Bad Santa. No, I mean REALLY Bad.

[Radar]

Dana, you're free to consider it fucked up, but that's how I feel. I don't care why you murder people. I don't care about your reasons. I don't care about your mental state. I don't care if you were aware of what you were doing. I don't care if you are insane, on drugs, mentally retarded, or hormonal.

If you murder people, you've got to die. End of story.

[DanaC]

Originally Posted by Radar

Dana, you're free to consider it fucked up, but that's how I feel. I don't care why you murder people. I don't care about your reasons. I don't care about your mental state. I don't care if you were aware of what you were doing. I don't care if you are insane, on drugs, mentally retarded, or hormonal.

If you murder people, you've got to die. End of story.

What you're suggesting there, is that motive and circumstance are irrelevant. I can understand that perspective. Except that you've already made clear that actually motive and circumstance do matter to you. You consider it more offensive for a mother to kill her child than a father. If circumstance and motive are irrelevent, then it shouldn't matter whether it's the mother or the father, it should offend you no more or less.

[classicman]

Originally Posted by DanaC

then it shouldn't matter whether it's the mother or the father, it should offend you no more or less.

Correct

[Radar]

Originally Posted by DanaC

What you're suggesting there, is that motive and circumstance are irrelevant. I can understand that perspective. Except that you've already made clear that actually motive and circumstance do matter to you. You consider it more offensive for a mother to kill her child than a father. If circumstance and motive are irrelevent, then it shouldn't matter whether it's the mother or the father, it should offend you no more or less.

I am offended more, but I think the punishment should be the same, and that punishment should be a slow, painful, death penalty. I believe in punishing crimes, not motives. This is why I'm against all hate-crimes legislation.

It doesn't matter to me if someone kills an old lady because they want her purse, or they kill her because she's Jewish. She's equally dead and the punishment should be the same. I don't care if someone murders their kids because they want to keep them from living in a horrible world, or because they believe their kids are demons. They should die horribly and painfully for doing something this awful regardless of their reasons, mental state, etc.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Radar

Dana, you're free to consider it fucked up, but that's how I feel. I don't care why you murder people. I don't care about your reasons. I don't care about your mental state. I don't care if you were aware of what you were doing. I don't care if you are insane, on drugs, mentally retarded, or hormonal.

If you murder people, you've got to die. End of story.

Which is why you will never hold an elected office and fail to understand human nature. You fail.

[HungLikeJesus]

But isn't the person killing the killer also a killer?

[xoxoxoBruce]

No, executioner.

[DanaC]

If circumstance and motive are irrelevent, then it shouldn't matter whether it's the mother or the father, it should offend you no more or less.

Personally I think circumstance and motive are very relevant. It might not be relevant for the person who died. But then again the justice system (as indeed our burial rites) are not there for the dead, they're there for the living, us. Some murders are both a fatal attack on an individual, and a violent attack against a larger group, or against the things we as a society hold dear. Hence 'hate crimes'. Matters not one jot to the person who dies that they were killed for the colour of their skin, but it matters to us. To our society. The actual murder is not different. It's more like there's also an auxillary, more general crime against wider society.

From what he's argued, I gather that Radar doesn't think it matters why someone kills, only that they have killed. I think it matters why. A crime of passion is not the same as a sociopathic murder, nor a political assassination, nor a murder for financial gain. All those things are different.

By that logic some murders are more offensive than others. Personally, I am far less 'offended' by the father who kills his child out of a misguided but altruistic desire to save that child from something. The ones who have decided to kill themselves and think it kinder to take the family with them. They're utterly tragic. Usually not in a sane state of mind. That to me is deeply sad. But it doesn't offend me the way the jealous father does. The one that kills his children to punish his estranged wife, for instance. The one that kills his family because if he can't have them, nobody can.

It's not about the gender of the killer. It's about motives and reason. But the figures seem to suggest that the parent murdering purely for selfish concerns is more likely to be male. Mothers who kill are usually mentally disturbed. A parent (male or female) who knowngly and logically plans and carries out the murder of their own child is far more offensive to me than someone who lost the plot and did something terrible whilst they were not mentally competant.

