Istara: I have a really low tolerance for damned lies. Stupidity is kind of low on that threshold too. You quoted my question to you and are now telling me that I didn’t ask you the question I asked you? You are obviously aware that I did, in fact, ask you what effect sterilization–and I guess you, being the pissant that you are right now, decided to jump onto the related but different word “castration” to worm out of the actual answer–and you responded with that fucking asinine comment about preventing their reproduction.
What conviction? Monty…
SunTzu: The conviction which would follow for calling someone up and threating to kill them.
Have you not been following the thread?
No monty I did not call him up. I met him face to face where he could see that I meant business. I met him on the side walk infront of my house and asked him what he was up to. He told me who he was and I knew what he had done because he had to send a postcard to everyone in the area telling them he was a convicted child molester.
Now, monty, if you were the father of a young daughter and a convicted child molester was standing in your front lawn when you came home from work what would you do? I’m guessing you would probably be a little concerned? Would you? Mind you the neighborhood I lived in put the H in high crime so what would you have done my friend?
I think I would’ve called the police. That way the offender–not me–gets arrested.
Neither one of us was arrested. We had an agreement. He would stay on his side of the street and we would stay on ours. No need to arrest the guy. Just warn him. Or should I have contacted his parole officer and sent him back to prison? Now that would be kinda uncaring don’t ya think?
I actually think part of the problem in this argument is the assertion by those opposing the death penalty that our society has grown beyond the point of seeking an eye for an eye and personal retribution. The problem is, that’s not true.
Certainly, the law and justice system accept this as a fact, but I believe that as people, most of us have yet to stomach that. Hell, just look at all the movies out there in which the “hero” is the renegade out for revenge, because the system won’t bring him justice. He’s looking for his wife, or out to avenge the murder of a friend. He (because it’s almost always a male character) is almost always vindicated by the plot, if not the proper legal authority. This theme is popular, because it feels right to us that passion be the force for justice Just look at all the responses here suggesting that a child molester be put to death, or raped, or raped in prison, or what have you. It all comes out of that personal, gut reaction.
Passion is not a bad thing, usually. But when it comes to justice, letting passion cloud our judgement and obscure our sense of perspective and overall right, more harm is done than good. Of course when we hear of a heinous crime like a murder or rape (particularly a child rape) the instinctive, human reaction naturally is “Kill the bastard!” That doesn’t mean that following up on that reaction is the right thing to do.
There is NO logical reason that the death penalty should be used instead of life sentencing without possibility of parole. It’s more expensive, and plenty of death row pardons overturned by new DNA or forensic testing after the fact have effectively proven that eyewitness testimony is NOT reliable enough to sentence someone to death. People’s memories can’t be trusted.
Further, death is not proportionate to rape. Yes, yes, I know “have you or anyone you love been raped?” No, but see above; the more objective viewpoint that gives me is an advantage. I know that I would prefer that someone I know be raped than murdered. The notion is horrible to contemplate, but given the choice, I would rather have someone left to me, to move on with their lives and perhaps someday be able to be fully themselves again, than to have them taken from me permanently. The basic reasoning for the death penalty itself is actually a paradoxical argument: life is so valuable that the only way to punish someone for the taking of a life is to take the life of the killer.
Yes, it is cold, but justice has to be cold, or we would be much, much worse off. I hope this bastard (from the OP) fries, but I’d prefer he got to that point on his own time. I do hope the sentence is overturned.
Monty
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First you ask me what effect STERLISATION would have on rape.
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I reply that it would have an effect on reproduction.
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Then you call me “fucking asinine” and ask: “I asked you what effect castration would have on preventing a rapist from committing another rape.”
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I reply that you asked me about STERLISATION not CASTRATION. But I give you an answer pertaining to both words anyway.
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You then accuse me of “damned lies” “stupidity” and again being “fucking asinine” and “I guess you, being the pissant that you are right now, decided to jump onto the related but different word “castration” to worm out of the actual answer.”
No - you came up with the word CASTRATION not me.
Besides which, I have answered you as to both words. To repeat:
Sterilisation - prevents the rapist raping their own child (because they can’t have one, if they are sterilised) and prevents them passing on their abusive behaviour either by nature (should there be an “abuse” gene) or nurture (should the abused be more likely to become the abusers).
