Whenever my parents told me to eat every last morsel of my food, because there's people starving all over the world, I'd always argue, "What difference is it gonna make to them, if i eat it or not?". Of course, at that age, I didn't realise it was about my attitude or gratitude, but in all practicality, executing domestic murderer's ain't gonna make a scrap of a difference to the world.
++ [ originally posted by mikhail ] ++
You talk about forgiveness, referring to forgiving someone stepping on my toes as the limit of my forgiveness. Well, let me ask you this. Do you forgive someone who committs manslaughter? I do. Can you forgive someone who embezzels millions? I can.
I might have told you guys a couple of weeks ago that my friend was killed in a car accident after he was hit by a drunk driver. That driver sped away and only confessed to the police the next day, when he was sober and the police couldn't charge him for drunk driving.
That's completely despicable, and it's almost as bad as murder, because he took no responsibility for his actions at the time, and thought only of himself when he knew that such an accident would surely kill the other driver involved.
I've since forgiven that man, and even though he's a threat to society, because there's a fair chance that when he gets over the shock, he'll drink and drive again... I don't feel that it's my right to take away his human rights. The only place I'd want him to be kept is in a rehabilitation center.
btw guys, I got this e-mail the other day.
Do you remember February 1993 when a young 3 yr. old was taken from a shopping mall in Liverpool, NY by two 10-year-old boys?
Jamie Bulger walked away from his mother for only a second and Jon Venables took his hand and led him out of the mall with his friend Robert Thompson.
They took Jamie on a walk for over 2 and a half miles, along the way stopping every now and again to torture the poor little boy who was crying constantly for his mommy. Finally they stopped at a railway track where they brutally kicked him, threw stones at him, rubbed paint in his eyes and pushed batteries up his anus. It was actually worse than this...
What these two boys did was so horrendous that Jamie's mother was forbidden to identify his body. They then left his beaten small body on the
Tracks so a train could run him over to hide the mess they had created. These
two boys, even being boys, understood what they did was wrong, hence
trying to make it look like an accident. This week Lady Justice Butler-Sloss has awarded the two boys anonymity for the rest of their lives when they leave
custody with new identities. We cannot let this happen. They will also leave early this year only serving just over half of their sentence. One paper even stated that Robert may go on to University. They are getting away with their crime. They disgustingly and violently took Jamie's life away - in return they get a new life. Please read it carefully... then add your name at the end... and send it to everyone you can!
It's quite clear that these two boys are a threat to society as long as they live.
Would I find it hard to forgive them if i was Jamie's mother or father? Of course I would.
Should they be forgiven? Yes.
Should they be executed and not given a chance to live? No. I think they should be in prison.
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:dazed: talk about awful..talk about wanksta-ism 
