Types of people

[Bettina]

Monster seems to be the term for someone who commits violent crimes repeatedly' date=' is unrepentant and is often known by the authorities as an habitual offender.

 

No disrespect intended, but is this thread just going to keep resurfacing every time a monster is reported? Because I can tell you one thing, the press will keep finding these people and brandishing their lurid crimes in front of us because this kind of news [i']sells[/i]. Capital punishment doesn't deter the monsters, but continual attention from the media just might encourage them.

 

Ok...I for one will promise to stop posting in this thread.

 

Bettina

[Coral Rhedd]

Pangloss

If you have children' date=' PLEASE tell them what to do if approached. Geez.....they are that close to you? Now you have me worried.

Please reply....

 

Bettina[/quote']

 

They are that close everywhere, Bettina, and those are only the ones they know about.

 

My own state is not different from Pangloss's.

 

Not too long ago the police came to my house and demanded to speak to someone I will call Jose Smith. They were certain he lived in my house. I was equally certain he did not. Neither was I inclined to let them search without a warrant. I assured them I had lived here for three years. So I inquired a little further. It seems one had gotten away from them. In three years they hadn't thought to check to see if he actually lived where he said he lived.

 

Happens all the time.

 

So for a start, we could demand better scrutiny of these guys. One of the ways this could be done is some sort of mandated treatment program upon release. This doesn't mean I think they can be cured. Mostly, they can't. However, the counselor/psychologist could be required to let the police know when Mr. But-I-only-love- kids doesn't show and they could issue an automatic warrant.

 

I also think it makes sense to fund more research into why these guys become pedophiles in the first place.

 

That said, most sexual abusers are friends and family. As bad a pedophiles are, those that do not torture or ritually abuse their victims probably do them far less long term ill than dear old Dad slipping under the kid's sheets when Mom is asleep. This sort of betrayal of trust is far more horrifying to victims and takes much, much longer until a semblance of recovery results even with the best of care.

[Pangloss]

We don't have kids yet.

 

I wonder whether the whole premise here is flawed. Maybe instead of working on better ways to track these perverts, and wondering if those methods violate their civil rights, we need to instead work on better ways to track the children, who have no civil rights to violate in the first place. ID bracelets with built-in GPS, DNA sample and fingerprinting encoded on a chip, and a central database. Mandatory. Records deleted when they hit 18.

 

Thoughts?

[Coral Rhedd]

We don't have kids yet.

 

I wonder whether the whole premise here is flawed. Maybe instead of working on better ways to track these perverts' date=' and wondering if those methods violate their civil rights, we need to instead work on better ways to track the children, who have no civil rights to violate in the first place. ID bracelets with built-in GPS, DNA sample and fingerprinting encoded on a chip, and a central database. Mandatory. Records deleted when they hit 18.

 

Thoughts?[/quote']

 

It would be easy enough to break an ID bracelet and DNA and fingerprinting would be useful at what point of an abduction?

[klanger]

We don't have kids yet.

 

I wonder whether the whole premise here is flawed. Maybe instead of working on better ways to track these perverts' date=' and wondering if those methods violate their civil rights, we need to instead work on better ways to track the children, who have no civil rights to violate in the first place. ID bracelets with built-in GPS, DNA sample and fingerprinting encoded on a chip, and a central database. Mandatory. Records deleted when they hit 18.

 

Thoughts?[/quote']

 

I had suggested to our local authority a few years ago, that with the developments within the electronics field, and the fact that recievers can be made so small these days, that why cant a system be devised for tracking children. Pretty much like the one that is in a dogs ear or neck that allows the dog recue to locate its owner, but more high tech and in line with the ones in peoples cars so that the child could actually be seen via a satalite.

 

To have one of these devices inserted at birth, my line of thought being that within minutes of the child disappearing they would be located and probably live to tell the tale, rather than the endless days/weeks long wait for bad news. I was told it goes against their civil rights to privacy, but as a mum I place their lives slightly higher than their rights for privacy. By all means have it disabled when they reach the age of 18, until that age they are the responsibility of the parents, and the parents are responsible for their behaviour. I felt this made perfect sense to me, the only kids that need to be wary of "big brother" would be the ones that are doing things they shouldnt be doing.

