Donaldson MR and Miss Hindley
J B Youles
> Hindley's
>original tariff was 20 years, which was subsequently increased (as
>the 20 year mark approached) to 30 years, and then to life.
>Regardless of who the person is or what the crime is, it is surely
>proper for the sentence set by the judge to be observed, and not
>subsequently meddled with later by politicians for political
>reasons.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that a LIFE sentence was mandatory
for murder, the twenty years being just a recommendation.
Also I believe that the mother of at least one of the victims has sworn
to kill Hyndley if she were released, so would it be such a good idea ?
--
John Youles
------------------------------------------------------------
"If the weather we are having is a result of the greenhouse
effect, then someone must have taken out all the glass."
------------------------------------------------------------
Marshall Rice
john....@dial.pipex.com "J B Youles" writes:
> Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that a LIFE sentence was mandatory
> for murder, the twenty years being just a recommendation.
A "life" sentence is mandatory for Murder, and that is just what Hindley is
serving. It is usual, however, to release life prisoners on "licence" after
a certain period of time; it is this period to which the tariff relates.
The sentence is never discharged, and prisoners on licence can be, and often
are, recalled to prison for any one of a number of reasons, the most common
being the commission of a further (not necessarily serious) offence.
> Also I believe that the mother of at least one of the victims has sworn
> to kill Hyndley if she were released, so would it be such a good idea ?
No comment!
--
Marshall Rice
P. Burridge
thought Myra Hindley had not been dealt with correctly by the home
office. I believe he has a very valid point. I've no time for the
likes of Miss Hindley, but the personality concerned is not
relevant. It is quite unacceptable for politicians to interfere
with sentencing in the way they did in this case. Hindley's
original tariff was 20 years, which was subsequently increased (as
the 20 year mark approached) to 30 years, and then to life.
Regardless of who the person is or what the crime is, it is surely
proper for the sentence set by the judge to be observed, and not
subsequently meddled with later by politicians for political
Myra Hindley's sentence.' Having the Executive interfering with
judicial sentencing is a very dangerous state of affairs likely to
set us on the road to the kind of justice system operated by, for
example, the likes of China, where they can arbitrarily add time on
to your sentence if it suits them to do so; for no stated reason.
-Paul
-- --
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
PGP Fingerprint: 6C C4 04 FE 42 1B C9 7A 11 FA 8F 4F DE DE CF 98
PGP Encrypted mail preferred. PGP Public Key and Geek Code on request.
"Somebody must have been spreading lies about Joseph K." -Franz Kafka
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jon
<john....@dial.pipex.com> writes:
>Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that a LIFE sentence was mandatory
>for murder, the twenty years being just a recommendation.
There is a set "tariff" which the parole board keeps in mind when deciding
when to offer parole, as I understand it (and maybe a criminal lawyer can
correct me).
Myra Hindley ought to have been released long ago, and is now a political
prisoner. The Home Secretary keeps her in prison to win votes for himself.
The British press has tried to foster various myths about her, e.g. that
the tape recordings depict the child being tortured. Her crimes were
deserving of a life sentence, but not of a more severe life sentence than
other murderers. In supporting her release, you do not by any means condone
the crime.
The Daily Mail has misrepresented Donaldson's views ("he regrets being
drawn into the campaign to release her") because what he regrets is that
stupid journalists will misrepresent what he says, as they have done, and
he has said no more than any competent lawyer, i.e. that with a new home
secretary there could, in theory, be mercy for her.
>Also I believe that the mother of at least one of the victims has sworn
>to kill Hyndley if she were released, so would it be such a good idea ?
Sounds as if that mother ought to be in prison, or at least bound over to
keep the peace. And the journalists should cease asking such people for
quotations to pad out their ill-informed feature articles!
mike
In article <541004...@jongru.demon.co.uk>, Jon (J...@jongru.demon.co.uk) writes:
>In article: <4djk7t$h...@soap.news.pipex.net> J B Youles
><john....@dial.pipex.com> writes:
>
>>Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that a LIFE sentence was mandatory
>>for murder, the twenty years being just a recommendation.
>
>There is a set "tariff" which the parole board keeps in mind when deciding
>when to offer parole, as I understand it (and maybe a criminal lawyer can
>correct me).
>Myra Hindley ought to have been released long ago, and is now a political
>prisoner. The Home Secretary keeps her in prison to win votes for himself.
>The British press has tried to foster various myths about her, e.g. that
>the tape recordings depict the child being tortured. Her crimes were
>deserving of a life sentence, but not of a more severe life sentence than
>other murderers. In supporting her release, you do not by any means condone
>the crime.
>The Daily Mail has misrepresented Donaldson's views ("he regrets being
>drawn into the campaign to release her") because what he regrets is that
>stupid journalists will misrepresent what he says, as they have done, and
>he has said no more than any competent lawyer, i.e. that with a new home
>secretary there could, in theory, be mercy for her.
Quite right
Myra Hindley should be released immediately, ( in the centre of
Manchester market on a Saturday afternoon should do nicely)
Mike
Richard Buttrey
>prisoner. The Home Secretary keeps her in prison to win votes for himself.
Just a small correction. I don't believe there are any votes to be won by
keeping Hindley in prison.
There are however votes to be lost, by any Home Secretary whatever his
flavour, by releasing her.
_____________________________________________________________
Richard Buttrey - Cheshire - UK
email: ric...@buttrey.u-net.com
_____________________________________________________________
Angus MacCulloch
>Also I believe that the mother of at least one of the victims has sworn
>to kill Hyndley if she were released, so would it be such a good idea ?
>
Indeed she has but she must be well into her sixties and does not look as
if she would be the greatest physical threat to anyone who could run at
above seven miles an hour. I think Hindley's life would be under threat
if she were ever released but I imagine that she would choose to run that
risk.
Angus MacCulloch.
--
**********************************************************
* Angus D. MacCulloch Faculty of Law *
* Tel: +44 (0)161 275 3582 University of Manchester *
* Fax: +44 (0)161 275 3579 Manchester M13 9PL *
**********************************************************
Jon
>
>Jon <J...@jongru.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>prisoner. The Home Secretary keeps her in prison to win votes for
himself.
>
>Just a small correction. I don't believe there are any votes to be won by
>keeping Hindley in prison.
>There are however votes to be lost, by any Home Secretary whatever his
>flavour, by releasing her.
You may be right.
I think Home Secretaries expect to gain votes whenever they pontificate
about "being tough on crime" and "life must mean life", whether their
victims are people like Myra Hindley or just juvenile delinquents. They
expect to gain votes, but in reality maybe they gain no more than the
enthusiastic endorsement of the editors of the Daily Express and Daily
Mail.
What they ought to do is to invest more money in the police forces so that
more criminals should be caught, and meanwhile leave the parole boards free
to do their work in peace. Myra Hindley would then, probably, be released
with as little publicity as possible (though perhaps it is inevitable that
some greedy civil servant will sell the story to The Sun) and the Express
and Mail, presented with a fait accompli, will engage in a damage
limitation exercise to ensure that the Tories still don't lose any votes
over it.
I would be happy to let Myra Hindley babysit my child. I am quite unable
to share in the Two Minutes Hate (see "1984" by Orwell) that is regularly
directed at her.
-
Jon
John Sharman
While you're out entertaining Martin Bormann at your eldest son's bar
mitzvah, no doubt.
--
Regards,
John Sharman
+====================================================================+
| John Sharman Internet: jay...@norvic.demon.co.uk |
| Tel/Fax: +44 (0)1603 452142 |
+====================================================================+
John Sharman
ray...@dial.pipex.com "Greg REILLY-COOPER" writes:
> On Fri, 19 Jan 96 01:34:10 GMT, John Sharman
> <jay...@norvic.demon.co.uk> didst utter:
>
> :> In article <116118...@jongru.demon.co.uk> J...@jongru.demon.co.uk "Jon"
> writes:
> :>
> :> > In article: <4dlvkp$b...@nuntius.u-net.net> Richard Buttrey
> :> > <ric...@buttrey.u-net.com> writes:
> :> > >
> :> > >Jon <J...@jongru.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> :>
> :> > I would be happy to let Myra Hindley babysit my child.
> :>
> :> While you're out entertaining Martin Bormann at your eldest son's bar
> :> mitzvah, no doubt.
>
> Cruel, John, tres cruel ! ROFL. I wonder whether we are missing
> something though. What was that reference to Orwell's 1984 and a Two
> Minute Hate all about ?
There is a real difficulty. I don't like Michael Howard and I detest
most of his more contentious actions. At the same time I can't deny that
those actions almost certainly enjoy the support of the majority of the
electorate. Let's have a Bill of Rights asap. Have it approved by
referendum.
Marshall Rice
> ....<SNIP>
> Myra Hindley should be released immediately, ( in the centre of
> Manchester market on a Saturday afternoon should do nicely)
Saddleworth Moor, with about a minutes's start, might be more appropriate.
--
Marshall Rice
Greg REILLY-COOPER
<jay...@norvic.demon.co.uk> didst utter:
:> In article <116118...@jongru.demon.co.uk> J...@jongru.demon.co.uk "Jon" writes:
:>
:> > In article: <4dlvkp$b...@nuntius.u-net.net> Richard Buttrey
:> > <ric...@buttrey.u-net.com> writes:
:> > >
:> > >Jon <J...@jongru.demon.co.uk> wrote:
:>
:> > I would be happy to let Myra Hindley babysit my child.
:>
:> While you're out entertaining Martin Bormann at your eldest son's bar
:> mitzvah, no doubt.
Cruel, John, tres cruel ! ROFL. I wonder whether we are missing
something though. What was that reference to Orwell's 1984 and a Two
Minute Hate all about ?
Greg
Jon
(Greg REILLY-COOPER) writes:
>Cruel, John, tres cruel ! ROFL.
Not cruel: merely witty. ROFL too.
> I wonder whether we are missing something though. What was that
> reference to Orwell's 1984 and a Two Minute Hate all about ?
Get an education, mate. Orwell was a famous author who wrote books that
were highly regarded, and "1984" was one of them. In the Two Minutes Hate,
the proles were encouraged to vent their anger and hatred on a figure
nominated by the government, so that the same anger and hatred would not be
directed at the government itself.
Jon
(Greg REILLY-COOPER) writes:
>
Ah ! I thought there was a subtle meaning in there somewhere. Thanks
>for the education.
