I'm going to throw this one out there, as it's a real example.
My father has killed a man before. He broke into our house one night when I was really young, pulled a gun on my dad when he came to see what the noise was and shot at wildly in a panic. My father, being an ex-SEAL, brought his 9mm with him to check on the noise and shot the mother fucker in the heart.
A man is dead, my father killed him. Should he be tried with murder?
If you'd have read my posts from before you'd see that self-defence is an area where the crime is different. It's a break in what you probably think is some infallible rule i'm trying to make but it's not. Go back to the posts where I talk about beating kids and women.
Here's one for Johannen: If a driver gets tanked up on whisky and accidentally runs your mum over at a zebra crossing and speeds off laughing, do you want them to go for jail longer than the driver who looks down at their map for a moment and runs her over, stops and gets out of the car to cry and cradle her dying body before ringing the police.
This is what it comes down to.
The one persons a drunk driver and the other isn't. That wasn't hard, next.
Congratulations, you've finally grasped the concept of an aggravating factor.
Here's one for Johannen: If a driver gets tanked up on whisky and accidentally runs your mum over at a zebra crossing and speeds off laughing, do you want them to go for jail longer than the driver who looks down at their map for a moment and runs her over, stops and gets out of the car to cry and cradle her dying body before ringing the police.
This is what it comes down to.
The one persons a drunk driver and the other isn't. That wasn't hard, next.
Congratulations, you've finally grasped the concept of an aggravating factor.
*Removed this bit 'cos Cat just said no more of it*
Being drunk isn't a motivation for killing someone. The fact that you got in your car drunk is illegal in its self and killing someone because of it is worse because you are not in a state fit to drive in the first place.
The second person would be done for manslaughter or murder for what he did but he wouldn't get the add on of driving under the influence.
I'm going to throw this one out there, as it's a real example.
My father has killed a man before. He broke into our house one night when I was really young, pulled a gun on my dad when he came to see what the noise was and shot at wildly in a panic. My father, being an ex-SEAL, brought his 9mm with him to check on the noise and shot the mother fucker in the heart.
A man is dead, my father killed him. Should he be tried with murder?
If you'd have read my posts from before you'd see that self-defence is an area where the crime is different. It's a break in what you probably think is some infallible rule i'm trying to make but it's not. Go back to the posts where I talk about beating kids and women.
Self-defense is a motivation. That's the point. Motivation can change the nature of a crime, and justice should be doled out accordingly. The punishment should fit the crime, and if the intent is more severe, more dangerous, than the punishment should respond according to that.
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JacobkoshGamble a stamp.I can show you how to be a real man!Moderatormod
Because the cross disturbs the peace of those around the house, as well as creates a higher chance of causing a fire and is a larger fire hazard.
Man, that's just ludicrous. The cross is a threat (eg, intimidation/assault) to multiple people, regardless of size.
Where has this perfect certainty you seek ever existed? What if we're all brains in the Matrix and nobody is responsible for their actions cause we're all programs? You don't know that's not the case, but you feel comfortable using what amounts to solipsism to weigh in on questions of fairness.
I'm sure he understands the legal distinction. I think Johannen is arguing that killing someone accidentally and planning and executing a murder should garner the same punishment.
I'm not entirely sure I disagree, either.
Like, if I steal bread because I'm starving or I steal bread because I wanted to sell it for five dollars so I could buy crack...well, the crime is unchanged. The motivation isn't the crime, stealing the bread is the crime.
There's more to a legal 'crime' than whether or not you physically break the law, though. The consideration of mitigating and aggravating factors; the defendant's attitude to the case - remorse or intransigence - all of this is a much a part of the law as "A did B y/n". And I think a legal system / society that takes into account to what ends a law was broken in a particular case is much healthier and more humane than one that doesn't.
Would you really dole out the same punishment to the two bread-stealers in that case?
Yes, I really would. I know that there's more to a legal "crime" - your paragraph, basically - and I frankly think it's a flaw in our concept of punishment/legislation. A crime is a crime. The motivation is completely irrelevant. The reason you punish a thief is because his action deprived someone of something they own. His thoughts and his motive are completely irrelevant in my opinion.
Accidentally killing someone is a gray area, I guess. But ultimately the end result is the same for stealing and killing whatever the circumstances may be: you're depriving someone of a product they own. Or you're depriving them of their life. Unless an act of God caused you to snuff someone out - like you fell out of a building and landed on someone due to an earthquake - then I personally think the punishment should be the same. The end is the same and so the means don't really matter. There's little difference, in my opinion, between manslaughter and murder except in the drama that leads up to the end result.
Because the cross disturbs the peace of those around the house, as well as creates a higher chance of causing a fire and is a larger fire hazard.
Man, that's just ludicrous. The cross is a threat (eg, intimidation/assault) to multiple people, regardless of size.
Where has this perfect certainty you seek ever existed? What if we're all brains in the Matrix and nobody is responsible for their actions cause we're all programs? You don't know that's not the case, but you feel comfortable using what amounts to solipsism to weigh in on questions of fairness.
What if the cross is as big as the house? Will the fire not be larger? Will the threat from the fire not be larger? The shape of it shouldn't mean anything, lighting an object on fire you will always be punished worse the larger it is and the larger the threat from fire that it causes.
