Date: Sun, 28 Jun 1998 16:37:51 +0200 From: Eivind Eklund <eivind@yes.no> To: "Jason C. Wells" <jcwells@u.washington.edu> Cc: freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Does it's true? Message-ID: <19980628163751.40044@follo.net> In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.3.96.980627093956.501A-100000@s8-37-26.student.washington.edu>; from Jason C. Wells on Sat, Jun 27, 1998 at 09:51:59AM %2B0000 References: <19980627182937.40983@follo.net> <Pine.BSF.3.96.980627093956.501A-100000@s8-37-26.student.washington.edu>
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On Sat, Jun 27, 1998 at 09:51:59AM +0000, Jason C. Wells wrote: > On Sat, 27 Jun 1998, Eivind Eklund wrote: > > >where it is considered OK to murder people. (If you, the reader, say > >to yourself that you don't consider it OK, then you'd better be > >actively opposing the use of death penalty - otherwise you've just > >turned your logic off in what you say to yourself) > > This statement presumes that execution is murder. Execution is a lawful > punishment in the United States. > > Not everything that causes death is murder. Not even everything that > causes a wrongful death is murder. In the United States we divvy out > justice based on "mens rea" or criminal intent. A cold blooded killer is > guilty of a capital offense whereas a negligent causer of death is guilty > of a less than capital offensel. 'Murder' is usually defined as the pre-planned and executed killing of another person. > The people of the United States reserve the lawful right to punish the > capital offender by death. The people of the United States reserves the right to murder some of the citizens _purely_ to satisfy public bloodthirst, using human sacrifice about the same way as the Inkas previously done. > Until the people change this law, execution will not be murder. I reserve my rights to consider it murder in the same way I consider other human sacrifice murder, no matter which laws it has been written into. Look back in history to see how false your "lawful-isn't-murder" statement is - you can easily see atrocities committed under this every few decades. I'm certain I don't have to point them out to you. However, you're diverging - the point was that allowing murder/planned killings will be part of the numbing of a popluation. That you discuss the straw man of how to define seems just an indication of that numbing, and that you want to be able to consider it OK in some situations. As far as I've been able to read research, feeding a socitety's bloodlust and thirst for revenge tend to increase its general amount of violence - there is a significant difference between restricting a societies members to avoid them hurting other members, and killing them. Eivind. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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