 

So to have a child tagged from birth would serve two purposes, firstly as a defence against abduction/kidnap and pedophiles, and secondly as a way to ensure we get under control the ever increasing youth offenders.

 

But I was told catagorically NO........ Funny how we value knowing where our vehicles are more than we value knowing where our kids are.......priceless!

[Dak]

although of course cars cannot complain about being thus tagged

 

if i had such a chip as a kid, i would have cut it out, assuming it wasnt too deeply bearied - simply sub-sutaniouse, and ittd be out of my body before you coulds say 'ouch, cutting that out really hurt'.

[klanger]

Why would you have cut it out Dak? hehehe just teasing

 

If all children were tagged from birth then most kids I think would consider it normal and nothing to worry about. What had sparked that line of thought in me a few years ago, was a baby that was taken by someone in nurses uniform from a maternity wing, and (not sure which way round these events actually took place) the taking and subsequent rape and murder of little Sarah. Now whilst I know these things don't happen that often here in England, once is once too many in my books especially if having a device such as I mentioned before could have pin pointed the whereabout of Sarah long before the man did his deed and destroyed her. You know the saddest part to that case? The devestation felt by her mum and dad and siblings, each feeling guilty for their own reasons lead to the break up of that family, so the children had to sit back and swallow the cruel death of their sister who they had been with moments before she disappeared and then watch their family crumble and fall before their very eyes.

 

As you say, you would have found a way to cut it out of yourself, I wonder too if as a child you refused to wear a seat belt in the car, or refused to hold your mothers hand when crossing the road, both of those come down to the same thing as a tracking device...... your parents just want to make sure you have the chance to grow up. Just my thoughts, on this subject, not saying you are wrong or I am right or even visa versa

[Dak]

I wonder too if as a child you refused to wear a seat belt in the car, or refused to hold your mothers hand when crossing the road, both of those come down to the same thing as a tracking device......

considering how rebelliouse i was, ii was actually quite accquisant to my mums safety conserns, but would have drawn the line at inserting a tracking beackon. thats just... dodgy.

 

perhaps more relevent is the fact that an abducter could always cut it out.

 

anyway, most paedophile attacks are from people who know the victim, and its usually of a 'while mummys not looking' variety, as opposed to an abduction.

 

and as long as there are people as retaurdedly rebelliouse as me, whod take a knife to themselves rather than tolerate a tracking beacon, theyed probably do more harm than good.

 

also, could a littly tin foil wrapped around the appropriate body part not jam the signal?

[Kylonicus]

I really think that a criminal of that degree should simply be turned into a slave.

 

I mean really, it cost a HUGE amount of money to keep some one in prison.

 

To execute them is a relatively simple punishment, and provides no gain to the victim but some emotional reconcilation(please excuse my bad spelling).

 

We need to lobomize them, and implant chips into their heads, then give them over to the victims.

 

Think about out, the victims could decide exactly what kind of punishment they want the criminal to suffer, the criminal has the worse punishment of all, not death, but living with an impairment so severe that it has permanently altered his/her personality and where they are completely dependent on the person that they have victimized.

 

I know for a fact that being handicapped in many cases is worse than death, I suffer from several.

 

Then the criminal could work as a slave, to provide economic compensation to the victims families. True, it wouldn't be complete justice, but its closer and cheaper than what is currently being done.

[Pangloss]

Some good points made above, but I haven't heard anything that unequivocally eliminates the suggestion I made above from having some practical value. Shall we pursue *improvement*, or continue to lament the lack of *perfect* solutions?

 

You do the best you can, and you roll the dice. The dice sure turn out a lot more in our kids' favor today than they did a century ago, or even a decade ago.

 

If you look at the Lunsford case, the poor girl was abducted from her bed in the middle of the night, with her grandparents right there in the house with her. Normal routine, nothing unusual about it. The bastard met her at school and snuck in through a window. She'd just TAKEN a class on what to do when you meet strangers. What else can we reasonably expect the parents, or technology short of Big Brother, to have accomplished in this case?