What perfect certainty are you talking about also?
The matrix bit is just silly and I actually can't see where the solipism has come from in my arguement. It's not a me being a dick thing I just actually can't see it, i'll fully try to explain it if it's shown to me.
Also, in the matrix they weren't computer programmes, they were real people who were working within a linked network. They still made decisions that had rammifications and they were still all responsible for those decisions.
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JacobkoshGamble a stamp.I can show you how to be a real man!Moderatormod
Accidentally killing someone is a gray area, I guess. But ultimately the end result is the same for stealing and killing whatever the circumstances may be: you're depriving someone of a product they own. Or you're depriving them of their life. Unless an act of God caused you to snuff someone out - like you fell out of a building and landed on someone due to an earthquake - then I personally think the punishment should be the same. The end is the same and so the means don't really matter.
What possible benefit would one-size-fits-all justice have for anyone? Anyone ever?
Here's one for Johannen: If a driver gets tanked up on whisky and accidentally runs your mum over at a zebra crossing and speeds off laughing, do you want them to go for jail longer than the driver who looks down at their map for a moment and runs her over, stops and gets out of the car to cry and cradle her dying body before ringing the police.
This is what it comes down to.
The one persons a drunk driver and the other isn't. That wasn't hard, next.
Congratulations, you've finally grasped the concept of an aggravating factor.
*Removed this bit 'cos Cat just said no more of it*
Being drunk isn't a motivation for killing someone. The fact that you got in your car drunk is illegal in its self and killing someone because of it is worse because you are not in a state fit to drive in the first place.
The second person would be done for manslaughter or murder for what he did but he wouldn't get the add on of driving under the influence.
Okay, so you don't agree with Drez anymore about the whole a crime is a crime is a crime thing.
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JacobkoshGamble a stamp.I can show you how to be a real man!Moderatormod
The shape of it shouldn't mean anything, lighting an object on fire you will always be punished worse the larger it is and the larger the threat from fire that it causes.
I was talking about "threat" as in - it's a threat. "We're gonna git you." That's called assault, and it's illegal. The flaming bag of dog poop is not a threat, unless it has like a threatening note attached to it or something. In which case if it did - hey presto! - it would be upgraded in seriousness.
The matrix bit is just silly and I actually can't see where the solipism has come from in my arguement. It's not a me being a dick thing I just actually can't see it, i'll fully try to explain it if it's shown to me.
"We can't know this, we can't know that," all information is flawed and imperfect, etc. It's just...it's useless philosophical noodling. If we tried to live our lives worrying about this nothing would ever get done, ever.
I'm going to throw this one out there, as it's a real example.
My father has killed a man before. He broke into our house one night when I was really young, pulled a gun on my dad when he came to see what the noise was and shot at wildly in a panic. My father, being an ex-SEAL, brought his 9mm with him to check on the noise and shot the mother fucker in the heart.
A man is dead, my father killed him. Should he be tried with murder?
If you'd have read my posts from before you'd see that self-defence is an area where the crime is different. It's a break in what you probably think is some infallible rule i'm trying to make but it's not. Go back to the posts where I talk about beating kids and women.
Self-defense is a motivation. That's the point. Motivation can change the nature of a crime, and justice should be doled out accordingly. The punishment should fit the crime, and if the intent is more severe, more dangerous, than the punishment should respond according to that.
You don't actually get punished if you do it in protection of somebody else do you?
And in that situation it's on your property and the fact that they were a stranger breaking in would be the evidence that says your life was in danger and so you could take neccessary action. I think there are greay areas but my opinion is that in situations such as 'a person beat b person' there should be no motivatory distinction. Unless it was in the protection of others or yourself.
It's a slippery slope and I have no way of actually policing things that way, but it's an opinion.t
Accidentally killing someone is a gray area, I guess. But ultimately the end result is the same for stealing and killing whatever the circumstances may be: you're depriving someone of a product they own. Or you're depriving them of their life. Unless an act of God caused you to snuff someone out - like you fell out of a building and landed on someone due to an earthquake - then I personally think the punishment should be the same. The end is the same and so the means don't really matter.
What possible benefit would one-size-fits-all justice have for anyone? Anyone ever?
Hypothetically? The starving might be less inclined to steal bread. The people that own bread would potentially be more protected from those who are starving.
While that sounds cruel, that's how I see it. I don't think the starving have any right to anyone else's bread just because they are starving. By modifying the punishment based on circumstance you are essentially making that distinction. "Well, we'll punish you if you're a crackwhore, but if you're just some homeless beggar, we understand. We'll forgive you."
Accidentally killing someone is a gray area, I guess. But ultimately the end result is the same for stealing and killing whatever the circumstances may be: you're depriving someone of a product they own. Or you're depriving them of their life. Unless an act of God caused you to snuff someone out - like you fell out of a building and landed on someone due to an earthquake - then I personally think the punishment should be the same. The end is the same and so the means don't really matter.
What possible benefit would one-size-fits-all justice have for anyone? Anyone ever?
