OF THE
TIMES
He who learns must suffer, and, even in our sleep, pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God.
The federal bureaucrats should make a tv commercial and make things easier for all concerned: '' Hello everyone. You have a good business ? You...
"What are we to make of this? After all, Americans are constantly being told that Israelis are just like them, and that we share the same western...
This is whats called Communism and thats what DemonRats are a bunch of Commies. :O
The end of the last ice age started because of catastrophic cosmic events. Did these studies take into account that? No? Then they are useless.
Boeing passenger plane makes emergency return to airport, 2 days after Boeing cargo plane forced into an emergency landing Pure coincidence. Main...
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...of the incredible limitations of our current justice system, and of our basic ideas about concepts like "justice" and "responsibility."
In civil law, the underlying principle is the righting of a wrong.
In criminal law (sometimes associated with admiralty law), the underlying principle is punishment for disobedience.
In the latter in particular, there is no persuasive proof that punishment is an effective deterrent. This points out the essential irrationality of the criminal (and of our "justice" system). The criminal puts immediate gain or advantage above considerations about future outcomes. And so does our current justice system.
Most people agree that when a being does wrong, he ought to be punished. But most will also agree that a criminal should also be forced to make right the damage he caused. However, in the simple case of a debtor, punishment in the form of imprisonment will tend to destroy his ability to repay the debt. Most, then envision a scale of misdeed - and punishment - going from not-too-bad to completely horrific.
Breivik did something horrific. He is a kind of mini-Hitler. But instead of committing suicide as Hitler finally did, he flaunts his misdeeds as justified by his cause, which is what Hitler did for most of the time he was alive.
These people are obviously mad. As beings, they act as if possessed. There is no obvious way to redeem them. Certainly the psychiatrists don't know how. In such cases, the general agreement is that such extreme misbehavior serves to forfeit one's freedom for a lifetime. What more than that can be done in such a case?
I have heard of programs that rehabilitate killers. Not psychopathic killers like Breivik, but people who somehow felt forced into it, like soldiers, minor hoodlums, etc. Should we let such individuals back into the group? If they begin to cooperate and pull their weight, it certainly makes economic sense.
All these considerations bear re-thinking in the light of the psychopathy that we are beginning to realize we are faced with.
What percentage of the world's psychopaths would have to be sequestered to achieve a reversal of the current downward spiral on earth? In the US we are approaching a 1% incarceration rate. If those were all the most serious psychopaths in the population, life in America would be totally different. And that (the improvement of conditions in society) should be the only true purpose of a justice system. I hope that indicates the direction we need to take.