Sutcliffe launches legal challenge against 'die in jail' ruling.

[Fisherman]

We Scandinavians are ALWAYS pragmatic, Claire. There are absolutely NO exceptions to that rule!

...and I had a terrific weekend, thanks!

The best,
Fisherman

[Natalie Severn]

I can see what you are saying Fisherman.Yes-there are in fact two responses here that are being dealt with simultaneously and that may have confused matters ---the one by the individual who needs to survive the injury and heal from it and that of the law which needs to punish the perpetrator on behalf of both the individual and the wider community.The two approaches may differ considerably ,one being taken that corresponds with current medical knowledge the other mainly with regards to the best approach for the legal system and society in general .They do not need to be counterposed because their functions are quite different.
Norma

[Fisherman]

Natalie Severn writes:

"there are in fact two responses here that are being dealt with simultaneously and that may have confused matters ---the one by the individual who needs to survive the injury and heal from it and that of the law which needs to punish the perpetrator on behalf of both the individual and the wider community"

The category Iīm after, Natalie, is actually the one inbetween these two - those who speak for taking matters into their own hands, the people who find the law insufficient and slow and in need of somebody stepping in and taking care of matters on their own. Among those ranks, there will be couplings to the inner desires of many members of society, including those who - quite legitimately - need to fight demons installed in them by self-experienced abuse. Itīs like a huge, badly stained piece of cloth, with innumerable interwowen threads, if you see what I mean.
Obviously, if somebody can find healing in a process of "fighting back" mentally and gaining control over their fears, then such a thing must be allowed for. And a further conclusion, drawn from that fact, would be that we owe it to all those who have suffered such abuse - and to all of the ones who have not, but who are reasonably potential victims of the self same thing, meaning the rest of us - to see to it that Peter Sutcliffe is never allowed back into the open society again.

On your point of there not being any need to counterpose the two approaches you speak of, I fully agree, and I will once again say that I am sorry that I did not from the outset fully follow your reasoning in that department!

The best,
Fisherman

[The Good Michael]

We Scandinavians are ALWAYS pragmatic, Claire. There are absolutely NO exceptions to that rule!

...and I had a terrific weekend, thanks!

The best,
Fisherman

Plaguematic, maybe. I seem to remember something about Rattus Norwegicus

[Natalie Severn]

Thankyou Fisherman,
Having slept on this and re-read your words ,I think I could see your reasoning more clearly and I think the matter was one simply of a misunderstanding.
It is can be difficult to talk about an event from your childhood that was so horrific that it silenced even your conscious mind for years on end and that only surfaced in nightmares and suppressed fears .However,talking about it certainly helps to bring it into open air a little so that the injury can begin or continue to heal and where you do not feel so inwardly isolated from the broader community that makes decisions about how to treat such offenders,and where you are once again powerless .
It was a great comfort to me ,therefore, to read another poster here,who shared his similar childhood trauma , being willing to talk about the devastation a similar experience had on his life and I must say ,Fisherman , it means a lot when people try to understand our story,and I believe it is to your great credit that this is what you have tried to do today and I thankyou for your honesty .
In my case, the story didnt end with the atrocity itself because to make matters worse I went on to "identify" a wholly innocent man,standing with his girl friend at the local busstop where I was accompanied by my father. .Fortunately little harm was done : my father approached him I think quite carefully, and the man whose girl friend we discovered lived at the back of us , was easily able to provide himself with an alibi, but even as a child I felt " to blame" for this too!
Anyway,enough said.
thanks,
Norma

[Robert]

Fisherman, I take issue with some of your comments but this is a highly-charged area and I think I will drop it for now.

[Bob Hinton]

Simple solution

There is of course a very simple solution to this problem of wanting early release, and that is to have only one sentence. On giving a verdict of Guilty where the offence warrants a prison sentence all that is needed is to give one not to exceed two hundred years.

Thay way the prisoner knows right from the start that he will not serve longer than two hundred years. He may serve a shorter sentence but that's up to him. If he is very good and well behaved he might get out early. If not he can stay in untill the 200 are up.

It would be teriffic incentive for prisoners to keep their noses very very clean and be so well behaved.