It would increase prison times and populations. So I guess it would benefit the Corrections industry. I guess that'd be counter-balanced by all the people who might otherwise return to the "honest citizen" population being stuck in prison for longer amounts of time and therefore unable to contribute much to society.
This whole discussion is moot. Aggravating and mitigating circumstances are a cornerstone of virtually every Judicial system in human history and a virtually immutable quality of our current one. If a handful of people want one-size-fits-all-"justice", more power to them. They can go to the same conventions as Breatharians and Libertarians. Call it the "We really don't like something that will never, ever change! Sucks to be us!" society.
But you don't get forgiven if you were starving; you still get convicted of the crime. It's just the punishment meted out by the judge that will be different.
I for one would like the law to discriminate - the sense of the word of "choose between".
The shape of it shouldn't mean anything, lighting an object on fire you will always be punished worse the larger it is and the larger the threat from fire that it causes.
I was talking about "threat" as in - it's a threat. "We're gonna git you." That's called assault, and it's illegal. The flaming bag of dog poop is not a threat, unless it has like a threatening note attached to it or something. In which case if it did - hey presto! - it would be upgraded in seriousness.
You're burning something on someone else's property, it's not assault it's arsen.
Also, are you allowed to call someone a prick? Or a cunt? A cross on fire means something bad to people but in law it should just be an object on fire.
The matrix bit is just silly and I actually can't see where the solipism has come from in my arguement. It's not a me being a dick thing I just actually can't see it, i'll fully try to explain it if it's shown to me.
"We can't know this, we can't know that," all information is flawed and imperfect, etc. It's just...it's useless philosophical noodling. If we tried to live our lives worrying about this nothing would ever get done, ever.
But we know that the murder/robbery/rape actually happened, we just don't knoiw why it happened. I'm not saying worry about it i'm saying that it shouldn't be given thought in the sentencing.
What you're describing is motivational consideration. What it person A beat up person B in a fight in which they were both engaged and swinging? What if person A maliciously beat a helpless person B?
Hell, taking it your way, person B in the second example could also be convincted of a crime, because they were involved in a fight.
Seriously, you haven't thought about your position at all, and it shows. Motivation is absolutely vital in determining a fitting punishment for a crime, because that's how our legal system considers crime. This isn't Paranoia, Friend Computer doesn't dole out judgment, human beings do things for different reasons which need to be considered in the event of a criminal proceeding. It's why we have the fucking insanity plea.
Accidentally killing someone is a gray area, I guess. But ultimately the end result is the same for stealing and killing whatever the circumstances may be: you're depriving someone of a product they own. Or you're depriving them of their life. Unless an act of God caused you to snuff someone out - like you fell out of a building and landed on someone due to an earthquake - then I personally think the punishment should be the same. The end is the same and so the means don't really matter.
What possible benefit would one-size-fits-all justice have for anyone? Anyone ever?
It would increase prison times and populations. So I guess it would benefit the Corrections industry. I guess that'd be counter-balanced by all the people who might otherwise return to the "honest citizen" population being stuck in prison for longer amounts of time and therefore unable to contribute much to society.
This whole discussion is moot. Aggravating and mitigating circumstances are a cornerstone of virtually every Judicial system in human history and a virtually immutable quality of our current one. If a handful of people want one-size-fits-all-"justice", more power to them. They can go to the same conventions as Breatharians and Libertarians. Call it the "We really don't like something that will never, ever change! Sucks to be us!" society.
Or I'll just talk about it here. Does that work for you? I don't really care if it does or doesn't, mind you, so you can think of that as a rhetorical question.
Also, thinks DO change. America could very well be a communist nation in 50 years, either through purely internal stimuli, purely external stimuli, or both. Nothing is immutable, least of all the legislative and political makeup of a nation.
But we know that the murder/robbery/rape actually happened, we just don't knoiw why it happened. I'm not saying worry about it i'm saying that it shouldn't be given thought in the sentencing.
There are a huge amount of trials where we know the crime happened, but we don't know who did it. That's what the court meets to decide. If it can be relied upon to manage that - which is far more important than the motive - then why can't it be trusted to discern motive as well?
So what if I speak in hyperbole. Doesn't change the fact that being a racist is one of the worst things you can be in America. If you go around being racist people will hate you. Go into any bar, classroom, national TV or whatever and proclaim "I hate you dirty n******, j***, c*****, f*****, c****, s****, k*****, g****..." and watch your reputation go down the shitter. Maybe even get your ass kicked. You can never live it down. It's life in social prison. Where your fellow inmates are other racists.
good?
Oh, it can always get worse. Free speech has limitations (in casket's example, it goes against common sense) but isn't there a slippery slope? First we discourage prejudice, then we hate racism, then we outlaw racism, then we go one step more?
I don't think you can outlaw on -ism. I mean, you can ban the public advocacy of an -ism(such as is done with Nazism in Germany), and prevent an -ism's practioners from bringing actual harm to other human beings, but at the end of the day, people will still believe whatever they wish, whether it's in a jail cell or quietly in the privacy of their own home.
But we know that the murder/robbery/rape actually happened, we just don't knoiw why it happened. I'm not saying worry about it i'm saying that it shouldn't be given thought in the sentencing.
