[Just your average movie goer]

Ok.... better put in my 50 WON on this....

I'm against corporal punishment for the most part. But children should be spanked when they're really bad. Why? Because I've met people who were never spanked as a child.... and they are evil, horrible people.

I do believe in forcing assholes to do large amounts of community service, years even.

I generally don't believe it is right to kill other humans either. However, I do believe that some people have forfeited their humanity by the lack of humanity they show to other people. Unfortunately, I was closely acquainted with such a creature last year... a nasty little man whose sole mission in life seemed to be to inflict as much misery on everybody as he could. He should, by rights, die.... but I have to admit I'm a bit of a softy so I probably wouldn't be able to kill him when it was time to put my money where my mouth was. However, I would happily beat the crap out of him. Even if it caused permanent damage, I wouldn't lose any sleep over it. Why? Because in my opinion, he's not a human being. He forfeited that right by competing in the "world's biggest prick"competition.

One more humane solution to the problem of absolute pricks would be to have a special country just for them. We can send them all over there - and they can do whatever the hell they want to each other... as long as they leave us alone.

Final note - George W. Bush has also, I believe, forfeited his humanity. He's got as much right to live as Adolph Hitler did - make of that what you will.

[barend]

thanks to the assholes who beat the living shit out of me in early highschool in one of the worst suburbs in the universe on a more than regular basis, I have developed the ability to take quite a beating. I took an onslaut from 20 people (as i'm sure i've mentioned before), who were definatley trying to kill me. they failed this task because I'm not the average punter when it comes to the 'being mugged' game... however i'm not superman, and could only endure 5 minutes of this brutal attack before noticing that my face was starting to swell on right side... plus my teeth were feeling a little on the damaged side... so i got out of there...

these young "living breathing human beings" where trying to prevent me from being a living breathing human being...

and why?

because i walked past...

I can assure you (without joking) that the next person who 'askes' for my wallet will be dead before they can say "i'll sue you for assault"...

as for the whole capitol punishment thing, I am totally against it. what if they get the wrong guy? you can compinsate someone who served 10years... but not a deadguy...

but to my original point... i think you forfeit your right to live when you intentionally endanger another human being for the sake of persnal gain, fun, psychosis, etc.

except self defence obviously...

same goes for religion, while i'm at it...
belive what you want but don't force it or your dislike of others on others!!! we can all get along and live rich full lives if we stop harrasing each other, mugging each other, and teasing each other...

and parents should spend a little more time telling their kids why it is important to not constantly attack another child emotionally or physically, because they are a chipping away at the at the heathy balance between sanity and insanity. human beings are fragile, and can be easily 'broken'

if a parent can't do that then they should think twice before introducing another soul destroying asshole to the already corrupt world

[barend]

there is one thing that does not cause school shootings: Pot. If the tree young men mentioned here had smoked dope I have total faith that things would have been slightly better in their schools. So smoke up, America.

tree?

how freudian.

[SimeSublime]

I've been thinking of this recently, and I've been questioning my ability to kill somebody else. I belive, in self defence, I could, but not otherwise, no matter how much of a bastard the person is. That being said, I could imagine myself as a judge ordering somebodys execution, but I don't think I could carry it out myself.

I remember an interesting dream I once had. I'm sure you've all seen the movies where the hero would have a gun pointed at the villan, and they say 'don't move', and the villian walks up to them and takes the gun as the hero is too scared to fire it. I found it interesting to find that when I dreamt that I was in that position, I had no problems at all at shooting at the villian.

As an intersting sidenote, I missed, and as the gun only had the one bullet, I just through it at him and knocked him out.

[Just your average movie goer]

I liked your post a lot, Barend. Nothing like a solid real life example to drive home the argument. I'm not sure if it would persuade Rory but Laura may be more sympathetic to our cause.

I haven't had any experience like that, fortunately. But I do remember a giant maori man coming into a store I worked. We had a no smoking policy and he was openly disregarding it so I told him to put his cigarette out and he threatened to beat me up. Now, he shouldn't be alive. He's using up good oxygen.

As a side note, when he was threatening me, he said "I'm a big man and you're a small boy. I'll slap you around, I will." That was interesting for me. He was about three times my size, so he was big. But I don't quite understand how picking on someone who's three times as small as you makes you a man.

It was unfortunate that the store policy wouldn't allow me to hit him around the head with a 4 X 4 plank of treated pine. He certainly deserved it.

[Just your average movie goer]

I think I could kill someone actually, Sime. I remembered regularly reading about all the atrocities the Taliban commited against women... and cruelty against women just makes my blood boil like nothing else. I think everyone here knows a lot about what the Taliban did to the women of Afghanistan so I won't remind everyone of the horrors and atrocities they commited. But I thought I would happily take a rifle and hunt every single Taliban member down.

However, I wouldn't give them a long slow execution though. They deserve it... oh do they ever deserve it... but I wouldn't want them to get the impression that they were worth the time and effort.

[SimeSublime]

Once I was walking down a street in a bad suburb, when I passed a group of about 20 youths. Not only was I outnumbered 20 to 1, the first hit was to the back of my head. THE BACK OF MY FRIGGING HEAD. I pretty much went straight down from that, and they continued to lay into me for a couple of minutes before getting bored and walking off. There was no reason to the attack, I didn't provoke them in anyway, and they didn't steal anything. As far as I can tell, they just wanted to proove how tough they were by attacking a lone, fairly weak stranger. And they still didn't have the courage to fight me to my face. There were people no more then 10 meters away, who quite conveniently didn't see anything, and so the cops couldn't do anything. Those people, I could kill.

[Just your average movie goer]

Okay, back to the other team. Alright, Laura and Rory... now what do you think? Every one of these so-called "human beings" has the same right to live as the rest of us?