>
>As someone else has already pointed out, BTW, George Orwell was the
>nom de plume employed by one Eric Blair. An inability to enjoy his
>writing enough to wade through it does not _always_ indicate a lack of
>education :-)
But I KNEW that. The reason I did not mention it was because it was
irrelevant. Many things are irrelevant. The fact that Orwell went to Eton
is irrelevant. The fact that 1984 was deliberately a rearrangement of 1948
(when conditions were very similar to those portrayed in the novel) is also
irrelevant.
If I say Elton John writes bloody good songs, are you going to correct me
and say, Oh no he doesn't! REG DWIGHT writes bloody good songs!! Oh, I
see. You are.
Four legs good, Myra Hindley bad.
---
Jon
>Regards,
>
>Greg
>
>
>
--
Jon
t...@hplb.hpl.hp.com
|Far better that the dear lady had been topped and saved us all this moral
|anguish.
Like the Birmingham 6 and Guildford 4 weren't.
I always forget whether it was Timothy Evans or James Hanratty who was given a
pardon. Posthumously, unfortunately.
I've personally been too close to miscarriages of justice to be happy with the
idea of capital punishment (or amputations etc, for that matter).
--
===============================================================================
The above are my own views, not the views of HP
Tom Gardner Hewlett Packard Laboratories, Filton Rd,
t...@hplb.hpl.hp.com Stoke Gifford, Bristol, Avon, BS12 6QZ, ENGLAND.
Fax: +44 117 9228920 Tel: +44 117 9799910 ext. 28192
Too many Heritage Centres make you go blind.
===============================================================================
Greg REILLY-COOPER
utter:
:> If I say Elton John writes bloody good songs, are you going to correct me
:> and say, Oh no he doesn't! REG DWIGHT writes bloody good songs!! Oh, I
:> see. You are.
Nah - not unless you also tell me to get an education and I'm not sure
whether you are smiling as you write :-)
'Course, I might question your taste in music ....
TTFN
Greg
Greg REILLY-COOPER
didst utter:
:> Murder is wrong regardless of who does it.
Undeniably. Capital punishment, however, is NOT murder. Murder is
"unlawful intentional killing ...." and, regardless of the moral
issues, if the Law provides for capital punishment then capital
punishment, lawfully applied, cannot be murder.
You're slipping into rhetoric again Big Ears, old friend.
Greg
Big Ears.
> Murder is "unlawful intentional killing ...."
OK, I re-phrase myself: The killing of human beings is wrong.
Big Ears.
Owen Lewis
>....Myra Hindley's sentence.' Having the Executive interfering with
>judicial sentencing is a very dangerous state of affairs likely to
>set us on the road to the kind of justice system operated by, for
>example, the likes of China, where they can arbitrarily add time on
>to your sentence if it suits them to do so; for no stated reason.
Sadly Paul, I find I must agree with you. There is something awfully akin to
a HS doctoring a sentence and a policeman doctoring his notebook to assure
a conviction in a case where guilt was anyway beyond doubt.
Far better that the dear lady had been topped and saved us all this moral
anguish.
--
-= Owen Lewis =-
@
Tele/fax +44-(0)1794-301731 ELOKA Consultancy & Project Management
o...@eloka.demon.co.uk
pgp 2.x public key on request
Big Ears.
> Far better that the dear lady had been topped and saved us all this moral
> anguish.
Murder is wrong regardless of who does it.
Big Ears.
Don Grunbaum
In article <4dntl4$6...@yama.mcc.ac.uk>, Angus MacCulloch (angus.d.m...@man.ac.uk) writes:
>not...@kent.win-uk.net (mike) wrote:
>
>>
>>Myra Hindley should be released immediately, ( in the centre of
>>Manchester market on a Saturday afternoon should do nicely)
>>
>
>
>I live in the area where Hindley and Brady allegedly picked up
>their victims so I assume that is where you are talking about.
>Longsight market? Since the Sixties the area has changed
>somewhat, it is now largely populated by students who I don't
>imagine would have as strong feelings on the matter as your post
>would suggest.
>
>Angus MacCulloch.
>
>
Ashton Market according to the C4 documentary repeated recently.
One of the victims' brother suggested she was put into the centre
of the market. Can I suggest that interested parties read the book
'Beyond Belief' by IIRC Emlyn Williams.
Don Grunbaum
Data Processing Manager
Trox (U.K.) Ltd, Caxton Way, Thetford, Norfolk, IP24 3SQ U.K.
Tel +44 (0)1842 754545 Fax +44 (0)1842 763051
David Stockley
>On Tue, 23 Jan 1996 21:49:03 GMT, na40...@anon.penet.fi (Big Ears.)
>didst utter:
>
>:> Sir Greg REILLY-COOPER wrote:
>:>
>:> > Murder is "unlawful intentional killing ...."
>:>
>:> OK, I re-phrase myself: The killing of human beings is wrong.
>
We can always try. Most will accept that killing can be justified -
whether legally or morally- in certain circumstances. It therefore
follows that while it may be regrettable that a person died, it won't be
wrong. Possible examples: self-defence, necessity, euthanasia, selective
non-treatment of neo-nates. Not all will agree with the proposition or
the list, but it helps demonstrate that killing, whilst serious, isn't as
universally black and white as people think.
Regards
David
David Toube
:crimes, provided always that the identity and culpability of the
:convicted person is beyond question.
^^^^^^^
So you're opposed to the death penalty, then.
----
David Toube LLB BCL
Lecturer in Law
QMW, University of London
'Lex iniustia non est lex'
WWW: http://www.qmw.ac.uk/~ugtl027/index.html
Greg REILLY-COOPER
didst utter:
:> Sir Greg REILLY-COOPER wrote:
:>
:> > Murder is "unlawful intentional killing ...."
:>
:> OK, I re-phrase myself: The killing of human beings is wrong.
Spoilsport ! I'm not sure whether I can argue with that ;-}
Greg
Big Ears.
> We can always try. Most will accept that killing can be justified -
> whether legally or morally- in certain circumstances. It therefore
> follows that while it may be regrettable that a person died, it won't be
> wrong. Possible examples: self-defence, necessity, euthanasia, selective
> non-treatment of neo-nates.
Whilst not liking neo-nazis (= neo-nates ?), they should be treated like the
rest of us. Two wrongs don't make 1 right.
> ...... it helps demonstrate that killing, whilst serious, isn't as
> universally black and white as people think.
For a large number of years I have been aware that everything is usualy a
shade of grey (gray for all our American readers) and some shades of grey
are more attractive than others.
Big Ears.
Big Ears.
> By what argument is the killing of a human more 'wrong' than the killing of
> any other life form animal or vegetable?
The killing of the higher being is wrong because it destroys a conscious
being. The killing of other manuals bothers me although I continue to eat
meat though not British beef.
The routine killing of horses with broken limbs appears to me to be wrong
and done as a solely commercial expedient (i.e. to make or to save money).
If one appreciates being alive, a miracle in itself, then one should respect
the lives of other beings too - they too have feelings and intelligence and
can feel pain.
As for vegtables and fruits I have no such feelings, although I would not
destroy nature willy-nilly as I like the countryside.
Big Ears.
Big Ears.
> I can't see what's wrong with the death penalty for certain heinous
> crimes, provided always that the identity and culpability of the
> convicted person is beyond question.
1 Killing is wrong
2 The State doesn't always kill the guilty person
3 Other human beings, whatever their crimes, should be treated
humanely, and killing people against their wishes is not a humane
activity
> -Paul
Is Paul the most widely used forename on the uk.* newsgroups ?
Big Ears.
Angus MacCulloch
>David Stockley wrote:
>
>> We can always try. Most will accept that killing can be justified -
>> whether legally or morally- in certain circumstances. It therefore
>> follows that while it may be regrettable that a person died, it won't be
>> wrong. Possible examples: self-defence, necessity, euthanasia, selective
>> non-treatment of neo-nates.
>
>Whilst not liking neo-nazis (= neo-nates ?), they should be treated like the
>rest of us. Two wrongs don't make 1 right.
>
Big Ears
Neo-nates may well become neo-nazis but it would be wrong to assume they
all do. But then again they all have rather short hair :-)
Angus.
Owen Lewis
na40...@anon.penet.fi "Big Ears." writes:
>David Stockley asked:
>> What do you mean by higher being- ones with the most developed
>> powers of reason, language and understanding; ones with opposable
>> thumbs??
>
>The ones that cover their bodies in fur/hair substitutes (i.e. clothes) and
>make advanced tools (i.e. such as space rockets and motor vehicles).
So can *you* construct an ant's nest? Bird's Nest? Spin a strand of silk? Fly
from one pole of this Earth to the other with no navigational aid and with
only your own strength and wits to rely on? Match your colour to mood or
background at will? Make a honeycomb (or make honey, come to that)? Lift
ten times your own weight?
And your definition of a higher being is one that covers itself in fur/hair
substitutes? Save it for all fools' day.
Owen
Big Ears.
> So can *you* construct an ant's nest? Bird's Nest? Spin a strand of silk? Fly
> from one pole of this Earth to the other with no navigational aid and with
> only your own strength and wits to rely on? Match your colour to mood or
> background at will? Make a honeycomb (or make honey, come to that)? Lift
> ten times your own weight?
But forget to mention the sad fact that I am at present unable to regenerate
a limb nor grow new hair on my bald head.
I think you are making everyone else aware of why we should respect other
living creatures. Life is truely a miracle in all it's forms.
Big Ears.
Big Ears.
> Well, that may set out your opinion but it does not persuade as to why others
> should agree with you.
People should agree with me because they want to. I hope they are capable
of considering with care all of what I have writen then deciding freely for
themselves.
Big Ears.
Owen Lewis
na40...@anon.penet.fi "Big Ears." writes:
>Owen Lewis wrote:
>
>> So can *you* construct an ant's nest? Bird's Nest? Spin a strand of silk?
>> Fly from one pole of this Earth to the other with no navigational aid and
with
>> only your own strength and wits to rely on? Match your colour to mood or
>> background at will? Make a honeycomb (or make honey, come to that)? Lift
>> ten times your own weight?
>
>But forget to mention the sad fact that I am at present unable to regenerate
>a limb nor grow new hair on my bald head.
Well, bits and pieces fall off us all, sooner or later. Sorry to hear about
the limb though.
>I think you are making everyone else aware of why we should respect other
>living creatures. Life is truely a miracle in all it's forms.
True enough, but you digress. Respect for life and admiration for its variety
and ingenuity really have little to do with the rights and wrongs of killing.
