I agree, justice is one thing; revenge is another, and can eat people up inside.
I am not saying forgive and forget....but let impartial justice take it's course if possible.
It Took 15 Minutes To Kill An Ohio Man
- Thread starter drifter
- Start date
I agree, justice is one thing; revenge is another, and can eat people up inside.
I am not saying forgive and forget....but let impartial justice take it's course if possible.
SifuPhil
R.I.P. With Us In Spirit Only
- Location
- Pennsylvania, USA
In my self-defense classes the question would often come up, "how hard do you defend yourself"? To what lengths do you go? How much is too much?
Perhaps I'm not the leading authority on this topic since I did three months in County for using "excessive force" to defend myself against three guys, two of whom were armed. Nevertheless, this is what I told my students:
Only the best-trained, strongest person can choose to be merciful. Using a gun for self-defense takes away the ability to show mercy - it is flat-out designed to kill. And no, you don't aim at the arms or legs to wound them - that's a Hollywood fantasy. So the moment you use a gun to defend yourself you have to make the conscious decision to kill.
With a knife, stick, bat, etc. you are more likely to injure rather than kill, IF you are trained in the use of that particular weapon. All of these are capable of killing as well - in fact, it will be the un-trained user that is most likely to take a life with them. But they are, in trained hands, also capable of showing a type of mercy unachievable with a firearm.
Finally comes bare-handed defense. It is simultaneously the easiest and most difficult for the trained practitioner to show mercy with bare-hand techniques. Easy because, well, you have no weapon per se. Difficult because if you have the right assemblage of attributes it is actually easy to kill with bare hands - you have to exercise restraint in order NOT to.
In sum, it is easy to kill in a self-defense scenario. It is the combination of lack of control, both physical and emotional, and the associated flow of adrenaline-fueled fear and rage that makes showing mercy so difficult.
In other words, you have to be in control in order to show mercy.
How does this apply to state-condoned executions?
If my theory holds - which it does for one-on-one shows of mercy - then it should also apply to these executions. You can only show mercy if you are in control.
With the apparent increase in serial killings, movie-house shootings, school invasions, home invasions and regular old everyday street slayings, would you say that we are in control?
I say no. I say strike back with everything you have. We are NOT in control.
Does shooting a deer make a hunter a killer? Technically yes, but does society punish him for that act? No, of course not. Why not? Because he's a human executing an animal. Yet, he gets a pass even when he botches the shot and only wounds the animal, leaving him to die a lingering, painful death. It's just "Oh, well - them's the breaks!".
What label do you apply to a serial killer? Many will refer to him (the majority of serial killers are male) as "an animal". How is it any different?
Make no mistake - we are defending ourselves against these "animals". We should adopt the same viewpoint as used on hunters - take your best shot, and if there's prolonged pain involved, oh, well, them's the breaks.
Perhaps I'm not the leading authority on this topic since I did three months in County for using "excessive force" to defend myself against three guys, two of whom were armed. Nevertheless, this is what I told my students:
Only the best-trained, strongest person can choose to be merciful. Using a gun for self-defense takes away the ability to show mercy - it is flat-out designed to kill. And no, you don't aim at the arms or legs to wound them - that's a Hollywood fantasy. So the moment you use a gun to defend yourself you have to make the conscious decision to kill.
With a knife, stick, bat, etc. you are more likely to injure rather than kill, IF you are trained in the use of that particular weapon. All of these are capable of killing as well - in fact, it will be the un-trained user that is most likely to take a life with them. But they are, in trained hands, also capable of showing a type of mercy unachievable with a firearm.
Finally comes bare-handed defense. It is simultaneously the easiest and most difficult for the trained practitioner to show mercy with bare-hand techniques. Easy because, well, you have no weapon per se. Difficult because if you have the right assemblage of attributes it is actually easy to kill with bare hands - you have to exercise restraint in order NOT to.
In sum, it is easy to kill in a self-defense scenario. It is the combination of lack of control, both physical and emotional, and the associated flow of adrenaline-fueled fear and rage that makes showing mercy so difficult.
In other words, you have to be in control in order to show mercy.
How does this apply to state-condoned executions?
If my theory holds - which it does for one-on-one shows of mercy - then it should also apply to these executions. You can only show mercy if you are in control.
With the apparent increase in serial killings, movie-house shootings, school invasions, home invasions and regular old everyday street slayings, would you say that we are in control?