We can extrapolate why it happened based on the evidence surround the case. What part of this don't you get? The same evidence that shows us that a crime occured can tell us why a crime occurred. Watch CSI or Law and Order or something, Jesus.
What you're describing is motivational consideration. What it person A beat up person B in a fight in which they were both engaged and swinging? What if person A maliciously beat a helpless person B?
Hell, taking it your way, person B in the second example could also be convincted of a crime, because they were involved in a fight.
Seriously, you haven't thought about your position at all, and it shows. Motivation is absolutely vital in determining a fitting punishment for a crime, because that's how our legal system considers crime. This isn't Paranoia, Friend Computer doesn't dole out judgment, human beings do things for different reasons which need to be considered in the event of a criminal proceeding. It's why we have the fucking insanity plea.
If two people are in a fight and one maliciously beats another then it's GBH and you know this. Don't make examples of things in ways that i'm not presenting them.
What you're describing is motivational consideration. What it person A beat up person B in a fight in which they were both engaged and swinging? What if person A maliciously beat a helpless person B?
Hell, taking it your way, person B in the second example could also be convincted of a crime, because they were involved in a fight.
Seriously, you haven't thought about your position at all, and it shows. Motivation is absolutely vital in determining a fitting punishment for a crime, because that's how our legal system considers crime. This isn't Paranoia, Friend Computer doesn't dole out judgment, human beings do things for different reasons which need to be considered in the event of a criminal proceeding. It's why we have the fucking insanity plea.
People - like me - are arguing that the way our legal system considers crime is flawed. So saying "we HAVE to because that's how our legal system WORKS" is a little daft.
But we know that the murder/robbery/rape actually happened, we just don't knoiw why it happened. I'm not saying worry about it i'm saying that it shouldn't be given thought in the sentencing.
We can extrapolate why it happened based on the evidence surround the case. What part of this don't you get? The same evidence that shows us that a crime occured can tell us why a crime occurred. Watch CSI or Law and Order or something, Jesus.
1. that extrapolation isn't always accurate, read prior posts.
2. ... don't... just don't o.k?! "watch CSI or Law and Order", you fucking kidding me?!
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JacobkoshGamble a stamp.I can show you how to be a real man!Moderatormod
You're burning something on someone else's property, it's not assault it's arsen.
Actually, if it's meant to send the message that harm may be done to the people in the house, it's both. Seriously, it's like you're trying to design the legal system for an Atari game or something. We handle complexity all the time in our lives. You can't just handwave it away.
Also, are you allowed to call someone a prick? Or a cunt?
I don't know, that's a question for the lawyers here. I imagine technically you can't - people do get prosecuted for verbal assault all the time.
A cross on fire means something bad to people but in law it should just be an object on fire.
Why can't the law reflect the world as it actually is?
But we know that the murder/robbery/rape actually happened, we just don't knoiw why it happened. I'm not saying worry about it i'm saying that it shouldn't be given thought in the sentencing.
As I said before, in real life, when someone's actually prosecuted for a hate crime, we have a very good idea what the motive was. Otherwise it wouldn't be brought up.
As to the original post, or at least the thread topic: every rule has an exception. If you live and die by extremes only, you'll live a pointless, unhappy life.
But we know that the murder/robbery/rape actually happened, we just don't knoiw why it happened. I'm not saying worry about it i'm saying that it shouldn't be given thought in the sentencing.
There are a huge amount of trials where we know the crime happened, but we don't know who did it. That's what the court meets to decide. If it can be relied upon to manage that - which is far more important than the motive - then why can't it be trusted to discern motive as well?
Because the motive is within the mind of the one who did it. A crime can be viewed by others or evidence can be taken which directly links the one who did it and the motive then comes in to play to ensure the right one is caught, but that doesn't mean that motive should change the duration of the sentence.
Accidentally killing someone is a gray area, I guess. But ultimately the end result is the same for stealing and killing whatever the circumstances may be: you're depriving someone of a product they own. Or you're depriving them of their life. Unless an act of God caused you to snuff someone out - like you fell out of a building and landed on someone due to an earthquake - then I personally think the punishment should be the same. The end is the same and so the means don't really matter.
What possible benefit would one-size-fits-all justice have for anyone? Anyone ever?
Hypothetically? The starving might be less inclined to steal bread. The people that own bread would potentially be more protected from those who are starving.
While that sounds cruel, that's how I see it. I don't think the starving have any right to anyone else's bread just because they are starving.
The starving wouldn't be less inclined to steal bread. When the options are death or committing a minor crime, the vast majority of people will commit the crime unless the punishment is draconian. We don't give the starving the right to anyone else's bread just because they are starving. The motivation for the theft will just be considered in the punishment. It happens all the time for good reasons in a lot of cases.
Also, are you allowed to call someone a prick? Or a cunt? A cross on fire means something bad to people but in law it should just be an object on fire.
So if I put a horse's head in your bed, it isn't a threat?
I call for equal treatment of people under the law. The law has no place saying how many of what race, sex, or sexual orientation you have to hire.
Let the best candidate man or women have the job.
These views make me an intolerant racist apparently, so please feel free not to tolerate me.
The reason for those kinds of programs (affirmative action, etc) is to redress an imbalance in the wider society and make up for past intolerance.
