Society

[Wolf]

Lack of responsibility for one's actions is a major contributor, IMO - responsibility and discipline is something Juliet and I are working on instilling in our children, teaching them that actions have consequences. 3-year-old poured the milk down the toilet - a whole 2 litre bottle, quess who got to watch the 2-year-old drink a milkshake while he had only a cordial. He also broke his brother's toy car so I made him give his brother his own toy car as a replacement.

The media has a lot to answer for, sure, portraying images of violence and bombarding people with "buy, buy, buy, get a better this or bigger that", but ultimately, it is the people's own individual choices to buy into that crap and develop a "me want, me take - by whatever means necessary" attitude.

The messages they get from society - reflected in our laws - are that people are prepared to turn a blind eye - "all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing" (Edmund Burke) - of course, these days the law punishes the "good man" for acting to stop a crime, so there's a disincentive to act anyway.

Political Correctness has banged more than a few nails into the coffin as well - it is not PC to put people who cannot look after themselves into hospital wards, so they're put out into the community with even less funding to ensure they get the care they need and we have real-world examples of Pratchett's Foul Ol' Ron shuffling around the streets, digging in rubbish bins and muttering "Millenium Hand and Shrimp" or grubbing cigarette butts off the footpath. Also PC states that the criminal is the victim - a poor disadvantaged person from a broken home, beaten by uncaring parents who cannot help the way (s)he is.

Well, here's some news: I'm from a broken home - not broken early enough by my reckonning as I had to endure more years of beatings than I would have, had my parents split up sooner. We were pretty poor - we had food, but bugger-all else. Perhaps I should be out stealing from people and taking what I want - using violence if those horrible well-off bastards won't give it to me. Perhaps I should do that instead of working for a living. And maybe I should beat my kids and belittle them, tell them they are worthless and won't amount to nuthin' - because I "don't know any better". I can't help it after all, I'm not responsible for my actions - it's all my parents' fault...

I'm sure the PC brigade will fall overthemselves to uphold my "right" to be a rotten little prick.

Why don't I? Because I am responsible for my actions and the consequences thereof. I make my own choices in life.

Out of the night that covers me
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

-- Out of The Night That Covers Me (Invictus) - W.E. Henley (1849-1905)

[*sic]

I reckon I'd be OK with killing someone, should the necessity and opportunity arise. particularly if I didnt like them very much.

lies.

im sorry but its alot different to kill some pixels on a screen than to actually be in the situation where you have to do the deed.

even in the most dire of a situation it would mess you up emotionally for a very long time, indefinatley more likely.

ask any war vet who had to, when it was a choice "him or me" moment, yea some choose them, and now they all feel the pain.

idle chat about "yea i would totally be cool with smoking those fools" is ass im sorry.

[Big Dave]

A brave man that Noah. Going out in a wooden boat with two termites.

Fortunately he had the Echidnas and Anteaters too.

[yungatart]

Today we mourn the passing of a beloved old
friend, by the name of Common Sense, who has been
with us for many years. No one knows for sure how
old he was since his birth records were long ago
lost in bureaucratic red tape.

He will be remembered as having cultivated such
valued lessons as knowing when to come in out of
the rain, why the early bird gets the worm and
that life isn't always fair. Common Sense lived by
simple, sound financial policies (don't spend more
than you earn) and reliable parenting strategies
(adults, not kids, are in charge).

His health began to rapidly deteriorate when well
intentioned but overbearing regulations were set
in place. Reports of a six-year-old boy charged
with sexual harassment for kissing a classmate,
teens suspended from school for using mouthwash
after lunch, and a teacher fired for reprimanding
an unruly student only worsened his condition..

It declined even further when schools were
required to get parental consent to administer
aspirin to a student but could not inform the
parents when a student became pregnant and wanted
to have an abortion. Finally, Common sense lost
the will to live as the Ten Commandments became
contraband, churches became businesses and
criminals received better treatment than their
victims. Common Sense finally gave up the ghost
after athletes and CEOs salaries increased to
between 9 thousand and 90 thousand dollars per
HOUR, and woman failed to realize that a steaming
cup of coffee was hot, spilled it in her lap, and
was awarded a huge settlement for simply being
stupid.

Common Sense was preceded in death by his parents,
Truth and Trust, his wife, Discretion; his
daughter, Responsibility; and his son, Reason. He
is survived by two stepbrothers; My Rights and Ima
Whiner. Not many attended his funeral because so
few realized he was gone. If you remember him pass
this on, if not he will be forgotten.

[Lou Girardin]

I'm tending to agree with the increase in the 'self is all that matters' faction. But while that makes sense with property crime, it's a much longer stretch to killing.
On one hand I agree with capital punishment to remove those people. On the other, would state killing reinforce, for those same people, the idea that killing is of no matter.

[jrandom]

im sorry but its alot different to kill some pixels on a screen than to actually be in the situation where you have to do the deed.

you done it yourself then?

I speak as a result of genuine self-analysis. naturally it will be better if any question as to the accuracy thereof never needs to be answered.

ask any war vet who had to, when it was a choice "him or me" moment, yea some choose them, and now they all feel the pain.

pah. plenty did the job and didn't worry too much about it. they neither enjoyed it nor were tormented by it.

shall I start referring you to specific sources and quotes?

you present one side only.

however if you're talking from personal experience I will shut up out of respect. which is not something I do very often.