I say no. I say strike back with everything you have. We are NOT in control.
Does shooting a deer make a hunter a killer? Technically yes, but does society punish him for that act? No, of course not. Why not? Because he's a human executing an animal. Yet, he gets a pass even when he botches the shot and only wounds the animal, leaving him to die a lingering, painful death. It's just "Oh, well - them's the breaks!".
What label do you apply to a serial killer? Many will refer to him (the majority of serial killers are male) as "an animal". How is it any different?
Make no mistake - we are defending ourselves against these "animals". We should adopt the same viewpoint as used on hunters - take your best shot, and if there's prolonged pain involved, oh, well, them's the breaks.
CeeCee
Well-known Member
- Location
- Monterey Peninsula California
I only know or can picture what I would do to a killer of any members of my family...I would probably lose control and go at him with whatever means they gave me and I don't think I would stop til I collapsed in tears on the ground....other than that I really don't care how tney carry out the death penalty on a criminal.
Diwundrin
Well-known Member
- Location
- Nth Coast NSW Australia
Soooo, you don't accept the 'put them down quick with a bullet like a savage dog' analogy but trot out one about deer hunting? 1 demerit point. 
So is an executioner "a human executing an animal"!
And no, no, no. Your 'hunter' doesn't get a pass from me. 2 reasons.
1. If he deliberately botches the shot then he is not a hunter, nor an executioner, he is a sadistic bastard.
2. If he botches it accidentally then he needs to polish up his shooting skills until he can hunt with the confidence and skill we should be entitled to expect from genuine hunters.
We need expect nothing less of professional executioners either.
Consider this, as an example of the double standards of what people say and what people do. How's this for confusing??
We in OZ have had a billion dollar live export cattle trade crippled and damned near ruined by a concerted and orchestrated social media campaign by animal rights activists playing with the minds of the easily outraged.
It was accomplished with a few minutes of footage, of the particularly badly, and cruelly, botched slaughter of a few of our export cattle in a tin-pot slaughter house in Indonesia. The footage was horrible to watch, but so was the vision of the untrained idiots who were hired to do the job. But that gets complex so...
The very same people on forums who screamed with outrage at the cruel treatment of those few, out of many thousands, cattle, have no compunction whatever at calling for the torture of offenders under the death penalty!
I'm sorry but do those people really think about exactly what it is that they are outraged about? Isn't it the cruelty aspect that they objected to? Just what the Hell exactly do they want?
Do they even know themselves?
So is an executioner "a human executing an animal"!
And no, no, no. Your 'hunter' doesn't get a pass from me. 2 reasons.
1. If he deliberately botches the shot then he is not a hunter, nor an executioner, he is a sadistic bastard.
2. If he botches it accidentally then he needs to polish up his shooting skills until he can hunt with the confidence and skill we should be entitled to expect from genuine hunters.
We need expect nothing less of professional executioners either.
Consider this, as an example of the double standards of what people say and what people do. How's this for confusing??
We in OZ have had a billion dollar live export cattle trade crippled and damned near ruined by a concerted and orchestrated social media campaign by animal rights activists playing with the minds of the easily outraged.
It was accomplished with a few minutes of footage, of the particularly badly, and cruelly, botched slaughter of a few of our export cattle in a tin-pot slaughter house in Indonesia. The footage was horrible to watch, but so was the vision of the untrained idiots who were hired to do the job. But that gets complex so...
The very same people on forums who screamed with outrage at the cruel treatment of those few, out of many thousands, cattle, have no compunction whatever at calling for the torture of offenders under the death penalty!
I'm sorry but do those people really think about exactly what it is that they are outraged about? Isn't it the cruelty aspect that they objected to? Just what the Hell exactly do they want?
Do they even know themselves?
SifuPhil
R.I.P. With Us In Spirit Only
- Location
- Pennsylvania, USA
Soooo, you don't accept the 'put them down quick with a bullet like a savage dog' analogy but trot out one about deer hunting? 1 demerit point.
I never said I didn't accept "PTDQWABLASD". (How's THAT for an acronym?)
Yes.
I also never claimed that our executioner should NOT be trained.
All I know is, your hatred of social-awareness groups aside, I want vicious killers dead. That way they won't kill again. I would gladly take a state-paid job as executioner. I already have the training, so they would save even more.
#Winning!
