|
Source: (consider it)
|
Thread: Fuck (again)
|
Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
|
Posted
This was written by a friend of mine, who's a risk analyst.
The take-home point is, I think, this:
quote:
there is no reason, none whatsoever, to believe that Isis and other terrorist groups are holding back. They are killing this many of us precisely because this is as many of us as they can kill. And the reason for that is straightforward: there aren’t very many of them.
--------------------
Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
|
Posted
Indeed.
Where I feel a lot of analysis falls down is that it fails to distinguish the different categories of "them".
At the top are military strategists who are likely to have had Western university-level training in this field, plus their team of spin doctors and psy-ops people.
At the bottom are their side's "useful idiots", easily influenced, marginalised, probably often addicts and/or psychologically unstable people, with only tangential adherence to Islam, and entirely expendable. I know far too many people I could imagine running amok like this given the right circumstances, and cannot imagine an effective way of stopping them except by decreasing the influence of the top tier.
Somewhere in the middle are the convinced radical islamists.
--------------------
Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
God bless you BT.
We should be having this conversation, this confession in public? Not in our invisible holy huddles.
Christendom must respond with courage. That means with complete vulnerability. For that to happen Christianity must lead.
Rome must lead. Canterbury is a Roman province.
Rome MUST lay down the 1500 year lie of just war.
This
![[Votive]](graemlins/votive.gif) ![[Overused]](graemlins/notworthy.gif)
--------------------
"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
Eutychus, what would you have happen to the perpetrators who kill themselves in killing their victims? Actual eternal hell? I was talking about the dead, not the living.
I go along with the assertion that it is up to God to avenge and repay as he sees appropriate - or not.
Imagining suitable acts of revenge - in whichever life - might be part of an individual grieving process, but I personally draw the line at publishing them, which looks like endorsement is being sought. I'm pretty sure such perpetrators' thought processes include a fair bit of acting out their fantasies of revenge.
Not actually seeking endorsement. And it wasn't entirely revenge, but education.
I cannot understand how people can believe that doing that sort of thing will lead them to a paradise with 72 virgins.
How do we teach empathy in this life? (And one of the most empathetic children I taught was one with diagnosed Asperger's, who believed he didn't have it. But worked to think of others.)
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
| IP: Logged
|
|
welsh dragon
Shipmate
# 3249
|
Posted
Elie Wiesel on taking sides (and Yugoslavia), quoted in another thread
quote:
“As a Jew I am saying that we must do something to stop the bloodshed in that country!” he said. “People fight each other and children die. Why? Something, anything must be done.”
In 1986, the Nobel committee called Wiesel “a messenger to mankind”. He accepted the peace prize with characteristic grace.
“I have tried to keep memory alive, that I have tried to fight those who would forget,” he said in his acceptance speech, “because if we forget, we are guilty, we are accomplices.
“We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere.
Posts: 5352 | From: ebay | Registered: Aug 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
it wasn't entirely revenge, but education.
I am so glad I have never had to suffer any "education" at your hands. Just what kind of Sisyphean version of lex talionis were you considering?
quote:
I cannot understand how people can believe that doing that sort of thing will lead them to a paradise with 72 virgins.
Many people cannot understand how people believe praying a prayer accepting the unconditional forgiveness of one man nailed to a piece of wood for their benefit gets them eternal happiness. People believe some weird things. Some of us believe some of them to be true.
quote:
How do we teach empathy in this life?
Well, restorative justice tries, when wrong has been done. And in the meantime, offering friendship to the friendless might - might - instil some small sense of social accountability.
--------------------
Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
|
Posted
The rate of people killed by terror attacks isn't peaking. It peaked in the 1970s and 80s. Though if Iraq and Afghanistan are included, terrorism is peaking now.
Which begs several questions of how to define terrorism. Was in invasion of Iraq terrorism? Should brown people be included or do we only include people from developed western nations?
--------------------
Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
| IP: Logged
|
|
Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
|
Posted
Eutychus, this is, I supposed, a place where one could rant a bit. What I do here has absolutely nothing to do with what I have done in non-scare-quoted education, which, oddly, ex-pupils seem to have valued - and that's pupils who have not gone on to join the BNP or its like, but are perfectly reasonable, good members of society.
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
| IP: Logged
|
|
Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
Eutychus, this is, I supposed, a place where one could rant a bit.