Death is a natural and necessary concommittant to life and must come to all
living things. Some death may be considered untimely in the sense that a full
life cycle has not been run, but nature is nothing if not profligate and
wasteful. Untimely death is as much a part of the way of the world as any other
feature.
We kill to live. We kill to be healthy. We kill for comfort and contentment.
In this context, 'we' is by no means resticted to humanity.
Given that not just death but killing is a necessary concommittant of life,
the argument surely devolves to whether or not killing may be justified. At
this point the argument leaves the realm of the absolute and enters some
artificial scale of human values.
From a human persective and with survival of the species as the prime directive,
it clearly is a sensible rule that unlawful killing should be forbidden. Such
a rule is also a fundamental prerequisite for people to live in society with
each other and in reasonable harmony. I know of no human society that, in some
guise or other, does not have a rule against unlawful killing.
My point is that the natural and proper abjuration of unlawful killing ought
not to extend to lawful killing.
Certain crimes deserve a singular mark of society's disappoval.
Capital punishment serves well as such a mark of absolute disapproval. It
expresses, categorically, a society's view that certain acts are so
reprehensible that the perpetrator of such an act will be permanently removed
from society by the extinction of life. I believe that such a course is
healthy for a society. Conversely, a society which, in effect, says that
no act is sufficiently horrid to be especially distinguished by the
extinction of a perpetrator, is losing its way; losing its scale of values.
To sentence the likes of Miss Hindley (and Mrs West) to a gentle
incarceration in which she will be housed, clothed, fed, entertained, given
outings etc. for the rest of her life (or less if she and her sympathisers
have their way) seems to me to be nonsensical. She is cared for and treated
as would be, say, a persistent burglar or someone who in a sudden fit of
temper lashed out and caused death as a result. Albeit that she serves for
longer than they will, the essential nature of her punishment (good old
fashioned word that) is the same.
One may cavil over what acts deserve the special marking of a death sentence
but, for me, there is no doubt that it is entirely fitting for those who kill
others repeatedly for the purposes of their own pleasure. A society that
tolerates the continued existence of a person proved guilty of such acts in a
special sense is ameliorating the particularly abhorrent nature of the acts
themselves.
The Americans, for whose use of our language I do not much care in general,
occasionally add to it serendipitiously. They coined the usage of 'wasting'
for killing. I truly believe that likes of Miss Hindley (and her partner in
crime) should be wasted. What else should we consider her fit for?
Owen
Owen Lewis
na40...@anon.penet.fi "Big Ears." writes:
>People should agree with me because they want to. I hope they are capable
>of considering with care all of what I have writen then deciding freely for
>themselves.
Quite so.
Owen
>
>Big Ears.
John de Rivaz
^^^^^^^^^
> come to all living things. Some death may be considered untimely
> in the sense that a full life cycle has not been run, but nature
> is nothing if not profligate and wasteful. Untimely death is as
> much a part of the way of the world as any other feature.
I disagree with the use of the word "necessary"
There are few examples of life on the Earth that do not age and die -
mainly plants. Some say that lobsters only die as a result of predation,
and turtles have very long lives.
Already humans go against nature. We have colonised parts of the Earth that
require us to wear clothes and use housing and artificial heat. Our natural
lifespans in the jungle were about 20 to 30 years, today anyone dying at
that age is considered to have died early.
Now we are taking a step further. Age research is revealing ways of pushing
the maximum lifespan limit back. Already in 1996 there have been articles
in the UK press about the scientific aspects of telomere research and also
the political and social implications.
Last year the British media carried a number of high quality and supportive
articles on the subject of cryonic suspension - the freezing of people at
the time of death with a view to revival when science has advanced to cure
the freezing and other damage present. [It is important to realise that
death is a process not something that happens at an instant, and death as
defined by laywers today may not be an irrecoverable condition 60 or a
hundred years hence. A definition of death could be "A person is dead when
insufficient personal and individual information exists to restore the dead
person by any means present or future".]
--
Sincerely, ****************************************
* Publisher of Longevity Report *
John de Rivaz * Fractal Report *
* details on request *
****************************************
In the information age, sharing can increase world wealth enormously,
because giving information does not decrease your information.
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/JohndeR
R Ross-Langley
o...@eloka.demon.co.uk "Owen Lewis" writes:
> likes of Miss Hindley (and her partner in crime) should be
> wasted. What else should we consider her fit for?
Perhaps: to help reveal the physical and psychological patterns
that lead to crimes like these, and ways of preventing them.
--
Richard Ross-Langley
Nick Maclaren
John de Rivaz <Jo...@longevb.demon.co.uk> writes:
|> In article: <4elb8m$9...@dziuxsolim.rutgers.edu>
|> as...@fjas.net (Kramese) writes:
|> > In article <82902...@longevb.demon.co.uk>,
|> Jo...@longevb.demon.co.uk says...
|> > >A definition of death could be "A person is dead when
|> > >insufficient personal and individual information exists to
|> > >restore the dead person by any means present or future".
|>
|> > to those at present.
|>
|> why "except"?
|>
|> Cryonics existed before nanotechnology was hypothesised, and then
|> no one really knew how anyone could be revived. The "unkonwn
|> technologies" argument was the only one to justify the process.
|>
|> Only a few people were signed up for many years. After nanotechnology
|> appeared in concept, an obvious route to revival was also
|> demonstrated and now hundreds maybe even thousands have signed
|> for suspension. There are groups in many countries, the UK having
|> no less than two.
Heaven help us! You really don't know why "except"? Since this
is cross-posted to uk.legal, let's think of a few legal aspects.
Most of these questions have been done to death in science fiction
books, using that form of literature for its traditional purpose
of considering the unmentionable. But here are a few.
The legal status of frozen people (e.g. taxes, voting, inheritance
and all that) is currently that they are dead. Exactly what status
would they have if there was a known technique for reviving them
that needed 20 years more development before being used on humans?
If there is the possibility (not certainty) of reviving someone,
would involuntary freezing count as murder? And would the belief
of the culprit in this possibility make a difference?
The techniques used for revival could also be used to replicate
people or put person A's memory in person B's body or (possibly)
in a computer. Now who is who? And, if there is more than one
of them, which?
And at that point, I rest my case :-)
Nick Maclaren,
University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory,
New Museums Site, Pembroke Street, Cambridge CB2 3QG, England.
Email: nm...@cam.ac.uk
Tel.: +44 1223 334761 Fax: +44 1223 334679
John de Rivaz
writes:
>
> In article <82902...@longevb.demon.co.uk>, Jo...@longevb.demon.co.uk
says...
>
> >A definition of death could be "A person is dead when
> >insufficient personal and individual information exists to restore the
dead
> >person by any means present or future".
> Interesting, except the future brings new technologies unknown to
those at present.
>
why "except"?
Cryonics existed before nanotechnology was hypothesised, and then no one
really knew how anyone could be revived. The "unkonwn technologies"
argument was the only one to justify the process.
Only a few people were signed up for many years. After nanotechnology
appeared in concept, an obvious route to revival was also demonstrated and
now hundreds maybe even thousands have signed for suspension. There are
groups in many countries, the UK having no less than two.
Owen Lewis
Jo...@longevb.demon.co.uk "John de Rivaz" writes:
>In article: <822915...@eloka.demon.co.uk> Owen Lewis
><o...@eloka.demon.co.uk> writes:
>> Death is a natural and necessary concommittant to life and must
> ^^^^^^^^^
>> come to all living things. Some death may be considered untimely
>> in the sense that a full life cycle has not been run, but nature
>> is nothing if not profligate and wasteful. Untimely death is as
>> much a part of the way of the world as any other feature.
>
>I disagree with the use of the word "necessary"
>
>There are few examples of life on the Earth that do not age and die -
>mainly plants. Some say that lobsters only die as a result of predation,
>and turtles have very long lives.
But *all* do die. And if they did not in any other way, and continued to
propagate, lack of food, water, air or space would solve the problem
dramatically. Indeed, there is clear evidence of such 'boom and bust' cycles
in the history of many species.
Owen Lewis
r...@minfo.demon.co.uk "R Ross-Langley" writes:
I would like to believe that they can ever be prevented without manipulating,
say by genetic engineering, the essential nature of humanity. Sadly, I have
no such belief though I am willing to revise that view at any time.
Both one's delight and pain in humanity is its enormous diversity and,
at the extremes what it can achieve. People such as Albert Einstein, Lynford
Christie and Adolf Hitler are all in their ways truly remarkable humans, set
apart from the rest of us by what they have achieved by developing and using
aspects of their personal capability at a level to which few others can
sensibly aspire. Two of these we admire and would wish our children to
emulate in so far as their abilities allow. The third I think most would
rather had not been born or at least had been wasted before causing the harm
that he did. The difficulty in determining, pre-birth, the 'different'
component in genetic makeup that enables a Hitler may, one day, be overcome.
However, I suspect that when we do we will find that it is common to those
who do extraordinarily good as well as extraordinarily bad things. If we
pre-emptively eliminate the one we cannot have the other.
Now, Miss Hindley is no Hitler. But she - and many thousands of others -
is, prima facie, excellent concentration camp guard material (which, perhaps,
is a distinction that not you, I or millions of others could reasonably
aspire to). But again I suspect that were we able and willing to manipulate
pre-emptively the essential makeup of the Myra Hindley's of this world,
humanity would lose far more than it gains. The benefits of allowing
extraordinary people well outweigh the risks, by which I mean that many more
are beneficial than are harmful. And who empowers he, thee, she or me to
determine what characteristics the human race shall possess?
Sadly, I think we are best left in the position where, occasionally one
of our number goes sufficiently bad to pass beyond the pale. At that point,
but not before, I think the rest of us have a duty to each other to identify
such a person and, if the case against them is proved, thereafter to
extinguish their life expeditiously and humanely.
In summary, I do not believe that any of us has the right to pre-empt or
manipulate (other than by education) the lives of those who are differently
gifted. I do believe that a society is wise to maintain its right to
terminate the lives of those who exercise their gifts in abhorrent ways.
Owen
Jon
o...@eloka.demon.co.uk "Owen Lewis" writes:
> >Perhaps: to help reveal the physical and psychological patterns
> >that lead to crimes like these, and ways of preventing them.
>
> I would like to believe that they can ever be prevented without manipulating,
> say by genetic engineering, the essential nature of humanity. Sadly, I have
> no such belief though I am willing to revise that view at any time.
Are you saying that crime is part of "the essential nature of humanity"? If
so, how can you punish someone for committing a crime which could only have
been prevented by genetic engineering as yet beyond our ability?
