Death penalty

[merrylander]

Originally Posted by Boreas

[COLOR="Blue"]I'm uncomfortable with the "that's our system like it or not" argument. My feeling is that when you find out there's something wrong with the system you fix it.

John

Can't argue with that, the problem seems to be getting anyone to admit that the system is broken, after all this is America, the best political system in the world, so they say.

[Boreas]

Originally Posted by merrylander

Can't argue with that, the problem seems to be getting anyone to admit that the system is broken, after all this is America, the best political system in the world, so they say.

Best government money can buy!

John

[Grumpy]

Originally Posted by Boreas

Best government money can buy!

John

Well, thats what they keep telling us..

[merrylander]

Well once the Supremes legalized bribery the outcome was pretty well a foregone conclusion.

[Mysteryed]

Heck, if we are paying for for them... keep the receipt and demand a refund, or perhaps a much better product. The shrugging off of personal responsibility seems the new modus operandi in politics. As for the death penalty, it's hard to debate in a positive way when those we entrust to administer justice don't meet our expectations in so many ways.

[2DualsNE]

When you have lawyers,cops,detectives,etc expected to make quick arrests and convictions of crimes like murder,its inevitable that mistakes will be made and liberties taken.Unless you have positive DNA evidence,I think there should be a moratorium on executions.
Jimmy

[Combwork]

[QUOTE=BlueStreak;13066]There we go with the "prevention" thing.

Don't you understand that here in "The States" it makes much more sense to let a criminal run amok, then kill him after he's committed his heinous crime as an act of revenge, rather than watch for abnormal behaviour and prevent the crime? Why, how
can we have sensational news stories without lots of bloodshed?

Geez, get with the program.

Dave[/QUOTE]

Title says it all Bluestreak, I've no wish to "get with the program". By the time abnormal behavior manifests itself it's probably too late; one way or another the fuse has been lit. What I'm talking about is cause. Is it genetic, nature, nurture? If you define 'normal' as the average, blond hair, blue eyes etc child abuse is not normal, but in as much as it occurs in nature, it's 'natural'. Think of the way while in season, some male animals regardless of their targets age (or in some cases sex) try to go for anything that stands still long enough.

So what could trigger it in humans? Getting 5 year old girls done up in 'grown up' clothes, makeup etc. Making them look like miniature adults then putting them in beauty pageants?

I genuinely don't know the answer to this one, but everything I've read so far in this thread and pretty well everywhere else is about what to do after the event, not how to prevent it. If someone was sexually attracted to children and knew it was wrong, would they go to the Doctor and seek help, knowing that despite 'confidentiality' it could become part of their medical record? More and more people, including life insurance companies are trying to get access to medical records. Would you risk your neighbor (and his friends) knowing through his job more about you than your wife did?

I think if we de-stigmatised child abuse to the point where people might not be afraid to seek help, this might stop at least some potential abusers going on to be active abusers but it would be a brave (or foolish) politician who proposed this.

[Charles]

Originally Posted by Combwork

That's a popular conception, but I think it's fatally flawed. Child abusers go for self justification in a big way. They have to; how could they live with themselves if they didn't. In effect, telling child molesters "they can't help themselves" strengthens their self justification. 'They say I can't help it so it's ok if I do it. I'm only doing what I'm expected to do'.

Horrible as it might sound, if we treat child abuse as a symptom of something else then just maybe instead of reacting after the event, we could find a way to stop it happening in the first place.

The people I know of who think that "they can't help themselves" hardly view their opinion as a way to justify the child molesters guilt.

They view their opinion as a way to justify " what's say we just get rid of them".

Perhaps I'm simply insensitive. But I can't understand why they do as they do, I don't even think that they can understand what they do. Other than they feel they have done nothing wrong.

I'm more concerned with their victims. But to be fair, perverse sexual activity has been around every since the earth cooled. It's as natural as the sun coming up.

It's a matter of where society draws the line.

Chas

[merrylander]

Part of the problem may well be the screwed up attitudes toward sex in NorAm, it might have been better if Plymouth Rock had landed on the Pilgrims.

[noonereal]

Originally Posted by Charles

perverse sexual activity has been around every since the earth cooled. It's as natural as the sun coming up.

It's a matter of where society draws the line.

Chas

Exactly. It makes me nuts when folks sit in front of the tube listening to the news and proclaim how drastically things have changed. Human behavior has been fairly consistent for 100,000 years. We are just more aware today.