So it is. But it's not somewhere you can rant unchallenged.
(That's called a blog).
As it says on the tin, this is a place where posting paints a big target on oneself.
If you post a rant here, expect people to comment on what its content indicates to them about your thought processes. As I have done.
--------------------
Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
The rate of people killed by terror attacks isn't peaking. It peaked in the 1970s and 80s. Though if Iraq and Afghanistan are included, terrorism is peaking now.
Which begs several questions of how to define terrorism. Was in invasion of Iraq terrorism? Should brown people be included or do we only include people from developed western nations?
It depends what you mean by terror. 1945 was a bad year.
--------------------
"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
|
Posted
Good point. State sponsored killing being a right good and honourable profession.
--------------------
Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
| IP: Logged
|
|
Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
|
Posted
Eutychus. You went beyond what you saw here to what I am beyond this place. About which you know nothing.
I find it very hard to read reports of this sort of thing because the words instantly translate into imagery, into understanding what the victims will have experienced in their last moments. Fortunately not into a physical feeling, but not something comfortable.
To go to a neutral example, my geology tutor from the OU was killed in a phreatic eruption on an Andean volcano. I entered into a correspondence with a magazine which published the word "shredded" in their report, by a witness. They did not understand that to people who knew the person, this might have been disturbing. I've recently heard a closer colleague, who was also there, describe the event with a less disturbing vocabulary, still explaining how he, and others with him, simply vanished in the material of the eruption.
You could say I am squeamish, if you wanted to be superior about it. But it does rather mean that I, and other squeamish people, are unlikely to commit the sort of offences that are committed by the adherents of Daesh. (On the other hand, I do worry about how useful I would be in a situation where people needed wounds attended to.)
I wanted nothing more than that the perpetrators of atrocities would share what I experience. Perhaps a bit more extremely.
This is rather less than many religions have traded on over the millenia.
Here's an example
This is the only place I have posted about my feelings about Daesh's habits, and the only place I would.
[ 19. July 2016, 17:12: Message edited by: Penny S ]
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
Eutychus. You went beyond what you saw here to what I am beyond this place. About which you know nothing.
I have no idea what you are talking about, unless it is "education". A word which you introduced, not me, as an effort to justify what you were suggesting. I haven't gone anywhere beyond what you've posted.
quote:
I wanted nothing more than that the perpetrators of atrocities would share what I experience. Perhaps a bit more extremely.
There was no "perhaps", or "a bit", about it: quote:
I would make the perpetrators of these murders experience the final moments of each of their victims, over and over again
The escalation of violence in the name of justice or "education" is what I took exception to, and continue to take exception to.
quote:
This is rather less than many religions have traded on over the millenia.
And your point is? Legitimising recourse to disproportionate revenge in the name of divine justice? How is that any different to the point Daesh is trying to make?
--------------------
Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
RuthW
liberal "peace first" hankie squeezer
# 13
|
Posted
Penny S is posting here and Daesh is killing people, so the comparison is ridiculous. But don't let a sense of proportion get in the way of your criticism of a shipmate's expression of pain and anger.
Posts: 24453 | From: La La Land | Registered: Apr 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
|
Posted
I worked a job a year or so ago for an activist group whose cause I was not at all unsympathetic to.
The founder and leader, a person who had clearly suffered indescribably much and unjustly at the hands of physicians, vented his spleen at one point with a suggestion, to rapturous applause, that it was high time for a few doctors' offices and hospital archives to be burnt down - but that he of course was too old for that sort of thing now; the clear implication was that some of the younger delegates might not be.
Expressions of pain and anger are fine: see the Psalms. But I think how, where, and when they are expressed - and to whom - matter. Especially so when the subject is retribution.
As someone who's a French national and who spends a fair bit of time with people reputedly highly likely to be radicalised - inmates - I object to the public airing of the idea that a fitting or educational response to terrorism in my country is disproportionate, divinely sanctioned torture. It's too close to the actual far right rhetoric for comfort and I repudiate it wholeheartedly. We need a different register.
--------------------
Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
|
Posted
Eutychus--
I'm sorry about what happened in your country, and I take your point. FWIW, though: ISTM that Penny was talking about dealing with the terrorists *after their deaths*, by making them understand what they'd done. Not an eternal punishment. Educating them, so they'd learn to be/do better.
Different from the man you mentioned who wanted things burned down *in this life*.