>
> Both one's delight and pain in humanity is its enormous diversity and,
> at the extremes what it can achieve. People such as Albert Einstein, Lynford
> Christie and Adolf Hitler are all in their ways truly remarkable humans, set
> apart from the rest of us by what they have achieved by developing and using
> aspects of their personal capability at a level to which few others can
> sensibly aspire. Two of these we admire and would wish our children to
> emulate in so far as their abilities allow. The third I think most would
> rather had not been born or at least had been wasted before causing the harm
> that he did.
You're talking about Einstein's contribution to the invention of nuclear
weapons, right? Hitler brought out the best in us and was anyway little more
than the figurehead of his regime.
> Now, Miss Hindley is no Hitler. But she - and many thousands of others -
> is, prima facie, excellent concentration camp guard material (which, perhaps,
> is a distinction that not you, I or millions of others could reasonably
> aspire to).
I don't agree. In fact, you have no grounds for saying such a thing. Whereas,
I would say that you, with your belief in the expendability of human life
for the good of the majority, you may well be excellent concentration camp
guard material.
> Sadly, I think we are best left in the position where, occasionally one
> of our number goes sufficiently bad to pass beyond the pale. At that point,
> but not before, I think the rest of us have a duty to each other to identify
> such a person and, if the case against them is proved, thereafter to
> extinguish their life expeditiously and humanely.
Yes, it's this sort of dangerous nonsense that proves who's concentration
camp guard material. Those who disrupt the system must perish: we don't have
the time or the inclination to find out why they disrupt the system and to
help them redeem themselves. Of course, uppermost in this philosophy is the
firm belief that I, Owen, am a good boy. I could never become one of those
scum who deserve to die.
> In summary, I do not believe that any of us has the right to pre-empt or
> manipulate (other than by education) the lives of those who are differently
> gifted. I do believe that a society is wise to maintain its right to
> terminate the lives of those who exercise their gifts in abhorrent ways.
But this idea of the criminal as a "gifted" person is rather bizarre. Is
a person gifted merely because he is familiar with a range of household poisons
or a range of strangleholds? If you choose to call Hitler "gifted" then I
don't. Value judgments about whether "gifts" are used for "good" or "evil"
depend on the culture making the judgment: to the Vietnamese, the Americans
were supremely evil (as they were to many of us, in the 60's).
There is another way of looking at things. Everyone is capable of committing
the most dreadful of crimes, in particular circumstances. To kill criminals
is to impose the law of the jungle and depart from every great and noble
instinct that makes us human.
----
Jon
Owen Lewis
nm...@cus.cam.ac.uk "Nick Maclaren" writes:
>In article <325810...@longevb.demon.co.uk>,
>John de Rivaz <Jo...@longevb.demon.co.uk> writes:
>|> In article: <4elb8m$9...@dziuxsolim.rutgers.edu>
>|> as...@fjas.net (Kramese) writes:
>|> > In article <82902...@longevb.demon.co.uk>,
>|> Jo...@longevb.demon.co.uk says...
>|> > >A definition of death could be "A person is dead when
>|> > >insufficient personal and individual information exists to
>|> > >restore the dead person by any means present or future".
>The legal status of frozen people (e.g. taxes, voting, inheritance
>and all that) is currently that they are dead. Exactly what status
>would they have if there was a known technique for reviving them
>that needed 20 years more development before being used on humans?
I seem to remember an interesting character, Hotblack Desiato, last heard
of as an estate agent in Islington, who 'was spending a year dead for tax
reasons'.
The ramifications are interesting.
Kramese
>A definition of death could be "A person is dead when
>insufficient personal and individual information exists to restore the dead
>person by any means present or future".
Interesting, except the future brings new technologies unknown to those at present.
John de Rivaz
writes:
>
> But this idea of the criminal as a "gifted" person is rather bizarre.
Maybe "abnormally able" would be a better way of putting it. Most people
would not have the ability to perpetrate such a vast number of crimes as
major criminals do, even if they wanted to.
R Ross-Langley
J...@jongru.demon.co.uk "Jon" writes:
> In article <822998...@eloka.demon.co.uk>
> o...@eloka.demon.co.uk "Owen Lewis" writes:
>>>Perhaps: to help reveal the physical and psychological patterns
>>>that lead to crimes like these, and ways of preventing them.
>> our number goes sufficiently bad [and must be killed]
> [It is] dangerous nonsense.. [that] Those who disrupt the system
> must perish: we don't have the time or the inclination to find
Now the psychological patterns. If you work backwards from an evil
crime, at some point the criminal took a wrong decision. Was that
based on misinformation or misinterpretation? Trace it back, find
points where future crimes could be (a) foreseen, (b) prevented.
Herod had an overkill solution like Owen's and that didn't work.
Perhaps Howard is discovering something similar, the hard way.
--
Richard Ross-Langley
Owen Lewis
r...@minfo.demon.co.uk "R Ross-Langley" writes:
>Now the psychological patterns. If you work backwards from an evil
>crime, at some point the criminal took a wrong decision. Was that
>based on misinformation or misinterpretation? Trace it back, find
>points where future crimes could be (a) foreseen, (b) prevented.
I find a confusion here - or perhaps a lack of definition.
What would you mean by a wrong decision - wrong in what sense? Logical,
moral? ...
Why must there ave been a 'wrong' decision? I have near given up on finding
a framework within which to determine absolutely what is right or wrong.
To the best of my ability, all but a very few rules of behaviour appear to
have only relative rather than absolute value. Those few which appear to have
absolute value do so only within a human frame of reference and that then
removes from them any claim to absolute value.
So... One can wonder all one likes but the world goes on turning and one has
to live in it. Simple, practical, day to day rules then, to govern our
dealings one with the other.
Within such a scheme of things, I can find a place for capital punishment.
I believe also that, without a much improved quality of argument from the
antis, more and more thinking people will quietly arrive at the same
conclusion.
>Herod had an overkill solution like Owen's and that didn't work.
Ah Richard, how like a lawyer to misrepresent when he cannot make a
convincing argument :-)
Owen
Owen Lewis
>In article <822998...@eloka.demon.co.uk>
> o...@eloka.demon.co.uk "Owen Lewis" writes:
>
>> >Perhaps: to help reveal the physical and psychological patterns
>> >that lead to crimes like these, and ways of preventing them.
>>
>> I would like to believe that they can ever be prevented without manipulating,
>> say by genetic engineering, the essential nature of humanity. Sadly, I have
>> no such belief though I am willing to revise that view at any time.
>
>Are you saying that crime is part of "the essential nature of humanity"?
Only in the specific sense that whatever standard may be set as a norm, there
will always be those who step well outside the norm. If the criminal statutes
comprise one norm that we use, then, yes, I believe it inevitable that some
will deviate markedly from that norm. If the means could be devised to prevent
gross deviation from behavioural norms, humanity might lose more than it
gained.
Other than through 'prayer, precept and example'(education, if you prefer),
I cannot see how seriously criminal deviation can be preempted without
destoying the spark for so many other gross deviations that are ultimately
beneficial.
>> Both one's delight and pain in humanity is its enormous diversity and,
>> at the extremes what it can achieve. People such as Albert Einstein, Lynford
>> Christie and Adolf Hitler are all in their ways truly remarkable humans, set
>> apart from the rest of us by what they have achieved by developing and using
>> aspects of their personal capability at a level to which few others can
>> sensibly aspire. Two of these we admire and would wish our children to
>> emulate in so far as their abilities allow. The third I think most would
>> rather had not been born or at least had been wasted before causing the harm
>> that he did.
>
>You're talking about Einstein's contribution to the invention of nuclear
>weapons, right?
Wrong. After all, if the Ancient Greeks had not invented algrebra, he
could never have written E=mc^2, right? So the hydrogen bomb et al is all
*their* fault, right?
>Hitler brought out the best in us and was anyway little more
>than the figurehead of his regime.
If that's not a troll, you'll believe anything :-)
>> Now, Miss Hindley is no Hitler. But she - and many thousands of others -
>> is, prima facie, excellent concentration camp guard material (which, perhaps,
>> is a distinction that not you, I or millions of others could reasonably
>> aspire to).
>
>I don't agree. In fact, you have no grounds for saying such a thing.
One of the selection factors for concentration camp officers (at most levels,
I seem to recall) was deviant behaviour of a violent kind. Miss Hindley has
amply demonstrated such deviant behaviour.
>Whereas,
>I would say that you, with your belief in the expendability of human life
>for the good of the majority, you may well be excellent concentration camp
>guard material.
Don't be facile. Of course human life is expendable. It's expended every
single day. That truism is irrelevant to the point at issue.
>> Sadly, I think we are best left in the position where, occasionally one
>> of our number goes sufficiently bad to pass beyond the pale. At that point,
>> but not before, I think the rest of us have a duty to each other to identify
>> such a person and, if the case against them is proved, thereafter to
>> extinguish their life expeditiously and humanely.
>
>Yes, it's this sort of dangerous nonsense that proves who's concentration
>camp guard material.
Your'e blathering. What is your argument?
>Those who disrupt the system must perish: we don't have
>the time or the inclination to find out why they disrupt the system and to
>help them redeem themselves. Of course, uppermost in this philosophy is the
>firm belief that I, Owen, am a good boy. I could never become one of those
>scum who deserve to die.
And blather descends - and none too gracefully - into a poor attempt at
personal invective. I say again, where's your argument?
>> In summary, I do not believe that any of us has the right to pre-empt or
>> manipulate (other than by education) the lives of those who are differently
>> gifted. I do believe that a society is wise to maintain its right to
>> terminate the lives of those who exercise their gifts in abhorrent ways.
>
>But this idea of the criminal as a "gifted" person is rather bizarre. Is
>a person gifted merely because he is familiar with a range of household
>poisons or a range of strangleholds?
That is not a serious point. To help you; no, that implies no gift. A person
who has such knowledge and chooses to use it to kill others wantonly and for
pleasure is 'differently gifted' in the sense that most people with such
knowlege do not - would not - so use it. BTW, did you know that the German
for poison is Gift?
>If you choose to call Hitler "gifted" then I don't.
Then more fool you. For any person to do what Hitler did and in the face of
serious if disorganised opposition is extraordinary. To be able to do things
so extraordinary seems to me to require the person to be differently gifted
from most of us. That does not make most of what Hitler did from 1925 on
other than abhorrent.