The goal is redemptive, in that it would adjust employment and other economic factors to match the population, rather than having them disproportionately going to an influential part of that population.
The "incompetent black guy gets the competent white guy's job" is one o' them myths, propagated to distort an issue. What really happens far, far more often is the either reverse- a white (man) with fewer qualifications than a competing prospective minority employee gets a boost due to the whiteness, or an equally qualified white man will get the nod due to the advantage of being white. This is a sad fact of our society.
The goal of things like Affirmative Action is to eliminate that advantage, which comes only as a legacy of racial politics and social dynamics. If it's allowed to work, it will one day make itself obsolete and the country will be better off for it. Until that time, a white guy still has (on average) advantages denied other minorities, so I'm not inclined to be sympathetic to their imaginary, exaggerated, "plight."
But we know that the murder/robbery/rape actually happened, we just don't knoiw why it happened. I'm not saying worry about it i'm saying that it shouldn't be given thought in the sentencing.
We can extrapolate why it happened based on the evidence surround the case. What part of this don't you get? The same evidence that shows us that a crime occured can tell us why a crime occurred. Watch CSI or Law and Order or something, Jesus.
1. that extrapolation isn't always accurate, read prior posts.
As someone else already pointed out, if we followed your advocations, ever single criminal in jail would be freed. You simply cannot use this "nothing can be totally proven" to support a side in this debate.
It's even more disingenuous of you when the majority of hate crimes are prosecuted successfully because the criminals were fucking yelling "die you Paki scum" or the like at the time.
You're burning something on someone else's property, it's not assault it's arsen.
Actually, if it's meant to send the message that harm may be done to the people in the house, it's both. Seriously, it's like you're trying to design the legal system for an Atari game or something. We handle complexity all the time in our lives. You can't just handwave it away.
Also, are you allowed to call someone a prick? Or a cunt?
I don't know, that's a question for the lawyers here. I imagine technically you can't - people do get prosecuted for verbal assault all the time.
A cross on fire means something bad to people but in law it should just be an object on fire.
Why can't the law reflect the world as it actually is?
But we know that the murder/robbery/rape actually happened, we just don't knoiw why it happened. I'm not saying worry about it i'm saying that it shouldn't be given thought in the sentencing.
As I said before, in real life, when someone's actually prosecuted for a hate crime, we have a very good idea what the motive was. Otherwise it wouldn't be brought up.
Well, because the law shouldn't be an emotional weapon maybe? Law should only reflect the world in doing what it needs to to keep the highest level of quality of life.
Also, can we stop arguing over the semantics of the system when I made a point and afterwards said that I don't actually know how you can enforce this way of doing things but in my opinion we should find a way to?
But we know that the murder/robbery/rape actually happened, we just don't knoiw why it happened. I'm not saying worry about it i'm saying that it shouldn't be given thought in the sentencing.
We can extrapolate why it happened based on the evidence surround the case. What part of this don't you get? The same evidence that shows us that a crime occured can tell us why a crime occurred. Watch CSI or Law and Order or something, Jesus.
1. that extrapolation isn't always accurate, read prior posts.
As someone else already pointed out, if we followed your advocations, ever single criminal in jail would be freed. You simply cannot use this "nothing can be totally proven" to support a side in thsi debate.
It's even more disingenuous when the majority of hate crimes are prosecuted successfully because the criminals were fucking yelling "die you Paki scum" at the time.
Did you read what I put after he wonderhippy put that down?
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JacobkoshGamble a stamp.I can show you how to be a real man!Moderatormod
Well, because the law shouldn't be an emotional weapon maybe? Law should only reflect the world in doing what it needs to to keep the highest level of quality of life.
Why doesn't the highest quality of life involve people using their own judgment to make sense of complex situations? It's like, faced with the complexity of the world, you want to retreat to an algorithm. But nothing worth doing works like that.
But we know that the murder/robbery/rape actually happened, we just don't knoiw why it happened. I'm not saying worry about it i'm saying that it shouldn't be given thought in the sentencing.
There are a huge amount of trials where we know the crime happened, but we don't know who did it. That's what the court meets to decide. If it can be relied upon to manage that - which is far more important than the motive - then why can't it be trusted to discern motive as well?
Because the motive is within the mind of the one who did it. A crime can be viewed by others or evidence can be taken which directly links the one who did it and the motive then comes in to play to ensure the right one is caught, but that doesn't mean that motive should change the duration of the sentence.
You're under this weird impression of how motives are discerned in trials. It's not a case of the prosecution going "he killed a black guy; he did it because he's a racist!" and the judge agreeing. These things have to be proved beyond all reasonable doubt this is the legal system god.Evidence of the accused's motives can be brought forward - things they said; other people they've beaten up.
Accidentally killing someone is a gray area, I guess. But ultimately the end result is the same for stealing and killing whatever the circumstances may be: you're depriving someone of a product they own. Or you're depriving them of their life. Unless an act of God caused you to snuff someone out - like you fell out of a building and landed on someone due to an earthquake - then I personally think the punishment should be the same. The end is the same and so the means don't really matter.
What possible benefit would one-size-fits-all justice have for anyone? Anyone ever?
