LinkBack URL
About LinkBacksHe's openly admitted to a large part of it - he's just arguing the severity.Originally Posted by ZaO
He's openly admitted to a large part of it - he's just arguing the severity.
Not sure if you're saying dangerous people should be locked up, or shouldn't.
As for locking someone "in a cage", well, prison is prison, and regardless of how gilded and padded the cage may be, they're still locked up. Prisons also, these days, aren't exactly cages. Cells, yes, but not cages. They are also sometimes cells equipped with TV, with games machines, even with colour-coordinated matching curtains. And with access to well-equipped gymnasiums, etc, as well.
But that's a different argument to whether people should ever be locked up, or not.
If you do not lock up someone known to be a killer, what do you say to the relatives of the victims he kills while you're trying to rehabilitate him? Ooops, but never mind, we'll cure him eventually?
Agreed.
But while "doing our best", we also need to protect the rest of society from known predators. How can that be effectively done without locking them up?
Didn't you?
It may have been implicit, but I'd bet you did.
Do you ever use the NHS? It's part of the contract.
Did you go to school, or uni? Part of the contract, again.
Do you pay taxes or receive benefits? part of the contract.
What about public transport? Or services and products produced by the rest of us, all living under the contract?
Unless you live in isolation behind a gated enclosure, not using the services provided by society, then you live under that contract, and take the benefits of it, even if it's just that the police are there to try to protect y7ou from the lawlessness that would result if they were not, or that you'd expect the fire service to show up if your house is on fire, or an ambulance to attend if you have a car accident .... on the roads provided by, I might point out, that same society.
As for having faith in the justice system, well, is it perfect? Hell, no. Does it make mistakes? Sometimes. Is there corruption and abuses in it? Clearly.
Much the same could be said of the political process, which clearly is also flawed, and as I've said many, many times, pays barely a nod to actual democracy, with the party system presenting us with a "vote" in a dice game where the state determines the rules of the game, and then loads the dice and tells us it's in our best interests.
So I don't have a lot of faith ion the system, either. The problem is, I haven't yet seen anyone come up with anything better. And letting known killers, or rapists, or paedophiles, or yes, even persistent and recidivist burglars, roam the streets preying on anyone they damn well feel like simply because prison is far from a perfect solution is, in my opinion daft. It's very much throwing the baby out with the proverbial bathwater.
It's about a priority is human rights. We all have a right to freedom and liberty, provided we abide by other people's rights, like the right not to be murdered, or raped, or abused as a child, or burgled. And those that fail to respect everyone else's fundamental rights should expect to put their own fundamental right to liberty in jeopardy, precisely because of their own failure to respect the rights they now seek to rely on.
If you do not put killer and rapists in jail, how do you propose to prevent them failing to respect the right of others not to be killed or raped, by those that by virtue of having done it once cannot be trusted not to do it again, and frankly, richly deserve to be punished for what they did to others.
I utterly support the right not to be locked up. provided the individual respects the rights of others. If you breach that, you deserve to pay the penalty for it, and an imperfect system such as the one we have is certainly better than no system at all.
Same condition, maybe, but the Home Secretary made explicitly clear that the basis for the decision was not the condition but the extent of the condition. Asperger's varies in it's impact, on the ability of people to cope. Two cousins of mine are both diagnosed as Aspergers suffers. They both have issues, but they both have developed coping mechanisms, and while they still face come quite serious day-to-day challenges, they both managed to go to university, to cope with the rigours of getting there and back, with campus life, and to get very good degrees, to PhD, in maths and physics. While affected, and seriously, by the condition, they can cope with most situations, not least by avoiding ones they cannot cope with.
The question, therefore, is not whether McKinnon has a given condition, but the extent of it and his ability to cope. And that has be to based on medical advice and opinions, hence May taking advice from a number of clinicians on exactly that issue. Without having access to that advice, and to legal opinion, we cannot be in a position to know whether the decision to block extradition was right or not.
Comparing Talha Ahsan and McKinnon on the basis of simply having a given condition(s) is invalid without detailed medical advice on the precise nature of the condition in each individual, because that is the basis on which the decision is made.