>Value judgments about whether "gifts" are used for "good" or "evil"
>depend on the culture making the judgment: to the Vietnamese, the Americans
>were supremely evil (as they were to many of us, in the 60's).
Yes, I accept that different societies do have differing concepts of good and
evil. I also accept that one society may change its view of good and evil over
time.
We have our own society that makes its own laws. To some extent, it has its
own and current perceptions of good and evil. Are you with me so far?
Now, in our society, today, I claim that for Miss Hindley do have done, not
once but repeatedly, as she did, she is an evil person and to be judged and
punished by our laws.
I can't hear a deafening chorus of disagreement.
My view is that it is illogical to do other than extinguish those whose
behaviour is so abhorrent. You do not have to share that view but, if you
wish to disagree with it publicly, you had best support it with some
coherent argument.
>There is another way of looking at things. Everyone is capable of committing
>the most dreadful of crimes, in particular circumstances.
That may or may not be true. I do not know and neither do you. What is true
is that the vast majority of us do not. What Hindley and her friend did was
not some error of judgement to be regretted and not repeated. It was
repeated, time and again. It was enjoyed, time and again. It was enjoyed
to the point of recording and photographing what they did so that the
aural and visual pleasures of each instance could be enjoyed, time and again.
Now, if you feel like saying that of course you too might do the same ....
well good luck, but watch out for the men in blue suits and the others in
white coats. Include me out. I doubt that you will find many who would wish
to be included with you, but no doubt Myra will find your viewpoint
sympathetic.
>To kill criminals
>is to impose the law of the jungle and depart from every great and noble
>instinct that makes us human.
More meaningless (and cliched) waffle. Forget the grand statements and get
on with the argument.
Owen
McUbik
would be too confusing for the lawyers? come, come , nick, lawyers love
confusion, the more confusion, the more hours they can bill. and god
knows they do love to bill. the eternal lawsuit, can you imagine.
peace.
Anders Sandberg
> In article <82902...@longevb.demon.co.uk>
> Jo...@longevb.demon.co.uk "John de Rivaz" writes:
> >There are few examples of life on the Earth that do not age and die -
> >mainly plants. Some say that lobsters only die as a result of predation,
> >and turtles have very long lives.
>
> But *all* do die. And if they did not in any other way, and continued to
> propagate, lack of food, water, air or space would solve the problem
> dramatically. Indeed, there is clear evidence of such 'boom and bust' cycles
> in the history of many species.
Actually, you don't need immortality for 'boom and bust' cycles, just
reproduction that overshoots the carrying capacity of their niche (or in
some cases interactions with the environment). Single-celled organisms do
not age and die, they just divide. As far as I know, only species
reproducing sexually age.
Immortality just implies that the population has to remain constant or
expand its niche (something that we humans are good at) as it grows.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension!
nv91...@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~nv91-asa/main.html
GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
Paul Talacko
Owen Lewis <o...@eloka.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>Certain crimes deserve a singular mark of society's disappoval.
>Capital punishment serves well as such a mark of absolute disapproval. It
>expresses, categorically, a society's view that certain acts are so
>reprehensible that the perpetrator of such an act will be permanently removed
>from society by the extinction of life. I believe that such a course is
>healthy for a society. Conversely, a society which, in effect, says that
>no act is sufficiently horrid to be especially distinguished by the
>extinction of a perpetrator, is losing its way; losing its scale of values.
No, I can't disagree more. We live in a society that is based on the
Christian ideals and morals that were set out some 2000 years ago. The
basis of our own Western morality is that: 1) Human life is sacred, 2) any
person can be redeemed.
A ban on the death penalty is quite in keeping with these morals. It is
those societies that retain the death penalty who are turning their backs
on basic morality. Killing is still killing, even if it is someone like
Mira Hindley. Once you take a life you have transgressed and if the state
kills in cold blood that is even worse.
>
>To sentence the likes of Miss Hindley (and Mrs West) to a gentle
>incarceration in which she will be housed, clothed, fed, entertained, given
>outings etc. for the rest of her life (or less if she and her sympathisers
>have their way) seems to me to be nonsensical. She is cared for and treated
>as would be, say, a persistent burglar or someone who in a sudden fit of
>temper lashed out and caused death as a result. Albeit that she serves for
>longer than they will, the essential nature of her punishment (good old
>fashioned word that) is the same.
Yes, keeping Hindley alive is expensive, but perhaps that is better for us,
as a society, than to have her blood on our hands. After all killing her
will not bring back her victims.
>
>One may cavil over what acts deserve the special marking of a death sentence
>but, for me, there is no doubt that it is entirely fitting for those who kill
>others repeatedly for the purposes of their own pleasure. A society that
>tolerates the continued existence of a person proved guilty of such acts in a
>special sense is ameliorating the particularly abhorrent nature of the acts
>themselves.
No, not true. A society that keeps such person alive is acting in
accordance with the principal that human life is sacred, even if it is the
life of a horrible murderer.
Paul
ta...@yarn.demon.co.uk
Freelance Journalist
Owen Lewis
nv91...@nada.kth.se "Anders Sandberg" writes:
>On Tue, 30 Jan 1996, Owen Lewis wrote:
>
>> In article <82902...@longevb.demon.co.uk>
>> Jo...@longevb.demon.co.uk "John de Rivaz" writes:
>> >There are few examples of life on the Earth that do not age and die -
>> >mainly plants. Some say that lobsters only die as a result of predation,
>> >and turtles have very long lives.
>>
>> But *all* do die. And if they did not in any other way, and continued to
>> propagate, lack of food, water, air or space would solve the problem
>> dramatically. Indeed, there is clear evidence of such 'boom and bust' cycles
>> in the history of many species.
>
>Actually, you don't need immortality for 'boom and bust' cycles, just
>reproduction that overshoots the carrying capacity of their niche (or in
>some cases interactions with the environment).
Thank you for clarifying my point for me.
>Single-celled organisms do
>not age and die, they just divide. As far as I know, only species
>reproducing sexually age.
I think that that is not correct. AFAIR, the reproduction of rhizomes
is asexual, yet they surely surely age and die.
Single celled organisms may not age (I don't know) but they certainly die.
Were it not so, how long would it take one gram of amoebae doubling their
number every few days to outweigh the entire Earth? Hypothetical point of
course since they would have starved, suffocated or crushed each other long
before that point was reached. But that brings the argument full circle.
>Immortality just implies that the population has to remain constant or
>expand its niche (something that we humans are good at) as it grows.
Interesting thought.
P. Burridge
In article <4eln6j$o...@lyra.csx.cam.ac.uk>, Nick Maclaren (nm...@cus.cam.ac.uk) writes:
>
>The legal status of frozen people (e.g. taxes, voting, inheritance
>and all that) is currently that they are dead. Exactly what status
>would they have if there was a known technique for reviving them
>that needed 20 years more development before being used on humans?
>
>would involuntary freezing count as murder? And would the belief
>of the culprit in this possibility make a difference?
>
apply for a Grant of Probate??
-Paul
-- --
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
PGP Fingerprint: 6C C4 04 FE 42 1B C9 7A 11 FA 8F 4F DE DE CF 98
PGP Encrypted mail preferred. PGP Public Key and Geek Code on request.
"Somebody must have been spreading lies about Joseph K." -Franz Kafka
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
P. Burridge
>I seem to remember an interesting character, Hotblack Desiato, last heard
>of as an estate agent in Islington, who 'was spending a year dead for tax
>reasons'.
>
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe?
ROLF!
Owen Lewis
>In article <823106...@eloka.demon.co.uk>
> o...@eloka.demon.co.uk "Owen Lewis" writes:
>> One of the selection factors for concentration camp officers (at most levels,
>> I seem to recall) was deviant behaviour of a violent kind.
>
>Where did you hear that?
I think it was originally from some of the evidence at the Nuremberg Trials.
Lord Russell who was a member of that tribunal, AFAIR, subsequently wrote an
account setting out the horrors and attempting some explanation of how (not
why) they came to be committed. AFAIR, Bullock's Study of Tyranny toughed
some aspect of it too but it is some years since I last read it.
I would have thought that prison officers in today's
>Britain, and medical orderlies in mental hospitals, have all the qualities
>required of concentration camp guards. Not that they always exercise those
>qualities.
Now that is really not worth powder and shot.
>> >I would say that you, with your belief in the expendability of human life
>> >for the good of the majority, you may well be excellent concentration camp
>> >guard material.
>>
>> Don't be facile. Of course human life is expendable. It's expended every
>> single day. That truism is irrelevant to the point at issue.
>
>How strange that you think it irrelevant.
It is a fact and is irrelevant to this argument.
>To me, you share the outlook of
>many violent criminals in your belief that some people are worth less than you
>are, and don't deserve to live. You'd say, if they have committed a nasty
>murder they don't deserve to live.
You have trouble enough fitting words into your own mouth. Please to not try
and fit your words into mine.
>A psychopath would say, if that woman
>refuses to do what I ask, she loses the right to live.
That may be so. I do not wish to kill those who fail to comply with my wishes.
Nor do I arrogate to myself the 'right' to kill a particularly unpleasant
murderer. I do believe that a society has the right to make lawful the
extinction of those whose crimes are particularly abhorrent.
If I may say so, you fall into the trap of setting up for yourself points
you are able to push over rather than addressing the points you are
presented with. It is not that you are unintelligent or inarticulate, rather
(I suspect) it is that you are unable to satisfactorily address the points
presented.
>Can I ask - do you believe that you could never
>yourself commit a crime deserving of the death penalty (drug smuggling in
>Thailand, perhaps, or adultery in an Islamic country) or do you cheerfully
>accept that in such circumstances you would deserve to die and must embrace
>your fate with stoicism?
I accept that I am bound by the laws on any country I find myself in. If that
does not suit me, then I should leave for another. I do not avoid those
countries either with a death penalty or with laws different to ours.
>> BTW, did you know that the German for poison is Gift?
>
>Yes. But I can't see the relevance.
There is none. I thought the play on words was of passing interest.
>> >If you choose to call Hitler "gifted" then I don't.
>>
>> Then more fool you. For any person to do what Hitler did and in the face of
>> serious if disorganised opposition is extraordinary. To be able to do things
>> so extraordinary seems to me to require the person to be differently gifted
>> from most of us. That does not make most of what Hitler did from 1925 on
>> other than abhorrent.
>
>Well, maybe everyone is gifted then.
True. Even M.H. (both).
>> Now, in our society, today, I claim that for Miss Hindley do have done, not
>> once but repeatedly, as she did, she is an evil person and to be judged and
>> punished by our laws.
