Hakei wrote:
Turquoise wrote:
Hakei wrote:
World's oldest chestnut. "Imagine it was your child blah blah blah"
Contrary to popular belief, people who have been affected by crime usually think a harsher punishment is deserved. A jury can't pass a judgement if any one of them has seen the defendant/prosecutor before. Know why? Because emotion and crime need to be separated to come to a conclusion.
In principle, I agree with you.
In practicality though... well, I don't see much use in keeping a murderous pedophile around.
There are certain people society is better off without.
Isn't this exactly the same philosophy that Hitler had? That society would be better off without certain members?
Where do you draw the line? We should suddenly start refusing to help homeless people because they don't contribute anything? What about fat people? People out of work/education? Simple petty criminals?
Yes. Hitler did have similar principles in certain respects.
Eugenicists supported sterilizing the mentally ill. If a legal framework was put together to define exactly how mentally ill a person would have to be to be sterilized, I would probably support it. They also supported sterilizing the physically handicapped (those that were handicapped because of genes, not accidents). Again, depending on the terms of the law put forth, I would probably support it.
Nevertheless, neither of these ideas would ever actually be implemented by our society today because they are extremely unpopular and probably unconstitutional. The only reasons I support them myself are because they are very practical in the long run, and they minimize the number of people born into such adversities. My feeling is that, just because you want kids, you don't have the right to subject a child to your genetic disorders. Besides, you could still adopt kids under this scenario.
I think we should also encourage the homeless to get sterilized. A voluntary system that would pay out something like $1,000 per sterilization could be arranged, and that would minimize the number of children born into extreme poverty.
On the other hand, I still support social programs, because we have to help those that are already here.
However, I also believe that some people are beyond help -- like the criminal in the OP. Those people have to be disposed of, but this can only be done if they commit a crime that is already eligible for the death penalty. I'm not advocating we kill everyone that is a burden, just those who have done heinous criminal acts.
Last edited by Turquoise (2009-09-18 23:27:53)