[ManDownUnder]

however if you're talking from personal experience I will shut up out of respect. which is not something I do very often.

Sarge - your thoughts?

[Wolf]

On the other, would state killing reinforce, for those same people, the idea that killing is of no matter.

I feel it would - like smacking your kid while saying don't hit your brother gives conflicting messages.

I'm of the "permanent removal from society for the good of society" opinion, but I tend to favour the "stick 'em in prison for the rest of their natural life, no parole" tactic - and make the buggers work to pay back what they have taken. I think it unfair that a criminal gets better meals than I do (and I have to cook the fucking meals, we don't have a state-funded chef in our kitchen) while the poor buggers he's wronged get nothing.

What does the court mete out: prison terms - three meals a day, television, the guards aren't allowed to call you filth, "rehabilitation" training and you get given money to start afresh on your release - or fines whereby you give money to the courts.

What do the victims get out of it? Who pays for the replacement of stolen/damaged goods? The insurance company. Who pays the higher premiums afterwards and loses the "No Claims" benefits. What replaces the husband/father/wage earner or wife/mother/wage earner who is killed or maimed for life? Nothing can. But somehow the idea that the killer will spend a few years inside is supposed to "make" the victim feel "better".

And there is no shortage of PC pricks to villify the victims if they didn't "forgive" the bastard that did it.

Apparently I am a heartless monster. I am "harsh". I have not forgiven a friend of nearly twenty years who "sexually molested" a five-year-old girl, the daughter of a mutual friend. (PC crap again, it's "only" sexual molestation, not rape because he didn't stick his cock into her).

He got 2.5 years' prison and served less than two, she gets a life sentence of psych problems and mistrust that she must overcome and I'm the bastard because I can't just forgive the poor unfortunate bugger who had a hard life which forced him to interfere with a minor.

Fuck forgiveness. He raped her. I don't give a damn about "penile penetration" or any other such PC shit. He took her innocence and abused her trust - "rape" in my books.

If I had my way, that bastard would be in jail for the rest of his life so he could never again do that to a child. And while he was in there I would have him working 10 hour days to pay for his food and pay her reparations for the rest of his natural life.

I oppose the death sentence in part because of the "mixed message" - Thou shalt not kill but we can - and in part because it gives nothing back to the victims. "Revenge" is hollow. The knowledge that the murderer of one of my family was dead would give me no comfort. I would expect that the killer spent the rest of his life denied the possibility of doing it again and repaying my family for the loss.

[mstriumph]

Wolf - you are a better person than i am.

[mstriumph]

lies. ...
ask any war vet who had to, when it was a choice "him or me" moment, yea some choose them, and now they all feel the pain.

idle chat about "yea i would totally be cool with smoking those fools" is ass im sorry.

there would be as broad a spread of reactions to this as there would be to any other such hypothesis

[ManDownUnder]

I feel it would - like smacking your kid while saying don't hit your brother gives conflicting messages.
...

I would expect that the killer spent the rest of his life denied the possibility of doing it again and repaying my family for the loss.

BLING BLING BLING

nothing more to say
MDU

[TLDV8]

I don't know the answer...but..can someone remind me the last time they saw a carrot where you could eat the outside off leaving the crunchy centre or saw a wishbone that wasn't like rubber.

[mstriumph]

gotta grow your own TLDV8 - them's lifestyle choices ........

[Jamezo]

It seems to all come down to this curious dichotomy between the 'master of my fate' school, and the 'invisible hand of society' school.

while we are, for all campers and dolphins*, the masters of our own personal domain; there are very real societal factors, which over a large population sample, will change individuals' behaviour patterns.

there is a HUGE difference between allowing EvilBaddieCrimeDoers to blame their mis-deeds on their upbringing/income/race/whatever (which is charitably described as 'overzealous PC nonsense'), and acknowledging that these social factors do in fact exist.

once we have simple acknowledgement, we can begin to identify these factors, and then work on changing them.

we need to operate a low form of 'doublethink', holding the idea that, yes, in fact people are directly responsible for their actions (or else we couldn't lock no-one up, see ), while also actively working on building a society that quite simply produces less criminals.

too many people are so wrapped up in 'cult of the individual' thinking to even consider the social causes of problems such as crime. they are to a large extent operating under one of the main capitalist lies, that "1,000 people working selfishly in their own self-interest will produce the most favourable outcome for those 1,000 as a whole". it seems so ridiculous as to be rejected out of hand, yet it is one of the main tenets of the capitalist thinking that we are subjected to from birth. we cannot make much progress until we completely and finally reject this.


while I will not totally disagree with the idea of the Labour government, at least on a very superficial level, encouraging the culture of 'blame your crime on something', there is a sadly overwhelming body of evidence that shows that right-wing, neo-liberal (uber-Keynesian) economic and social policy ALWAYS leads to greater socio-economic disparity, the grandaddy of all crime factors. if someone were to produce a chart of relative economic disparity and crime levels in NZ over the past 20 years, the results would be totally clear-cut.

in short, I'm a filthy communist and don't believe anything I say (but please do)

* in-tents and porpoises

[mstriumph]

... but if the answer is so simple, why has nobody acted on it?