quote:spending the night (or a year, whatever) in jail isn't punishment enough for stealing a meal
Apparently not. Nor is it adequate punishment for stealing ANYTHING, apparently, because most theives steal agains and again and again and again and again, even after they've been caught a dozen times.
quote:Let it be known: Rob will kill you for $5 worth of food.
Tell me something...
If the above statement were general knowledge...
Would YOU try to get my happy meal? How many people do you think would try?
[ January 29, 2002, 17:26: Message edited by: First of Two ]
-------------------- "The best defense is not a good offense. The best defense is a terrifyingly accurate and devastatingly powerful offense, with multiply-overlapping kill zones and time-on-target artillery strikes." -- Laurence, Archangel of the Sword
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posted
Okay, let me rephrase that: by 'general knowledge' I mean an established fact, inherent in the act and therefore not punishable or looked upon as abnormal.
There is a saying "those who play with cats must expect to be scratched."
So say, just put aside your squeamishness and assume, what if "You can expect that Rob will kill you for stealing his $5.00 meal" was as inevitable a fact as "If you jump into lava, you can expect to be burned to death." Or "If you go naked into deep space, you can expect to die." The lava and the vacuum don't get punished, neither do I. All part of the natural order of things.
Then what?
If you know that if you take a certain course of action, you can expect to die, will you do it for nothing?
-------------------- "The best defense is not a good offense. The best defense is a terrifyingly accurate and devastatingly powerful offense, with multiply-overlapping kill zones and time-on-target artillery strikes." -- Laurence, Archangel of the Sword
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Da_bang80
A few sectors short of an Empire
Member # 528
posted
I bet alot of man-haters and angry feminists are having a field day over this.
-------------------- Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. The courage to change the things I cannot accept. And the wisdom to hide the bodies of all the people I had to kill today because they pissed me off.
posted
'There is a saying "those who play with cats must expect to be scratched."'
Notice that there isn't a saying that goes "those who play with cats must expect them to rip their brains out through their eye-sockets".
I really can't believe you are seriously arguing this point Rob, that the death penalty should be invoked for all crimes, regardless of their severity, because it would stop them.
Have you no mp3s on your computer? Have you never sped? Have you never done anything illegal, ever?
'So say, just put aside your squeamishness and assume, what if "You can expect that Rob will kill you for stealing his $5.00 meal" was as inevitable a fact as "If you jump into lava, you can expect to be burned to death." Or "If you go naked into deep space, you can expect to die." The lava and the vacuum don't get punished, neither do I. All part of the natural order of things.'
You've made a huge logistical leap there anyway. You are essentially saying that if the idea of you killing someone if they stole your Happy Meal was accepted as normal, would you do it counts as an argument. Well, duh. What if meeting in groups of three would lead to your death, would you do it? What if mandatory raping of pigs was normal, and not doing it got you shot, would you do it?
Proposing a theory and qualifying it with "if it was normal" is nonsense. Anything can be argued like that.
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
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"Thefts almost NEVER occur out of real need. They occur because the thief is greedy, lazy, mean, and/or rude. I don't have any compassion for that. If we lived in a just universe, those attributes would be deselected by nature. Since nature isn't up to the job, it falls to us."
The aforementioned sorts of "self-defense" killings almost NEVER occur out of real need. The occur because the killer is arrogant, and thinks that anyone detrimental to his/her happiness needs to be eliminated, and that he/she has the right to do so, no matter what the circumstances. I don't have any compassion for that. If we lived in a just universe, those attributes would be deselected by nature. Since nature isn't up to the job, we're out of luck, because I'm not going to kill people just because they did something I don't like.
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posted
Then maybe next time they'll do it to your daughter.
quote:I really can't believe you are seriously arguing this point Rob, that the death penalty should be invoked for all crimes, regardless of their severity, because it would stop them.
Good. You shouldn't believe that, because I never said it.
I said the threat should be there. Not that it should always be used.
quote:Notice that there isn't a saying that goes "those who play with cats must expect them to rip their brains out through their eye-sockets".
No, but it would be an appropriate saying about playing with Lions.