Well said Saracen!! Too many folk are willing to get on their soap box over such issues without fully considering the in-depth details and implications....
We should all remember 'It could be you!' and I'm not talking about winning the lottery.
The old adage to treat others as you would wish to be treated yourself is very apt here....
Well just because someone admits to something it doesn't mean they did it. People sometimes plead innocent when they're guilty. Who knows what forces are at work. Don't judge when you don't really know is all I'm saying.
Man I respect that you put across good points instead of just trying to be insulting. Seriously. You're the kind of person that can expand peoples views on stuff and that's what I love in a conversation/debate.
[The social contract thing is to much to write about here. I understand your view but mine in brief is that we are forced into it in a lot of ways. The system takes advantage of us and if we have to use the advantages of the system at times, I don't feel it means we have to agree with it all. But I'm just going to leave it at that.]
From anyone I've known of that goes to prison, it just doesn't help. Much like friends who retire from the military. They don't have a clue how to operate back in society with the rest of us and it leads to bad things for them. I've seen it many times. Like I said - I don't think it is good for people who are rapists, killers, paedos, whatever.... to be roaming the streets doing what they like. Absolutely not. But I just think there should be much more of an emphasis on helping them stop this negative behaviour. Straight up punishment, locking somone in jail with thugs just doesn't seem to help. Stop punishing and start teaching. We should choose to take certain actions knowing that their affect will be positive, rather than not taking certain actions because we fear the consequences. That's the wrong message. It's not the kind of teaching I believe in but I know people go for that because they're giving into fear. We need to stop looking to our corrupt leaders for solutions and start looking at ourselves. That's when the change will happen, I believe. Because we make up the cogs in their system. One example: If we buy it, they keep selling it.
I totally believe in the kind of idea which you mentioned of being able to live however you want as long as it doesn't affect others freedom. My way of going about things is to stop trying to change the big picture so much. Because that's a very stressful struggle which very few people seem to get any success with (doesn't mean they shouldn't try though!). I'm more focused on how you can better yourself and your interactions with others, hopefully inspire people, and start a wave which will in turn affect everything for the better. It's the desire to impose your will on others that causes so much issues I think. When people get in that place of power they end up getting corrupted by it and we all know the rest of the story there... So it goes back to that idea again - Live free and let others do the same. That's all we need to do. Living a happy life is much more simple than we all think.
After reading through my post, here's a couple things I wanted to add. One of my brothers was murdered. Because he stood up for himself when a group of blokes were trying to chat up his wife. I don't wish for the men that did it to be simply locked up in prison as punishment. I would only hope that they can realize the magnitude of what they did. The suffering it caused to my family. And I'm sure they did. At worst they would know it in the last days of their life. I just hope that they can use that to make themselves better people, and if they have kids, to make sure they won't take such actions. Improving the next generation. I don't wish for them to be punished by others, because they will surely be punished by their own conscience. What a thing to live with. However, I'll admit. If I ever met these people I'm not sure I would be able to keep such a positive attitude about it. I guess I'll just leave it at that.
The other is that I know the attitude and lifestyle I have adopted has affected others around me. It's when I realized the true importance of it. Not just close friends and family, but strangers I meet in the street. To see how they react to genuine kindness from a stranger is amazing. Some people get really freaked out at first, and in this society I can't blame them. But when they see it's genuine it's like it gives them some hope. I think if you can just inspire a few people to think about how they're treating the world, then your life has a real purpose. So this is what I meant. it starts with ourselves. This may seem irrelevant to some people but I just hope those people will realize that the worlds leaders are never going to make the world a better place by force. It's all on us.
Logic tells me, even though its wrong, hacking, if we have good hackers in this country, then we should keep them. Employ them for our countries defense!
I actually know of someone who this happened to sometime ago. I'm not going to say his name or what he did but I think he got a job in security software last I heard! Crime does pay sometimes I guess lol....
Edit: Actually I will. Just dug up an old story on it and thought it might be worth a giggle. It's just that headline...: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1434530.stm
Last edited by ZaO; 23-10-2012 at 05:10 PM.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote