Well, in a lot of cases, that means a public defender who’s drunk or asleep at the trial. Not much care at all.
I don’t like it, nor do I necessarily agree. Humans don’t hold a 7 year old at gunpoint and rape her.
This criminal behavior isn’t like a thug selling drugs, or a guy holding up a bank. Give them a trade and a chance at an honest life, and maybe they’ll take it. Don’t give them a job and you’ll likely push them back into crime (depending on their initial motivations).
Instead, we have someone who’s brain switch that tempers behavior is broken. These are people who may have had a job and a trade to begin with (or may not have), yet they still engaged in this behavior. Prior to prison, the items are not related. Does release from prison somehow change that?
Speaking as someone who could not possibly disagree with Dante more, I think y’all should cut him some slack. He has explained many times that he would not actually engage in vigilantism, and that he was just hyperbolizing. To continue to insist otherwise is just strawmannery.
One observation I have made in this thread, and indeed on any debate regarding the death penalty is this: Look at the language that pro-DPers use. Sick fuck, monster, animal, mental abortion, etc. And the cavalier attitudes expressed are things like “removed from society”, “forfeit the right to be human” and such. When such emotional and violent rhetoric is used, it rarely makes a positive impression on me.
But I didn’t come here to talk about that. I came to talk about school. 
What is with the obsession about keeping molesters away from schools? Does proximity really equal an increased chance of recidivism? I would think that a determined molester could make use of the community’s many resources in locating a school just a few blocks further away. And proximity – there is a school not two blocks from where I live. I have not a clue what grades are taught there. In fact, I wouldn’t even know there was a school there at all if I weren’t so bound and determined to vote Bush out.
And where should we send released offenders? To communities where there are no children? Where are these child-free utopias? And what’s playing at the movie theatres there?
And if it were you who were falsely convicted?
On the notion that child rapists are not humans, I’m sure that DNA evidence would disagree with you.
But let’s say you’re right. Child rapists are not human, for the sake of argument. I’m sure you’d agree that when such people are born, they are human. So when do they become not-human? Research I’ve seen indicates that very nearly 100% of molesters were themselves molested (although very few that were molested actually grow up to be molesters themselves). So would it be fair to say that when they were raped is when they lost their humanity? And their right to live?
Statistically, it would be just as bad as someone else getting falsely convicted. Personally, I’d find it rather more inconvenient. But I don’t think I’m somehow operating outside the bubble.
Damn science always getting in the way.
Nope, when they act on their impulses. When I pass the NY Fed, I dream about walking in and helping myself to a few (hundred) sheets of Benjamins. Surprisingly, I have never acted upon it. Now, if I were to start planning, appropriate a bunch of garbage trucks, arrange a boat upstate for transit, and plant bombs in the city to throw off the scent, then you can start to convict me.
Just to be clear, I’m more of a “New Australia” sort of person - only smaller so the perimeter can be patrolled. But even that depends on perfect convictions. Until then, the law should allow for such people to be thrown in a dank cell and forgotten (outside of the normal course of prison life and the appeals process).
I find it interesting that the point has been raised in support of punishing violent sexual offenders with the idea that “in prison, criminals kill child molesters”, as if that’s some sort of moral justification. Prisoners kill a lot of diffirent types of people in prison. If I’m 6’4, 230 pounds and built like a truck, it won’t matter what my crime is, no one’s going to automatically attack me because of it. It’s my understanding that the weakest ones get taken first in there. A thread from awhile back seems to agree.
If these individuals could be sucessfully rehabilitated, I’d agree to that. Unfortunatly that isn’t the case. Their lives are going to be scrutinized and they should be watched for the rest of their lives and placed in a job where the chance of relapse is nonexistant. If they do relapse…I don’t know. It’s a difficult question. I’d not cry over his physical punishment, but death…that’s a serious thing.
I agree with spooje’s sense that more than a little bit of BS is at play in the OP. How did the details of the crime become common knowledge? And why hasn’t wheelie already quit, given all the other “bullshit” s/he must put up with at this job, to say nothing of his/her strong feelings about this?
Regardless, after reading four pages, I’d feel more comfortable having tea and cakes with this child rapist than some of the posters in this thread. And why would I not be the least bit surprised if a sizeable number of the posters here advocating death, torture, derision, rebuke and no chance of forgiveness for this guy are Christians?
