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[Virex]

It's just too dangerous to breed understanding for beasts and monsters, because they do not understand us.

And this style of thinking is the shortest line to becoming a monster oneself.  Every societal injustice and most individual acts of cruelty operate under the justification that those who suffer are at best lesser humans anyway.  It is the ultimate slippery slope.

And there is only one place where that line of thinking should not only be admitted but encouraged: the justice system. It's too easy to say "well finding his wife in bed with another man made him snap, let's not be too hard on him and only give him a few months" and forget that criminals destroy the very base of society and the very trust people have in each other. If you start showing compassion to those that don't have it and see it as a sign of weakness then they will exploit that and you're left at the mercy of people who apply that line of reasoning everywhere.

Note that this does not apply if people are really criminal due to no choice of themselves, but those cases are rarer then we'd like to admit.

[RedKing]

It's just too dangerous to breed understanding for beasts and monsters, because they do not understand us.

And this style of thinking is the shortest line to becoming a monster oneself.  Every societal injustice and most individual acts of cruelty operate under the justification that those who suffer are at best lesser humans anyway.  It is the ultimate slippery slope.

And there is only one place where that line of thinking should not only be admitted but encouraged: the justice system. It's too easy to say "well finding his wife in bed with another man made him snap, let's not be too hard on him" and forget that criminals destroy the very base of society and the very trust people have in each other.

Umm...ever heard of the notion of "extenuating circumstances"? Juries take that into account when deciding a verdict. Judges take that into account when sentencing. You've been spouting poorly thought out sweeping statements for the better part of two pages now, and it's getting tiresome.

If you start showing compassion to those that don't have it and see it as a sign of weakness then they will exploit that and you're left at the mercy of people who apply that line of reasoning everywhere.

And now we're back to the same logic of "Because a few people will abuse the system, the system must be destroyed". Same logic used to attack gay marriage, public assistance, not executing the mentally ill and/or handicapped, and any other number of progressive causes. Yours is a Hobbesian world wherein life is nasty, brutish and short and its inhabitants the basest sort of creature, naturally disposed to evil and cruelty.

Lots of the rest of us don't live in that world.

[SalmonGod]

It's just too dangerous to breed understanding for beasts and monsters, because they do not understand us.

And this style of thinking is the shortest line to becoming a monster oneself.  Every societal injustice and most individual acts of cruelty operate under the justification that those who suffer are at best lesser humans anyway.  It is the ultimate slippery slope.

And there is only one place where that line of thinking should not only be admitted but encouraged: the justice system. It's too easy to say "well finding his wife in bed with another man made him snap, let's not be too hard on him" and forget that criminals destroy the very base of society and the very trust people have in each other.

I mean seriously... that's probably the biggest issue of this thread, is society's tendency to objectify and minimalize the equal human status of women, because that is exactly what allows men to abuse them and still feel ok about themselves.

I disagree entirely, and not on the premise that understanding leads to softer treatment.  Rather this altered classification of a human being tends to alter motivations.  A "monster" can be cast out without remorse.  A human being always has value, even if they have problems.  The brokenness of our justice system is of epic proportions, and I blame this mostly on our culture's tendency to view criminals as non-human, no matter what the circumstances were that caused that labeling.

[Virex]

You've been spouting poorly thought out sweeping statements for the better part of two pages now, and it's getting tiresome.

I'd guess I'd better refrain from continuing the discussion then?

[SalmonGod]

Thread moving too fast... moving the edit of my last post here to be sure it isn't missed.

Edit:  You added the line about compassion... I actually believe that it's extremely rare for a person not to have compassion, which is exactly WHY this tendency to reclassify human beings as something else, such as criminal, exists.  If we weren't able to do this, we wouldn't be able to do horrible things to each other.

[RedKing]

You've been spouting poorly thought out sweeping statements for the better part of two pages now, and it's getting tiresome.

I'd guess I'd better refrain from continuing the discussion then?

No, I'm saying think through your argument before you post.

[G-Flex]

It's too easy to say "well finding his wife in bed with another man made him snap, let's not be too hard on him and only give him a few months" and forget that criminals destroy the very base of society and the very trust people have in each other.

We already do this. Circumstances, character, history, and motive will affect sentencing and influence juries, and this is not even considered a bad thing (for the most part). It's a part of the system.

If you start showing compassion to those that don't have it and see it as a sign of weakness then they will exploit that and you're left at the mercy of people who apply that line of reasoning everywhere.

See what as a sign of weakness?

Also: Ostensibly, we do show compassion toward criminals. That's why we disallow "cruel and unusual punishment" and don't just execute people for everything.

You're also making a really bad slippery-slope argument. You might as well say that if we start letting people publish documents criticizing the government, people will exploit that to form terrorist cells. There is no reasoning. It is a non sequitur.

I've also already established a couple lines of reasoning to show that greater compassion for criminals and greater understanding of their behavior can reduce crime, not to mention it's obviously the only decent way to actually rehabilitate those who can be rehabilitated (both before and after they commit an offense).

Thread moving too fast... moving the edit of my last post here to be sure it isn't missed.

