Crime and Punishment

[Telan Desaria]

This is a general rant not endorsed by the German Aristocracy, The German Armed Forces; the Governments of the Federal Republic of Germany nor the United States.



To understand my reason for posting this, pleas ebear with me whilst I describe this evenin'gs events.

At 18.15 I boarded a Lanta (public trans) bus in teh city of Allentown, Pennsylvania. ((((I have been living in the United States for several months now** Id did just return from a trip back to Germany, however,(()))

At 18.40 I arrived at the Lehigh Valley Mall along American Interstate 78 and PA Route 22.

I entered the Mall, walked about, ate dinner at Arbies, and adjourned outside to smoke a Cigar. When I arrived outside I saw a horrid site.

There was a minivan parked outside with the windshield caved in and the frame to the front window bent. What remained had been shattered, and the window over the passanger's seat was missing: the rest was a greenish tint in the beginning stages of shatterness.

Around the vehcile were a dozen police officers and mall security officers. I was passed by a small boy, not more than a meter high and barely ten. His face was covered in blood and glass, his ear cut to ribbons by glass shards.

Three security guards pried open the door while another hauked out the passanger: a lady no more than thirty and the mother to the boy. Her bodyhad been shredded by glass, her arm in tatters and her face undescribeable. Some had thrown an object from a bridge next to the mall and it hit the windshield, shatetring it and injuring severly two boys and critically wounding their mother. The driver, their father, was hurt but refused to acknowledge his pain.

I do not know if the mother will survive: in my coursury glance, I would not bet on her life.



This was done either out of malice or liqour/narcotics induced fancy.

The rage that I have fallen into would gladly make go into a prison with a submachine gun and eliminate every felon and larcenists in the region. They should all be put to death with all dispatch.


I believe the ratio for these types of violent crimes or simple perverse pelasure devices would drastically decrease if the punihsment system of America were much strciter. If a man steals, have him interned in a mine or prison for the next quarter century.

Why people who commit murders remain in jails for decades is beyond me. For this, I must applaud Texas in its judicision useage of the execution system. I would greatly believe that a man would think twice on killing another or harming them if he knew his act would garner him a ruthless execution en masse with other prisoners.

There are reasons to have gas chambers now, I believe. To put all of the murders in the State of Pennsylvania in Auschwitz I think many would agree.

Rapists would ply their trade less if they knew an unanthestized castration would follow.

I applaud Hammaurabi and babylon.

I apologize if I offend, but my reply is simply: go back and see what I saw not more than an hour ago. See that small blond hair boy scarred for life by a maniac.

There are some people who deserve to die. And to the opinion of pro life in this instance: I say go to hell. Perhaps those that oppose the death penalty should ask the fallen their opinion.



Matthias Friederich Wilhelm von Meillen, Baron von Saar

[Aejin Rahn]

For this, I must applaud Texas in its judicision useage of the execution system. I would greatly believe that a man would think twice on killing another or harming them if he knew his act would garner him a ruthless execution en masse with other prisoners.

Hear, hear. I agree 100% with this, and all that you have said.

You haven't bothered me one bit.

[Admiral Lebron]

Yes. I agree. Every year (since I was 11ish) I write my senator and congressman and demand stiffer penalties for criminals. Eye for an eye.

[Dae Jinn]

I'd have to agree with you -- people who commit serious and horrible crimes should pay for them with their lives. Many do, in prison, because their fellow prisoners like to, "keep their neighbourhood clean". Rapists and Child Molesters don't last too long in the general population.

Unfortunately, I live in Canada, we have no death penalty. The max sentence here is 25 years to life. And yes, we have had the exact thing you described (idiots throwing things off over-passes) happen here. By teen-agers no less :(

[Xenodoros Stormrider]

In a way, making laws more strict would benefit us in having a better environment. But it would also take away our freedom. Of course, it's not much some might say. But any single act you would make, you would have to watch out.

I agree with what you said, but making laws more strict would also bring a few disadvantages.

[Silus Xilarian]

I agree with Telan, but I agree with Xeno also...

In a perfect judicitial system, people guilty of these crimes would be dealt with swifty and harshly, and im in full agreement that they deserve it. We soon come to realize though, that our judicial system isnt perfect, and stricter policies are a double edged sword....the good...A rapist is sentenced quickly, castrated, and beaten daily..........The bad....A rapist is sentenced quickly. castrated, and beaten daily, and then proven beyond a shadow of a doubt to be innocent....

