trevor; I didn't realise we were in the church tea rooms and apologise if my language offends you. I note that you are a not demanding the same behaviour from both sides of the debate. How... honest.
You said I had missed the point you had raised regarding my personality traits (thank 'e mashter). As I said "I don't have to show restraint, I'm not their father, I can express my opinion freely and emotively, just as the 'kill 'em/lock 'em up' lobbey are doing."
You seem to have missed the point that my point of view is liable to result in the boys being left alone, unlike the other side's point of view, which at its extreme end will result in vigilante slayings.
Thus your assertion that "When people like you find their little boy has been tortured to death, they are not the type to show the forgiveness and tolerance that you are demanding" is rather unfounded. You have no way of knowing that; you are accusing me of gross hypocracy, and have the gall to critisize me if I use the word 'fuck'. That makes you a hypocritical little tosser; my invective was directed towards a point of view, not towards individuals, yours is baseless and directed soley at me.
My assessment of you as a hypocritical tosser is further compunded by you continuing to attack me, rather than to discuss the issue.
You say "Your whole demeanour shows a dislike for people."
Yeah, like this I suppose;
I think people can be rehabilitated. We all have been or are being rehabilitated from our background, and just because someone was wharped in a different more violent way than they way we were wharped does not give you the right, in my far from humble opinion, to become a judge.I do believe in redemption, that someone can turn their life around. We mostly have, and just because other people have further to go than we have doesn't mean you have the right to judge.
You don't know me and your baseless judgements of me are meaningless, only serving to underline your avoidance of the issues I raised.
I actually admitted that, if it happened to my kith or kin, I would want my vengence. I also said that, even though this might be the case, I didn't think that was a way for society as a whole to conduct itself.
You close with the laughable;
Of course I could be wrong, in which case you eagerness to forgive all criminals and murderers, due to the circumstances of their own lives, can be extended to me.
You can demonstrate that great tolerance that you profess to have by politely thanking me for sharing my opinion with you.
God, are you thick or what (you started this personal insult thing butt-munch, you live with it)?
You have a right to express your opinion, even if it is badly thought out (yes, arrogant as well as foul mouthed). However, nothing makes me have to thank you for it, fool.
I would if it contained any points of worth, or if it was stylistically compelling. It isn't.
I also don't have to forgive you for anything as I cannot be insulted by anyone I don't respect. You have given me no reason to respect you.
Roamingfeline; You had better queue-up for your pitch-fork, burning torch and length of rope. There will be a lynch-mob along at any moment. I would thank you for joining in the debate, but you didn't and are proud of the fact you don't want to. Spew out your knee-jerk statements and don't think too hard, it might hurt you.
digeridoo; Thank you for a decent reply.
You make the point that "Just because he grew up the way he did doesn't turn him into a murderer. Somewhere in the world others grew up the same way and learned to deal with their experiences."
What did turn him into a murderer then? I find it very hard to buy the Christian concept of evil. I think the closest you can get to 'evil' is a sociopath, someone who is amoral. A child who is like that is like that because of nurture. Nature does play its part, but its far to akin to a belief in 'fate' to believe that those two boys were predestined to kill by the arrangement of their genes.
If it is overwhelmingly nuture that made them that way, and they were so young, how can any civilised society hold them as responsible as an adult for what they did? An adult who is a sociopath cannot make a convincing case that they didn't know it was 'wrong'. But some ten year-old believe in Father Christmas for god's sake!
I am glad you agree on the boy's humanity; reading many of the posts on this thread it seems many people doubt it.
You make a very good point that I am equally putting thoughts in nice boxes. As you say of me, "You want to accept that this pattern of behaviour is normal, given their circumstances." You are perfectly free not to accept that line of thought.
That what they did was a cold callous act is something no one could argue with. You admit you don't know what made them do it but that to assume it was their background would be an assumption.
Yes, well, I think it is one bourne out by my examples.
Think of the internalised psychology of the examples I gave. GI's shooting women and children has nothing to do with fighting for your principles, and bespeaks of someone who has been brutalised by their environment. We both hope that we, in that circumstance, would empty the clip into the psycho officer giving the order.
But we don't know.
People can be wharped or brutalised in many different ways, and it can result in both passive and active behaviour.
Many of us would have watched our child bleed to death when we were JW's.
Many children who are abused think AT LEAST WHILE THEY ARE CHILDREN that it is what normally happens, that 'daddies always do that'. Even when they grow up, many carry on the abuse into the next generation, often kidding themselves that it is society that is wrong.
Sorry for the distasteful examples, but I am trying to illustrate how powerful an effect a wharped background can have on someone, especially a child.
If someone can be wharped by their experience, and can commit a crime without full culpability, then it would be logical to assume the wharping can be undone.
If it can be (and the evidence presented to the parole board would seem to be conclusive), and the tragedy was not fully their fault any way, then I do not think that justice could be served by locking them up. Again I point out no-one seems bothered by Bulgers' mother psychosis. She needs help, quick, as if you have read any of her statements, the poor woman's mind has been affected. A mentally disturbed woman's sense of justice is no basis for a legal system.
As I said in my initial post, if there is an appreciable risk that they would re-offend then imprisonment of some form would be an option. You say "I believe anyone who takes another life should [be locked up for life]" (square brackets give context). I don't think you actually mean that 'anyone taking life', I think you mean 'anyone murdering another human', and more precisely 'anyone commiting what the American's call 1st degree murder'.
Please correct me if my assumptions are wrong. I don't imagine you would want drunk drivers and people who killed accidentally or with provokation treated the same way as a serial killer, even though they might be due an appropriate punishment.
If this is the case, then those kids, for me, can not logically be put in the same catagory as a adult premeditating murder.
We might disgree, but at least we can. 8-)
Thanks again for a considered reply.
