: Cynic: "...you'll find "murderers, rapists, and thieves" comes up more often than "blacks, jews, and muslims." There is a pretty clear moral core among people that transcends culture and society."Kevin: It would be interesting to see you take this statement and figure out how it applies to the ratio of convicted criminals in US prisons...
Cynic: I am well aware that inherent in our justice system is a large degree of bias, resulting in more persons of color, etc. being convicted for crimes than whites. But the model I propose assumes that such defects can be fixed. I believe a rational public (can we hoipe for one?) could do so. I cannot allow present circumstances to discredit a potentially progressive solution. Especially when animal testing is such a hot topic.
: Cynic: "All murderers and rapists are just animals in their own right, anyway."
Kevin: Firstly, I assume you are implying some sort of negative connotation to being an animal. Why exactly is this?
Cynic: The only grounds, as I've yet read, that people have for claiming the superiority over animals- is that they themselves are human beings, and built into their idea of the human is their idea of the superior. Straight speciesism. Humans are somehow distinct from animals because of their "humanness," such that....
Kevin: Secondly, who are you to make such a judgement (assuming here your choice of comparisons is a fair use of the term animal)?
Cynic: I don't murder, rape, and thieve. That's grounds enough for me. By your standard who is anyone to judge? Anyway, I proposed that the criminal be allowed to voluntarily undergo testing for reduced sentences, not that it should be enforced on them. Prison is a loss of the right to autonomy, not bodily integrity. That has to be given up willfully.
Kevin: Have you ever had a conversation with a murderer or a rapist?
Cynic: No. I don't think I could bear their company to hear their vain conversation.
Kevin: Are you aware of how any of these PEOPLE came to do what they did?
Cynic: In Boulder, CO, a young female colelge student was abducted and raped by 6 males in a van for 2 hours, while they threatened to shoot her if she didn't comply. They then dumped her in a dark canyon to walk to the nearest neighborhood and phone for help.
In a confession, one of them said they did it becuase one of them "had never had sex with a white woman before." The men who raped the girl were all asian.
Reasons like THESE serve as the motives to these wastes of sperm and eggs. People who behave in this fashion simply do not behave like people, and I refuse to allow them the same benefits the rest of us enjoy, when we have the self-restraint and common decency to get along peacfully. Are they animals?
Yes. They don't behave like people; their attitude towards other human beings separates them from being enough like us to qualify under strict speciesism. So, they might as well be dismembered and eaten, for all I care.
I am very untolerant of the untolerable, Kevin. I believe human willpower can overcome poverty, abuse, paranoia, etc. There is NEVER any grounds for inflicting unsolicited harm on another human being. No reason one could have can qualify as an excuse.
Kevin: I am not suggesting you weep for them and make excuses for their behaviour, but they are PEOPLE and they DO come from circumstances.
Cynic: Anything is nothing they can't overcome. The circumstances be damned.
I don't pity the condition of any being, no matter how deplorable, if they can't demonstrate strength of will to overcome. This goes for the wife beaten by her husband who won't for a moment think about leaving him. It goes for beaten children who tell their schoolteachers "I fell down the stairs" instead of making it known that Daddy is a monster. The same applies to children of alcoholics that become alcoholics, and cite "learning by example" as the reason they can't deny themselves the drink. Nevermind all the sober examples these people could have seen were their eyes open, of course. But that isn't my situation, right, so I have no power to judge?
Bullshit. I see people suffering needlessly every day in the newspapers, on television, and on streetcorners because they won't exert effort to do anything about it. Victims of constant trauma bring it upon themselves for not escaping their situation. Having undergone trauma is not grounds for perpetuating it. Our legal and moral stance must agree if their aim is justice.
Kevin: It is a little simplistic to dismiss them as animals worthy only of execution (perhaps preceded by torture.)
Cynic: As said, I never suggested we add torture by medicine to our list of enforceable punishments. I suggested that it be an electable option by criminals as a different means of punishment.
And the animal reference was meant to illustrate the frail lines of demarcation between human and nonhuman beings. My hatred of savage human beings stands. I cannot confer to them human status equal to my own.
This has become an exceptionally long post when I had intended only a quick reply. But I have written to my content, and I hope, competently , in my reply.
