RF; I am sorry if my attitude gets you. I assure you I don't take myself seriously, but when I say anyone not sharing my thoughts on x or y can 'fuck off' I am serious.
Are there not some points of view you find repugnant? Where you find having to debate the obvious is almost brain numbingly nauseating?
Racists, homophobes, paedophiles, rapists, bigots; their intolerance or abuse of others' rights invites similar intolerance. Even if doing that has its contradictions, it is better than smiling as they try to justify their crap.
Then you have those who seem blinded by culture or upbringing to accept certain things as just and right. The gun control debate and the death penalty in the US are good examples.
This second catagory is where good good people (I have American friends IRL and online and have travelled around America a bit) can hold opinions that are perhaps held by only a minority of people in Europe, but are majority opinons in the USA.
Killing killers is right, even if innocent people get killed by mistake as any legal system is imperfect. Having loads of guns does not result in the high death rate from gun shot injuries you can see in the USA.
Now, I put the Bulger case in the above catagory. Good good people can have stupid, stupid beliefs. We ALL know this 8-)
I don't think you're bad thinking what you think about the Bulger case. I just think your opinion sucks so much it could take the chrome off a fender.
Off course, you don't have to justify it, but I don't have to not think it sucks.
Do you expect me to be silent? I don't expect that of you. You hold that opinion; sorry this makes you the subject of critiscm, but we can flip it 180 and I'll take the flak for my beliefs, gladly, and defend them. You can take the Fifth. Don't expect me to be silent because you choose to do that.
Also, you seem to take invective rather seriously.
Your profile lists you as an Australian, which surprises me as Australians are massive arguers and just as offensive and strident as the British can be; maybe I've met the 'wrong sort' of Australian! Maybe (as many people don't bother putting in their country or put one in for a laugh) you're not an Ozzy. If you are, up the Lions!! 8-)
In contrast to the image populary held by the many in the world of the English as calm and phlegmatic, the English are actually quite prone to spirited exchanges of opinion, where ad hominum is part of the wharp and weft of the arguement. I was fortunate in that, even though I was raised a JW, spirited and heated discussion were natural over the dinner table. It may have sounded like WWIII, but we were still all friends when we left the table, even if we'd been calling each other 'silly' and characterising points of view in rather low terms.
Acting as a student guide for American students taking their Junior Year Abroad, I know Americans argue in a different way to the English, and are more easily insulted. An English person will be on the counter attack, keeping to the subject in hand, when an American is expressing how deeply affected they are by what you just said.
And I'm the one who's meant to take himself seriously 8-)
Yes, of course, I could adjust my 'style' to one less abrasive to Americans, but that would just be drowning in yet another wave of cultural imperialism from the other side of the Atlantic. I'll draw the line at Levi's, Microsoft, and the occasional Burger King (no Wendy's heer), and of course TV and films, and a few American authors I love. But I'll argue my way, and spell colour as god intended, and not save on letters when I spell through.
Again, apologies if I have offended you, I hope this explains my argumentative style is a product of my background (as is, to some extent, yours). If you think I was 'angry' when I wrote those posts, you really have no idea!! I was having a spirited arguement. They are two seperate things.
As for the boy's mother, she firmly believes the two boys will track her down to Merseyside and try to kill her other child. This has been reported in both tabloid and broadsheet newspapers (us lucky Brits have 'tabloids' that are more-or-less daily equivalents of the National Enquirer, for all our cultural snobbery), as well as on the televison media. I don't know what you know about psychology or the normal course of the grieveing process, and I did state that I would not assume to say she could 'get over it'. However, from what evidence threr is, she needs help and has been sorely let down by the system.
As for the boys being released EARLY, well, they haven't.
When they were sentenced, they were sentenced to imprisonment 'at her Magesty's pleasure'. This basically was a legal way of saying, 'they're kids, we'll decide on their sentence when we know more about their propencity to re-offend', or 'throw away the key', depending what you think. Later on a tariff of either 16 or 25 years was applied by a politician, the then Home Secretary. This was taken to the European Court of Human Rights and declared void. Sentences without end are a breach of human rights as are political influence being used to control the judicary.
They have no more been let out early than a US prisoner would be released early if the US Supreme Court had decreed that a politician had no right to involve itself in the judicary (which being American is a concept you will be familiar with) and declared the sentence passed as un-Constitutional.
trevor; The point I make to RF above about why I say 'If you think this, fuck off' is one I hope you undersatnd. I don't see any lack of tolerance in allowing someone to express and hold an opinion AND telling them to 'fuck off', if their opinion so offends you. You want me to be a mealy-mouthed hypocrite and smile and go, 'oh, if you think so'? Bollocks to that.
As to why I take this stance, well, anyone can tell I like a good argument. Spank me. But I believe in what I am argueing.
You seem to be a little new to an online environment, or a little sheltered, if you've never met anyone who argues like the blue blazes, but is generally easy going and without exception non-violent (although I do believe in self defence).
Strength of opinion does not mean someone is a madman or likely to be a bad neighbour.
I might object to what you say, but I would defend your right to say it (as the same time as telling you it's fucking stupid).
Sorry if you can't deal with two contrasting trains of thought at the same time!!
You ask (again, or was it RF who asked the first time) "How on earth would you REALLY react if two killers seriously touched your life?"
I've already said I would want my vengence, so don't pose this question as though you're being clever. I hope if two kids from dreadful environments killed a child of mine I could avoid killing them, but at first, I almost certainly would want to because of the circumstances I was in. If they were adults, well, I think I'd want to kill them longer.
But although I'd want to kill them, I don't think I would, because, as you seem to fail to realise, there is a world of difference between saying and doing.
Again, you seem to fail to grasp that one can believe one would want personal vengence AND believe that is no way to run a civilised society.
I also find your attempt to characterise me as a potentially violent nutter ludicrous. I suppose I'm up there with all the violent nutters in pro-choice/anti-death penalty/prison reformer movements who, must be nutters by your logic as they are as strident in defending their view point as me.
Doh! That would be why the police are afraid of vigilanties hunting the boys down, and aren't afraid of the 'menacing' mobs of prison reform campaigners who have vowed to shout very loudly and wave banners around if anyone does those boys harm. Try harder.
