[lit-ideas] Re: Is torture wrong by definition?

  • From: JimKandJulieB@xxxxxxx
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Thu, 6 Apr 2006 14:36:56 EDT

Sterilization is your answer???
 
Keeping ahead of the lawn is so much more doable when both your riding  mower 
and push weed-eater aren't in the shop.....<sigh>.
 
Julie Krueger
getting ticks & chiggers already!

========Original Message========     Subj: [lit-ideas] Re: Is torture wrong 
by definition?  Date: 4/6/06 1:01:01 P.M. Central Daylight Time  From: 
_aamago@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx (mailto:aamago@xxxxxxxxxxxxx)   To: 
_lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
(mailto:lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx)   Sent on:    
> [Original Message]
> From: Paul Stone  <pas@xxxxxxxx>
> To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Date:  4/6/2006 1:21:49 PM
> Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Is torture wrong by  definition?
>
>
> >Or prevented by raising better humans  (meaning teaching parenting).  I
> >think if we had humongous  numbers of cars that run the way humans do, not
> >starting, stalling,  going out of control, catching fire, whatever, we'd
be
> >in those  factories in no time demanding that they improve.
>
> And... we'd  JUNK the ones that were shit.
>


They aren't to blame for the  conditions that made them what they are. 
First I'd make sure they couldn't  reproduce, and depending on degree of
severity, I'd put them to work doing  something useful.  Worst case
scenario, keep them in jail.  We need  license plates anyway.  



>
>  > Who're  "we"? The hypocritical puritan american press?
>
> >No, you,  Lawrence, Eric, me (well, not really me), Joe Average who
> >complains  al Jazeera isn't playing fair by showing people what war really
>  >looks like.
>
> Don't include me in the 'we' because I said ON  THIS LIST that what we
need 
> is to SHOW all that stuff and that WOULD  make those of us who are more 
> civilized even MORE anti-unjust-war. I'll  try to find the email if you 
> really want to see  it.
>


Okay, I'll take your word for it and take your name off  the list.



> >Revenge is universal because it's a product of  the crocodile brain.
> >Revenge is a way to work through emotions that  can be worked through in
far
> >more productive  ways.
>
> Like living a miserable, heartbroken life with no closure  for 30 years 
> while your child's murderer sits in jail with free  education, free
movies, 
> free gym, free food. That's WAY more  productive.
>


I think life in prison is overrated.  From  I've seen on television and read
about it, it's hell.  I wonder if  prisons offer tours.  Maybe people who
think it's so great can see for  themselves and let us know, better yet, try
a week as an experimnet.   Also, in a sense, the murderer was once a
soul-murdered child himself.   The original crime(s) against him went
unpunished.  Victims always  create victims in one form or another.  



>
> Put  them in solitary forever? Isn't that cruel and unusual? Isn't that,
as  
> you say a fate worse than death? I don't want to torture these terrible  
> people (for very long anyway), I just want them gone from the  Earth.
>


Removing people from the Earth is not the  answer.  Stopping the cycle is
the answer.  Removing people is what  Stalin did.  Who would do the
removing?  Where would you remove  them to?  We need to improve our world,
not institute a reign of  terror.



> >In the abstract we agree.  In principle,  revenge and taking people out
are
> >emotional responses.  But,  even agreeing in principle is better than
> >nothing.
>
>  Here is something I wrote yesterday but didn't send.
>
> It just  strikes me as rather silly that a lot of people think that an 
>  'near-distant' threat OR a just-past crime is somehow not a valid reason
to  
> strike. You have to react IN the moment or not at all. I think that  it's 
> actually backwards and that someone who deliberates and carefully  thinks 
> about retribution or preemption has done a much greater service  than one 
> who reacts and kills someone out of anger and passion in the  heat of the 
> moment. If someone kills my wife, should I really club him  over the head 
> with the nearest baseball bat immediately or should I  restrain him and
talk 
> to him for a few hours to see whether he can  give me a good reason why I 
> shouldn't do the same to him?  If I  think about that for a couple of
hours 
> and decide "yes, I should" I  should be commended that at least I THOUGHT 
> about it and still came up  with the answer that "yes, it should be done". 
> Premeditated murderers  are almost (unless they are psychopathic serial 
> killers) one-off  killers and are not 'dangerous' to society other than
the 
> ONE person  they want dead. People who react in the moment and fly off the 
> handle  with an unmeasured response are the really dangerous ones. Now... 
> what  do you say of reason over emotion?
>


The irony of this is that  if everyone reacted in the heat of passion, where
would we be?  Would  you like to live in a world like that?  Why would you
need courts if  people meted out their own justice?  Most crimes of passion
are of the  domestic violence variety anyway.  That's why we need to outlaw
spanking  and make crossing of boundaries taboo under ALL circumstances. 
(Except  appropriate hugging of course, you know what I mean.)  If EVERYONE
at  ALL times kept their hands to themselves, there would be no crimes  of
passion.




> >All the evidence points to a reduced  standard of living for most
Americans
> >in the not too distant  future.  That's why I say civilization is a
mirage.
>  >Approachable, but then it disappears.  Around 1970 the population of  the
> >world was something like 3.5 billion.  Now it's something  like 6 billion.
> >The more humans, the more problems.
>
>  Again, I direct you to Pianka. What do you say about his  'theory'?
>

Don't know who he is.  I'll look him up.   Right now I'm going to do the
lawn.



>
> >
>  > > "I've got an itching swelling brain and I'm OUT OF CONTROL"
>  >
> >Sounds like a quote from a sci fi.  I don't recognize  it.  See ya later.
> >Until then, keep watching the skies  ...
>
> It's a 'devo' lyric. They were/are pretty radical new wave  musicians. 
> www.clubdevo.com
>

I'm still trying to catch up  with Nirvana or Sex Pistols or whatever that
group was that you had  suggested.  I forgot to look for them in the library
and now I can't  remember their name.  I listen mostly to interviews and the
like.   More fun.  Now, I'm going to do the lawn.  I'm determined this  year
to keep ahead of it.  



>  paul
>
>
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