and
Oh my, you’re bad at this. An ad hominem argument? Honestly? I’m just going to go ahead to agree to disagree with you and leave it at that.
Sure. Right after you own up to this: “If I’m understanding your argument correctly, it’s essentially that if he rapes children again, it’s because people were mean to him, because he has no control over his impulses.” Since clearly no one in the thread has argued that raping a child is anyone’s fault but the rapist’s, this argument was pretty intellectually dishonest.
I don’t care what form of “mental/emotional disturbance” the child rapist went through that led to his child rapistry. I don’t really give a shit if he’s stressed. I don’t care to psychoanalyze someone like that or work out risk/benefit ratios or whatever. I just don’t want that person to exist anymore, whether they’re dead or in jail for life or have part of their brain or scrotum that makes them want to rape children or able to rape children cut out. I don’t believe therapy works for these people, I don’t believe positive or negative reinforcement works for these people. These are the people who other prisoners want to KILL; child rapists have their own section in many prisons because even other lowlifes realize that these people are different and need to be rubbed out.
Put another way: There are people who have fantasies about raping kids who don’t act on them; I’d feel pity for someone like that and hope that they get the kind of community and psychiatric support they need. But once you’ve crossed the line and actually done it you forfeit all right to support. Most child rapists are not psychotic in the classic sense, they know what they’re doing is wrong but just can’t stop themselves. They care more about feeding their own sick compulsions than caring for the well-being of a child. So no, it doesn’t matter whether or not the offender “behaves” after giving in; if he’d have gone to seek help BEFORE raping a child that’s different, but this is just one crime that I don’t believe there is any redemption from. Just my opinion.
Once again, I’m wondering whether the people defending this person’s right to work next to a school have children of their own. I think that makes a difference.
Court records are public documents. While I don’t know the OP or even where he lives (thus, I don’t have enough to perform the search myself), anyone can find out why someone was locked up. The registry just pulls some information together in an easily searchable way. Get a name off the registry and you can start researching the case.
Me, personally, I don’t care. IMNSHO, sexual assault, especially of a minor, is one of those “go away and never come back” crimes (that and not signaling a left turn ahead of the corner). Put them all on a deserted island somewhere and let them fish (or club penguins, I don’t care) for their sustenance. As long as you make sure they don’t get off the island, nothing else is needed.
Six billion people out there. We can write off a few - I vote for rapists and murderers. Once we’re through with them, we can look at the non-signalers.
There is a general belief in this society that punishment should be proportional to the crime. As I understand it, sentences handed down for criminal convictions are punishments intended to cause the convicted person to atone for past behavior, and are not generally inflicted as mere blood revenge. I therefore would like to hear your reasoned explanation of the idea that execution of convicted child-rapists is proportional to their crimes.
In other words, are you saying that the magnitude of the crime is such that its victims’ lives are essentially ended, whether or not they remain alive; that it is impossible for the child rapist to correct his or her behavior (an assumption already shown to be wrong by several cites); or what?
Now before you get going, I personally believe that rape of a child, whether at the point of a weapon or not, is indeed one of the most serious crimes that exists. I do not, however, find that death is an equivalent punishment for such a crime. If you can show a) a reasoned, unemotional argument that it is a proportional punishment, b) that unique among all crimes, no one convicted of such an offense can ever recover and not do it again, or c) that blood revenge is a reasonable and correct response to this type of crime, I’ll listen to your arguments.
I don’t recall uttering the word ‘genocide’ here, so I’ll just pre-emptively cut you off and tell you that you are arguing through the fallacy of appeal to emotion.
You don’t know the first thing about me, so please keep your speculations as to my motives or what I think about children to yourself. Whether or not I happen to have ever been the parent of any children (and you don’t know one way or the other, do you?), like everyone else I was a child myself once. Your speculation is therefore silly and rather far off the mark.
Sure. It was in response to Cheesesteak’s post stating:
Now, perhaps you can tear yourself away from “disingenuous” for long enough to look up “hyperbole”. And *then * maybe you can explain to me why keeping child rapists away from children is such an unworthy pursuit.
Some of these responses are making me physically sick. That’s not rhetoric; I’m actually feeling kind of sick right now. I guess I’m a bit naive because I have a history of assuming people in general are more forgiving than they actually are. See, I grew up with ADHD. I know that’s not quite the same as raping a kid but hear me out here. When we did things in school I was slow to start and slow to finish, when we lined up I was always last in line. When we had an excursion I’d be the kid who forgot her permission slip and had to sit in the library and when we did crafts I’d be the one to forget the required ice cream container and sponge bits or whatever.
More importantly, I was always in trouble. I touched things that weren’t supposed to be touched, I ran where we weren’t supposed to run, I broke things and I yelled and cried a lot. There was this one time years ago that I consider a formative experience, when I was at a barbecue with my friend. We found a great playground, with a MASSIVE jungle gym. We played for a while but then he found another boy and the two of them decided they didn’t want the girl around anymore. Did I mention I cried a lot back then? I started crying. After it became apparent they weren’t going to give in I found a plastic rolly tube and cried sitting on that. But then the other boy decided no! It was THEIR rolly tube! Well, fuck if I was going to let him have it. When he tried to take it away from me I jumped off and had a screaming fit, then I kicked him and took a piece of skin off his shin. He must have gone and told on me, because next thing I remember I was being screamed at by his giant of a father. Cut to maybe 20 minutes later, when I’m just starting to finish crying. I see a girl walk into the playground, closer to my age than the two boys. “Hi” is all I manage to say before the boy’s father (the kids must have been siblings) appears and tells her “Stay away from that girl. She’s a bad girl. She kicks.” Everything leading up to that moment is hazy in my memory, but what is indelibly etched into my mind is the feeling I had then, of wanting to walk up to him and tell him that that wasn’t me, I wasn’t who he thought I was, I wasn’t a bad girl who kicked people, that there was more to me than my actions that day. But I couldn’t, so I cried some more instead.