Castration - would prevent the rapist being able to use their own penis to rape a child, but it would not prevent them using an object, or their hands, to otherwise abuse and harm a child. Castration - whether chemical or physcial - does not necessarily remove the desire or impulse to abuse and harm.
I eagerly await your next set of angry insults, unfounded accusations, deliberate misinterpretation of my post, and representation of yourself as someone with a lot of unresolved anger but very little intelligence.
On reproducing. Firstly, to avoid the risk of the rapist abusing their own child.
Too bad we didn’t have this idea before Michael Jackson reproduced.
God only knows what those children are going through.
Hey, jackass, sterile people can still rape others.
I assume “jackass” is yet another of your low-intellect insults directed at me.
Obviously sterile people can rape. Sterile means unable to reproduce, not unable to have sexual intercourse. Where was it asserted that sterile people cannot rape?
Look, istara, all silly insults aside, your contention earlier is that rapists should be sterilized, was it not? My question to you remains: what effect would that have on their tendency to commit rape?
My contention is that sterilising child rapists is one of several measures that I believe should be considered, and certainly not the only one. Incarceration definitely, possibly permanently if rehabilitation is proven ineffective in a particular case. Castration - as I said, it doesn’t necessarily prevent abuse, though it’s possible that chemical castration might reduce desire to abuse in some cases.
Sterilisation I regard as part of the wider picture - in terms of longer term prevention - eg preventing another generation of abusers, nature/nurture etc. It’s not about their tendency to commit another rape. That said, as a side-benefit it would prevent them having a child that they could perhaps get easier access to than someone else’s child.
It strikes me that there is something extra ill/wrong in the mind of someone that has the impulse to rape a child rather than rape an adult, though both crimes are vile. Because of this extra wrongness, this warpedness if you like in human behaviour (eg desire to penetrate post-pubescent woman has a biological basis, whereas child rape is a total perversion with no benefit in nature) I would personally like those people out of the gene pool. Hence sterilisation.
In other words, all you’re really interested in is inflicting a particular modification on that person’s body, a mutilation. Well, you’re also interested in preventing someone else–who, by the way, has committed no crime because they’re not born yet–from being born, all for the sole reason that the potential father has committed a crime, said crime you have no idea at all what its root cause is.
Something just came to mind: istara’s rationale for sterilizing the abuser to prevent another generation of abusers must surely then be applied to those children who’ve been abused. What about that, istara? Don’t you want to prevent the chance that they’ll perpetuate the cycle?
I think that’s called a strawman, isn’t it? I never suggested that, and of course I wouldn’t advocate it.
For some reason you seem to be taking it upon yourself to try and vilify me and my opinions in some way.
I’m not sure why you’re doing it - whether it’s due to some past grudge, or some unresolved anger that you have - but I don’t really want to rise to it. You’ve already used enough insults and insinuations against me in this thread, without one apology or acknowledgment of your own (deliberate?) misreading of my posts.
So I will bow out of this thread now, and leave you to your own little tantrum.
No, it’s not called a strawman. Look at your argument. This time look at it carefully. You are advocating sterilization to prevent another generation of abusers. Is that not what you advocated? If the potential children that person might have might turn into abusers, according to you, what about the children that abuser already has?
Your entire position is a tantrum. All you want to do is see something done to that person that you would not want done to you. You want the person to be tortured.
And I owe you no apology.
Did i make a good call or what?
As plenty of others have pointed out, SunTzu, your continual attempts to generalize from your largely-irrelevant anecdotes do not constitute particularly good evidence. Way back in your first post in this thread, you made the assertion that certain criminals such as rapists and child molesters are inherently unreformable, and you have still failed to provide even the merest hint of evidence to back up that assertion. Around here, simply repeating something over and over doesn’t make it true.
mhendo: Not even close to what.
While we react with vehemence against the actions of a child rapist, keep in mind that a very high probability exists that the perp was a victim himself, thus indicating that the genesis of his abherant behavior was his own victimization. Why do we only resort to punishing the victim twice in order to erradicate this scourge on our society? We are all complicit when we do nothing to heal the wounds of these victims. Long term counseling and vigilence for victims should be provided for by the state as a means of intercepting this highly inevitable deviant behaviour.