EDIT - Don't worry. I won't try to change your opinion if you still disagree with us. I was just wondering if we might have persuaded you.

This post has been edited by Just your average movie goer: 08 August 2004 - 10:22 AM

[SimeSublime]

I would also like to point out that I'm not trying to debate, or change anybody's point of view at all. I'm just telling it like I see it, because I find the topic interesting. I'm quite happy to say that those on the other side of the fence all have valid arguments to back up their points, and would like to congratulate everybody on not turning this into a flame war.

[Amber-Nicole]

As for what JM said about guns...Personally, I like my guns. The kind used for killing people. As you all know, I live out in the woods, in the middle of nowhere. If something bad happens, it's gonna take a little while for help to get here. In the past few weeks we have had a few robberies out here. My uncle has a house about half a mile away, he doesn't live in it currently, and some people have been breaking in and stealing stereo equipment, etc. Yesterday I had just gotten out of the shower, and was getting dressed, and a freaking GUY is looking in my window. From the back of the house, just looking in. I was pretty freaked out. I got my robe on and got one of dad's guns, and ran to the front door to lock it. We usually don't lock doors way out here. The guy saw me and came around to the door. Our front doors are glass...I could talk to him through the door. He said he was lost...I told him to get the fuck off the property or I would explode him. There was another guy in their truck. They didn't even pull up close to the house...and I have a mile long dirt road driveway. Quite a ways to go looking for directions when there are plenty of other houses and a small gas station right out on the road where you can see them. The guys left when they saw my gun. Red pick up truck with a Confederate flag on the back...they were definately from around here. Anyway, the point to this story is, I like guns. They make me feel safe, and I like to have the option of exploding some guy's head if I'm ever stuck home alone in a break in type situation. I was all paranoid for the rest of the day, and I would have been alot more frightened without the gun.

[Laura]

Sigh... I don't read the board for a couple of days, and it's all "Killing is correct! Surely Laura would agree with us now! Let us all congratulate ourselves and sacrifice a human in our own honor!"

Self defense is another issue entirely. If you are in a situation where someone is about to kill you (or someone else that's there, I suppose) unless you do something NOW, then by all means, take whatever action you can to preserve a life. Preferably non-lethal, but sometimes there are fight to the death situations and your self-preservation instinct might not be the clearest thinking thing. So do you what you need to do to protect your LIFE--NOT your stuff, or your land, or anything else besides a person's life.

Quite simply, I don't believe in the death penalty-- as a penalty for anything. Capital punishment, and corporal punishment for that matter, is not okay in my book. (If you want a book where it is okay, read Starship Troopers.) Self defense killing is not a punishment; it's not killing in retribution for something; it's killing to save your own life. You may think that's the same thing, but it's not; it's not a case of "That guy deserved to die because he tried to kill me," but "I had no other choice; if I hadn't killed him, I'd be dead now."

As for whoever made the claim that "all the people I've met who haven't been spanked are horrible people," surely you must realize that that statement is not very persuasive. First of all, how do you know whether EVERYONE YOU'VE MET has been spanked or not? You probably only know of the spanked or not-spanked status of a handful of people in your acquaintance; in any case, it's not enough to make a good sample. Even all of the people in your acquaintance would not make a big enough sample. And what are your criteria for horrible person status? Everyone is a jerk sometimes, or nice sometimes. Look, you can either back up your statements in terms of your own twisted sense of ethics or principles or what have you, or you can back it up scientifically, but if you're going to back it up scientifically, you better have done your research. Even if I did believe in spanking, I would realize it's absurd to make the claim that it's the sole factor in a person's life that makes them good or evil. Sheesh!

[Amber-Nicole]

So do you what you need to do to protect your LIFE--NOT your stuff, or your land, or anything else besides a person's life.

(Laura)

I assure you, if someone tries to get into my house, even if the intention is just to take my stuff..I'm going to get ahead and assume they plan to harm me and explode them the first chance I get.

[Laura]

Hm. Perhaps you should give them a warning shot, just in case. They might drop what they've got and run. A lot of times burglars aren't interested in dealing with angry people; just seeing that you are there, and you can defend yourself, would probably even work. A guy once broke into a house I was in, and even though I was unarmed and he could have taken me, easy, he ran away as soon as he saw the house wasn't empty.

[Amber-Nicole]

Perhaps. But someone who breaks into my house is just causing problems. I'm not saying that death is what they deserve, but if I catch them, death is probably what they'll get. It's my house, my stuff, and I don't like to share. I'm just a people hater in general, and if provoked, I will feel no remorse in exploding your head. People do so many things that they could just NOT do, and make life easier for everyone. Perhaps that is why in some instances I consider animal life to be more important than human life. Most people don't share my views. So many people have hurt me, that my animal friends have just moved up in ranking over the years. If something came down to saving an animal's life, or the lfie of a complete stranger...I would probably save the animal. I know that makes me a little bit sick, but we're all sick in our own ways.

This post has been edited by Amber-Nicole: 08 August 2004 - 12:25 PM

[Laura]

I still think that the punishment is way out of proportion with the crime here. "I don't want to share" is not a good enough answer.

I agree that nobody should be breaking into your home, and you have a right to get upset and do what you can to prevent potential burglars from getting anything for their troubles and to try to deter them from coming back. But that doesn't give you a moral right to end their life. What if it's a starving man who needs to borrow your bicycle to drive to the bakery for a loaf of bread? People who have nothing do desperate things; I'm sure you can think of a situation where you might be driven to steal. Anyway, if you end their life, you give them no chance to reform.

I'm not saying you need to be a saint and give them the silver candlesticks, but I think one ought to try to scare them off and let them run away unharmed but unenriched by the experience.

This post has been edited by Laura: 08 August 2004 - 01:34 PM