>>
>> I can't hear a deafening chorus of disagreement.
>
>I don't recognise the term "evil" as a word with any real meaning.
Well it was you that introduced it to the tread. I am happy enough to go along
with its use in this context.
>Do you think the killers of Jamie Bulger (those two 12 year old boys) were
>evil, too? Or that British woman Caroline Beale who
>was in New York, gave birth to a baby, killed it and tried to smuggle it back
>to England in her luggage? Or a man (there are many of them) who is sexually
>abused as a child and becomes in his turn an abuser of children? And what
>about Derek Bentley? Ruth Ellis? Are these people evil AND gifted?
That's a pretty eclectic crowd - as no doubt you intended it to be. What
point do you wish to make?
>> My view is that it is illogical to do other than extinguish those whose
>> behaviour is so abhorrent. You do not have to share that view but, if you
>> wish to disagree with it publicly, you had best support it with some
>> coherent argument.
>
>Let's try this as a coherent argument (in your terms): how about cutting off
>their hands and branding them on the forehead? Any problems with that? Why?
That is not an argument it is a question. Can you support your position or not?
>> >There is another way of looking at things. Everyone is capable of committing
>> >the most dreadful of crimes, in particular circumstances.
>>
>> That may or may not be true. I do not know and neither do you. What is true
>> is that the vast majority of us do not. What Hindley and her friend did was
>> not some error of judgement to be regretted and not repeated. It was
>> repeated, time and again. It was enjoyed, time and again. It was enjoyed
>> to the point of recording and photographing what they did so that the
>> aural and visual pleasures of each instance could be enjoyed, time and
>> again.
>Do you know what is on the tapes? Nothing that any sane person would find
>erotic. A child pleading to go home. Not a child being tortured. There is
>a great deal of mythology about what Hindley is supposed to be guilty of. Do
>you know?
Your view will be a great comfort to those members of the jury who wept on
hearing them. They will also give solace to the families of the children.
>> Now, if you feel like saying that of course you too might do the same ....
>> well good luck, but watch out for the men in blue suits and the others in
>> white coats. Include me out. I doubt that you will find many who would wish
>> to be included with you, but no doubt Myra will find your viewpoint
>> sympathetic.
>
>I read that she is now forbidden to write to newspapers and to express her
>point of view publicly.
Yes. And, just as any other prisoner, she may not vote in an election either.
The injustice of it :-)
>Nobody, least of all she, believes that Hindley was
>innocent of the crimes of which she was convicted (remember what they were?)
>but I think it is petty and oppressive to prevent her from apologising,
>explaining or pleading to the public.
Well, as you know, I would see her ilk oppressed in a rather more generous
measure, if only for a brief time.
>> >To kill criminals
>> >is to impose the law of the jungle and depart from every great and noble
>> >instinct that makes us human.
>>
>> More meaningless (and cliched) waffle. Forget the grand statements and get
>> on with the argument.
>
>Sorry about the cliches. But can there be a constructive argument on this
>subject? We're dealing with a clash of philosophies here. I would not expect
>to persuade a slave-owner in the 1800's that slavery is immoral.
I have set out a position which I believe to be generally defensible. I do
not expect you to come to agree with it. I had hoped that you might setout a
coherent argument for your opposing view.
Owen
Big Ears.
> > My view is that it is illogical to do other than extinguish those whose
> > behaviour is so abhorrent.
That view is extremely extreme and worthy of no support. What makes a
bright person think like that - or is it a wind-up ?
Anyone writing the above quotation must be devoid of humanity or desperately
mixed-up. If one respects life then one doesn't premediatedly kill others.
Big Ears.
na40...@anon.penet.fi
Posting from UK.legal
======================
Big Ears.
> Jon > To kill criminals is to impose the law of the jungle and depart from every
> Jon > great and noble instinct that makes us human.
> Greg > It does also have a fairly predictable effect upon their ability to
> Greg > offend against society again.
True but killing criminals is WRONG and it can not be anything other than
wrong. Jon is right.
Big Ears.
> Do you think the killers of Jamie Bulger (those two 12 year old boys) were evil, too?
No. They did wrong but they should not be labelled "evil" for the rest of
their lives. Their wrong-doing was probably the result of "conditioning" by
all the crap which enveloped them prior to the material time - i.e. sick
television programs and videos. Children learn a great deal by following
the examples of others.
> Or that British woman Caroline Beale who was in New York, gave birth
> to a baby, killed it and tried to smuggle it back to England in her luggage?
No. She was clearly mentally disturbed. Shame the Yanks lack commonsence
and compassion.
Big Ears.
>What Hindley and her friend did was not some error of judgement to be regretted
>and not repeated. It was repeated, time and again. It was enjoyed, time and
>again. It was enjoyed to the point of recording and photographing what they
>did so that the aural and visual pleasures of each instance could be enjoyed,
>time and again.
Actions of a mad person or of someone mentally ill.
Big Ears.
> Once you take a life you have transgressed and if the state
> kills in cold blood that is even worse.
Hear, hear.
> keeping Hindley alive is expensive, but perhaps that is better for us,
> as a society, than to have her blood on our hands.
Absolutely.
> After all killing her will not bring back her victims.
True.
Pity Owen can't understand the logic.
bob whitaker
"rotting is holy" group. One of our TV evangelists here in the
States was discussing the large number of people who feel that
organ donation is evil, and that God demands that we let our
hearts, etc,. rot. This evangelists, Pat Robertson, could not
decide which of the prfoud arguments was truly holy, donation
or rotting.
Lewis sounds like the left version of htis "rotting is holy"
thing. I cheerfully admit i have not hte slightest
understanding of the concept that rotting is somehow God's or
Nature's Way. Bubonic plague was certainly nature's way, as
is the continued blindness of those whpo cannot get eyes
transplanted. Why this is good completely baffles me.
Marshall Rice
na40...@anon.penet.fi "Big Ears." writes:
> > Once you take a life you have transgressed and if the state
> > kills in cold blood that is even worse.
>
> Hear, hear.
I agree with the sentiment and the principle, but the vileness of Hindley's
crimes, the enthusiasm with which she perpetrated them and her lack of remorse
make me wonder whether, perhaps, her continued existence is not more of an
affront to human dignity that the death penalty.
> > keeping Hindley alive is expensive, but perhaps that is better for us,
> > as a society, than to have her blood on our hands.
>
> Absolutely.
>
> > After all killing her will not bring back her victims.
Not the dead ones, perhaps, but it might ease the torment of the
others, their relatives.
> True.
>
> Pity Owen can't understand the logic.
It seems to me that he understands it perfectly, and rejects it.
--
Marshall Rice
Nick Aleksander
<Gar...@destiny.demon.co.uk> writes
>Nick Maclaren:
>
>> [a remark about cryonics]...is cross-posted to uk.legal, let's think of a
>> few legal aspects...
>
>> The legal status of frozen people (e.g. taxes, voting, inheritance
>> and all that) is currently that they are dead. Exactly what status
>> would they have if there was a known technique for reviving them
>> that needed 20 years more development before being used on humans?
>
>able to make informed decisions for themselves, but if it is accepted that they
>have a possibility of revival then they would be in a similar situation to
>anyone else who couldn't make their own informed decisions. They would be
>a ward of court.
Actually, if they are adults, I don't think they can be warded. There
are difficult issues here - remember the case of the mentally
incapacitated adult whose carers wanted sterilised for her own good...
I'm not sure to what extent the Court of Protection or the High Court's
jurisdiction extends in these circumstances. It is not at all obvious.
>
>> If there is the possibility (not certainty) of reviving someone,
>> would involuntary freezing count as murder? And would the belief
>> of the culprit in this possibility make a difference?
>
>If someone was perfectly healthy and *didn't* want to be frozen, then the
>legal effect would be the same as any operation of which the outcome was unsure
>(ie most) that the patient hadn't agreed to. It is usually considered that a
>patient must give consent to an operation, otherwise the doctor is guilty of
>assualt to one degree or another.
>
>It is interesting that you use the term "culprit" - this suggests that you
>have already judged the accused as guilty!
>
>Anyway, in order to prove murder it is not only necessary to prove that the
>accused (not culprit) actually killed the "victim", but also that the accused
>*intended* to kill the "victim".
Or cause him realy serious harm (mens rea for GBH is sufficient mens rea
for murder)
>Now, under the modern definition of brain
>death, cryonics patients may still be alive - as per the Suda experiments
>(spontaneous brain waves having been detected in frozen and thawed brains) -
>but also, a serious member of any cryonics society is involved to *save* life,
>not take it. There is an intent to help people live longer, not kill them.
>
>And anyway, current procedure is to freeze at the point of *legal* death (which
>is different form biological death).
Is it? Can you explain the difference? I thought both looked to
activity in the brain.
>
>> The techniques used for revival could also be used to replicate
>> people or put person A's memory in person B's body or (possibly)
>> in a computer. Now who is who? And, if there is more than one
>> of them, which?
>
>And we cryonicists get accused of making assumptions about the future! I'd like
>to see how you get to this bit. Generally speaking, we think that the techniques
>used will only lead to the one version of us.
>
>First of all you seem to assume that we are murderers, presumably because people
>frozen can't be revived, then you assume that if we can be revived we will be
>in many copies - so many copies that we won't even know who we are!
>
>> And at that point, I rest my case :-)
>
>I do hope you're not doing law!
>
>> Nick Maclaren,
>> University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory,
>
>TTFN
>
>Garret
>PS Is Colonel Fudpuckers still going in Mill Road?
>
--
Nicholas Aleksander ni...@alek.demon.co.uk
London UK
* This posting is no substitute for taking proper and full advice *
* and I accept no liability for anything in this posting. *
Garret Smyth
> [a remark about cryonics]...is cross-posted to uk.legal, let's think of a
> few legal aspects...
> The legal status of frozen people (e.g. taxes, voting, inheritance
> and all that) is currently that they are dead. Exactly what status
> would they have if there was a known technique for reviving them
> that needed 20 years more development before being used on humans?
This is hardly a difficult legal question. A frozen person is obviously not
able to make informed decisions for themselves, but if it is accepted that they
have a possibility of revival then they would be in a similar situation to
anyone else who couldn't make their own informed decisions. They would be
a ward of court.
> If there is the possibility (not certainty) of reviving someone,
> would involuntary freezing count as murder? And would the belief
> of the culprit in this possibility make a difference?