[classicman]

Originally Posted by DanaC

I gather that Radar doesn't think it matters why someone kills, only that they have killed.
I think it matters why.

By that logic some murders are more offensive than others.

It's not about the gender of the killer. It's about motives and reason.

Thats where you part ways. Its easier to just say "You take a life = you die." That reduces the excuses and all. I know it gets complicated in other ways, but in theory.
Its not about the motives at all - its about the act.


*note OMG - am I defending radar here? Shit I'm scaring myself now.

[morethanpretty]

Originally Posted by classicman

Thats where you part ways. Its easier to just say "You take a life = you die." That reduces the excuses and all. I know it gets complicated in other ways, but in theory.
Its not about the motives at all - its about the act.


*note OMG - am I defending radar here? Shit I'm scaring myself now.

You take a life by accident (ex: car wreck)? You take a life defending yourself? You take a life defending your family? You take a life defending our citizens?

Then you should die, no matter the circumstances under which it happened.

[Radar]

Originally Posted by morethanpretty

You take a life by accident (ex: car wreck)? You take a life defending yourself? You take a life defending your family? You take a life defending our citizens?

Then you should die, no matter the circumstances under which it happened.

I didn't say "take a life". I said commit a murder. I also didn't say circumstances don't matter. I said mental state doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if they are insane, mentally retarded, on drugs, etc.

Murder means they thought about it before doing it. Circumstances matter. If a woman walks in and sees her husband having sex with another woman and she hits him in the head with a lamp, there was no premeditation and no forethought of malice. It was a crime of passion.

If someone thinks their neighbor is the spawn of satan, so they go out and buy duct tape, quick lime, a shovel, and rope and they wait for their neighbor to get off of work, and take them to a hole they've already dug in the desert, they are committing murder.

If they spend months contemplating how their kids would be better off in heaven, wait until their husband goes to work, draws a bath, and takes their five children one by one into the bathroom and drowns them, and then chases their oldest kid outside and drags him kicking and screaming back to the bath where she kills him too, she is committing murder regardless of whether she is depressed, schizophrenic, mentally retarded, or just plain evil.

[piercehawkeye45]

Originally Posted by Radar

I didn't say "take a life". I said commit a murder. I also didn't say circumstances don't matter. I said mental state doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if they are insane, mentally retarded, on drugs, etc.

Murder means they thought about it before doing it.

Those two contradict and do not make sense. A soldier defending her or his country thinks about killing before performing the action. A person hearing their house being robbed thinks about killing, or committing murder in your case, before they do it.

On the other hand, sometimes people on drugs such as PCP do not think about killing people before they do. They will freak out and act irrationally and on impulse and some will not remember what they did when they are done tripping. The same goes for some insanity cases, it can be an impulsive act.

[piercehawkeye45]

Originally Posted by classicman

Thats where you part ways. Its easier to just say "You take a life = you die." That reduces the excuses and all. I know it gets complicated in other ways, but in theory.
Its not about the motives at all - its about the act.


*note OMG - am I defending radar here? Shit I'm scaring myself now.

Originally Posted by morethanpretty

You take a life by accident (ex: car wreck)? You take a life defending yourself? You take a life defending your family? You take a life defending our citizens?

Then you should die, no matter the circumstances under which it happened.

Originally Posted by classicman

You'll have to ask radar that one, mtp.

Originally Posted by morethanpretty

You agreed with him. You can't defend your own opinion?

Originally Posted by classicman

I think you're point is a very stupid one. I can defend myself just fine thanks. I've been doing it here for longer than you've been around - mmmkay?

How is her point stupid? You made a statement and when she responded to it you refuse to defend it. Hell I should start agreeing with some extremely ridiculous statements and then when someone beats me in argument I can just say it was someone else's argument, talk to them. If you don't want to defend yourself, don't post something.

[TheMercenary]

Over. Out.

[classicman]

You'll have to ask radar that one, mtp.