Diwundrin
Well-known Member
- Location
- Nth Coast NSW Australia
Exactly CeeCee, as would I, or anyone, we'd 'lose control' and use whatever means were at hand. You in the US are lucky to be able to grab a gun and blow his head off, I'd be left wielding whatever else I could grab which would be way messier.
But loss of control in the heat of the moment is a very different thing to cold bloodedly plotting how to torture someone many years later.
That's just for want of better word, evil.
I don't care what happens to the offenders, it's not them, or even what goes on in their minds and certainly not their 'welfare', that concerns me. It's the 'mental welfare' of so many who express cruel 'wishes' on forums that labels them as latent sadists!
What are they thinking saying things like that? Is that really 'them'? Do they really want others to see them as sadists? WTF?
Perhaps they confuse a heat of the moment revenge reaction, with that expected after cold slow justice has run it's course.
But I'm still wasting my time on this aren't I?
SifuPhil
R.I.P. With Us In Spirit Only
- Location
- Pennsylvania, USA
If what you're getting at is that people talk trash from the safe anonymity of their Internet connections, then yes, I totally agree.
I cannot count the number of tough-talkers I've met, in both the virtual and real worlds, who run like scared rabbits when faced with a real situation.
I cannot count the number of tough-talkers I've met, in both the virtual and real worlds, who run like scared rabbits when faced with a real situation.
Diwundrin
Well-known Member
- Location
- Nth Coast NSW Australia
I don't hate the basic tenets of what 'social awareness' people believe they stand for, I just hate the spin and bullsh*t they use to gain very little for their causes other than donations. What I hate is how the radicals in their ranks go about it. I hate the ones who use their Org.s as publicity stunt, media addicted ego boosters for themselves.
I want vicious killers dead too, along with a few other ferals among us who wouldn't be missed, but it's so much easier to shoot 'em than go through all the fancy rituals of high tech medical and electronic wizzardry which goes titsup all too often.
Well they too need to polish up a bit don't they? How much training does it take to operate a .38 at point blank range?
Or if you want to think of them as more 'professional' then train 'em to use the stun guns that can take out a Brahman bull with a head like an armoured tank in a milli-second with no mess or fuss at all? ZSSZZZzzzzzz, thump, over. We don't need the rituals.
Why can't we just simplify this?
I'm fast switching to Jrs stun gun solution over my original 'bang' theory solution.
SifuPhil
R.I.P. With Us In Spirit Only
- Location
- Pennsylvania, USA
Okay, that's understandable. It seems the further we get into merciful killing, the more things go wrong. We try too hard to be human.
Actually we DO need rituals - we need them to cleanse our spirits and feel complete, whole again. They are a comfort to us, they tell us that everything is okay. Why do you think religion is so popular?
That horrible buzzword that's been making the rounds for a few years now - "closure"? That's what ritual gives us.
Diwundrin
Well-known Member
- Location
- Nth Coast NSW Australia
Jillaroo
Demented
- Location
- Mid North Coast NSW Australia
Like that guy in that TV series i can't remember the name of it, get him to do it.
Diwundrin
Well-known Member
- Location
- Nth Coast NSW Australia
That deterrent theory has never been proved to work on serious offenders to my knowledge SB.
Mandatory life in jail has never stopped morons shooting at cops here. None of them even gave the consequences a thought when the action was on. They are living exclusively in the 'now moment.'
That's how it usually is, if they were in any condition to be thinking logically they wouldn't do what they do in the first place.
It may work to stop those who let the thought idly cross their minds from planning things too far, but it never enters the thinking equation of someone in full nutter mode. Nor does it deter those who think they're smart enough to get away with it.
Sounds reasonable, but more wishful thinking than a practical solution.
Diwundrin
Well-known Member
- Location
- Nth Coast NSW Australia
Dexter? But he didn't deter anyone did he? Just offed them because he's as big a psycho as they are. Just perceived to be more tasteful in his choice of victims.
Do we on forums think it's okay to be sadistic as long as we pick our victims carefully? Still sadistic. Just sayin'.
I liked Dexter as a show, but to be honest I'd shoot him too. It's all fun to see that plot line pay out on baddies but that's not how things work, psychos capable of doing what he does aren't guardian angels to anyone. It's just a TV show, it ain't real.
Warrigal
SF VIP
- Location
- Sydney, Australia
Di, my old mum would say that you are farting against thunder on this issue.
I agree with the sentiment expressed by some that should a member of my family fall victim to a rapist or killer then revenge would be uppermost in my mind. But revenge is not justice, and society must be founded on laws, justly applied to all. We will never achieve perfect justice but we should never stop trying to.
I agree with the sentiment expressed by some that should a member of my family fall victim to a rapist or killer then revenge would be uppermost in my mind. But revenge is not justice, and society must be founded on laws, justly applied to all. We will never achieve perfect justice but we should never stop trying to.
Fair enough, forget about the deterrent part of it, and just give them what they dished out.
SifuPhil
R.I.P. With Us In Spirit Only
- Location
- Pennsylvania, USA
:rofl:
I can get along without supernatural supervision, I guess my problem is that I fail to see why others can't.
Well, it isn't only religious ... we as a species need ritual, how'z about that? Birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, the way we prepare our first cuppa ... they are all rituals.
Checking into SeniorForums.com every day - ritual.
They are the almost-automatic things we do that reassure us that everything is right with the world (even when it obviously isn't). We feel we are controlling our little corner of it.
SifuPhil
R.I.P. With Us In Spirit Only
- Location
- Pennsylvania, USA
The thing about proving a negative is that it's pretty much impossible. You cannot prove how crimes are NOT committed - what are you going to do, round up the usually suspects and ask them if they've cancelled any murder plots lately?
We'll never know what works until the stats come in, and even then we have to take them with a grain of salt.
I say, let's go with 5 years of gratuitously violent public executions, vigilante organizations and the shipment of the hardcore cases to some penal colony in Australia.
SifuPhil
R.I.P. With Us In Spirit Only
- Location
- Pennsylvania, USA
Warrigal
SF VIP
- Location
- Sydney, Australia
I say, let's go with 5 years of gratuitously violent public executions, vigilante organizations and the shipment of the hardcore cases to some penal colony in Australia.
And from clay such as this we built a nation.
:highly_amused:
SifuPhil
R.I.P. With Us In Spirit Only
- Location
- Pennsylvania, USA
Ah, yes, okay ... maybe you could give it another try?
MY nation will be very different, mainly because the soil has a lot more sand in it.
"Feet of clay" vs. "Having sand" ... see what I did there?
layful:
Diwundrin
Well-known Member
- Location
- Nth Coast NSW Australia
So you reckon China and the Saudis have it right then? They still have crime. The Indo prisons aren't the Hilton but they still have plenty of inmates. There's a bunch of Aussies on death row over there for smuggling drugs. There are signs in their airports the size of football fields informing tourists that carrying drugs carries a death sentence in Indonesia but they still smuggle drugs in.
Their stories and pictures of the hell holes they are imprisoned in waiting trial are splashed all over the TV here because Indonesia likes to let us know these things but still they carry their little stashes in, and still they get caught. If a cell, noose or firing squad in Indo doesn't faze them then I call 'deterrent' a failure.
You'll have to hurry with that convict shipment, we're filling up with the debris from the Middle East and Sri Lanka at the moment posing as refugees. Many of our 'poor and huddled masses' from the M.E. are getting popped in Syria lately. They fled the joint as refugees, conned the bleeding hearts here to get some new paperwork then took off to fight for Al Qaeda and ilk in the places they 'escaped' from.
Then when they get caught they call on our Govt to bail 'em out as 'Australians'. Thankfully most just get straight out shot. So we wouldn't mind some cons that are already pre-identified, that would be nice for a change, thanks for that.
Their stories and pictures of the hell holes they are imprisoned in waiting trial are splashed all over the TV here because Indonesia likes to let us know these things but still they carry their little stashes in, and still they get caught. If a cell, noose or firing squad in Indo doesn't faze them then I call 'deterrent' a failure.
You'll have to hurry with that convict shipment, we're filling up with the debris from the Middle East and Sri Lanka at the moment posing as refugees. Many of our 'poor and huddled masses' from the M.E. are getting popped in Syria lately. They fled the joint as refugees, conned the bleeding hearts here to get some new paperwork then took off to fight for Al Qaeda and ilk in the places they 'escaped' from.
Then when they get caught they call on our Govt to bail 'em out as 'Australians'. Thankfully most just get straight out shot. So we wouldn't mind some cons that are already pre-identified, that would be nice for a change, thanks for that.
I don't think we were very successful, although I suppose we did start you growing. Not all we sent were guilty I suspect, either.
so I think you may have to 'make do' with the people that you so kindly take in now..