Hurrah! It’s Deliberately Misinterpret People’s Words Day! Dickheads of the world, unite!
Sheesh.
Nic2004, thanks for that. No hard feelings, mate.
Really? It was strangely appropriate to this one.
He meant it for mine on the humanity or not of child rapists, and it got there eventually. 
Yeah, but Timothy McVeigh wasn’t his real name, and the photos associated with him was of a similar-looking actor who agreed to portray McVeigh in the media.
It was supposed to be for the spinoff GD thread linked at the top of this page. I haven’t read this whole thread yet, it’s too damn long and rather disturbing. But yeah, you’re right, it’s appropriate here too.
Ok, stop right there. What’s the difference, exactly? Share your knowledge with us, please.
[quote=Dead Badger]
Hurrah! It’s Deliberately Misinterpret People’s Words Day! Dickheads of the world, unite!
Sheesh.[/quote[
Er, OK, if you’re executing someone, what other “parts” of the legal punishment are you going to include?
Well, fetus, it was kind of – not a cheap shot really, but certainly a grab at very low-hanging fruit. One might speculate that the good badger meant that the death penalty would be used for only some of the offenders (not really an accurate representation, given that Dante has recently expanded the group of people he wants dead), or that given our legal system not all death warrants result in either execution or freedom (yeah, I doubt it too, because that’s not a split between various punishments but between death and no punishment, but it’s possible), or it was merely a lazy choice of words and I’m being mean for taking them (hey, at least I left his/her name out of it) and fashioning them into a punch line. That last complaint has some merit: I can’t very well retreat into the den of Relax It Was All in Good Humor, because I have to confess I haven’t demonstrated all that much humor in this thread and I may lack funny-credentials sufficient to prove my good faith. My only defence at this point is that I obviously wasn’t trying to score any points or undermine the good badger’s posts (which is why I didn’t mention any names), I was clearly just going for the laugh. Second part of the defence: the laugh was there to be had.
So that, without reference to the fact that this is the SDMB where people are held responsible for what they say even if later it turns out not to be what they meant (in fact, that’s how most people become aware of that fact), and it is in fact the Pit where people can expect to be treated less than gently whether or not they post things which, taken literally, sound positively idiotic, and the fact that I was being incredibly gentle given the circumstances, is why I plead innocent to being a dickhead to badger, yer horror. ‘Course, that don’t constitute a promise not to keep on badgerin’ dickheads, if you know what I mean.
I don’t understand. Do you want me to prove that I know the legal definitions, or to just be your Google monkey?
Well, that’s a shame. If he was really trying to rehabilitate himself, there’s little chance of that happening now.
How do you think you will feel, and also your co-workers, if/when he re-offends again?
Not knowing the particulars of this convicted child rapist before arrest, how does a job “rehabilitate” him? I asked this earlier. This isn’t a thief or a mugger who learned a trade and can now feed and house himself. Does having a job reduce the drive to rape 7 year olds? What if he had a job before? If he was gainfully employed before entering prison, it sure didn’t serve as a deterrent then.
Are you saying an inability to feed and house himself would have zero effect on his desire to be law abiding?
I don’t know about you, but if I were a child raping monster, sitting in a one room shithole eating baked beans every night, maybe going back to jail wouldn’t seem like such a bad thing. At least if he’s allowed to have a life outside of jail, he’s got something to lose.
Actually, the recidivism rate of child molesters is FAR lower than that of other criminals, such as thieves & muggers. How does having a job reduce the drive to steal a car, rob a bank, or commit identity theft? How is it different?
Many criminals commit crimes out of desperation, out of a need for survival. Perhaps, if this guy has a steady job, and people who DO NOT JUDGE HIM about his past misdeeds, maybe he WON’T rape again. Take away that stability, though…and all bets are off.
And how do we know this particular individual has a “driving need” anyway? I’ve scanned through the thread, and have found NO specific details of the crime committed, aside from the fairly hysterical first post. “Raped at Gunpoint” could mean anything. For all we know, he could have been framed.
(Would it be too much to ask for a link to the sex offender database? On second thought…never mind, bad idea.)
You’re wrong. It’s exactly the same. Both Dante and the rapist described in the OP believe that their personal moral code is valid enough that it’s OK for them to destroy the life of another person for reasons that many rational people (I, certainly, would say all rational people) think are inexcusable and wrong, not to mention illegal. I fail to see a distinction in their fantasies, although of course, as far as we know, Dante has never acted them out, thank goodness.
Sure. One of them is heinous but presumably possible for sick individuals, and the other is just plain heinous.
Whew. I’m glad you said so – you were beginning to worry me there a little with your moral relativism.
You’ll have to do a little better than plain fiat to convince me of something that is so palpably and obviously wrong.
Hmm. I’ve heard the troglodytes pull out that “political correctness” canard more often than I can count, but I’m positive this is the first time I’ve seen it used to justify murder. Oh, oh, sorry – fantasies of murder. I wouldn’t want to be accused of unfairness.
In the law biz, we have a saying when people like you gnash their teeth and whinge that you have a higher moral authority than the other three hundred million of us, such that you should be allowed to break whatever laws you want and violate every canon of morality in your quest, in this instance, for petty revenge. “That is an argument best made to the legislature.” If you really want a license to kill child molestors, write your congressman and ask for it. If your views really are that rationally constructed and well-thought-out, you’re sure to convince him. I’ll wait.