YMMV.
--------------------
Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
|
Posted
Golden Key, thank you for reading what I meant into what I wrote.
And I don't really want to continue this tangent, but Eutychus, you wrote: quote:
I am so glad I have never had to suffer any "education" at your hands. Just what kind of Sisyphean version of lex talionis were you considering?
which seemed to me to cast aspersions on my teaching career and what I did in school, in other words, going beyond what I have written here into RL. If I misunderstood that as you have persistently misunderstood me, I am sorry.
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
| IP: Logged
|
|
RuthW
liberal "peace first" hankie squeezer
# 13
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
Expressions of pain and anger are fine: see the Psalms. But I think how, where, and when they are expressed - and to whom - matter. Especially so when the subject is retribution.
As someone who's a French national and who spends a fair bit of time with people reputedly highly likely to be radicalised - inmates - I object to the public airing of the idea that a fitting or educational response to terrorism in my country is disproportionate, divinely sanctioned torture. It's too close to the actual far right rhetoric for comfort and I repudiate it wholeheartedly. We need a different register.
How, where, when? By posting, on this thread, this week. Do many of the inmates you deal with read the Ship's boards? Yeah, thought not.
Would it be okay with you if I wished terrorists were tossed alive into a lake of fire? That divinely sanctioned torture is Biblical.
Posts: 24453 | From: La La Land | Registered: Apr 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
which seemed to me to cast aspersions on my teaching career and what I did in school, in other words, going beyond what I have written here into RL. If I misunderstood that as you have persistently misunderstood me, I am sorry.
You most certainly did. As I said, it was you who brought up education, I used the word solely because you did, and I have no idea what you do or did IRL.
As far as misunderstanding you goes, I hear your wish for terrorists to learn empathy, and your need to express anger, but I disagree profoundly with the fantasised means of achieving such empathy, as is my right from the point that you make it public in a forum that invites interaction.
quote:
Originally posted by RuthW:
How, where, when? By posting, on this thread, this week. Do many of the inmates you deal with read the Ship's boards? Yeah, thought not.
I don't understand your point. Mine is that is that how/where/when our desires for vengeance are expressed matters. That's something I spend a lot of time working on, with inmates who spend a lot of time fantasising about revenge and who have learned the valuable lesson that they are quite capable of moving from fantasy to acting out.
quote:
Would it be okay with you if I wished terrorists were tossed alive into a lake of fire? That divinely sanctioned torture is Biblical.
Well, at least you wouldn't be arguing it would somehow help them see the error of their ways, which is what was being suggested earlier. But no, it wouldn't be okay with me, because as I posted upthread, I think vengeance is God's prerogative to dispense or withhold, not ours to wish, even on our enemies.
--------------------
Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by RuthW:
How, where, when? By posting, on this thread, this week. Do many of the inmates you deal with read the Ship's boards? Yeah, thought not.
I want to further reply to that by explaining what I mean about needing a different register.
Last week one of my colleagues told of how she had once been called down to seg to see a prisoner who had just brutally murdered a fellow inmate. She had seen the body and "it wasn't pretty". The inmate, still covered in the victim's blood, asked her for a Bible.
Her immediate response was "who the hell do you think you are, after what you've just done you're asking me for that?", following which she stormed out to collect herself.
A few minutes later she went back in and apologised to the guy for not serving him in her role as chaplain by responding to his request, and offering him the Bible he had requested. As you can imagine, this completely floored him.
I don't know how that story played out to the end, and I think her initial reaction was entirely understandable and perhaps not as wrong as she thought, but I think the next step she took characterises the kind of asymmetric spiritual warfare that's needed to generate the kind of empathy Penny S is talking about. It's emphatically not responding in kind.
--------------------
Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
FWIW, though: ISTM that Penny was talking about dealing with the terrorists *after their deaths*, by making them understand what they'd done. Not an eternal punishment. Educating them, so they'd learn to be/do better.
Education after the point where there is no possibility of using that education to live a better life (ie: after death) is a pretty pointless thing. If that experience is unpleasant then "punishment" seems to be a much better word than "education".
Of course, if you believe in reincarnation the above argument need not apply.
--------------------
Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
|
Posted
What that story has to do with anything discussed above, I can't imagine.
Just as there is no obligation on anyone to rant here, there is also no obligation for anyone else to take it upon themselves to ensure that a ranter gets a kicking.
Quite why Eutychus is so self righteous that he constantly feels he has to respond in this way, I can't imagine. I guess he just needs to regularly keep his anger levels topped up so whips up his disgust whenever hyperbole is used with first gaining his permission.
--------------------
arse
Posts: 10697 | Registered: Sep 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
|
Posted
Self-righteous? I think it's self-righteous to assume that one's own human nature is a cut above the terrorists'.
--------------------
Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
RuthW
liberal "peace first" hankie squeezer
# 13
|
Posted
You're the one lecturing folks about what they should and should not think, Eutychus. Mote, beam, etc.
Posts: 24453 | From: La La Land | Registered: Apr 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
RuthW
liberal "peace first" hankie squeezer
# 13
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
quote:
Originally posted by RuthW:
How, where, when? By posting, on this thread, this week. Do many of the inmates you deal with read the Ship's boards? Yeah, thought not.
I don't understand your point. Mine is that is that how/where/when our desires for vengeance are expressed matters. That's something I spend a lot of time working on, with inmates who spend a lot of time fantasising about revenge and who have learned the valuable lesson that they are quite capable of moving from fantasy to acting out.
Since I know from experience that I don't even fight back when assaulted and since I have never laid plans to harm anyone, I think I'll manage not to go from imagining painful punishments to inflicting them.
And while vengeance may be the Lord's, that didn't stop the Psalmist or plenty of others from wishing and praying God's vengeance upon their enemies. There's a hell of a lot of smiting going on on the Bible, done in God's name, that you seem happy to ignore.
So come down off your high horse already.
Posts: 24453 | From: La La Land | Registered: Apr 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by RuthW:
And while vengeance may be the Lord's, that didn't stop the Psalmist or plenty of others from wishing and praying God's vengeance upon their enemies.
With this I agree, as mentioned above, but the subtle difference is who gets the last word on the smiting.
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
|
Posted
But, you're responses to Penny seem to suggest that no one should have a word about smiting, even if they're going to have their say and then let God have the last word.
You have expressed a perfectly reasonable personal standard, "I think vengeance is God's prerogative to dispense or withhold, not ours to wish, even on our enemies" but seem to expect everyone else to adhere to that personal standard.
--------------------
Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
|
Posted
I have to say that I've been wandering around for a while trying to think to myself about whether I'd apologise to a murderer who is covered in blood for not immediately giving him a bible.
My instant response was no. My considered response is still no. I would feel absolutely no compulsion to give the man what he wanted in that situation and would feel no guilt afterwards if I refused.
For several reasons: he's covered in blood so not really in the right state for reading the bible. He's not of sound mind, so not really great to be giving him a book which at times justifies extreme violence. He may well be looking for relgious justification for his own actions. He may be playing me in a form of power struggle.
If being a prison chaplain means that one is forced to give prisoners things that you are not sure about and that it means one can tell other people how they should and shouldn't think when provoked by the most extreme forms of religious-inspired violence, then maybe it is a good thing I'm not a prison chaplain.
It is times like these that I wonder if Christianity isn't just a pile-of-crap philosophical system used by emotional incompetents as a passive-aggressive weapon to gain some kind of upper hand over people perceived as wrong or weak.
Saying that one wishes horrible things to someone after they are dead is clearly not the same as actually doing them to people whilst they are alive. FFS.
--------------------
arse
Posts: 10697 | Registered: Sep 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
simontoad
Ship's Amphibian
# 18096
|
Posted
This is just the latest tragedy. It's no worse than AIDS, or sexual abuse, or racism, or slavery,or the glass ceiling in private companies, or what's happening in Turkey or the burning of hundreds of people in a church in southern france in 1200 and something. It's just the shit that life is throwing at us right now. That, and the election of racists in response to the fear people seem to have.
Now we have sympathy for the victims and their families, we remain vigilant to the risk, but that's all. No hand-wringing please about the absence of God, or why the humanity that did the holocaust, the cultural revolution, the [insert horrific crime here] drove a truck into a crowd with the intention to kill.
God is where he always is. He's on suicide watch.
--------------------
Human
Posts: 1571 | From: Romsey, Vic, AU | Registered: May 2014
| IP: Logged
|
|
mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by simontoad:
Now we have sympathy for the victims and their families, we remain vigilant to the risk, but that's all. No hand-wringing please about the absence of God, or why the humanity that did the holocaust, the cultural revolution, the [insert horrific crime here] drove a truck into a crowd with the intention to kill.
