I think that humans as a race have become so arrogant over the past 200 years or so.
It's all about thinking you're so much "better" than someone else on the grounds of judging these things subjectively, i.e. it hasn't happened to you. It's down right arrogant to sit there and say "We can't stoop to that level. We are no better than him" when it has fuck all to do with you. You have no emotional connection to the victim, the victim’s family or the criminal and because of that you don't feel guilty in stating that murderer has a right to life.
Once something like this happens to you, I can guarantee you will change your tune. Big time. I don't think you will be stood there saying "Well I think it is just barbaric to give someone a lethal injection" when you are facing a criminal in court who might have disembowelled and mutilated one of your family members because they had different colour skin, or because their clothes were nicer, or because they wanted to prove themselves for a gang.
What will happen though is millions of years of human biology and raw human emotion will kick in. You will want him to suffer so that your feelings of indescribable anger can diminish. You will want the peace of mind to know that that person no longer is breathing anymore, no longer living in the same world as you, because it will be an insult. Why should that cunt be allowed to breathe air, when your loved and treasured family member is no longer alive?
Once something like that happens to you, I'm sure you would want to tear that person apart with your bare hands. There is a reason why we feel like that, we have evolved to. It's not just somebody being "barbaric".
I really don't see why people view these things subjectively and then condemn the people who feel differently, because they feel it makes them look like a better, more intellectual above every one else person because they are more concerned about human rights and the right to live.
Until something like this happens to you and you're faced with this situation, lets see if you are 100% content with some vile puke stain spending x amount of years in a cell, receiving more luxuries that they should. And then being released back into society. Alive. Once again free to roam the earth...
Oh and I didn't even mention parole. Good behaviour? "
Yeah, he seems like he has behaved. Naughty man! Don't do it again! Ok, we're letting you go now. Have fun!"How are you going to feel? Stand there once again and wholeheartedly say "Well, I'm glad the justice system has worked. That criminal that slaughtered a member of my family in cold blood for no valid reason, has served some time away from society in prison. And because he has kept himself to himself, he has been released back into the world. I'm sure he is rehabilitated and has reconsidered his actions and won’t do it again. I forgive him and no longer have any negative feelings towards him."
I don't think so.
Experiences change and shape our behaviour and thoughts. It's not just think one thing, one set of moral codes and then it is all set in stone. All the time our behaviour changes, our thought process are changed because of the environment around us and through everyday situations and interactions.
I'm sure that the victim’s families were law abiding moral citizens, and may have held similar views in the sense they wouldn't want to cause harm to anyone. But then one day, say your son was on his way to school and was shot in the head. How can any one justify killing a child? If that happened to you how could you stand there and still hold those same views? That experience is going to radically change your behaviour and thought process.
I can tell you one thing; you're not going to be sat in your all tolerating, and subjective side of the fence thinking you are morally superior anymore.
Edited by olli, 13 November 2009 - 06:06 PM.