Icimoi - Do you believe the victim deserves justice in any way? No matter how I ask the question, and I've asked it many times, only writtenguarantee has offered her opinion on whether or not a victim should have a right to justice.
writtenguarantee - Thank-you for your considered response. I don't assume objectors to the death penalty support war. Quite the contrary. I merely pointed out to those who boasted that they live in a country that did not have state sanctioned murder, that in fact they were wrong. That was the root of that point. Either way, killing is killing, and if it is not done in defence of your family in response to direct threat, and is in fact done because it is what I was ordered to do, then it is state sponsored killing. I never said it was wrong per se, what I said was it was ignorant to believe we did not live in a country that sanctioned killing at the behest of the authorities, and on the grounds that we did, I saw greater benefit to killing pedophiles and murderers threatening our families than people in foreign countries arguing over who has the right to the revenue from some oil wells.
Your point on justice is very interesting though. You see, if someone stole my car, other than personal attachment and a few personal belongings, I feel that if the guy got a year in prison, and provided my insurance paid for me to be made good, I wouldn't care. But if someone raped or murdered my child that would be different. I believe I have the right to expect justice. You point out that justice is an individual thing, and maybe that is so. Maybe the victim should be given the choice. If a guy steels four card and one victim is happy with six months, the next a year, but the third thinks he should do seven, maybe he should face the sum total of eight and a half years.
Does a girl who is raped have the right to live without fear that she will meet her attacker again in the street? Does the mother of a murdered child have the right to expect her child's killer never to walk again? I'd say they do. I'd also go so far as to say they also have the right not to have to pay for their perpetrators health well being and care. Yes, pay for their jailor's wages, but no, don't pay for their medical treatment, food and television privileges. Let the do-gooders in society chip in and fund entertainment for the child abusers, and force the murderers in our prisons to work in chain gangs or in factories on the prison grounds. It's not slave labour. It's punishment and retribution for crimes committed.
Societies all strike a balance of what is and isn't acceptable or tolerable in their community, and we all form opinions on that. You have yours, I have mine, but in the middle is the line society has drawn, a balance it has set; and we have exactly the amount of pedophiles, rapists and murderers that we want to have.