Hypothetically? The starving might be less inclined to steal bread. The people that own bread would potentially be more protected from those who are starving.
While that sounds cruel, that's how I see it. I don't think the starving have any right to anyone else's bread just because they are starving.
The starving wouldn't be less inclined to steal bread. When the options are death or committing a minor crime, the vast majority of people will commit the crime unless the punishment is draconian. We don't give the starving the right to anyone else's bread just because they are starving. The motivation for the theft will just be considered in the punishment. It happens all the time for good reasons in a lot of cases.
I said "potentially."
And if punishment isn't meant to be a deterrent and it hasn't really been effectively shown to rehabilitate people, why punish anyone, ever? I mean, what's the point?
You may very well be right that a starving person might still steal food to survive. It doesn't mean he shouldn't be punished as much for that crime as anyone doing it for a different - say, a capitalistic - reason.
Well, because the law shouldn't be an emotional weapon maybe? Law should only reflect the world in doing what it needs to to keep the highest level of quality of life.
Hate crime laws do that by discouraging race based crimes. Not getting assaulted for being black/white/etc. really helps keep a good quality of life.
As someone else already pointed out, if we followed your advocations, ever single criminal in jail would be freed. You simply cannot use this "nothing can be totally proven" to support a side in this debate.
We don't even use that for any crimes. It is proven beyond a "reasonable doubt". That doesn't mean it is impossible for the people convicted to be innocent.
Look, it's pretty simple. Motive matters. Mostly in adjudicating the most appropriate punishment.
A man who kills in the heat of an extraordinary moment not likely to occur again, makes a real effort to develop greater self-control and displays genuine remorse can be reasonably trusted to re-integrate into society and not commit the same crime again. That's why there are mitigating factors- so we don't send someone to life in prison when we do not absolutely have to.
On the other hand, a man who kills for the sheer joy of killing is too dangerous to be allowed back into society. He's likely to repeat, he makes no movement towards atonement or redemption, and he's effectively declared his unwillingness to abide by collective morality.
Why on Earth should their punishments be the same? If I deliberately murder a rival for my personal benefit, knowing full well it is wrong, that is a different case than if I murder a man in a rage after discovering him in the same bed as my wife.
In the first case, the premeditation declares the murderer knowingly and consciously rejected his obligations towards society.
In the second case, the temporary passion of the situation indicates that the murderer may be otherwise entirely willing to act ethically- they just lost control, which is something that happens to the human animal.
Appropriate punishment for one is not appropriate punishment for another.
But we know that the murder/robbery/rape actually happened, we just don't knoiw why it happened. I'm not saying worry about it i'm saying that it shouldn't be given thought in the sentencing.
There are a huge amount of trials where we know the crime happened, but we don't know who did it. That's what the court meets to decide. If it can be relied upon to manage that - which is far more important than the motive - then why can't it be trusted to discern motive as well?
Because the motive is within the mind of the one who did it. A crime can be viewed by others or evidence can be taken which directly links the one who did it and the motive then comes in to play to ensure the right one is caught, but that doesn't mean that motive should change the duration of the sentence.
You're under this weird impression of how motives are discerned in trials. It's not a case of the prosecution going "he killed a black guy; he did it because he's a racist!" and the judge agreeing. These things have to be proved beyond all reasonable doubt this is the legal system god.Evidence of the accused's motives can be brought forward - things they said; other people they've beaten up.
Oh crap.
I know all this by the way and my opinion still stands and I think there's a big difference in the trial of the crime and the trial of the motive.
And if punishment isn't meant to be a deterrent and it hasn't really been effectively shown to rehabilitate people, why punish anyone, ever? I mean, what's the point?
Punishment has its place, but it's not the be-all and the end-all of the law.
Posts
If you'd have read my posts from before you'd see that self-defence is an area where the crime is different. It's a break in what you probably think is some infallible rule i'm trying to make but it's not. Go back to the posts where I talk about beating kids and women.
Congratulations, you've finally grasped the concept of an aggravating factor.
*Removed this bit 'cos Cat just said no more of it*
Being drunk isn't a motivation for killing someone. The fact that you got in your car drunk is illegal in its self and killing someone because of it is worse because you are not in a state fit to drive in the first place.
The second person would be done for manslaughter or murder for what he did but he wouldn't get the add on of driving under the influence.
Self-defense is a motivation. That's the point. Motivation can change the nature of a crime, and justice should be doled out accordingly. The punishment should fit the crime, and if the intent is more severe, more dangerous, than the punishment should respond according to that.
Man, that's just ludicrous. The cross is a threat (eg, intimidation/assault) to multiple people, regardless of size.
Where has this perfect certainty you seek ever existed? What if we're all brains in the Matrix and nobody is responsible for their actions cause we're all programs? You don't know that's not the case, but you feel comfortable using what amounts to solipsism to weigh in on questions of fairness.
Yes, I really would. I know that there's more to a legal "crime" - your paragraph, basically - and I frankly think it's a flaw in our concept of punishment/legislation. A crime is a crime. The motivation is completely irrelevant. The reason you punish a thief is because his action deprived someone of something they own. His thoughts and his motive are completely irrelevant in my opinion.