Jeez. There seems to be an attempt to make it seem we support torches and pitchforks at the first hint of a rumor.
If they find the battered and broken body of someone’s sweet baby buried in my backyard and they find my seman from a horrible rape and skin from my scarred cheek under the fingernails on a body they determine was buried alive and allowed to die slowly, alone in the dark, then yeah. Tough break. Just be sure the many seats before me are filled and I can go knowing that it was necessary.
And Dante is saying that if you advocate the removal of these monsters from existance, you should be willing to take a part if called upon. The spineless fucks that say “Oh, just put them in prision and the other imates will take care of them.” make me sick.
Why? Because you don’t have the gonads to do what needs to be done. And the earlier comment of the choice of words for these types (monsters, fucks, sicko’s etc.) is a problem area for me as well but in the converse. I do not think the non-DP’s new-speak serves to carry the truth of the event. It is not “accosted” or “molested” a “minor”, it was RAPED A BABY. Say it for what it is and don’t sterilize a horrendous act to make up your inability to face the ugliness of the act and the need for you to stand up and defend those who can’t defend themselves and count on you to do it. There are a lot of people in the world: we can get by without these.
Man, would you ever be off the mark on that one. Any other insights?
Several methods have been posted about the ability to access details. That question was answered.
I don’t know how much call there is for a motorcycle technician. It probably a much smarter move that wheelie have a new job before he quits his previous job. When strong feelings collide with food and shelter, it might pay to side with food and shelter.
I’m not Christian. I’m an atheist. I’m just not a very forgiving person. My motto: Remember and Carry a Grudge. Can’t speak for any others.
I really wish you hadn’t gone there, Sequent. Nobody that I can recall has brought their personal religious beliefs to the fore in addressing the issues raised in this thread. I was keeping my thoughts on the subject to myself because others were doing a pretty good job of raising the points that I would raise if I were to post, but now I feel compelled to go on the record.
I believe in the possibility of rehabilitation for sexual predators. Statistics certainly seem to support that belief, but I would probably be philosophically committed to the belief that a sexual predator could be change even if the statistics showed a 100% recidivism rate among released offenders. That’s because I do believe in God and I know of no theological argument which posits that a person who rapes a child ceases at that moment to possess a soul upon which God can work according to God’s will.
I am opposed to the death penalty for the same reason, although I believe that society does have the right to determine that certain crimes are deserving of life imprisonment. I would be quite prepared to entertain arguments that child molestation belongs in that category.
At present, given that society has not made that determination, I believe that it is immoral and unjust (and, incidentally, almost certainly counter-productive) to harass paroled sex offenders.
According to my faith, we must endeavor to treat even the most despised among us humanely. I do not think that compassion for the victims of crime is best expressed in violence toward or mistreatment of criminals.
Ah. So there measure of a man is his willingness to kill. Well then, color me a woman, because I’m not the fucking barbarian that you are. :rolleyes:
And as for this:
There are few people in their right minds who would consider a 7-year-old a baby. Raping a baby is a horrendous act. So is raping a child. Try not to preach accuracy and engage in this kind of manipulative rhetoric in the same breath. It doesn’t help your argument.
The term baby here is in the broad sense, as in “He has killed my baby” as sobbed out by a grieving parent. She was someones little baby, at seven months or seven years. My children will be my babies until they are quite old. It was not intended as “manipulative rhetoric” only as a heart felt perspective and not a clinical attempt at classification of pre-adolescent development.
tdn- I don’t expect you to comprehend the measure of a man.
Well, I certainly don’t grok your conception of machismo. I’m not unhappy with that.
Really? About this case in particular? I missed that (not that I’d want such details posted or linked-to here). I did spot several posts about some sex offender databases being much more detailed than others. But what I’d still be interested to know is how the details found their way so quickly from the database to the water cooler.
Interestingly, I just looked up the Missouri sex offender database and there are three offenders living on my street within two blocks.
I don’t see why, given how eloquent the rest of your post was. But really: crime, punishment, execution, forgiveness, judgment, evil so stark and plain as to render its doer sub-human…I don’t see how one’s religion couldn’t enter into it.