God is where he always is. He's on suicide watch.
I'm sorry, who gave you the right to tell other people how they should respond to these events? Why shouldn't I ask why God is absent?
--------------------
arse
Posts: 10697 | Registered: Sep 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
You have expressed a perfectly reasonable personal standard, "I think vengeance is God's prerogative to dispense or withhold, not ours to wish, even on our enemies" but seem to expect everyone else to adhere to that personal standard.
I'm not demanding anybody adheres to my standard.
I just don't think that wishing gruesome punishment on the perpetrators in this life or the next is the way forward here, still less if it is recast as educational.
I also persist in thinking that there's a difference between fantasising about revenge and retribution privately and doing so publicly. It seems to me there's plenty of violence, in fact and in rhetoric, already. It's the same in politics. The media love it.
We need to find another voice.
--------------------
Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
|
Posted
I thought that the criminal justice system had as one of its components, retribution, partly to deprivatize this. In other words, people can stop having feuds, since they trust the state to enact their revenge. I can't see how any other system would work, since revenge fantasies are pretty much universal, and have to be dealt with.
--------------------
I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
| IP: Logged
|
|
Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I thought that the criminal justice system had as one of its components, retribution, partly to deprivatize this. In other words, people can stop having feuds, since they trust the state to enact their revenge. I can't see how any other system would work, since revenge fantasies are pretty much universal, and have to be dealt with.
Retribution is indeed a (disputed) aspect of the criminal justice system, but the whole point of it is that it's supposed to be proportional and humane.
Of course that breaks down almost immediately when confronted with man's inhumanity to man, but that's not the first paradox inherent in the system by a long way, and I still think it's better than a lynch mob. People who have done atrocious things are still human - and if we lose sight of that, I believe we've lost sight of our own humanity.
And when I hear, say, post-Brexit aspirations to bring back hanging in the UK, or some of Trump's wilder pronouncements, I wonder where the line between fantasising and implementation really is.
--------------------
Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I thought that the criminal justice system had as one of its components, retribution, partly to deprivatize this. In other words, people can stop having feuds, since they trust the state to enact their revenge. I can't see how any other system would work, since revenge fantasies are pretty much universal, and have to be dealt with.
Retribution is indeed a (disputed) aspect of the criminal justice system, but the whole point of it is that it's supposed to be proportional and humane.
Of course that breaks down almost immediately when confronted with man's inhumanity to man, but that's not the first paradox inherent in the system by a long way, and I still think it's better than a lynch mob. People who have done atrocious things are still human - and if we lose sight of that, I believe we've lost sight of our own humanity.
And when I hear, say, post-Brexit aspirations to bring back hanging in the UK, or some of Trump's wilder pronouncements, I wonder where the line between fantasising and implementation really is.
A good reply. I've just found that some liberal types are shocked to think that justice contains retribution, but it is bound to, in order to siphon off revenge fantasies at large. Otherwise, people would take the law into their own hands, more than they do. Quite often after a murder trial, you see the family of the victim express satisfaction (or not) at the sentence.
Yes, the death penalty goes further, I think, into downright sadistic fantasies. Of course, if somebody killed my wife, I would want him/her dead, but ...
--------------------
I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
| IP: Logged
|
|
Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
|
Posted
Well as I mentioned at the start of this tangent, I'm a believer in restorative justice, in preference to retributive justice. If that makes me a wet liberal, so be it. I really think restorative justice offers an interesting avenue of exploration for combating violent extremism, but this view is not very popular.
In the meantime the fact is that retributive criminal justice, with all its defects, is so strongly ingrained in most of our societies that I don't see it being replaced altogether any time soon. And I still think it's better than a lynch mob.
--------------------
Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
Jolly Jape
Shipmate
# 3296
|
Posted
My problem with the retributive component of the justice system is that it is based on a misunderstanding of how the universe works in moral terms. It is just a rehash of the myth of redemptive violence and it just doesn't work. I doesn't deliver, and it can never deliver, and to suggest that it can is to encourage expectations that can never be fulfilled.
