A very disturbing trend

The BBQ Pit
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It’s really starting to amaze me a disturbing trend on the boards lately. What trend you ask? Posters who I am sure are normally moral upstanding people are calling for mutilations, murders, rapes, and other crimes of violence. At least one is also admitting to a crime and getting defended by another for it, but the defender is trying to say it’s not a threat! Another is claiming for sterilization to prevent people being born who just might inherit a trait, said trait that same poster admits to not knowing what causes it. Others have denounced the appeals process based merely on the gravity of the charges–to hell with the person being actually innocent!

These actions appear in a number of places on the board, related in threads regarding crimes against children mostly, but IIRC in other threads as well. What is it that causes these people to toss out their moral framework and call for heinous actions–and, in one case, carry them out–in response? Why don’t they care about getting the criminals prosecuted correctly? Why don’t they care that someone might be convicted in error? Why don’t they care that their called for (and, in one case, carried out) actions are just as mean, brutal, and irrevocable as the crime about which they’re enraged?

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Links?

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cheddarsnax: I didn’t put in links because there’s just too many of them.

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It’s the ‘freedom’ that posting on a messageboard gives, allowing folks to vent their disgust at the actions of others without consequence…put those same people onto a jury, or make them responsible for the sentencing of offenders and I’m sure that their murderous ‘tune’ would change Monty.

JMHO of course.

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I really hope you’re right, kambuckta. What’s really gotten me worried is the two (as it turns out) who’ve said they’d told someone they’d kill him. I really hope that’s just messageboard balderdash.

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I know what you’re talking about Monty… it’s the kind of thing that used to be reserved to LiveJournal rants and comments, but it’s been slowly encroaching on SDMB. For example, in this thread currently active in the Pit, one poster says child rapists should have their balls sawed off, another hopes that the convicted rapist is raped repeatedly in prison, and another advocates castration. And that’s just on the first page.

Recently, a friend of my wife and I posted something similar in her LiveJournal, recommending that Mike Tyson should be “assassinated” and/or brutally beaten for his treatment of women. Several people commented, mostly in agreement, some offering their own unique and grisly punshment ideas for Tyson. My wife tried to be the voice of reason, and suggest that perhaps the violence of their words was part of the problem rather than a workable solution… rather than even acknowledging the possibility, the LJ author responded saying she was deeply offended by what my wife said, and not too long afterwards broke off the friendship entirely. It seems, for some people like this, that violence is abhorrent only when committed against those that don’t “deserve” it. Of course, that the same argument has been used by the objects of their hatred to justify their own violent words and behaviors doesn’t even enter into the picture for them.

There is, of course, a difference between saying something and doing it. Nobody should be arrested or anything for saying a child rapist should have his balls cut off. However, it seems a form of hypocrisy, to me, for a person to advocate violence to answer for a violent crime, even verbally. If someone has non-violent principles, then one should maintain those principles even in discourse.

I can sympathize with anger directed towards violent people. I get angry about it too, and I surely would be a good bit more than angry if a member of my family was hurt or killed by someone. However, part of being a human being and a part of modern society is controlling one’s impulses and being true to oneself. If someone who normally abhors violence is suddenly advocating violent behavior, that seems wrong to me.

Which is all a long way of saying that I think it’s a disturbing trend too. Not as prevalent on the SDMB as it is in other places, but disturbing no matter where it is seen.

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Damn, I was gonna say we ought to find these intolerant folks and just stone their asses, but I wouldn’t want you to think I was serious. :wink:

Punishment as a deterrent rarely works unless it is immediate and severe, which is not possible in our society. Punishment as vengence benefits nobody, it does in fact breed violence. Violence accepted/practiced by people or a society only escalates.

Punishment against the innocent is unacceptable/wrong. Therefore the practice of punishment as a society should cease, since it is unworkable with the guilty and unacceptable/wrong for the innocent.
But, **WE[/] will not cease. Thus we are doomed to live in an ever increasingly violent society.

The BILLIONS of $$$ that we waste on incarceration, should be spent on education, crime prevention and rehabilitation.

At least a good percentage of it. (I realize there are some who may not be rehabilitated, a small % IMO)

BTW…a lot of folks say things they FEEL, not what they would actually DO.

I won’t say what I would FEEL like doing if someone was to hurt my family.

:slight_smile:

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Social brainwashing?

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I’m about as much of a pacifist as one can get, but I have in my lifetime, either felt or voiced my opinion about wanting violence done to those who’ve perpetrated it on others. Although I try to shy away from ever giving that vent in even thought, I know why it’s been something I’ve fought with in the past. At least IMHE, you want the person who’s harmed someone else to UNDERSTAND exactly what it is that they’ve done. On a primal level, there’s no better way to go about that than “what’s good for the goose, is good for the gander” and “an eye for an eye” and all that. Taking it a step further, you also wish for them to feel whatever they did to someone else, to some degree. I suppose to punish, demean and mostly, to make them acknowledge the sheer hell they’ve inflicted, because now they’re experiencing it for themselves.

Now that’s all very base instinctual responses and they’re not pretty. Very ugly, in fact and probably why most conscientious people try to civilize them out of their lives. If not that, then control, stifle and ultimately realize how much it lowers you to the same common denominator of those that you despise. That it dehumanizes you. Or makes you a hypocrite and strips you of any true rationale.

Fortunately though, I believe most people are using language (albeit even if that’s not a good way of coping with these types of things) as nothing more than an escape valve for something they’d never dream of doing. It lets them purge vile thoughts, fear, disgust, hatred and desire for separation from what is viewed as animalistic behavior or a monster. Put simply, I think it does allow them to deal and go on being a good person without ever acting on heinous impulses. Just spew it all out and be done. However, that’s just my guess. I could be completely wrong and we might all need to duck for cover.