Edit:  You added the line about compassion... I actually believe that it's extremely rare for a person not to have compassion, which is exactly WHY this tendency to reclassify human beings as something else, such as criminal, exists.  If we weren't able to do this, we wouldn't be able to do horrible things to each other.

However, it's often difficult for people to have compassion for those unlike them, in other social circumstances or groups, and so forth, and there are tendencies when it comes to the more "unthinkable" crimes to demonize the perpetrators.

[Vector]

I guess I'll just say that apparently society doesn't consider rape an "unthinkable" crime, and move on from there.

[G-Flex]

Depends on the circumstances. Regular old TV-show-style forcible rape? Yeah, that's considered pretty damn heinous past the point of compassion from most people. Date rape, and other forms related to extremely iffy consent? You can get some pretty sickening opinions about that.

[SalmonGod]

I also want to clarify that this isn't a plea not to label... it is deeply ingrained in our thought processes, such that we are incapable of operating without it.  It's perfectly fine to label.  I'm ok with being recognized as a white male non-religious pacifist anarchist husband college graduate parent biker office worker.  We just can't allow labels to supercede a person's status as 100% human being and 100% deserving of the basic respect intrinsic to that quality.  The way I see it, there are levels of respect beyond basic human being status which should be informed by one's actions, and a person can reduce themselves by their actions to deserving nothing more than "is a human being", but a person absolutely cannot reduce themselves further than that.  If we fail to keep this in mind, we play right into the Stanford Prison Experiment, and we all know who it was that behaved monstrously in that case....

[KaelGotDwarves]

Our society is really strange and unbalanced sometimes.

And as people have said eariler, being compassionate and letting people walk all over you are not the same. Compassion does not make one weak. In fact, being able to empathsize with others is a strength that can only help our society.

[Vector]

Depends on the circumstances. Regular old TV-show-style forcible rape? Yeah, that's considered pretty damn heinous past the point of compassion from most people. Date rape, and other forms related to extremely iffy consent? You can get some pretty sickening opinions about that.

Even forcible rape of a significant other for reasons of "she didn't put out" is frequently lauded.  Shit like "no means yes and yes means harder."  Then, there's the article for the dude who raped his girlfriend of a week and went back to Florida to practice medicine that I posted.  Oh, and the "is spousal rape actually rape" thing.

Yeah, the stereotypical mustachio'd villain taking some daintily-clad, super-feminine woman (read: another guy's property, because these stories usually focus kind of heavily on the reaction of the father/brother/boyfriend) and forcibly raping her is seen as heinous.  Rape in general, though... our society seems quite permissive, to me.

[G-Flex]

I also want to clarify that this isn't a plea not to label... it is deeply ingrained in our thought processes, such that we are incapable of operating without it.  It's perfectly fine to label.  I'm ok with being recognized as a white male non-religious pacifist anarchist husband college graduate parent biker office worker.  We just can't allow labels to supercede a person's status as 100% human being and 100% deserving of the basic respect intrinsic to that quality.

We also can't allow those labels to overshadow the value of interpreting an individual as an individual when doing so is effectively required or even beneficial. Sure, those labels might apply to you, but hopefully your friends and family see past that a bit, and hopefully they wouldn't be the sole determinant of your character if you were tried for a crime.

Depends on the circumstances. Regular old TV-show-style forcible rape? Yeah, that's considered pretty damn heinous past the point of compassion from most people. Date rape, and other forms related to extremely iffy consent? You can get some pretty sickening opinions about that.

Even forcible rape of a significant other for reasons of "she didn't put out" is frequently lauded.  Shit like "no means yes and yes means harder."  Then, there's the article for the dude who raped his girlfriend of a week and went back to Florida to practice medicine that I posted.  Oh, and the "is spousal rape actually rape" thing.

You're right; it really is inconsistent, and there's a lot of victim-blaming and apathy about many types of cases.

[Virex]

I also want to clarify that this isn't a plea not to label... it is deeply ingrained in our thought processes, such that we are incapable of operating without it.  It's perfectly fine to label.  I'm ok with being recognized as a white male non-religious pacifist anarchist husband college graduate parent biker office worker.  We just can't allow labels to supercede a person's status as 100% human being and 100% deserving of the basic respect intrinsic to that quality.

We also can't allow those labels to overshadow the value of interpreting an individual as an individual when doing so is effectively required or even beneficial. Sure, those labels might apply to you, but hopefully your friends and family see past that a bit, and hopefully they wouldn't be the sole determinant of your character if you were tried for a crime.

Nor can we allow the value of an individual overshadow the fact that we're dealing with murderers and rapists here. To give an example, several years ago, a bunch of dutch Hells Angels brutally murdered a member of another motor gang. Guess what sentence they got?

Spoiler: this one (click to show/hide)

None at all. Since the persecutor could not prove conclusively who was the actual murder and who were merely accomplishes, he could not convict them

[KaelGotDwarves]

It's all about socio-economic background.

Rape of rich, educated woman? String the inhumane monster up and death penalty/life in prison!
Rape of poor, uneducated girl - usually unreported or no money/attorney to persue charges. This isn't even bringing race into it,

Those are generalisations but it's the same with missing persons as well. Cute white girl from suburban family?  NATIONAL MEDIA CIRCUS. Missing poor latina/african american in the city- "well that's on par for the course".