We’ve all heard that most molesters are themselves victims of molestation. So, it seems to me that you are saying that the crime of molestations is so horrible, we should execute not only the perpetrators, but the victims as well. Some of 'em anyway. Call me old fashoned, but I just can’t get behind something like that.
–Cliffy
I see nothing there about a gun. How did you find out about the gun?
On the other hand…if your business is being picketed, then there’s really no choice but to let the man go. Business is business, after all. No reason to go down with someone else’s sinking ship.
Some of this has been overtaken by recent posts, but I’ll leave it intact, with an addendum.
They will feel confident that freeing up his schedule so that his time during the day is free and unsupervised, and giving him to believe that his labor and skills and potential friendship are not valuable, and creating more financial and social stress that he might seek to relieve through drugs or alcohol that might possibly have the side-effect of lowering inhibitions, are all positive steps in protecting the children that he now has so much less reason, being shunned by the community, to refrain from harming. Basically, if you hand all your matches to the town arsonist and tell him to go to hell, you can prove you didn’t start the fire, and that you’re against arson, can’t you? And protecting children = the ability to deny personal responsibility for their safety. The ironic thing is, mere association with this man wouldn’t have made this little shop responsible for a possible crime, but their mad flight from association might, and there’s nothing for us to do but bear witness and be sad about it.
And, KGS (hello and good to meet you), you may be the first person to actually quote a person in a thread and respond and still be convinced you were responding to the wrong thread. I guess my posts just fit in anywhere. Don’t let Dante off the hook: the issue isn’t what he can look up now, but what facts informed his opinion that any degree of child molestation, from a lewd caress to an armed rape, are deserving of the same penalty (death, for those who are just joining us) because some criminals begin with smaller crimes and some of them graduate to bigger ones. Currently he says both are equally repugnant, which is a personal moral judgment and not assailable by facts. But some percentages of documented lewd caresses versus actual rapes might be available in his wife’s storage facility. Or elsewhere, for a determined monkey wanting to back up what he says.
On the threat of a picket line. No offender database states a person’s current place of employment. Why would an employer (even one as apparently lack-witted as Wheelie’s) make it known? Then again, why would he make the information available to his employees, who had no particular right to know and who seem to have reacted to the news by threatening to wreck the business even at the cost of their own jobs. This motorcycle shop is located either in the most moral place in the known universe or that with the lowest unemployment rate.
Good luck finding a community who will not judge him for his past misdeeds. That’s not going to happen. He is forever going to be the child rapist.
As I said earlier, lacking full details, most statements in this thread assume that he was rightly and justly found guilty of his crimes. I acknowledge that the system isn’t perfect, but it is right far more often than it is wrong.
I think your assumptions about the stability offerred by being able to reintegrate after his sentence affecting his chances for recidivism are at least as great as my assumption.
Yes, a link would be a bad idea.
I really really REALLY didn’t want to get involved in this thread, but had two windows open and…whoops. Oh, well. Might as well roll with it. Still haven’t finished reading the thread, there’s too much mass hysteria & wild assumptions going on. And we still don’t know exactly what happened to the little girl. We don’t know if it was premeditated or not, or whether the child was a relative or a complete stranger, or if the perpetrator was on drugs at the time. These things make a HUGE difference.
Well, it appears that Dante’s wife is a social worker who works with children…which kinda removes any possibility of him being objective, or even logical, about the subject. So it’s a moot point. (Where’s Diogenes the Cynic? Is he on vacation? Normally he rips through these kind of threads like a wild vulture…)
That’s what I’m wondering, too. However, it seems more likely that it was someone else, NOT the employer, who leaked the details. Anyone can put someone’s name in a sex offender registry, and see what comes up. Heck, someone earlier in this thread thought he found somebody known to him was a sex offender…and then realized, it wasn’t him. This is why Megan’s Law DOES NOT WORK.
Yep, the more you know about something, the less logical you can be, until you turn into a slavering, murder-happy vigilante, just like me.
Sorry guys, it’s obvious there’s no way any of us is going to influence the others in any way, shape, or form. And now that we’re back to the backhanded, passive aggresive insults as arguing points, I think I’ll just bow out. Please free free to chalk this one in the win column.
No, no, no. You are only seeing ONE SIDE of the subject, the worst-case scenario side. In other words, you are prejudicing your opinions based on a very narrow subset, and don’t know a thing about the big picture at all. (Granted, it’s exactly what the media & the government want us all to feel about this subject, so don’t think I’m singling you out here.)
An example. In the 70’s, my aunt married a cop. They had a good marriage, but they ultimately got divorced, because the cop REFUSED to have kids. Why? Because he worked with juvenile offenders, all day long. He was not able to see ANY kid as anything other than a potential criminal.
My aunt did remarry, and wound up raising three very happy, healthy, law-abiding daughters. Which kinda proved the cop wrong, ya know?
Jesus H. Fucking Christ, I’m utterly opposed to the fucking death penalty, as I made painfully obvious right from the fucking start. But I think it was pretty fucking obvious I was talking about it being part of the legal suite of punishment, rather than a kind of “cake and death” kind of thing. Seriously, people, is this the sort of moronic quibbling we’ve come down to here? I repeat:
Sheesh.
Need I use the rolleyes smiley for the first time ever? I mean really, need I?