If someone was perfectly healthy and *didn't* want to be frozen, then the
legal effect would be the same as any operation of which the outcome was unsure
(ie most) that the patient hadn't agreed to. It is usually considered that a
patient must give consent to an operation, otherwise the doctor is guilty of
assualt to one degree or another.
It is interesting that you use the term "culprit" - this suggests that you
have already judged the accused as guilty!
Anyway, in order to prove murder it is not only necessary to prove that the
accused (not culprit) actually killed the "victim", but also that the accused
*intended* to kill the "victim". Now, under the modern definition of brain
death, cryonics patients may still be alive - as per the Suda experiments
(spontaneous brain waves having been detected in frozen and thawed brains) -
but also, a serious member of any cryonics society is involved to *save* life,
not take it. There is an intent to help people live longer, not kill them.
And anyway, current procedure is to freeze at the point of *legal* death (which
is different form biological death).
> The techniques used for revival could also be used to replicate
> people or put person A's memory in person B's body or (possibly)
> in a computer. Now who is who? And, if there is more than one
> of them, which?
And we cryonicists get accused of making assumptions about the future! I'd like
to see how you get to this bit. Generally speaking, we think that the techniques
used will only lead to the one version of us.
First of all you seem to assume that we are murderers, presumably because people
frozen can't be revived, then you assume that if we can be revived we will be
in many copies - so many copies that we won't even know who we are!
> And at that point, I rest my case :-)
I do hope you're not doing law!
> Nick Maclaren,
> University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory,
TTFN
Garret
PS Is Colonel Fudpuckers still going in Mill Road?
--
Garret Smyth
Gar...@destiny.demon.co.uk
Phone: 0181 789 1045 or +44 181 789 1045
Big Ears.
> I agree with the sentiment and the principle, but the vileness of Hindley's
> crimes, the enthusiasm with which she perpetrated them and her lack of remorse
> make me wonder whether, perhaps, her continued existence is not more of an
> affront to human dignity that the death penalty.
She was obviously mentally abnormal when she committed those crimes. A
substantial quantity of years has now elapsed. People can change, regret
the past and never ever again be able nor willing to repeat their previous
errors. Killing people because they are "an affront to human dignity" is
the same logic used by nazi extermination squads - shame on you.
> Not the dead ones, perhaps, but it might ease the torment of the
> others, their relatives.
Life is about forgiveness and rebuilding one's own shattered life.
Killing others to satisfy third parties is sick and evil.
P. Burridge
>In article <823232...@destiny.demon.co.uk>, Garret Smyth
>>This is hardly a difficult legal question. A frozen person is obviously not
>>able to make informed decisions for themselves, but if it is accepted that they
>>have a possibility of revival then they would be in a similar situation to
>>anyone else who couldn't make their own informed decisions. They would be
>>a ward of court.
>
Why not just get them to set up an EPA? Before they're frozen, of
course. :-)
Owen Lewis
bw...@conterra.com "bob whitaker" writes:
> Owen Lewis seems to belong to what I think of as the
>"rotting is holy" group.
Not sure how you arrive at that view. I believe death to be a natural
concommittant to life. Yes, dead organic material rots (i.e. slowly oxidises
or undergoes some other slow form of chemical change) unless a quicker type
of transformation occurs.
Where does holy come into it?
Owen
John Sharman
o...@eloka.demon.co.uk "Owen Lewis" writes:
> In article <AD35B2E6...@158.152.71.117>
> ta...@yarn.demon.co.uk "Paul Talacko" writes:
>
> >In article <822915...@eloka.demon.co.uk>,
> >Owen Lewis <o...@eloka.demon.co.uk> wrote:
[..]
> >Yes, keeping Hindley alive is expensive, but perhaps that is better for us,
> >as a society, than to have her blood on our hands.
>
> Why? You make these statements as though their truth is self evident and
> mouthing the mantra is all that is required to make your point. It is
> not. Why do you believe 'it is better etc'?
The only initially compelling argument against the death penalty is its
irreversable nature coupled with the possibility of erroneous
conviction.
Nobody who accepts that we need a military force bearing arms can
consistently claim that State killing constitutes an absolute wrong.
--
Regards,
John Sharman
+====================================================================+
| John Sharman Internet: jay...@norvic.demon.co.uk |
| Tel/Fax: +44 (0)1603 452142 |
+====================================================================+
Owen Lewis
jay...@norvic.demon.co.uk "John Sharman" writes:
>In article <823157...@eloka.demon.co.uk>
> o...@eloka.demon.co.uk "Owen Lewis" writes:
>
>> In article <AD35B2E6...@158.152.71.117>
>> ta...@yarn.demon.co.uk "Paul Talacko" writes:
>>
>> >In article <822915...@eloka.demon.co.uk>,
>> >Owen Lewis <o...@eloka.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>[..]
>
>> >Yes, keeping Hindley alive is expensive, but perhaps that is better for us,
>> >as a society, than to have her blood on our hands.
>>
>> Why? You make these statements as though their truth is self evident and
>> mouthing the mantra is all that is required to make your point. It is
>> not. Why do you believe 'it is better etc'?
>
>The only initially compelling argument against the death penalty is its
>irreversable nature coupled with the possibility of erroneous
>conviction.
Thank you, John. A start at last. If those points comprise the initial
argument, where do we go on to from there?
>Nobody who accepts that we need a military force bearing arms can
>consistently claim that State killing constitutes an absolute wrong.
True. But sentiment is rarely consistent.
Owen
Owen Lewis
na40...@anon.penet.fi "Big Ears." writes:
>True but killing criminals is WRONG and it can not be anything other than
>wrong.
OK, that's your view. Now, can you please explain why it is so absolutely
wrong. The killing of all manner of life forms occurs every day and in many
ways. And we'd be in a pretty pickle if it were not so.
Now, what makes the selective killing of some criminals so absolutely wrong
from an ethical, logical or a practical point of view? If you can set that
out, you will will have achieved what no other contributor to this thread has
yet achieved.
Owen
Owen Lewis
>Paul Talacko wrote:
>
>> Once you take a life you have transgressed and if the state
>> kills in cold blood that is even worse.
>
>Hear, hear.
>
>> keeping Hindley alive is expensive, but perhaps that is better for us,
>> as a society, than to have her blood on our hands.
>
>Absolutely.
>
>> After all killing her will not bring back her victims.
>
>True.
>
>Pity Owen can't understand the logic.
I see no logic, only sentiment. Please help me. Show me the logic.
Owen
Steve Chambers
>>> >mainly plants. Some say that lobsters only die as a result of predation,
>>> >and turtles have very long lives.
>>>
>>> But *all* do die. And if they did not in any other way, and continued to
>>> propagate, lack of food, water, air or space would solve the problem
etc.
It's difficult to argue for or against the existence of species that
don't age when "in nature" no organism dies of old age. (You could
argue that no human dies of old age either - but that's another issue.)
What is generally agreed, however, is that an increase in _rates_of_
mortality_ with age in a species is evidence of "aging" in that species -
and I know of no organism for which this is not the case.
All life ages. What varies is the manner with which it does so.
Steve
--
________________________
(I_lurk,_therefore_I_am!_\ ,,, Steve Chambers
(o o) st...@chambers.ak.planet.co.nz
-----------------------oOO--(_)--OOo------------------------------------
John de Rivaz
> No. She was clearly mentally disturbed. Shame the Yanks lack
commonsence
> and compassion.
It is unfair to blame the entire nation for the antics of their legal
profession.
--
Sincerely, ****************************************
* Publisher of Longevity Report *
John de Rivaz * Fractal Report *
* details on request *
****************************************
In the information age, sharing can increase world wealth enormously,
because giving information does not decrease your information.
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/JohndeR
Fast loading, very few slow pictures
Nick Maclaren
John de Rivaz <Jo...@longevb.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>The use of an enduring power of attorney (EPA) for people in cryonic
>suspension is an interesting thought.
>
> ...
>
>My question now is, would an EPA allow someone to appoint attornies
>to direct their estate for as long as it takes science to develop a way of
>reviving them from suspension (remember it is *for legal pruposes*
>considered "death") into youthful good health?
Not a hope. Trusts in perpetuity were explicitly abolished quite
a while back in the UK (and, I believe, in many other countries).
The current English limit is 21 years or "a life in being". The
reason that you will not see this changed is that most governments
regard such trusts as a threat, with good reason.
Nick Maclaren,
University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory,
New Museums Site, Pembroke Street, Cambridge CB2 3QG, England.
Email: nm...@cam.ac.uk
Tel.: +44 1223 334761 Fax: +44 1223 334679
John Sharman
mal...@mbkr.demon.co.uk "Mallen Baker" writes:
> In article <823333...@norvic.demon.co.uk>, jay...@norvic.demon.co.uk wrote:
>
> > Nobody who accepts that we need a military force bearing arms can
> > consistently claim that State killing constitutes an absolute wrong.
> > --
>
> True. But then it's still a leap to go from the compelling reasons of
> survival that often prompt armed conflict to the cold-blooded decision to
> kill a person held securely by the state. Issues are rarely black and
> white - unless you're a complete pacifist.
I do not even attempt that leap. I am undermining the foothold of the
enemy which is by no means the same thing. So many of those who are
against capital punishment take as fundamental the notion the it is
absolutely wrong for the State to kill a human being. Once you get
them knocked back to saying, "Well, yes, of course, except ..." you are
in a position to start educating them.
Owen Lewis
>In article <823289...@eloka.demon.co.uk>
> o...@eloka.demon.co.uk "Owen Lewis" writes:
>> You have been given the source. Find chapter and verse yourself. The research
>> will educate you as to why your use of 'concentration camp guard' as a loose
>> term of abuse for prison warders is simply childish.
>
>No, I wasn't abusing prison warders. I was merely making the point that they
>probably have the ability to be as oppressive as concentration camp guards.
>The same can be said of anybody else who is placed in a position of power over
>other, weaker people.
The point you attempted to make was that prison warders (and I) would make
good concentration cam guards, because of views held or choice of employment.
Otherwise why may the distinction - or even comment at all. You wriggle
like a worm exposed to sunlight :-)
>> >If you really want to become well informed on this subject (which I doubt,
>> >judging from the tone of your postings) you should read "Obedience to
>> Authority">by Stanley Milgram. Milgram, an eminent psychologist, conducted
>> experiments
>> >which proved that the average man in the street was capable of administering
>> >torture to a complete stranger if ordered to do so by an authority figure
> such
>> >as a doctor in a white coat.