Of course this is a once only offer. If they are released early and re-offend they then do the full 200 - or as much of it as they can.

[Fisherman]

Mike writes:

"Plaguematic, maybe. I seem to remember something about Rattus Norwegicus"

Thatīs all garbled, Mike. Them rats came from the old Habsburgian empire, so Praguematic would be the word your searching.

The best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Natalie:

"Anyway,enough said."

Robert:

"I will drop it for now"

Fisherman:

"Good suggestions!"

[Ally]

You see, Robert, what I try to refrain from is thinking that I could somehow be a valid judge of whos life is worth more and whose is worth less. Itīs not until you allow yourself this, that you can come up with the idea that you are fit to pass judgement on other people and carry out verdicts.

I am sorry you suffer from such a complete inferiority complex or lack faith that you have a rational and logical mind. I do not however have any doubt of my ability to judge validly whose life is worth less than another's. It depends solely on the individuals actions.

In a sense, it is of course all very simple; society imposes a set of more or less severe norms and rules on us,and those who manage to live up to those norms and rules are regarded as better citizens than those who do not.
Those who fail very significantly - for example by killing for lust - end up at the bottom place of the list.
It all could not get much simpler than that, could it?

Actually it's a lot more complex but with your lack of faith in your reasoning I can understand how you are confused. It is not crimes against society that make one deserving of death. It is deliberate crimes against other individuals. I realize with the new socialist collective mentality, it is hard for some to understand the concept of individual rights and individual responsibilities and that we aren't just products or members of the world that surrounds us, but autonomous beings who are responsible for ourselves.

We need things to be evened out, we need the scales to stop tipping over, we want what we define as justice.
But who is to define and measure the amount of revenge we are to impose upon the perceived wrongdoers and normbreakers? Who are to carry out the punishment?

As "society" has made it illegal for me to carry out the punishment against my attacker, then it is society's job to do it on my behalf. In the olden days, if a person is murdered, then the mob goes and kills the attacker. This is messy, I understand and could lead to accidental slayings of the non-guilty. So the state steps in. However, they must enact the punishment that they have denied me. If you attack a human being, if you commit violence against an individual of that society, then you have proven yourself detrimental to that society as a whole and you need to be removed from it. The resources of that society should not be used to sustain you, the members of that society should not be forced to provide for you. You have proven yourself an enemy to that society and you should not be permitted to exist within it or be succored by it. In short: death.

I say that it is a damn sight MORE naive to believe that there is such a thing as benefiting from carrying out socially sanctioned violence.

We put dogs to sleep with a lot less violence than these men inflict on their victims. Death need not be violent. However since you are opposed to socially sanctioned violence, what exactly do you think happens in prisons? So it's all right to lock them up, treat them worse than dogs, throw them in cages where they will be beaten and raped by other animals, but a clean death, oh no, THAT's degrading? You think prisons are less socially sanctioned violence? The state is forcing them to be there, therefore the state is responsible for anything that happens to them. You think Joran Van der Sloot isn't going to be PRAYING for a clean death?

Claire, once again:
"let's not turn ourselves into blood-baying savages who would look to the state to justify our own lust for violent retribution. That doesn't let us off the hook."
Exactly so.

I would be perfectly happy to carry out not "violent retribution" but perfect justice on anyone who attacks me. However your state has made that illegal for me to do. Therefore justice demands that they do it for me, because they have refused me the right to seek justice on my own behalf.

Natalie left a question of mine unanswered. She wrote that she would not mind "them" pulling a sack over Peter Sutcliffes head and throwing him into the river to drown, and I asked who "them" were supposed to be. That question still stands, and not only for Natalie; it stands for anybody who is prepared to crave anybody elses blood in return for a criminal offense, no matter how sick and bad that offense may be.

You are a fisherman for real are you not? You go off trolling for your victims all the time. Do you crave their blood? Do you glorify in their deaths? Do you stand over their fishy bodies and revel in the gore and the blood? No? Why aren't you reveling or agonizing over the death? Not all deaths are equal deaths are they?

You seek to equate the murder of an innocent with the killing of a person so far removed from humanity that they could take another's life with no more thought than you give to your fish. So in my mind, they are no more than fish. I could absolutely kill a person of Peter Sutcliffes nature. There would be no reveling, there would be no "mwah ha ha, the blood I crave!" It would be of no more consequence to me that stepping on a roach.