But I promise that for me, when I don’t think first with my head and sometimes let my heart win out, I forget and will let something slip (I certainly know I did after the O.J. verdict) that isn’t indicative of how/who I am or what I really think/feel, I hope people understand that I’m only human and trying to get the hang of being as upstanding as I desire and try to be. Bear with me when I fail and I won’t hold it against anyone who might want to string me up by my toenails while giving me an acid bath after my beating. Nothing personal, right? :eek: :wink:

Side note: Gah, it’s so late here, I hope any of that made sense. If not, please blame it on my lack of proper sleeping aids. Ambien sucks goat tails.

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t-keela: Did you miss that part where I mentioned that someone did do something, not will do something? As it turns out, there’re TWO people in that thread Avalonian linked who admit to having threatened the parolees.

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I have often harboured personal opinions that I would be horrified to see enacted as public policy. While breaking into my car may be grounds for a severe ass kicking if I happen to see you do it, I would not support a law that introduced corporal punishment for such a transgression, and I’d fully expect to face some legal problems of my own for administering said ass kicking.

I think a lot of this problem has its roots in (pardon me while I get pompous) the nature of the discourse.

As an example, I was once at a hockey game where a fight broke out in the stands. A very small man was leaning on the rail watching the game. He was shouldered aside by a big guy who took over his spot. Big Guy and his friends just decided to stop there and Big Guy pushed Little Guy out of the way so he could have a place to lean.

Big Guy then turned to talk to his friends, vacating his stolen spot, and Little Guy went back to where he had been standing. Big Guy finished his chat and turned around, and was outraged to see Little Guy back there. He shoved Little Guy out of the way again, quite violently, and glared at him, daring him to say something.

Little Guy moved down a ways, but when Big Guy went back to chatting, Little Guy resumed his original place. Big Guy saw this, and took offence. He grabbed Little Guy by the jacket, drew his right hand back to throw a punch, and crumpled to the floor in obvious pain.

I think I heard a rib snap.

Big Guy’s friends had a hurried debate, conducted mostly in significant looks, while Little Guy leaned back on the railing to watch the game.

The friends decided to just go and get Big Guy some medical attention rather than take up where he had left off.

As a citizen, I don’t condone breaking people’s ribs for stealing your spot in the stands at a hockey game. I also don’t condone the use of what was obviously less than minimum necessary force. Little Guy had several ways out of that impending punch that didn’t require breaking anything.

On the other hand, Big Guy had set the terms for their relationship. The decision to move beyond civillity was his, the decision to offer violence was his, and I just can’t dredge up a single iota of sympathy for him.

There is a certain satisfaction in seeing something like that, and it’s going to be present wherever someone who has gone beyond the boundaries of accepted behaviour and victimized someone weaker than them finds themselves on the receiving end.

I wonder, though, how many of the people calling for these murders and mutilations would volunteer to carry them out, or would support actually making them happen.

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Keep in mind there is a difference between ‘this should happen to him’ and ‘we should do this to him’. There is a long way between wishing lightning to strike certain people and fantasizing about tying them to lightning rods during thunderstorms.

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Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And when you look long into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you.

–Friedrich Nietzsche

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I think you’d be surprised. I really do. There is a lot of truly mean and nasty people about.

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Monty, I know what you mean, and it worries me too. The sight of normal, rational, generally decent people calling for all sorts of mutilation, torture and death sends a chill down my spine. Maybe they are just venting … I would like to hope so. But I still think it’s a very bad sign, that they want the justice system to be as bad as - or worse than - the people it’s punishing.

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Steve,

I would like to think it’s just venting. But, IMHO, it’s not. If it were just venting, after being called short on it, there’d be a different tune from that quarter. What’s happened, though, is a run to defend those who have been “venting.” And two who have admitted to–and vehemently defended such action–to threatening to kill a parolee; threatening him to his face, IIRC.

Istara, on the other hand, has taken a most unusual stance, one devoid of logic, let alone sense. He (she) is defending the stance of sterilization of an offendor for the sole reason to prevent him from raising another generatin of abusers. When queried as to what should be done about the children that offender has already abused–should they not be sterilized, since they’re part of that next generation istara apparently doesn’t want raised–istara fled.

Mind you, it’s not just in the thread on child rape this trend has surfaced. Look at a post or two in the thread on the man in Minneapolis who unleashed one virus.

And the same people seem to display a complete lack of concern over the possibility that the person who will be (if there unethical & immoral desires are enacted into law) mutilated, tortured, or murdered could be innocent.

Something that just came to mind, and I really don’t have the heart to do this search: I wonder what those same people have to say about the law in some places where mutilation–the amputation of a hand–is actually part of the legal code?

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Dratted misspellings! “…if there unethical…” should read “…if their unethical…”

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It’s hardly a new trend. Its been a couple years since I was torn to shreds in a thread for suggesting that those advocating torture and murder of a guy who had abused his dogs were maybe overreacting.

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Well, what you are seeing is honesty. It is brought forth due to the anonymity provided by the board.

You don’t actually expect the people here to publicly share opinions that match the opinions they express around people who know them. Hell, the majority of the people on this board
don’t even put down what city they are in.

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:::checks address labels:::

Oh, yeah - Dallas, TX. Whew. For a second there I thought I was in the majority for once! Oh well, maybe next time.

As has been mentioned before, people blow off steam in this forum - and I can certainly understand wishing death upon someone who murdered my beloved family. When it comes to complete strangers - I really believe most of the posters who wish harm upon murderers (myself included) are just venting and angry that we inhabit the planet with such cruel people.