JohnG@lt wrote:
Uzique wrote:
it doesn't. that's such a vindictive, backwards-ass approach to 'justice'.
if anything the punishers should take some self-righteous superiority and refuse to partake in similar acts of barbarism...
... approaching justice and law-making with the old-hat 'eye-for-an-eye' rubric simply doesn't work. it creates fear in a population, when the long-arm of the state needs respect, if anything, to operate. a country and its people cannot co-exist peacefully on a basis of fear or revenge; it's not conducive to any morally or socially healthy outcomes. you should read some jurisprudence or consider the huge realm of debate that circles around the questions of law and morality. most of them dismissed the backwards-ass neo-puritan "fuck them, they're not one of us!" approach a long time ago.
the punishment has to fit the crime, and taking one's liberty is as bad a punishment as any. simply repeating and mirroring the crimes under the 'acceptable' sponsorship of state officials and 'corrective' measures isn't putting any feet forward.
That's the entire point. Punishment for crime is supposed to act as a deterrent against future crime. If people do not fear the punishment, they are less likely to take it seriously before committing a crime. If you do not want to live in fear, do not plot a crime. It's rather simple.
You may feel that it is barbaric, but it is necessary. Since the West has become increasingly secular, we no longer have the fear of Hell that kept prior generations of would-be criminals in check. Fear is the absolute best tool that the justice system possesses as it taps into our primal selves.
sorry, but i simply disagree. i do not think that 'fear' should be the glue of a respectful, cooperative and productive society.
and after 3 years of extensive case-study and jurisprudential research, i don't think that the idea of 'law as deterrent' works, either.
criminals that are compelled or determined to break a law or commit a criminal act do not 'fear' recrimination.
the death sentence essentially operates as a high-level of officiated retributive soap-opera; it prepares a stage for the victim's family to partake in watching a similarly brutal, inhumane taking of life: sure, they feel better and may have a sense of 'closure'- but there are fundamental philosophical and moralistic arguments against this so-called 'function' of the legislature/legal executive to provide a life-teleological 'closure' to crisis and personal issue/trauma. the law is there to punish and make an example - but when that crosses over into bare-hypocrisy and the punishments serve as pre-emptive measures to instill and spread 'fear', that is when the law has either become bloated, perverted or plain ideologically side-tracked. stick to the essential principles of justice, equality and liberty. leave the neo-puritan demand for the "other's" blood out of it. it is a simple perversion.
i'd be interested to argue this further with you if you could provide some case-examples or anecdotal evidence, or even a principled point founded upon precedence. im a little tired arguing rhetorically over concrete legal matters with someone that only has vague airy notions of 'justice' founded in the epistemological rather than the actual.