 

A couple of years ago I read the famous biography of Abraham Lincoln by Carl Sandburg. One of the things that stunned me about that book was just how many children people had in that age, and the simple fact that most of those children never reached adulthood. The Lincolns lost several children, something most of us seem to be aware of, but what I hadn't realized is how many of their friends, co-workers and relatives lost several as well. The loss was felt no less severely either -- Mary Todd Lincoln was prone to massive depression that dominated her later life -- but for the most part they had no choice but to accept this as a fact of life. How different from today! This was only a century ago. That one simple fact indicates just how different was the world those people lived in. They'd recognize our world today, but I wonder if they would understand the people who live in it.

 

On the one hand it's good that we never accept fate. We should be motivated to change fate as much as we can. But we also need to remember that sometimes we can't change it, and there's no sense in beating ourselves up about it.

 

Bad things are going to happen. Part of growing up, both as an individual and as a society, is dealing with that. I believe this time will be remembered by historians as a time when we've gotten really good at not accepting fate, but we've become so used to beating fate that we've forgotten how to deal with bad things when they do happen.

[Kylonicus]

What we might do is make people take test, which they can't fake, which would determine characteristics which predispose people to pedophilia. This way, we could adjust people so that they are less likely to do that.

 

What I mean by adjust is conditioning.

[Dak]

brrrrrr....

 

1984 springs to mind

[john5746]

Important questions that need exploring:

What improvements could we make to the system?

Where is it weak?

Where does it cross the line?

How does your database differ from other states?

How does it differ from other countries?

How can we best track offenders who move within the state?

How can we best track them if they change states?

Is there a way to better track sex offenders without further violating their constitutional rights *aside* from tracking their whereabouts?

 

I liked Florida's system better than South Carolina's. SC's requires you to select the person before seeing the photo. Florida allows you to scan photos.

 

I think branding thier forehead would be good.

[john5746]

in addition, if it truly is down to the way in which the person was born, and theres nothing that they can do to change, is it really there fault? can they really be blamed? should we not be compasionate and remove them from society, but keep them comfortable.

 

I was born with the urge to have sexual relations with women. I find many women appealing and interesting. Does this mean I can cheat on my wife without fault? No. Can I be blamed? Yes. Would she be compassionate and keep me comfortable if I cheated on her? NO!

 

We are all born with faults, but as far as I can tell we have choices. Some more limited than others, I agree. But, if someone has an urge, they can still either avoid it, or seek help.

[Dak]

good point. but im still against the wanton killing of them, same as i guess if you did cheat on your wife, she could dump you, but killing you would be a tad extreme. as i said, remove them from society; but not by killing them.

[Pangloss]

It's starting to look like Florida's system is about to change, by the way. Legislation is flying through the state congress, which is not too surprising given the vast amount of negative publicity Florida (which already has a tougher system than a lot of states) has been getting lately.

 

The Jessica Lunsford Act creates a mandatory sentence for molestors whose victim is under the age of 12 of 25 years to life. If and when they do get out, they have mandatory monitoring (ankle bracelet) for the rest of their life (although why they wouldn't just leave the state at that point is beyond me -- if they're not on parole, why stay?). If the victim is 12 to 15 years of age, the sentencing remains the same but it adds the braclet deal (but just during probation).

 

The law also tries to close a couple other loopholes. It requires biannual check-ins for all registered sex offenders, and makes it a felony to harbor a sex offender. Anyone who violates the terms of their parole for any sexual offense goes into the ankle bracelet program for the rest of their probation. And it provides money to pay for all of this. (No big deal -- the state's swimming in dough right now; the hurricanes didn't even make us blink.)