To me, if someone is guilty beyond a shadow of a doubt, which would almost have to include a confession (almost) then yes i agree on the strictest punishment possible. But I dont wanna be walking down the street one day, only to be snatched up by the police, then by tried and killed for something I didnt do. And i dont think anyone else wants to either......

so in a nutshell, I guess this is a situation of, We agree that this way should be better, but how?

[Telan Desaria]

I am amore than willing to have on my conscience the enternal imprisonment of one innocent man so that a hundred guilty ones might suffer, and a hundred small children would live in safety, other would be assailants scared beyond a doubt to commit their heinous act.

I believe that the absance of freedom in this country could be a good thing. People, no offensem complain about losing this freedom or that. I ask you: what are the boundaries of freedom. IS this country built on the rights of one, or the rights of many? To allow one person freedokm of speech when that one person stands in a swastika bdedecked uniform shouting about killing half the country's population, should freedom not stop when it encroaches on the basic freedom's of others: to live free of fear for life.



I say again: to imprion one innocent man is a small price to pay to kill fifty times that quilty men. No system is flawless, but it is a sacraficie we will have to make. Their are casualties in every battle, unfortunately, you do not get to choose who they are.

[Crystal StarRider]

I was only an hour away from you, Telan..I'm northwest Jersey, so am aware of the area of which you described..To witness a crime of that magnitute must have been a horrific experience. Sorry you had to see that, but I feel more sorry for the victims. The problem with youth nowadays in the US is they have no discipline in the family structure; the majority anyway...Even schools lack in this area..

Germany has a mandatory draft at the age of 18 if I'm not mistaken. Perhaps the US would benefit to reinstall the draft to alter some delinquents' faults from one of criminal intent, to one of honor and purpose. Most criminals lack self esteem, encouragement, and direction from an early age...some were even abused in childhood, or they are doped up.

If not, force the culprits of a crime into a harsh boot camp, which some already exist and have been proven to be beneficial on rehabilitation to a high percentage. I wouldn't doubt you felt the urge to spray the perpetrators of the inhumane incident with a dependable Schmeisser machine pistol, burping out leaden bullets. No doubt anyone would in your shoes.

[Sanis Prent]

I want to ask those that are talking about these stiff punishments if they have ever had somebody close to them victimized in such a way.

I'm not disagreeing with you, but I think you may be missing some perspective.

[Telan Desaria]

I am not speaking out my <smallfont color={hovercolor}>-Censored-</smallfont> as it were.

I had a cousin twice separated sexually victimized. The police caught the man, and he was sentenced to twenty yeras in prison and given psychiatric leniency.



As a sidenote, the woman described above died at 2000 hrs last evening, twenty minutes after my bus departed.

May she rest in peace. She would better secure in the knowledge the assailants of her children would suffer as such. Do not forget, those ten year olds will be horribly scared for life.

Again, before you dispense punishment, think of how the victim might feel, not how you feel.

[Sanis Prent]

I had a close family friend murdered in our church, within walking distance from my home. After it happened, I was really emotionally shocked. I wanted and still do, above all else, for the murderer to be punished for what he did. I just can't seem to decide if its worse for him to die for his actions, or spend the rest of his life in constant regret, and feel exactly how I feel every time I think about Brian.

I think the damage above all else is that this kind of thing has caused me to stray farther from God. I can never forgive this man for what he did. I've never had that problem before.

[Telan Desaria]

Let us leave forgiveness to the divine. It is our task to create justice, not righteousness.

The sooner murder gets to hell, the sooner his unpleasant eternity begins. I would rather let the divine handle extended punishment. It is our lot to exact temporal revenge: eternal will be wrought by the Rulers of Providence, not us.

And my s is intended.

[Xenodoros Stormrider]

It works in theory.

[Telan Desaria]

The advocates of my theory and pricniple made themslves, and now the skeptics and leniency harbringers come out. To them I pose this question.


You are raped, regardless of sex. The person leaves you bleeding in the middle of an ally. Thunder is in the distance and he departs with both you clothes and your dignity. You are bleeding and ravaged.