Accidentally killing someone is a gray area, I guess. But ultimately the end result is the same for stealing and killing whatever the circumstances may be: you're depriving someone of a product they own. Or you're depriving them of their life. Unless an act of God caused you to snuff someone out - like you fell out of a building and landed on someone due to an earthquake - then I personally think the punishment should be the same. The end is the same and so the means don't really matter. There's little difference, in my opinion, between manslaughter and murder except in the drama that leads up to the end result.
What if the cross is as big as the house? Will the fire not be larger? Will the threat from the fire not be larger? The shape of it shouldn't mean anything, lighting an object on fire you will always be punished worse the larger it is and the larger the threat from fire that it causes.
What perfect certainty are you talking about also?
The matrix bit is just silly and I actually can't see where the solipism has come from in my arguement. It's not a me being a dick thing I just actually can't see it, i'll fully try to explain it if it's shown to me.
Also, in the matrix they weren't computer programmes, they were real people who were working within a linked network. They still made decisions that had rammifications and they were still all responsible for those decisions.
What possible benefit would one-size-fits-all justice have for anyone? Anyone ever?
Okay, so you don't agree with Drez anymore about the whole a crime is a crime is a crime thing.
I was talking about "threat" as in - it's a threat. "We're gonna git you." That's called assault, and it's illegal. The flaming bag of dog poop is not a threat, unless it has like a threatening note attached to it or something. In which case if it did - hey presto! - it would be upgraded in seriousness.
"We can't know this, we can't know that," all information is flawed and imperfect, etc. It's just...it's useless philosophical noodling. If we tried to live our lives worrying about this nothing would ever get done, ever.
You don't actually get punished if you do it in protection of somebody else do you?
And in that situation it's on your property and the fact that they were a stranger breaking in would be the evidence that says your life was in danger and so you could take neccessary action. I think there are greay areas but my opinion is that in situations such as 'a person beat b person' there should be no motivatory distinction. Unless it was in the protection of others or yourself.
It's a slippery slope and I have no way of actually policing things that way, but it's an opinion.t
Hypothetically? The starving might be less inclined to steal bread. The people that own bread would potentially be more protected from those who are starving.
While that sounds cruel, that's how I see it. I don't think the starving have any right to anyone else's bread just because they are starving. By modifying the punishment based on circumstance you are essentially making that distinction. "Well, we'll punish you if you're a crackwhore, but if you're just some homeless beggar, we understand. We'll forgive you."
It's also kind of discriminatory, in that light.
It would increase prison times and populations. So I guess it would benefit the Corrections industry. I guess that'd be counter-balanced by all the people who might otherwise return to the "honest citizen" population being stuck in prison for longer amounts of time and therefore unable to contribute much to society.
This whole discussion is moot. Aggravating and mitigating circumstances are a cornerstone of virtually every Judicial system in human history and a virtually immutable quality of our current one. If a handful of people want one-size-fits-all-"justice", more power to them. They can go to the same conventions as Breatharians and Libertarians. Call it the "We really don't like something that will never, ever change! Sucks to be us!" society.
I for one would like the law to discriminate - the sense of the word of "choose between".
You're burning something on someone else's property, it's not assault it's arsen.
Also, are you allowed to call someone a prick? Or a cunt? A cross on fire means something bad to people but in law it should just be an object on fire.
But we know that the murder/robbery/rape actually happened, we just don't knoiw why it happened. I'm not saying worry about it i'm saying that it shouldn't be given thought in the sentencing.
What you're describing is motivational consideration. What it person A beat up person B in a fight in which they were both engaged and swinging? What if person A maliciously beat a helpless person B?
Hell, taking it your way, person B in the second example could also be convincted of a crime, because they were involved in a fight.
Seriously, you haven't thought about your position at all, and it shows. Motivation is absolutely vital in determining a fitting punishment for a crime, because that's how our legal system considers crime. This isn't Paranoia, Friend Computer doesn't dole out judgment, human beings do things for different reasons which need to be considered in the event of a criminal proceeding. It's why we have the fucking insanity plea.
Let the best candidate man or women have the job.
These views make me an intolerant racist apparently, so please feel free not to tolerate me.
Or I'll just talk about it here. Does that work for you? I don't really care if it does or doesn't, mind you, so you can think of that as a rhetorical question.
Also, thinks DO change. America could very well be a communist nation in 50 years, either through purely internal stimuli, purely external stimuli, or both. Nothing is immutable, least of all the legislative and political makeup of a nation.
There are a huge amount of trials where we know the crime happened, but we don't know who did it. That's what the court meets to decide. If it can be relied upon to manage that - which is far more important than the motive - then why can't it be trusted to discern motive as well?
I don't think you can outlaw on -ism. I mean, you can ban the public advocacy of an -ism(such as is done with Nazism in Germany), and prevent an -ism's practioners from bringing actual harm to other human beings, but at the end of the day, people will still believe whatever they wish, whether it's in a jail cell or quietly in the privacy of their own home.
We can extrapolate why it happened based on the evidence surround the case. What part of this don't you get? The same evidence that shows us that a crime occured can tell us why a crime occurred. Watch CSI or Law and Order or something, Jesus.
