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Sun 22 Oct, 2006 04:10 pm
I offer this thread
as an opportunity to discuss
the morality of revenge;
( not so much the legality thereof,
in that many jurisdictions may have varying degrees
of inconsistency in their legislatures' respective philosophies ).
To start things off:
my mind goes to a news story I read in a NY paper
years ago, of a fellow whose mother was mugged
( i.e., assaulted & robbed ) by someone in the community
whom she identified. Her son found the malefactor
and stabbed him to death. Its been a long time,
but if I recall accurately, he was acquitted by a jury.
Under these circumstances,
if I were on that jury, I 'd have voted to acquit him.
He deserved a gold medal.
Nothing like that ever even came close
to happening to my mother,
but if it had, I 'd have considered it my moral duty
to do the same thing, even if I knew that it wud mean
the death penalty inflicted upon me,
or long incarceration.
If I knew that the criminal justice system wud
competently handle the situation, then OK,
I cud let it work itself out,
but if not ...
Its just a question of doing what 's honorable.
If I had been among the Founders,
I 'd have endeavored to have the right to vengeance
protected by the Constitution; I don 't believe
that thay considered that issue.
I invite comments ( hopefully better than just mindless, emotional mud slinging ).
Let 's stay away from ad hominem acrimony, please.
David
I would love that scenario, if a cop happened along, just as you were trying to waste the guy, and then the cop opened up on you with about twenty shots to the chest and head. Har har. Talk about due process.
The fact that a citizen may be acting out of revenge is completely ignored when considering that person's actions in the American justice system.
However, when the justice system considers punishment, if the person is not mentally sound they give a lighter sentence. If the punishment were chosen impartially in order to protect society, someone who is not mentally sound should not recieve a lighter sentence because they are no less dangerous. In fact, they are much more dangerous, because if they do not understand what they are doing they cannot be expected to not do it again.
By making the punishment not be a function of only the action, the government demonstrates that their punishments are really just a form of revenge, in which the punishment is a function of how angry they are at the person for what they did, not an unbiased function of what the person actually did and their thread level to society.
Would you have some sort of 'vengeance claim'? A challenge to a duel perhaps?
There is a fine line between revenge and retribution, but I think I agree that sometimes revenge is satisfying.
Faith no more rocks. Too bad they've split up. But I still follow the career of Mike Patton. Especiallt Tomahawk.
Heck yeah they do. You've pretty much summarized my knowledge of the band already, by the way -- Mike Patton, split up, rocks hard. Oh, and lots of infighting. But that only makes their violent lyrics more
real 
OmSigDAVID wrote:edgarblythe wrote:I would love that scenario, if a cop happened along, just as you were trying to waste the guy, and then the cop opened up on you with about twenty shots to the chest and head. Har har. Talk about due process.
If the guy were trying to waste ME
and a cop shot me 50 times in the chest and head,
u 'd laff even MORE. Right, Ed ?
I already said that death was acceptable
in pursuit of honor; so what 's your point ?
David
Whatever you're smoking, please stay out of public until it wears off.
Quote:Elsewhere, I have advocated
removing violent recidivists from contact
with polite society,
by BANISHMENT from the North American Continent.
True, there is no polite society except on the North American continent.
Quote:The original concept of justice ( vengeance ) being administered
by an independent court was that the punishment shud fit the crime.
It shud not be overdone.
Death by stabbing for mugging...
Yep, that sounds about proportionate.
By the way, was there some sort of accident at the lithium mine?
The justice system is not perfect. It never will be there. There are times when a man has to take matters into his own hands. Although that can never be condoned publicly, and we must still accept the conequences of our actions, there are times...
Hm. We could use some of them folks around these parts.
Tony Soprano,murdered a guy who accidently hit a child with his car. The guy was drunk and he attempted to flee the scene, but was stopped. Tony, not satisfied with the laws punishment, decided to affect a more permanent cure to potential recidivism .
Thats antisocial . Stabbing to death in exchange for an assault, is not exactly what HAmmurabi had in mind.
Quote: Its been a long time,
but if I recall accurately, he was acquitted by a jury.
Seeing how attorneys are risk averse, wouldnt you have tried to plead this guy out rather than going with a jury? I think, even though the jury acquitted, it was a big gamble that the lawyer made with his clients future.
Vengeance be visited upon the lawyer!
Worked for the house of Atreus, right?
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