Do you wish him well and ask that the state and its people waste its money on reforming the villain?

Or do you cry havoc and demand vengeance, his head on a platter and his dignity and evil pride hung on shelf ten tiers before Inferno?

[Silus Xilarian]

Has anyone proposed that we forgive the guilty for what they've done?

Has anyone here argued that those people not be held accountable for what they've done?

But it seems what you're wanting can be likened to the Salem Witch trials. What would you have our government do? Make an exception in this case and slaughter the first suspects they have in the crime? And if those people are found innocent, then what? We crusade further? Kill the next suspects? So we sacrifice a few people, but we catch the true criminals?

Now my friend, we've set a judicial presendence. That has a snowball effect. Soon police become vigilantes (as if they dont lean in that direction enough as it is). Soon, a judge's only job is to hand out whatever form of unmercy he can conjure.

Is that what you want?

[Telan Desaria]

What I propose is to bring the guilty to justice: not fulfillment of legal requirements but Justice itself.



I would have police, if they see a man gun down some one not subdue them, but shoot them on site. If you come upon a man who is ravaging a child, tear him limb from limb.


I propose to mete out justice to the guilty. Find a man innocent, and send him on his way with our blessing and apology.

[Dae Jinn]

I'm sorry to hear about that, Charley :( That's horrible.


Originally posted by Sanis Prent
I just can't seem to decide if its worse for him to die for his actions, or spend the rest of his life in constant regret, and feel exactly how I feel every time I think about Brian.


Not everyone who commits a serious crime regret what they did, most of them regret being caught.

[Sanis Prent]

Well...I realize that. I just think that would be true justice, to transfer that kind of feeling onto them.

[Silus Xilarian]

I would have police, if they see a man gun down some one not subdue them, but shoot them on site. If you come upon a man who is ravaging a child, tear him limb from limb.

So you give the police more judicial power than they already have. In turn, they abuse the power (which happens too often now)

As I said before, police become vigilantes.......

In a perfect legal system, where lawyer's main concern isnt money, and police are culled from the ranks of your neighborhood boy scout troop, this system would work.....

[Telan Desaria]

Then perhaps it is time to put the military back in power and let the Military Police patrol the streets.



I would feel much safer in a Leopard II made an hourly patrol down the avenue.


Or an Abrams.

[Sanis Prent]

I wouldn't :\

[Telan Desaria]

It is a legitmate complaint that police are too lenient due to locality.


That is why I think the police must be unleashed, their reins cast aside and allowed to mete out the justice they have been tasked to uphold. If this cannot be done, then I affirm my belief that the military should handle the enforcement of the law. Equipped to handle everything from terrorism to penny larceny, the police of the military would be a welcome addition to American security forces, would they not?


Who would you rather respond to terrorists taking a building? The local swat brigade or a light infantry battalion with heavy weapons?

[Sanis Prent]

I'd rather not revert to martial law unless the situation was absolutely dire.

[ReaperFett]

Who would you rather respond to terrorists taking a building? The local swat brigade or a light infantry battalion with heavy weapons?
The ones trained for storming buildings. Them over the blow em up boys any day

[Silus Xilarian]

Who would you rather have respond to a teenager with his stereo too loud...

A donut munching Five O with nothing better to do, or a vigilante bringer of death having a bad day?

[Evil Hobgoblin]

Originally posted by Telan Desaria

I would have police, if they see a man gun down some one not subdue them, but shoot them on site. If you come upon a man who is ravaging a child, tear him limb from limb.

Find a man innocent, and send him on his way with our blessing and apology.

These two goals are mutually exclusive in too many respects. You'd have people sent away with blessings and apologies- to the morgue.

Besides which, if police adopted a shoot-on-sight policy, that policy can not just be abused, it can be manipulated. How would you like it if you managed to snatch someone's gun away from them, only to get fatally shot by the police. That is where the "hard justice" system you describe fails- it is far easier to turn to selfish ends than our "red tape" system.

[Telan Desaria]

You fail to grasp what I am saying.

twenty four hours ago, a woman died because two punk kids decided to have fun.

They will be out of juvenille detention in time for their 21st birthday. I would like to see them shot. Those two severaly wounded children in the back seat of that mini van will grow up without a mother. I think death is too good for them.

[Silus Xilarian]

I think you're failing to grasp what im saying....