[mike90]

Hm well to me at a certain point a persons actions become bad enough to where im not overly concerned with their rights anymore. I feel pretty comfortable saying rapists and murderers and the like dont deserve the same rights as your average citizen. The problem is our legal system has gotten so ridiculous its almost impossible to punish criminals the way they deserve. a quick shot to thhe back of the head is indeed a simple enough answer. to say that the monsters among humanity, and i do in fact agree with bettina that some people fit that description, deserve the same rights as everyone else, that is what i find barbaric

[mike90]

Oh and one thing i forgot to mention, if sure of their guilt i would be all too happy to push the button myself, if the rest of society has lost the stomach for justice.

[iglak]

i fit people onto a 3D graph.

 

from left to right: dangerous - helpful to my community

from top to bottom: aware - unaware of others as individual people

from front to back: aware - unaware of their own thoughts and actions

 

 

if people are dangerous to my community, i will try to change. if they remain dangerous, i will disable their danger. if they heal and remain dangerous, i will kill them. the average tends to be a line from the front top-right tp the back bottom-left.

 

it's a very fuzzy subject though, and i don't have the legal or ethical ability to disable or kill emotionally (as opposed to physically) dangerous people who won't change from words alone.

[Douglas]

The Jessica Lunsford Act creates a mandatory sentence for molestors whose victim is under the age of 12 of 25 years to life.

O'reilly is trying to get the Jessica law passed nation wide. I live in NH, and the Manchester Union Leader (perhaps one of the most conservative MSN papers in the union) has been peeing on O'reilly, basically telling him to butt out.

 

Do you back O'reilly on this??

[Pangloss]

I like O'Reilly, and we often agree, but he is a Populist as well as a demagogue (someone who stirs people up with spin and misleading rhetoric), two traits which I find abhorant and counter-productive. I'm a borderline libertarian. We're both slightly to the right (him a bit farther to the right than me, I suspect), but when I agree with O'Reilly, I tend to see it as a case of "doing the right thing for the wrong reasons".

 

I support laws that protect children because, unlike adults, they lack the ability to defend themselves. So to me it's more of an issue of freedom for the parents. So yes, I support Jessica's Law, which applies only to violent sexual offenders against victims 12 or younger. On the other hand, I'm opposed to the 2500-foot rules that are popping up around my area, because they affect all offenders, even the "accidental" kind (e.g. a guy meets a girl in the bar who's just slightly under age and gets convicted of statutory rape). O'Reilly would have no problem with the 2500-foot rule, and the issue of fairness would never enter into the equation. "Better safe than sorry," he would say.

 

O'Reilly's general rule of thumb in life is "whatever helps the folks". Mine is "you should be free to do whatever you want so long as it doesn't hurt anybody else".

[Douglas]

So yes, I support Jessica's Law, which applies only to violent sexual offenders against victims 12 or younger.

Yeah, I too, support Jessica's law, and 12 years of age seems about right. over 13, you get into grey areas.

I'm not sure how Jessica's law applies to woman pedophiles, I guess I'd be inclined to give the judge a little discretion.

 

As for the 2500 foot rule, I think it's ridiculous, I can't figure out if it's politically motivated or simple hysteria.

[Bettina]

Oh and one thing i forgot to mention, if sure of their guilt i would be all too happy to push the button myself, if the rest of society has lost the stomach for justice.

 

We think alike...and I would fight you so I could push the button first.

 

Bettina

[Tiger's Eye]

Well, as the title implies, there is a very interesting discussion taking place and deserves a lot of thought. Bravo to all of you. It takes a tremendous amount of guts to express such strong opinions. Well, okay. I just wanted to applaud all of you for that. It was well deserved.

 

Ok, down to business (expressing my own thoughts ) I'm warning all of you know, this may get confusing…and perhaps a bit offensive to some. I apologize in advance, for there is no offense intended:

 

Well, honestly, I don’t believe that classifying people as “good”, “bad” and “monsters” is necessarily an appropriate way of going about things. People are way more complex than that. Personally, I’m not all for the electric chair thing. I’d leave the guy in jail. Let him suffer in there; death would be more endurable for him than life, I would believe. But in terms of using the electric idea…justice should, of course, prevail, but to want to see someone die for one’s own personal satisfaction? I find a flaw in that. It makes us no better than the person being executed. It’s kinda sadistic in a twisted way. I’m not really for the ‘eye-for-an-eye’ philosophy; as Gandhi said, “it makes the whole world blind”. I mean, inserting the injection makes on a killer, too, no? And killing for satisfaction? Isn’t that what the guy did in the first place?