--------------------
To those who have never seen the flow and ebb of God's grace in their lives, it means nothing. To those who have seen it, even fleetingly, even only once - it is life itself. (Adeodatus)
Posts: 3011 | From: A village of gardens | Registered: Sep 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
simontoad
Ship's Amphibian
# 18096
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:
Originally posted by simontoad:
Now we have sympathy for the victims and their families, we remain vigilant to the risk, but that's all. No hand-wringing please about the absence of God, or why the humanity that did the holocaust, the cultural revolution, the [insert horrific crime here] drove a truck into a crowd with the intention to kill.
God is where he always is. He's on suicide watch.
I'm sorry, who gave you the right to tell other people how they should respond to these events? Why shouldn't I ask why God is absent?
well, everyone else is doing it.... Seems like the popular choice.
--------------------
Human
Posts: 1571 | From: Romsey, Vic, AU | Registered: May 2014
| IP: Logged
|
|
Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jolly Jape:
My problem with the retributive component of the justice system is that it is based on a misunderstanding of how the universe works in moral terms. It is just a rehash of the myth of redemptive violence and it just doesn't work.
In my experience the trouble is that this isn't as true as one would like to believe: sometimes it does work, at least after a fashion.
Some convicts accept their guilt, understand a prison sentence as an opportunity to pay their debt to society (the retributive aspect), use the time in jail to sort themselves out and gain some sort of qualification, never want to see prison again, and never do. The numbers of such people may be low but they do exist, and I've met several.
On the other hand, the uncomfortable truth is that restorative justice doesn't always work very well either. For a tells-it-the-way-it-is look at this, see the excellent documentary Beyond Punishment (the trailer begins in German, but most of the audio is in English). It follows the story of three attempts at victim-offender meetings in three different countries and justice systems - including a victim of terrorism.
Still, I'm increasingly persuaded that restorative justice offers an avenue for dealing with violent extremism that certainly can't be any less productive than violent retribution, real or imagined, and that christians - especially christians inclined to bash PSA views of what happened at the cross, as so many here are wont to - should be seeking to explore more at every level.
[ 21. July 2016, 05:18: Message edited by: Eutychus ]
--------------------
Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
|
Posted
Crikey, as they say.
Eutychus, if I said, "I wouldn't piss on Trump if his heart were on fire" would you lecture me on my frivolous attitude toward heart disease?
--------------------
I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
|
Posted
No. But look at the violent rhetoric coming out of the RNC and the concerns people are expressing about it.
--------------------
Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
|
Posted
Actually, the teenagers I work with, many of whom are already young offenders, do not need any encouragement in their revenge fantasies. Either against the police for being so lacking in sympathy as to arrest them or against their victims.
Did anyone see the footage of a police car being targeted with firework rockets in the East End a couple of years ago? I never asked, because I would probably have been lied to, but I suspect I know some of the perpetrators of that one.
[ 21. July 2016, 06:59: Message edited by: Curiosity killed ... ]
--------------------
Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
|
Posted
The French news reported this morning the conviction of some loser who had attempted to sell personal effects he claimed he had scavenged from the Nice attack site on the local equivalent of Craigslist.
For this (and charges of drug possession) he has received a ten-month jail sentence. In my view this sentencing (for, it would seem, a first offence) is disproportionate, vindictive, unduly influenced by the prevailing grief, and will be wildly counter-productive. A restorative justice approach would have been far better for everyone, including the nation at large.
--------------------
Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
|
Posted
Alan--
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
FWIW, though: ISTM that Penny was talking about dealing with the terrorists *after their deaths*, by making them understand what they'd done. Not an eternal punishment. Educating them, so they'd learn to be/do better.
Education after the point where there is no possibility of using that education to live a better life (ie: after death) is a pretty pointless thing. If that experience is unpleasant then "punishment" seems to be a much better word than "education".
Of course, if you believe in reincarnation the above argument need not apply.
Well, I tend to think of the afterlife as more life, an ongoing process of healing each other and ourselves. And no one is ever ultimately lost. I think few people--if any--die in a state of perfect grace, with everything taken care of. So we'll all have work to do, plus ongoing growth. Sort of over-lapping purgatory and heaven. And everyone will eventually be well.
Tolkien wrote a great short story on this called "Leaf By Niggle", part of his "Tree & Leaf" work.
--------------------
Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Jolly Jape
Shipmate
# 3296
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
quote:
Originally posted by Jolly Jape:
My problem with the retributive component of the justice system is that it is based on a misunderstanding of how the universe works in moral terms. It is just a rehash of the myth of redemptive violence and it just doesn't work.
