The guy's no more fucked up than the people who drop white phosphorus on civilians, or any of the other myriad atrocities that we perpetrate routinely.

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Who does vote for these dishonest shitheads? Who among us can be happy and proud of having all this innocent blood on our hands? Who are these swine? These flag-sucking half-wits who get fleeced and fooled by stupid little rich kids like George Bush?

--Hunter S. Thompson

True, agoodfella.

The question is, how do we work towards a more civilised society?

Does the kind of retribution some are advocating here advance this ideal?

I think not.

Tethys

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-- Harry S. Truman

QUOTE=drgoodtrips;999202]Consider that if we dispense justice based on emotion we could head down a Nazi-like path. After all, Hitler inspired his country-men to think that Jews were guilty of horrible crimes against society, and so you wound up with a lot of people that happily tortured whoever they felt was destroying society. My point here is absolutely not to compare people who want "justice" for child molesters to Nazis - please don't think I would insinuate that - but rather to point out the potential consequences of a system of justice based on retribution and emotion rather than rational thought and consistent execution.[/quote]

Good points, doc.

I think that the issue is not just about “protecting the innocents” or “punishing the offenders” or “justice for victims”…it’s also about preserving civil society.

Tethys

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-- Harry S. Truman

I’m not going to get into the gun debate here, proUSA, since a handgun would have been pretty useless to the baby in this awful case

By the way, this is not the first such case. There is the case of China Arnold, accused of killing her three-week old baby daughter in a microwave. The fact that the prosecutor is seeking the death penalty in that case did not stop this new case.

China Arnold - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

And I believe there was another similar case before the China Arnold case.

But to your general point…

Retribution and harsh punishment – including torture – was practiced in human history until not that long ago…Did it stop horrific crimes?

In fact it is still practiced in parts of the world today…does it stop people violating the laws that incur this fate?

Tethys

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-- Harry S. Truman