Those who would be truly prepared to take Peter Sutcliffes life in exchange for his deeds would justify their own actions by saying that the world would be a better place without the likes of Sutcliffe in it.

No. I don't have to "justify" my actions by saying that the world would be a better place without him. It's not about improving the world. Other than taking out the trash and not wasting my resources or forcing me to pay for the housing of monsters under some phony pretext of social "awareness". It is you guys who argue against the death penalty who need to fall back on making the world better, and your dreams of redemption. You fail to understand simple biology. Humans, for all our achievements are ANIMALS. Religions of the world have given us this false impression that we are somehow special, somehow divine, something more than just monkeys, which leads us to a false impression that somehow, someway if we just do everything perfectly, we will rise above our base natures and somehow, we will live in a world without violence. Not going to happen. If intelligence were enough to override nature, violence would have been stamped out 4000 years ago. All intelligence has done is given us better tools than teeth and claw to enact violence. When an animal becomes diseased and turns against its pack, the pack does not shelter it. And neither should we. Our intelligence doesn't make us better or more able to cope with the diseased. It just makes us more prone to waffling about it.

[Fisherman]

Ally:

"I am sorry you suffer from such a complete inferiority complex or lack faith that you have a rational and logical mind."

Donīt be, Ally - you just go ahead with your judging and never mind me. I prefer not to be noticed at all when it comes to making decisions on the scale we are speaking of here.

"It is not crimes against society that make one deserving of death. It is deliberate crimes against other individuals."

I am not sure whether you speak of passing death sentences ā la the US here, or if you are just talking about everybodys right to judge other people, but whichever way, I AM sure that it is societyīs norms that rule these things. We do not state that somebody deserves to die because mr Chatworthy of Queensborough Terrace think so - we adjust to the norms and rules of our fellow men and women - society, that is!

"I realize with the new socialist collective mentality, it is hard for some to understand the concept of individual rights and individual responsibilities and that we aren't just products or members of the world that surrounds us, but autonomous beings who are responsible for ourselves."

Socialist collectivism does not enter the equation the way I do my counting.

"So it's all right to lock them up, treat them worse than dogs, throw them in cages where they will be beaten and raped by other animals ..."

Me oh my; did I say ALL THAT?

"You think prisons are less socially sanctioned violence?"

I do...? Really?

"You think Joran Van der Sloot isn't going to be PRAYING for a clean death?"

Uh-huh? That too?

"I would be perfectly happy to carry out not "violent retribution" but perfect justice on anyone who attacks me. However your state has made that illegal for me to do. Therefore justice demands that they do it for me, because they have refused me the right to seek justice on my own behalf."

And you would rather have it the other way around?

"You are a fisherman for real are you not?"

You better believe it, Ally! A shy, faith-lacking fisherman with an inferiority complex, but still ...!

"You seek to equate the murder of an innocent with the killing of a person so far removed from humanity that they could take another's life with no more thought than you give to your fish."

Is that so? Amazing!

"I could absolutely kill a person of Peter Sutcliffes nature. There would be no reveling, there would be no "mwah ha ha, the blood I crave!" It would be of no more consequence to me that stepping on a roach."

Now, THAT is what I call guts, Ally! No whining about everybodys right to some sort of dignity there! No emotions, no remorse. Zap, bang, whoom, and away go the creeps. And to think that just a small effort of wiping off your soles is all that is needed afterwards! Now, I donīt want to be fussy, but you ARE sure that you could do it, are you not? Or would you have somebody do it for you? Maybe it could be carried out as some sort of societal duty, teaching us all the necessity of ... well, crushing the occasional roach. The squeamish members of society who were not up to it could be sent on courses, where they would learn to be a bit more macho and abandon their socialist agendas. Makes one wonder how Pol Pot managed to pull his thing off, does it not?

"Religions of the world have given us this false impression that we are somehow special, somehow divine, something more than just monkeys, which leads us to a false impression that somehow, someway if we just do everything perfectly, we will rise above our base natures and somehow, we will live in a world without violence. Not going to happen."