I would like to see them shot too....but i dont want a raging police force killing every teenager in site til they catch the right ones...

[imported_Terran Starek]

First off, I join this thread not to step on any toes or spit in any faces. Nor, for that matter, do I join to make anyone look stupid or act like I know everything. I have taken 12 credit hours of criminology in college, studied 6 of sociology, and have been an active member of the judicial system of my university. That's it--I am no professor or notory public on the subject! :) I have an opinion, and I wish to share it plainly.

A criminal justice system--which can range from the United States Courts to Sadaam's Desert Eagle-executor system--is simply a means of social control, which is the ability to control, manage, restrain, or direct behavior. Most people understand this concept--whether they can say "Yes, police are a mechanism of social control" or not is overrated--we all understand this philosophy on different levels. Those who accept the fact that social control is neccessary would be defined as regular people. Those that don't are anarchists. :D (don't argue with me about this, it's a moot point!)

To what level do we seek to control society? Jeez, that's a big topic. I think years of philosophers like Cesare Becarria and Emile Durkheim (to name a few) have fought this topic out brutally and have come to little conclusion on exactly what is ideal. Orwell, in 1984 pretty much shows us the extreme, and we know what no order brings--we end up acting like dogs.

Conisder this: Think of social control to be a leash. It holds us from doing anything and everything it is we want to do. Why? Because we believe that if we can do whatever we want, crime will be rampant--murder, stealing, everything bad. No accountablity--no place to return to. No peg to hold the leash. (Yeah, I know what you anarchists are saying right now--hush it, you!) If the leash is too tight, we are robots. We eat, sleep, die. That's it. If the leash is just right, we can get plenty or running room, do what we want (within reason) and be accountable--that's why we have a Justice system, so that people are accountable for their actions. We must come back to our peg in the ground and stand accountable for the actions within our leashed realm.

Basically, it boils down to this for me:

If we are leashed to the core by soldiers patrolling the streets armed to the teeth, tanks ready to fire and auto-rifles trained on civillians as they walk by, what have we become? Robots. We are simply robots kept walking in line by the barrels of guns. If there is no leash, and police simply dunk doughnuts all day, people do whatever they want, when they want. There is no order. We have failed to maintain any type of control.

So where does the fine line lay? In the system we trust in today? Telan, you say no, because of the horrific sight you have witnessed. It sounds terrible, and I sympathize with your reaction. However, the measures you propose seem over the top and contrary to what what is even fiesable. I think you are having a very human reaction to an inhumane act. But martial law in peacetime?...now that's scary.

Kind of changes the face of America....

[Marcus Telcontar]

But martial law in peacetime?...now that's scary.

Kind of changes the face of America....




UNfortunantly, how far away could that be? Guantanamo Bay, where people are held with no rights (even if they are innocent, which I am certain some are) is run by the USA. I know freedom and righs are cherished but..... you sure they are not being eroded? I'm pretty sure in Australia they are, or would be in the name of the War on Terror. Maybe. Held without charge and no access to a lawyer, presumed guilty until innocent. Those laws are on the table right now here

Guantanamo Bay shows it could happen in the USA. I'd be scared if I were in the USA. Oh sure, if they are guilty, throw them on a desert island and permanatly split them from society. But innocent?

I could never agree to the death penalty or other measures while evidence gets rigged, police tells lies and lawyers get rich guilty off scott free. Sure, this incident Telan witnessed is terrible (And I'v seen myself a suicider jump in front of a train which haunted me for a while), but the solutions to this are not jail. It's to make sure that a) Idiots who do this are caught and punished in a deterrign way adn b) they really are guilty. The Death penalty doesnt seem to me to be a real deterrant.

Maybe the real solution is gettign some morals and checkguards into kids so they are less liekly to do such stupid acts.

[Daiquiri Van-Derveld]

Kill'em. Why the hell should I have to pay taxes for a murderer to sit year after year in a clean, dry cell, getting 3 square meals a day, able to watch TV, use up to date librarys so that he can turn around and spend more of my tax dollars on useless lawsuits to try and free his already condemed <smallfont color={hovercolor}>-Censored-</smallfont>??

Dont tell me those kids didnt know what they were doing! They may not have realized that someone could die but they did know that what they were doing would cause damage! Lock'em away and flush the key! They have now made two innocent children motherless and should pay the price!

Tell it, Telan and Lebron! An eye for an eye!

[imported_Terran Starek]

The death penalty is a failure, it's true. It does not carry the essentials that a classical punishment should--it should be swift, severe, and certain. It is not swift--it takes lifetimes on death row. It is not certain--many weasel out of it or die before it takes place. It is severe, however.

Anyway, I tend not to deal out my judgement too much--mostly because I have no idea how I would do it, were the law in my own hands! :D

[Gash Jiren]

Ah, Telan, old buddy. There's no better way to be a crusader for the right-wing than with an emotionally-charged argument and an insult to the liberals, eh?

It would seem that, like most of the internet, this board is populated with conservatives like my buddy Telan, here. So I expect to be shouted down. But "eye for an eye" is not only the stupidest principle in human history, but the one which has earned us the vast majority of the pain and suffering in human history. Ask Telan. I'm sure he's well informed about the sentiments which caused his nation to lift Hitler upon their shoulders.

There is absolutely nothing, in terms of public safety, that the death penalty accomplishes that cannot be accomplished with life in prison without possibility of perole does not. So it's just an empty vengeance killing; it serves no purpose other than to satiate an urge to kill because you feel it rectifies the situation. I guess that it's up to you to disagree with that, but it strikes me as either ignorant or just spiteful to tell an entire group people who hold different moral values than you to "go to hell".

Like most conservatives, Telan, you seem to be coming from a place of vengeance and a "<smallfont color={hovercolor}>-Censored-</smallfont> 'em all" sort of attitude. Obviously, you don't have any criminals in your family; which is fine. Much like <smallfont color={hovercolor}>-Censored-</smallfont> Cheney didn't have any homosexuals in his family until his daughter came out of the closet; suddenly, he's gone soft on gay rights.

The day someone in your family commits a crime is probably the day, Telan, that you stop acting like an angry dog and start acting like a human being. Something that no one has mentioned is that criminals are not, in fact, monsters who are devoid of humanity. As <smallfont color={hovercolor}>-Censored-</smallfont>ens always contended, criminals are human beings; killing them to fullfill your primal "eye for an eye" instinct isn't any more "right" or "moral" than their own crimes were. If our foreign policy were "eye for an eye" we would be out their slaughtering innocent civilians right now.

I find it absolutely fascinating that everyone on here would rather pay tax dollars to fund the murder of their fellow human beings than to keep people in jail. Did you know, Lady Daiquiri, that it costs about the same to keep a crackhead in jail as it does to keep a murderer on death row? What do you know; a problem that can be solved without kiling people. Maybe if we had the same punishments for crack, the drug of poor black people, as we do for cocaine, the preferred drug of the rich, fat white guys that you all put into power with your votes for Bush, we could free up a few jail cells and relieve you of that stressful extra 50 cents or so per year.

So long as we're going purely on emotional reaction of the victims of wrongdoing, Telan, why don't you go ahead and ask the widow of John Adams, sixty-four, who was gunned down in front of his wife in his home by police officers carrying out a raid on 1120 Joseph street as part of Clinton's War On Drugs what SHE thinks of police rushing about carrying out your "run and gun" policy of policing? (By the way, John Adams lived at 70 Joseph Street. But no one bothered to check that before they pumped several bullets into him) What's that? You'd gladly knock off a few harmless old men in front of their wives so that the majority of us can be safe? (Or, as you put it, "I am amore than willing to have on my conscience the enternal imprisonment of one innocent man so that a hundred guilty ones might suffer, and a hundred small children would live in safety, other would be assailants scared beyond a doubt to commit their heinous act.")

Isn't it funny how it's perfectly okay for you to make your case with a bunch of emotionally-charged questions and dramatic examples, but similar ones of the results of "shoot first and send flowers later" are just panned by the conservatives?

Capital punishment has nothing to do with you and your emotional reactions and vengeance instinct. If it did, then why does every democracy on earth allot absolutely zero prosecution rights to the family of victims? Ask the fallen, indeed. So much for fair and impartial juries; let's just get all misty-eyed and take a human life to make ourselves feel better.