If two people are in a fight and one maliciously beats another then it's GBH and you know this. Don't make examples of things in ways that i'm not presenting them.
People - like me - are arguing that the way our legal system considers crime is flawed. So saying "we HAVE to because that's how our legal system WORKS" is a little daft.
1. that extrapolation isn't always accurate, read prior posts.
2. ... don't... just don't o.k?! "watch CSI or Law and Order", you fucking kidding me?!
Actually, if it's meant to send the message that harm may be done to the people in the house, it's both. Seriously, it's like you're trying to design the legal system for an Atari game or something. We handle complexity all the time in our lives. You can't just handwave it away.
I don't know, that's a question for the lawyers here. I imagine technically you can't - people do get prosecuted for verbal assault all the time.
Why can't the law reflect the world as it actually is?
As I said before, in real life, when someone's actually prosecuted for a hate crime, we have a very good idea what the motive was. Otherwise it wouldn't be brought up.
Because the motive is within the mind of the one who did it. A crime can be viewed by others or evidence can be taken which directly links the one who did it and the motive then comes in to play to ensure the right one is caught, but that doesn't mean that motive should change the duration of the sentence.
The starving wouldn't be less inclined to steal bread. When the options are death or committing a minor crime, the vast majority of people will commit the crime unless the punishment is draconian. We don't give the starving the right to anyone else's bread just because they are starving. The motivation for the theft will just be considered in the punishment. It happens all the time for good reasons in a lot of cases.
So if I put a horse's head in your bed, it isn't a threat?
The reason for those kinds of programs (affirmative action, etc) is to redress an imbalance in the wider society and make up for past intolerance.
The goal is redemptive, in that it would adjust employment and other economic factors to match the population, rather than having them disproportionately going to an influential part of that population.
The "incompetent black guy gets the competent white guy's job" is one o' them myths, propagated to distort an issue. What really happens far, far more often is the either reverse- a white (man) with fewer qualifications than a competing prospective minority employee gets a boost due to the whiteness, or an equally qualified white man will get the nod due to the advantage of being white. This is a sad fact of our society.
The goal of things like Affirmative Action is to eliminate that advantage, which comes only as a legacy of racial politics and social dynamics. If it's allowed to work, it will one day make itself obsolete and the country will be better off for it. Until that time, a white guy still has (on average) advantages denied other minorities, so I'm not inclined to be sympathetic to their imaginary, exaggerated, "plight."
As someone else already pointed out, if we followed your advocations, ever single criminal in jail would be freed. You simply cannot use this "nothing can be totally proven" to support a side in this debate.
It's even more disingenuous of you when the majority of hate crimes are prosecuted successfully because the criminals were fucking yelling "die you Paki scum" or the like at the time.
Well, because the law shouldn't be an emotional weapon maybe? Law should only reflect the world in doing what it needs to to keep the highest level of quality of life.
Also, can we stop arguing over the semantics of the system when I made a point and afterwards said that I don't actually know how you can enforce this way of doing things but in my opinion we should find a way to?
Did you read what I put after he wonderhippy put that down?
Why doesn't the highest quality of life involve people using their own judgment to make sense of complex situations? It's like, faced with the complexity of the world, you want to retreat to an algorithm. But nothing worth doing works like that.
You're under this weird impression of how motives are discerned in trials. It's not a case of the prosecution going "he killed a black guy; he did it because he's a racist!" and the judge agreeing. These things have to be proved beyond all reasonable doubt this is the legal system god. Evidence of the accused's motives can be brought forward - things they said; other people they've beaten up.
I said "potentially."
And if punishment isn't meant to be a deterrent and it hasn't really been effectively shown to rehabilitate people, why punish anyone, ever? I mean, what's the point?
You may very well be right that a starving person might still steal food to survive. It doesn't mean he shouldn't be punished as much for that crime as anyone doing it for a different - say, a capitalistic - reason.
We don't even use that for any crimes. It is proven beyond a "reasonable doubt". That doesn't mean it is impossible for the people convicted to be innocent.
A man who kills in the heat of an extraordinary moment not likely to occur again, makes a real effort to develop greater self-control and displays genuine remorse can be reasonably trusted to re-integrate into society and not commit the same crime again. That's why there are mitigating factors- so we don't send someone to life in prison when we do not absolutely have to.
On the other hand, a man who kills for the sheer joy of killing is too dangerous to be allowed back into society. He's likely to repeat, he makes no movement towards atonement or redemption, and he's effectively declared his unwillingness to abide by collective morality.
Why on Earth should their punishments be the same? If I deliberately murder a rival for my personal benefit, knowing full well it is wrong, that is a different case than if I murder a man in a rage after discovering him in the same bed as my wife.
In the first case, the premeditation declares the murderer knowingly and consciously rejected his obligations towards society.
In the second case, the temporary passion of the situation indicates that the murderer may be otherwise entirely willing to act ethically- they just lost control, which is something that happens to the human animal.
Appropriate punishment for one is not appropriate punishment for another.
Oh crap.
I know all this by the way and my opinion still stands and I think there's a big difference in the trial of the crime and the trial of the motive.
Punishment has its place, but it's not the be-all and the end-all of the law.