Ration answers to this proposition...

[Sheriru]

Everyone, I know we all have different opinions in this case. And let me please tell you that I'm not as educated as all of you. Someday I will, yes, but I've got many years ahead of me.

I didnt exactly mean to say "evil people die, smart people live". If the cruel people are removed, wouldn't this world be better? Shooting to the sun is out of the question...

And I know for a fact I'm not heartless or cruel. I'm actually a person whose life is being ruined by disrespectful people... it's hard to want to live with them around.

All I want is to live without being thrashed by today's gruesome society of drug-addicts, rapists, and murderers...

please try not to get angry, also

[Sheriru]

Everyone, I know we all have different opinions in this case. And let me please tell you that I'm not as educated as all of you. Someday I will, yes, but I've got many years ahead of me.

I didnt exactly mean to say "evil people die, smart people live". If the cruel people are removed, wouldn't this world be better? Shooting to the sun is out of the question...

And I know for a fact I'm not heartless or cruel. I'm actually a person whose life is being ruined by disrespectful people... it's hard to want to live with them around.

All I want is to live without being thrashed by today's gruesome society of drug-addicts, rapists, and murderers...

please try not to get angry, also

[Trinopus]

Originally Posted by Sheriru

. . . I didnt exactly mean to say "evil people die, smart people live". If the cruel people are removed, wouldn't this world be better? Shooting to the sun is out of the question...

Perhaps the single best thing humanity has ever devised is self-government. Over a period of thousands of years, we have pieced together a pretty good justice system.

In early days, the justice system worked more or less the way you describe. Murderers were put to death. Unfortunately, so were a lot of people who committed minor crimes, such as burglary or forgery. And a lot of innocent people were executed also.

The legal system, world-wide, in all its variations, has been improved since the days of Hammurabi and Pharaoh. We've learned the importance of human rights, of evidentiary procedure, or judicial impartiality, and of legal advocacy.

It sounds as if you, in a cry of angst, would set all of this aside, and return to a primitive retributive system. This might provide some momentary satisfaction, but it is most widely believed that it would leave the world worse off, morally, rather than better off.

[jtgain]

We've seen this type of retribution in history. The French Revolution is a prime example. Let's say that the leader who decides who is cruel/not cruel is 100% moral and just and never makes a mistake. So the killings go on for years until one person decides that he doesn't like the policy of the Supreme Leader. He automatically has many followers: the relatives of the people that have been executed, so then this person comes into power and redefines cruel/not cruel.

Not surprisingly, the people who were first in the not cruel group are now in the cruel group and executed. The end result is just a mass indiscriminate killing with no regard to who is really cruel and not cruel. Remember that Robespierre was one of the first to go to the guillotine.