Possibly the most disturbing of all your arguments is this <smallfont color={hovercolor}>-Censored-</smallfont> about "shoot them on sight" and sending petty criminals to jail for most of their lives. While it's hard to get angry at you for holding different views of what "morality" is and thus wanting to see child molesters torn apart, it's very easy to get angry at you for wanting the world run as a police state. You don't understand the mind of the criminal; is he insane? Is he acting in self defense? Is this a gang confrontation? But, who gives a <smallfont color={hovercolor}>-Censored-</smallfont> why he's doing it, eh? It's wrong for him to take a life, but for you, as a tax paying citizen, well, rock on. Gunshot to the head.

Fun fact:

If a man steals, have him interned in a mine or prison for the next quarter century.

Were that the case, Telan, the current (illegitimate) President of the United States -- Texas good ol' boy and champion of capital punishment -- would either still be in prison, or would be trying to put his life back together after stumbling out of a mine somewhere.

As I said, I fully expect the above rambling argument to be torn apart by a load of conservative thinking and pure, vehement, spiteful rage. Serves me right for coming all the way to SWFans to have an argument down the same lines I have arguments with Telan at TRF all the time, I suppose. But on behalf of the hundreds of millions of liberals who don't think that taking a human life is an endeavour we have a right to undertake for any reason that you've villified and told to go to hell, I'd like to thank you, Telan. We appreciate your sentiments.

[Telan Desaria]

Gash Jiren I have been told to go to hell before and I will undoubtedly will again.

And as for your answer as to the comparison in price you are wrong. As an officer of the BND, I cane make you privvy to part of a report I once wrote on the combat readiness of nations on this horrid little world we live.

It costs China 9 American cents for one bullet. It octs Russia seven. Britain five, Germany four, American three.

Do you honeslty mean to tell me that when you could shoot some one at point blank range for a guarenteed for five cents on average rather than paying millions of dollars a day you would rather live in poverity.

And you are correct int eh assumption that I have no criminals in my family that remain part of my family. I am as you all known homosexual. Until 1968 an offense punishable by death under the Prussian penal code.

Your liberality is laudable when it comes to the rights of the living, but I ask uoi: can you look at the bodies of the Oklahmoa City Bombings, their limbs removed and twenty babies that were curshed under a dozen tons of rubble and still tell me Herr McVeigh is a human and deserving of mercy?

These teenagers did not draw som one out who could defend thmselves for a duel of honour. They threw ice balls off of an overpass hoping to have fun in theri halucination narcotic undicued state. Tell me you can look a raped woman in the eye, her mother refusing to talk to her since she carries a beats baby in her womb, her eyes awash with tears and her face forever brusied that her assailant deserves mercy. That she deserves to have to pay for him to live better than she ever will again???

Perhaps we can compromise: those who wish to pay for jail may, and we'll erect the best system s for them. Thy will have their own privates computer labs, armories, libraries, casinoes and race tracks.

Those who wish to see justice done can line up the pugs, thugs, desperadoes, murders, brigands, vagabonds, pedophiles, incesters, rapists, and such and eliminate their stain from the far from pristine banner of humanity. You call me reaction in humane and you call me a monster.



have you ever been top Afghanistan? I have been absent from rping on several occassions as Hyfe and some here can attest because I was witnessing atorcities in the sesspools of earth. You call those poeple in cuba innocent> I have seen dead children by the hundreds and woman mutilated beyond compare by retreating desert holy warriors. Go there, see these, and watch as people leap to their painless deaths from the tallest towers in the world, then go to gatherings of the survivors and families of the dead and then tell us here that those men are innocent. Tell us they deserve to walk around with their head helds high, let alone attached.



Again, I appllaud hammurabi.

[Admiral Lebron]

We should bring back the rack. :(

[Sanis Prent]

Absolutely not >_<

[ReaperFett]

Just out of intrest, do you eye for an eye people oppose the regimes of such people as Saddam Hussain? He works eye for an eye, and he's seen as a bad man.


twenty four hours ago, a woman died because two punk kids decided to have fun.

They will be out of juvenille detention in time for their 21st birthday. I would like to see them shot. Those two severaly wounded children in the back seat of that mini van will grow up without a mother. I think death is too good for them.
Youre driving a car. You lose concentration for a brief second, lets say a noise behind makes you turn. You turn back, to see youre about to hit someone. No time, you hit them, they die.