Some convicts accept their guilt, understand a prison sentence as an opportunity to pay their debt to society (the retributive aspect), use the time in jail to sort themselves out and gain some sort of qualification, never want to see prison again, and never do. The numbers of such people may be low but they do exist, and I've met several.
Is this not rehabilitation rather than retribution, in that, you could remove the retributive descriptor, and the outcome would be the same. That is to say, the retribution adds nothing to the judicial process, which would still involve protecting society, possibly by incarceration.
--------------------
To those who have never seen the flow and ebb of God's grace in their lives, it means nothing. To those who have seen it, even fleetingly, even only once - it is life itself. (Adeodatus)
Posts: 3011 | From: A village of gardens | Registered: Sep 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jolly Jape:
Is this not rehabilitation rather than retribution, in that, you could remove the retributive descriptor, and the outcome would be the same. That is to say, the retribution adds nothing to the judicial process, which would still involve protecting society, possibly by incarceration.
A discussion of restorative justice probably belongs on another thread in Purgatory, but I'd say that in practice deprivation of liberty is mostly about retribution, and that it's largely arbitrary.
(How do you measure the cost of, say, a car theft, or a rape, in days or months or years of incarceration?)
Despite such absurdities, retributive criminal justice does sometimes seem to work. Sort of. Because that is how most people - not only judges and the general public, but also the perps - perceive justice to be done.
--------------------
Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
A discussion of restorative justice probably belongs on another thread in Purgatory, but I'd say that in practice deprivation of liberty is mostly about retribution, and that it's largely arbitrary.
The third leg is public safety. We lock criminals up to prevent them from committing more crimes.
I don't think I really understand restorative justice for crimes against the person. If someone smashes my window or steals my stuff, they can replace the window or the stuff, and I am restored to my pre-crime state.
Rapists can't un-rape their victims, and murderers can't bring their victims back to life. What does "restorative justice" look like in these kinds of cases? They payment of some kind or weregild?
If someone assaults their victim and leaves them paralyzed, do we force the criminal to act as a personal care assistant to their victim for the rest of his natural life? The Chinese, I'm told, have a word for going back and repeatedly driving over someone you hit in a car accident, because dead victims are cheaper than paralyzed-for-life victims.
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
| IP: Logged
|
|
Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
Rapists can't un-rape their victims, and murderers can't bring their victims back to life. What does "restorative justice" look like in these kinds of cases?
There are various approaches (and numerous limits), but the "restorative" component includes making an effort to restore the offender to the community following an engagement with the victim or someone representing the latter.
I was served a coffee this afternoon by a guy who has just been convicted of murder. After the sentencing, he had an informal opportunity to apologise to the victim's family and receive their forgiveness, having done his best during the trial to supply as much explanation as was possible of what happened.
In this instance, this has not impacted his custodial sentence, nor, obivously, has it brought back the victim, but it has offered some closure to the family and taken a weight off him, which should help all parties, eventually, to move on. It's a small example of what restorative justice is all about.
--------------------
Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
rolyn
Shipmate
# 16840
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
In the meantime the fact is that retributive criminal justice, with all its defects, is so strongly ingrained in most of our societies that I don't see it being replaced altogether any time soon. And I still think it's better than a lynch mob.
Offer restorative justice by all means, if it works then all well and good. I happen to believe it worked for Myra Hindley, many who were alot closer than me to her tragic exploits were not so convinced. Her accomplice has apparently shown no response to restorative justice. I can sympathise with one of the victim's relatives who said, while not being an advocate of the death penalty, he would nevertheless like to live long enough to see brady dead.
Retribution justice does seem to run pretty deep. What else could explain the macabre *celebrations* following Thatcher,s departure.
--------------------
Change is the only certainty of existence
Posts: 3206 | From: U.K. | Registered: Dec 2011
| IP: Logged
|
|
Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
|
Posted
I heard once of a specialized counseling clinic, here in California, that had survivors of sexual abuse meet with *other people's* abusers. AIUI, it gave everyone a chance to vent, understand each other a bit, and work things out--without the volatility and danger of survivors and *their* abusers dealing directly with each other.
Sort of a restorative justice approach, IMHO.
--------------------
Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
Printer-friendly view