Well, there goes that misconception, thank you very much ...!

"I'm Wicked through and through"

I refuse to believe that, Ally - surely even for you there is hope?

The best,
Fisherman
(who, incidentally, thought he was done with this thread)

[Ally]

By your clown routine, I presume you have no rational response to what I posted, and have resorted to buffoonery. I won't bother to respond to the clowning and will just accept your concession of defeat.

To answer the one question posed to me: yes, I am absolutely sure that I could cleanly and without remorse kill the likes of Peter Sutcliffe or one of his ilk. I could also kill a pedophile, a rapist or a child abuser with as little problem as stepping on the aforementioned roach. Actually I have more problems stepping on roaches. I love shoes and hate to see them befouled by bug guts.

There's a scene in one of the Lethal Weapon movies (sigh, no more enjoyment of those now that Mel gibson has gone nuts) where his character was confronted by a snarling dog and his partner says shoot it, and he says something like "I can't shoot a dog. People are okay, I can shoot them, but not a dog." I totally get that sentiment.

[Fisherman]

Ally writes:

"By your clown routine, I presume you have no rational response to what I posted"

My "clown routine", Ally, was led on by the fact that you yourself chose to treat me, shall we say, slightly unseriously. I was presented with the choice of taking your accusations of inferiority complexes, lack of faith and galloping socialism seriously or playing along at your own pace. I went for the latter.

The best,
Fisherman

[Ally]

Actually no, you didn't. My tone, which you may object to if you choose, was wrapped around actual arguments, points of fact and statements for debate. Your reply had none of that and did not contain a single point of rebuttal or fact or argument. If you are going to respond as I did, then make an effort to present rebuttal as well as tone and not empty posturing.

And your objecting to my saying socialist and inferiority complex is hardly a relevant objection, since you have no problem with the portrayal of those of us who believe in the death penalty to be blood-baying savages out for revenge and other statements of hyperbole and irrationality.

[Fisherman]

You just wonīt give it a rest, will you, Ally?

"My tone ... was wrapped around actual arguments"

And a lot of wrapping it was, for some reason. I have no problem with posters asking away, but when they start out by throwing unpolite accusations about them, I tend to be less inclined to take them seriously. And if they react to this by crowning themselves winners of the debate, it does very little to increase my lust for a rational discussion. The fact that this seems to be how you often go about things, disguising it as a no-nonsense tough guy attitude, will not be helpful either.
My advice to you, Ally, would be to go back on this thread and read my posts. They contain answers to just about everything you presented within that voluminous wrapping. I will, however, provide you with a few answers to points that have not already been discussed:

”So it's all right to lock them up, treat them worse than dogs, throw them in cages where they will be beaten and raped by other animals, but a clean death, oh no, THAT's degrading? You think prisons are less socially sanctioned violence? The state is forcing them to be there, therefore the state is responsible for anything that happens to them. You think Joran Van der Sloot isn't going to be PRAYING for a clean death?”

No, it is not alright. But given the choice between letting them loose or subjecting them to the reality of prison-life for a man who represents the lowest form of life, as seen by the inmates, I would opt for the latter choice. That is not saying that I condone all the actions that are taken against men like Sutcliffe – it is just saying that the good guys out there should not be confronted with the Sutcliffe characters if it can be avoided. Letīs not fall in the trap of over-simplification if we can avoid it, Ally.

”You seek to equate the murder of an innocent with the killing of a person so far removed from humanity that they could take another's life with no more thought than you give to your fish.”

No. But I condemn BOTH actions.

”If intelligence were enough to override nature, violence would have been stamped out 4000 years ago.”

And if nature was enough to override intelligence, we would still have the death penalty here in Sweden. But we donīt. You do, though …

Cheap shot? Absolutely, but since you brought the subject up, thereīs one answer for you. And I do believe that even you would agree that very many ”elements of nature” have been abandoned in favour of intelligence. If, for example, I was to take a liking to you and find that my life felt somewhat empty withut you, I would not club you over your head and drag you to my cave. Instead, in serious conflict with my nature and true desires, I would ask you to come home with me and look at my etchings. And you would not want to blame that on my inferiority complex, would you?

The best,
Fisherman
(going shopping - but Iīll be back...!)