If you invade a lion's territory, disturb its young, steal its food, maybe even threaten it, do you really have a right to be mad when it mauls you to death? There's nothing 'morally disturbing' when a lion kills a jackal for messing with its meal.
quote:How do you figure you wouldn't be punished? This I've got to hear.
I'm presupposing a society in which the use of lethal force in the defense of self and any property is considered reasonable.
Now, the wannabe social engineers will tell you that such a society would degenerate into mass chaos and mass killings, but this is not so. In fact, the two societies where such a thing has come closest to fruition (the aristocracy in the dueling days, and the American 'Old West') had lower violent incident rates per capita than any other.
A society in which the threat is omnipresent does lead to the 'weeding out' of the elements which are not willing or able to follow the codes of behavior that evolve. When rudeness leads to death, politeness becomes the norm. A man will be courteous to the next man, when he knows that rudeness may drop him in a duel. A man will be careful what he takes offense to, lest he, through oversensitivity, ends up dueling someone better.
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posted
I'd heard that the murder rates in the Old West were higher than modern cities...mostly because everybody had a gun. You could go and shoot somebody, and unless their was overwhelming evidence that you had done it--meaning witnesses--it was likely that the only thing you had to worry about was revenge from one of the "victims" friends or family.
Not to mention the genocide practiced against the Natives. ("Kill a buffalo, Kill an injun" ring a bell?)
the so called Clean Kill Laws (that eventually mutated into Justifiable Homicide) were at one time the *ahem* law of the land. Time Life says so.
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posted
You'd heard wrong. Despite the media creations (including the dime novels that popularized many of the now famous 'gunslingers'), the violent crime rate was actually very low. There weren't many 'showdowns at sunset.' There were the occasional range murders, but the families were usually a deterrent... when a guy has six brothers, if you kill him, there's a pretty good chance at least one of them is going to find you.
-------------------- "The best defense is not a good offense. The best defense is a terrifyingly accurate and devastatingly powerful offense, with multiply-overlapping kill zones and time-on-target artillery strikes." -- Laurence, Archangel of the Sword
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posted
fair enough. I don't claim any great expertise on the Old West. I concede that that particular information may be incorrect.
However, I still feel that holding the Old West up as an example of your argument isn't the best idea. I don't think there was anything Ideal about it, in fact.
In your ideal society everyone would have a gun. In the Old West, not everyone did. Contrary to movies and dime novels.
The only way to level the playing field so to speak would be to give everybody a gun at birth (or jesus, because I know somebodies going to be nitpicky, say at their eighteenth birthday or something). That doesn't sound like a good idea at all.
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posted
this link is somewhat related to the original topic. It's pretty interesting. Read it if you want to hear about some really inhumane conditions.
posted
Not much worse than giving everybody a car at sixteen.
Rites of passage are a long-standing societal way of impressing upon a young individual the importance of adulthood and adult responsibility.
You shouldn't just hand the kid a gun when he turns.. eighteen sounds fair, and say 'there ya go,' there should be significance surrounding the event (just as, I think, there should be more significance attatched to other coming-of-age rituals.)
Our kids don't 'come of age' anymore. Half of the time, they're treated like children, and the other half like adults. It's maddening. I think that's a couse of a lot of youth problems in and of itself.
-------------------- "The best defense is not a good offense. The best defense is a terrifyingly accurate and devastatingly powerful offense, with multiply-overlapping kill zones and time-on-target artillery strikes." -- Laurence, Archangel of the Sword
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posted
I've always thought that this culture needed some kind of formal coming of age ritual too. I don't think it should involve getting a gun (or a car, shit, I still don't have one, and I'm twenty five) but certainly something to invoke a sense of community and responsiblity.
The more esoteric the better, really. Esoteric rituals are always memorable, and more important sounding.
If you've read the Farseer trilogy by Robin Hobb, the ritual that young Fritz underwent in the middle of the night seems about right to me. The men come and get the boy, who is asleep, and take him for the ceremony. The boy never sees their faces...I don't remember all the details, but at the end they gave him a new name, one held in secret and that places him as a man of the society.
fictional, but it seems like a good idea (as long as there are no child molestors or various other shitwits involved). Not nearly as fucked up as other real life rituals (such as the Sun Dance) but perhaps more lasting than, say, a bar mitzvah.
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