 

And also, I don’t fathom the idea of watching a person die, especially one being executed. I’ve never seen an execution, nor do I want to; I don’t believe that I would be able to stomach it too well. I mean, one could say that by executing the killer, the little girl or the rapist was brought to justice. But somehow, in the end, one would have acted upon his/her own hate. It’s selfish and loses purpose. That’s not justice: it’s revenge. Period.

 

Again, in reference to the terms “good”, “bad” and “monsters”…I’m gonna bring this situation to a whole other level, but I’m curious:

 

We’ve had many wars and violent conflicts in our world today, with each side fighting for its own. War is nasty, that’s a given. Take for example, Iraq; we have so many troops there fighting for what we call as a good cause. Thus, they are heroes. But on the sidelines, they are brutal. Rape, torture, degrading humans to an extent where they lose their humanity, some of these cases which have been covered by the media, others not. So, are these people good? Or monsters? I mean, they’re fighting for a good cause, right? Do we classify them as good, because they’re fighting for us, even if they degrade other people to mere dogs for their own pleasure and entertainment (I dunno bout u, but taking pictures of soldiers of holding prisoners by leashes was no accident nor order from superiors, IMO)? “One man’s fighter is another’s terrorist.” Quite an interesting quote, but it sorta relates. Another example is Hiroshima. I think that you guys know what generally happened. The US dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima (and they bombed Nagasaki, afterwards, I think) and this ended the war, since Japan surrendered. But this could have been avoided; in other words, the bomb was unnecessary. Japan was ready to surrender and had submitted a 40-pg referendum to Gen. MacArthur, stating that it was completely prepared to unconditionally surrender, as long as the Emperor could remain on his throne. And this report was received before the Yalta conference, but it was ignored. Instead, the bomb was dropped, and later, Japan surrendered, agreeing to the conditions laid down by the US that were nearly identical to those that had been submitted by Japan earlier in the referendum. I can only think that we dropped the bomb in order to seek revenge for those killed in Pearl Harbor. But this is, again, revenge. We become no better than the people that hurt us. Millions of Japanese died deaths they did not ask for, nor deserve. And to this that this could have been avoided…Does this make us, or rather, the government of that time, monsters? I’d hate to think so. But ultimately, there was no real purpose. It was revenge. So, back to my question, are these heroes of war monsters as well? Does that mean they deserve to be die, also?

 

In case I lost you guys on the Hiroshima thing, here are a couple of links (pretty long, i warn you !):

 

http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v06/v06p508_Hoffman.html

http://www.thenewamerican.com/tna/1995/vo11no17/vo11no17_bomb.htm

http://www.spectacle.org/696/long.html

 

This one is part of the 2nd link:

 

"The first atomic bomb was exploded over Hiroshima on August 5, 1945; the second was detonated over Nagasaki four days later. On August 8th, the Soviet Union declared war on an already beaten Japan. But other Japanese attempts to surrender had been coming fast and furious prior to these historically important developments.

One of the most compelling was transmitted by General MacArthur to President Roosevelt in January 1945, prior to the Yalta conference. MacArthur's communiqué stated that the Japanese were willing to surrender under terms which included:

• Full surrender of Japanese forces on sea, in the air, at home, on island possessions, and in occupied countries.

• Surrender of all arms and munitions. • Occupation of the Japanese homeland and island possessions by allied troops under American direction.

• Japanese relinquishment of Manchuria, Korea, and Formosa, as well as all territory seized during the war.

• Regulation of Japanese industry to halt present and future production of implements of war.

• Turning over of Japanese which the United States might designate war criminals.

• Release of all prisoners of war and internees in Japan and in areas under Japanese control.