And now, I’ve forgotten what I came here to say. I guess it’s that I’m used to fucking up. But nobody cares that I kicked a boy in a park 10 years ago; it’s been forgotten, if not forgiven. Whenever I hear people saying so easily, though, that they’d kill a person for being a fuckup, like a rabid dog that needs to be put down, I get the feeling that if I’d grown up under different circumstances, in worse neighbourhoods or with shittier parents or a more traumatic childhood, that would be me they’re talking about. Maybe I wouldn’t have raped a 7-year-old kid, or maybe I would have. Maybe I’d have just killed a kid. Maybe I’d have killed an adult. It honestly scares the shit out of me that there are things I could do to make everyone I know think of me as something less than human, and that I would never be forgiven for. The fact that I would never do those things is irrelevant, because I don’t want to think of my humanity as conditional. To me it is a fact, absolute and inescapable. Too many times I’ve wished I could leave it all behind, only to realise the only way to do that is to die. It might be convenient for you to pretend a person is no longer human but the fact remains that there’s a person in there, living, breathing, eating, hoping, dreaming, lying, loving, stealing, demanding, suffering, hurting and being hurt, thinking and wishing. I guess it’s funny of me to feel more empathy with the offenders than their victims, but since that’s how life seems to have turned out for me I don’t suppose it’s that surprising. YMMV.
Wait, what studies have said that a child molester tends to rape children out of the stress at being ostracized?
FRM, I think you’re missing the point here. There’s worlds of difference between lashing out in anger at someone as a child, and making a calculated decision and effort to rape someone. What this person did was no error in judgement; it was just downright evil.
As this is contrary to my arguments, I’m just clearing my name, in that this was originally posted by davenportavenger and not me.
Well, you don’t, nor do I, know how the crime was committed. You seem to think that the guy was thinking, “Hummm, what should I do today? I know, I’ll rape a child.” He may have been drunk or high. That would not excuse him but it would not be a calculated decision and effort to rape someone.
I would think, and I’m no expert, that someone who does break societies rules so outrageously, does not feel like a part of society in the first place. If you call someone a monster long enough, why are you suprised that when they act like one?
I think you’re missing my point. I wasn’t trying to equate the two actions, only the emotions. It’s far too easy for me to imagine myself fucking up beyond the point of redemption. I can only hope I can find at least one person willing to forgive me if I do.
On preview, that makes me sound like I’m about to go off and shoot up a convenience store or something. That’s not really my intention. I just mean that even though nothing I do will be in the same league as these guys, it’s easy to imagine myself up there and it scares me that the same people who are friendly with me might want to kill someone else. I don’t know if that makes any sense anymore.
Okay. But, respectfully, communication pretty much ends here.
At least you’re taking your ethics from the very best. But given your criteria, what do you do with the child rapist whom the other lowlifes spare? What if they decide to absolve him/her completely? You’re okay with that verdict, right?
Provisionally, I’m willing to believe you.
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Okay.
What’s that word, four letters, begins with a “c,” …
There you go. I can respect your opinion, and I’ll remember it, but I’m not quite ready to adopt it.
I’ve got three, twelve and under. I walk 'em to school, I greet them when they come home, I know their crossing guard very well indeed. I still remember the rule of law. You?
And, Dante, you have not yet seen an ad hominem argument from me, nor will you, especially if you keep on going the way you’ve started. There’s just no need to bring it up.
Those of you who haven’t seen “The Woodsman” (Kevin Bacon and Kiera Sedgewick) should make an effort to see it. It’s an interesting approach to the subject.
For the record, I question the P.O.'s wisdom in letting this guy work close to a school, but my guess is that it is enough feet away to allow it by law. It’s wrong to picket someone who has served his time and has been released to resume a productive, lawful life. I believe he can live a lawful life, but it will probably take intensive counseling for the rest of his life to accomplish it.
Question - Do you believe, if not that an offender can become an entirely normal person, that they could become the second person in your example?
I for one have no plans to take my moral cues from criminals. You can, of course, go ahead with that.
Whoops, a thousand apologies for that. I confused the post headers.
Atonement is not the only theory of criminal punishment. If “blood revenge” could be characterized as Retributive Justice , then I think it should be counted as a valid justification for punishment in general.
That said, I have to agree with your call for proportional punishment, and it has always seemed odd to me that, in addition to murder, there is another category of crime which many people think deserves the death penalty. Then again, treason was (is?) punishable by death, which also seems out of line to me…but there you have it.
–KidScruffy
Well, at least you’re logically consistent, even if your views are appalling. I, for one, don’t think I’m in a position to decide who is human and who isn’t. I sure as shit know that you aren’t.
–Cliffy
Don’t know about rape but here’s a Kent University child sexual imagery study that I found in an old GD thread. That thread also discusses recidivism in paedophiles, which turns out to be fairly low in comparison to other violent crimes. Qadrop points out the Rapid Risk Assessment for Sexual Offense Recidivism in another thread from that time.