Death penalty to you too, right? Or will you use psychics who will determine wether you were "having fun" or if it was an "honest mistake"?

[Gash Jiren]

God damn right, Reaper.

I think it says something about a society when the only way to satisfy your thirst for "justice", Telan, is to quench it with human blood. Can rapists and people who blow up buildings be rehabilitated? Probably not. But that doesn't mean that not exacting upon them the thing you're condemning them for is showing them some kind of mercy that they don't deserve. How can you damn a man for murder and turn around and commit one?

And, yes, Telan, after seeing copious footage of the massacre exacted by Timothy McVeigh, I can in fact tell you that he is a human being. But, by your standards, I suppose that he's not; but then, by your own standards, you're the exact same monster. Did you know that 99 prisoners on death row have been exhonerated by DNA evidence? One hundred innocent men. By your estimation, all of them should have been dead. McVeigh killed one hundred and twenty.

What does that make you, I wonder? To pose a big old emotionally charge question like the ones you use to get everyone's head bobbing in approval: can you look into the eyes of a widow, see the tears of a fatherless child, and tell them that, Yes, you support the murder of their innocent father because seeing everyone that is convicted of murder dead makes you feel better?

So. Capital punishment is unnecessary to public safety, certainly wrong in the eyes of many, and it results in the death of utterly innocent men. It creates no more or less safety in a society than life imprisonment without the possibility of perole. So, essentially, Telan, what you're saying is that you're willing to murder hundreds of innocent people so that you can go to sleep at night feeling better about America or Germany or wherever the hell it is you currently reside. And, strangely, the rape victim's unborn child does not go away, the scars of the incident are not washed from her, and her mother does not re-accept her, whether or not the man they injected poison into really was her rapist.

Do I mean to tell you I am willing to pay tax dollars to spare the lives of the innocent instead of having my police run around and let the gun do the talking? I already do. I'm proud I do. We pay money to save lives overseas, to subsidize the tax evasion of the fat white guys who vote Republican so that they can rape Alaska and see people executed, so why not pay money to save lives? Charity starts at home, Telan.

[Marcus Telcontar]

Might have said it differently, but Gash, well said. Too many pople on death row have been found inncoent for the death penalty to be found just. 'll also point out that jail or punishment are NOT the ultimate solutions, because they dont seem to realyl work.

Easiest answer I cant hink of is let a man feed his family and give his children some moral standards. You'll have a better society and a probably more peaceful one. Will children grow to be lawbreakers if they have moral values? Will men kill others if their familes are safe and well fed, sheltered warm and well?

I dotn have answers in the end, but I think that the above is the beginnign to the real solution. Peace and values come from the heart, not smacked on us by a long stick.

[Evil Hobgoblin]

Edit: Son of a... double post.

[Evil Hobgoblin]

According to my Sociology teacher last semester, it has been shown in numerous studies that people who grow up with a functional family are less likely to become criminals, deviants, or mentally unbalanced adults.

I personally feel that a truly good education system with teachers who are interested and involved in the lives of their students will do more for reducing the amount of crime and hatred that exists in our society.

I kind of also feel that additional contributions to this thread may just fall into the area of back-and-forth arguing, and would advise people against that lest a moderator close the thread.

[Telan Desaria]

You are right.

I meant no disrespect to people or their opinions. The scene I saw made my blood biol, and for that I apologize.

I again, Gash, mean no disrespect. I do look forward to our ideologicial clashes, they are truly a test for my mettle and melle.

I hold true that murders and rapists should be put to the sword. If I should die to make vengeance a reality, then I offer myself the first victim.

[Gash Jiren]

I kind of also feel that additional contributions to this thread may just fall into the area of back-and-forth arguing, and would advise people against that lest a moderator close the thread.

Back and forth arguing...

Been to Washington/Ottawa/London/Whatever, lately?

Anyway. I don't actually roleplay, here. I just thought I'd inject some left wing propaganda into the discussion. Good bye.

[Telan Desaria]

Another Update

The children responsible for the murder have been apprehended. New agencies reported that they were to be tried as adults.

My question is: why would a fifteen year old that committs murder be treated any more leniently than a fifty year old who committs murder. The taking of a life is irreversible, no matter who does it. Death should be metted out evenly among the killers: regardless of age.