Amazingly, these were identical to the terms which were accepted by our government for the surrender of Japan seven months later. Had they been accepted when first offered, there would have been no heavy loss of life on Iwo Jima (over 26,033 Americans killed or wounded, approximately 21,000 Japanese killed) and Okinawa (over 39,000 U.S. dead and wounded, 109,000 Japanese dead), no fire bombing of Japanese cities by B-29 bombers (it is estimated that the dropping of 1,700 tons of incendiary explosives on Japanese cities during March 9th-10th alone killed over 80,000 civilians and destroyed 260,000 buildings), and no use of the atomic bomb.

Countless thousands of Japanese civilians perished as a result of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And the world was suddenly and violently brought into the atomic age.

Belated Revelations

The U.S. government has never published MacArthur's communiqué detailing Japan's willingness to end the war, even though its existence first came to light in an article by Chicago Tribune journalist Walter Trohan and published on August 19, 1945 in both the Tribune and the Washington Times Herald. A military intelligence officer with access to classified information had given Trohan a copy of this peace proposal with the stipulation that he keep it confidential until the war ended. Trohan honored his end of the agreement, and then wrote his article immediately after Japan's August 14th surrender had been announced.

Trohan's sensational revelations occasioned no response from the White House and State Department. Nor did it attract the kind of attention from the mass media it surely deserved. Historian Harry Elmer Barnes, writing in the May 10, 1958 issue of National Review, supplied additional credence to the Trohan report:

After General MacArthur returned from Korea in 1951, his neighbor in the Waldorf Towers, former President Herbert Hoover, took the Trohan article to General MacArthur and the latter confirmed its accuracy in every detail and without qualification.

But the January 1945 attempt to end the war wasn't Japan's only move. Robert Morris wrote in No Wonder We Are Losing:

... the Japanese made other overtures through the Soviet Union which were not transmitted to us. But on June 1, Tokyo wired its Ambassador in Moscow that the Emperor wished to make peace and told him to request Soviet mediation. This information was decoded by the United States -- two months before the atomic bomb dropped and the Soviet Union entered the war against Japan.

In his 1963 book How the Far East Was Lost, Professor Anthony Kubek told of a July 6, 1945 message sent to the State Department by American diplomats in Sweden which claimed "that Prince Carl Bernodotte, nephew of King Gustov, had been told by the Japanese military attaché in Sweden that Japan had lost the war and wanted to enter surrender negotiations through the King of Sweden."

Kubek further reported on July 12th, "Prince Konoye was received by the Emperor and ordered to Moscow as a peace plenipotentiary to 'secure peace at any price.'" Despite the strong efforts of the Japanese ambassador in Moscow to arrange for Prince Konoye's visit, however, the Russian government rejected the proposal.

In his 1966 work The Death of James Forrestal, Cornell Simpson wrote that Forrestal, the Secretary of the Navy at the time, "had originated a plan to end the war with Japan five and a half months before V-J Day [August 14, 1945] finally dawned." Simpson pointed out that, had this plan been implemented, the atomic bombs would never have been used and "the Russians would not have had a chance to muscle into the Pacific war for the last six of its 1,347 days." Simpson added:

The last point, of course, is why the fellow travellers hurriedly persuaded FDR to reject Forrestal's plan, and why they saw to it that the American people heard nothing about this chance to save untold numbers of American lives .... In May, another move to end the Pacific war was similarly scuttled. The very same month that Germany surrendered, Truman approved a peace ultimatum to Japan, subject to endorsement by the military. But on May 29, General Marshall rejected it as "premature."

General MacArthur's January 1945 communiqué containing Japan's detailed peace proposal reached President Roosevelt two days before he departed for his meeting with Churchill and Stalin at Yalta. With his mind already made up about the need to continue the war, he completely discounted the entire proposal and flippantly remarked to an aide, "MacArthur is our greatest general and poorest politician." "

 

Again, these are my opinions.

 

Cheers,

 

Tiger

[Bettina]

Tiger's Eye...

 

Thanks for the lesson on Japan, but I already know the real reason the bombs were dropped.

 

Also, in case your referring to me, I haven't changed my mind one bit on the classifications of people. I wish we lived in a world where that would be unheard of, but we don't...so I can't.

 

Bettina