>>
>> I am familiar with the experiments and have seen some of the film footage.
>> It was a poor (but notorious) piece of research and is actually irrelevant
>> to your comment.
>
>I am sorry that you can't see the relevance, but I am most interested by your
>comment that it was a poor piece of research.
The research shows that a random selection of persons are capable of being
persuaded to hurt or kill total strangers and to often feel justified or even
virtuous in the process. There is nothing new in this. Mass armies have been
raised and employed for centuries in exploitation of this quirk of the
human psyche and there are many other examples. Therefore, Milgram's research
offered nothing new other than as an apologia for the perpetrators of
sadistic violence.
In short and in the context of this thread, the conclusions drawn from the
research are flawed in the following way:
1. For an average person to commit lethal violence against another,
that person has to be convinced that there is a valid superior
authority authorising the violence and therefore assuming
responsibility for it.
2.If the violence is remotely applied and if there are no patently
horrid results, only simple conditioning is required. If the
violence clearly has a fatal result and the perpetrator has not
felt personally and seriously threatened by the subject, the reality
of the consequences may often cause a refusal to repeat the exercise.
E.g. Bomber crews are not known to refuse a second mission, killing
and maiming as they do from thousands of feet. On the other hand,
it is known for fighter pilots who make an easy first kill to
refuse further combat having watched a fellow airman
disintegrate in front of them as a result of their actions.
3.Some persons, sadists and psychopaths among them, are different. They
kill or torture entirely on their own initiative to please
themselves. Persons as in 1. above almost invariably promptly cease
all violent acts when the authority to commit them is withdrawn.
Thereafter, and though skilled in the application of lethal violence
they exhibit a well below average propensity to commit violent crime.
(Witness the reduction violent crime during and after WW11).
Milgram's research merely reiterated facts that had long been known to
professional managers of violence. Though such claims are often made for it,
it did not show that the average person is capable of the the same unlawful
acts as a sadist or psychopath.
Among the many such acts that were committed by SS concentration camp guards
were:
- The tossing of babies into the air as substitutes
for clay pigeons.
- The use of tattooed human skin for domestic ornament.
... I could go on but why? The litany is well enough known. The Myra Hindleys
of this world fit in such company. The majority of us simply do not. The
Hindleys kill their own kind unlawfully, repeatedly and for their own
pleasure. We do not; and the million-fold majority of us never will.
If you cannot accept this, then I am sorry for you but remain willing to
listen to an alterative point of view if you are ready yet to express one.
>> Yes, (most) visitors are bound by the laws of the host nation and to say so
>> might might be trite. What I said was that I accepted that I was so bound and
>> that is not the same thing at all. In fact, it answered your question quite
>> concisely, if you think about it.
>
>What does it mean to "accept" that you are bound by a country's laws? I am
>not trying to score any points here, merely trying to understand your point.
It means what it says. To expand a little for you, I accept that those laws
exist, that I am bound by them and, if I break them, I may be subject to any
punishments prescribed. I also accept that there is some remote chance that
I may be unjustly accused and wrongly sentenced.
Is that sufficient?
>> May I repeat that I am disappointed that you so patently are unable to
>> present an argument to the contrary. Waving of the hands, slogans about the
>> sanctity of all human life/law of the jungle etc. and shock horror personal
>> abuse are no substitute for a case well made. After all, since many, perhaps
>> most, right thinking persons agree with your sentiment, you should have won
>> the argument, shouldn't you?
>
>Nobody wins arguments on capital punishment.
Non sequitur. The argument is 'won' when the law is changed. You have yet to
state a case.
> People try to understand the other point of view, become impatient
>and resort to abuse. As I did, and I apologise.
De nada, amigo. A little rough and tumble animates debate.
>You aren't a hypocrite - I
>actually meant to say "humbug" but that isn't a word commonly used nowadays.
Except by some of us ;-)
>I have spoken up for Myra Hindley because I believe that she has served her
>time and is now kept in prison for political reasons. Many of those closely
>connected with the criminal justice/parole system, feel likewise.
I am in agreement with you on that, and have said so more than once.
>There is
>a misconception on the part of the public that you should only speak up for a
>convicted criminal if you are arguing that they are INNOCENT, and that if you
>accept that a convict is guilty as charged, there is no human rights issue
>at all.
And in that, too, we are in agreement.
>When you depersonalise convicts and stop seeing them as human beings
>who have lost their friends and families and all their hopes for the future -
>when you see them without pity, you have a lot in common with a psycopath.
And there you have an interesting point. I would maintain that it is
perfectly possible to pity someone and to dispatch them swiftly to
another world.
I am no psychologist and would not wish to offer a text book definition of
psychopathy. Suffice it to say that I believe that those who kill unlawfully,
repeatedly, on their own account and, may be also, for their own pleasure
are uniquely dangerous to others and that it is signally right that they
be executed when proved guilty of such.
Owen
Owen Lewis
>In article <823385...@eloka.demon.co.uk>
> o...@eloka.demon.co.uk "Owen Lewis" writes:
>
>>
>> Well, my experience of life leads to the view that dying is not the worst
>> thing that can happen to one and that killing is not always the worst
>> thing one can do. Referring back to earlier posts, life and death are the
>> warp and weft of a single pattern. Premeditated killing, if lawful, is surely
>> no better or worse, ethically, than any other cause of death. Practically,
>> it may be a damn sight more merciful than some other deaths.
>
>My impression of what you've said so far is that you have little or no
>experience of life and that you are quite a young person.
Well, Jon, wrong again :-)
>However, the above
>posting implies that you may have had some important experience that you could
>usefully share with us - the pain of watching a close relative die, perhaps. If
>so, perhaps you'd like to elaborate rather than continue to speak in
>generalisations.
In a word, no. My life experience - as for all of us - has substantively
shaped the views that I hold. Publishing it - or rather publishing dribs and
drabs - might provide you with an ephemeral interest and be a personal
indulgence, but it could not advance the argument.
Speaking of which, if I may distract you for a moment from your interest in
the personal details of others, please be reminded that you have yet to post
one, single, coherent argument for the absolute abolition of capital
punishment.
Your ad homimem remarks are no substitute for the argument that you,
apparently, cannot provide. Nor can they adequately disguise the vacuousness
of your position.
Do try and say *something* worthwhile.
With kind regards,
Owen
Andre Robatino
: In article <4f1399$l...@molokini.conterra.com>
: bw...@conterra.com "bob whitaker" writes:
: > "Death is a natural concommitant to life." "Disease is a
: >natural concommitant to being healthy." How silly!
: Not so. Healthy is a relative term and is not an absolute. Without disease
: it has no meaning.
You mean, without the _possibility_ of disease it has no meaning. There's
no reason this possibility can't be made as small as desired. We have already
made great strides in this direction, at least in developed countries. Even
if biological aging is eliminated, there will still be the possibility of
disease and death due to accidents, etc. Backups can reduce this further
by some orders of magnitude but still not to zero. Do you think that some
particular minimum rate of disease and death is necessary for life to have
meaning, and if so how much?
Also, people are continually "dying" in a sense, as their minds develop.
The old person is gradually lost. This will not change (at least, I hope
not). Eliminating biological death just means we don't have to be constantly
starting the whole process over from scratch. Death will occur at the level
of software, not hardware (sorry about the terminology).
: Now, would you care to set out your concept for life to which death is
: not a concommittant?
See above. It's all in how you define "death".
: Owen
--
"Congress shall make no law respecting free speech."
-Prosecutor Don Ingrahm on a recent C|NET TV interview
My opinions are not necessarily those of my employer.
Big Ears.
> As a supporter of the case against capital punishment, I would still urge
> caution against the line above. If your case against hinges on the
> argument that anyone who commits such crime is, by definition almost,
> mentally ill and therefore should not suffer capital punishment, you
> concede the point that someone who commits such an offense who is proved
> sane has no such defence.
> The opposition to capital punishment should come from the fundamental
> starting point that it is wrong for the state to kill, that when mistakes
> are made innocent people are executed, that there are cheaper ways of
> protecting society, that capital punishment has no demonstrable deterrent
> effect, etc. etc.
While you have been busy with the Green Lib Dems and doing your web site, I
have said very clearly and on a number of occasions KILLING IS WRONG
regardless of who does it. There is no justification for the State to
cold-bloodedly kill fellow human beings.
People, regardless of their crimes, should not be killed but treated with
dignity and respect.
Big Ears.
> I see no logic, only sentiment. Please help me. Show me the logic.
Sorry I can't help you. Fundamentally, killing is wrong. I could waste
countless hours of my valuable time giving a multitude of rational
explanations why killing is wrong. However it is simply wrong, just as
burning down my neighbour's house is wrong, just as stabbing someone with a
knife is wrong.
There are some things which one inherently knows to be wrong. Murder -
regardless of nicer names for it - is one of those things my innate
instincts tell me is wrong.
I am an animal of instincts and emotion and I live according to these
natural feelings.
Big Ears.
> I have spoken up for Myra Hindley because I believe that she has served her
> time and is now kept in prison for political reasons.
There are 3 reasons for Mrs Hindley's (*) current imprisonment:
1 total absence of a effective law & order policy
2 an extreme right-wing Home Secretary
3 the forth-coming General Election
(*) any female over the age of 21 should be called Mrs. As men are not
discriminated against on the basis of their marital status, women should not
be either.
Big Ears.
> Now, what makes the selective killing of some criminals so absolutely wrong
> from an ethical, logical or a practical point of view? If you can set that
> out, you will will have achieved what no other contributor to this thread has
> yet achieved.
Please do not distort what I have repeatedly stated:
ALL KILLING IS WRONG full-stop.
Owen Lewis
> "Death is a natural concommitant to life." "Disease is a
>natural concommitant to being healthy." How silly!
Not so. Healthy is a relative term and is not an absolute. Without disease
it has no meaning.
Now, would you care to set out your concept for life to which death is
not a concommittant?
Owen
John de Rivaz
suspension is an interesting thought.
Can anyone see a way around these problems:
Because cryonics relies on future science for revivals, anyone suspended is
"dead" in terms of present law. (Law is only concerned with the past and
present, not "might be.") Therefore people cannot be suspended whilst
alive, even if suffering from a terminal illness. American lawyers decided
in court that if live suspensions of willing and informed terminal patients
were permitted it would be conconvenient when determining cases of possible
or alleged homicide.
My question now is, would an EPA allow someone to appoint attornies
to direct their estate for as long as it takes science to develop a way of
reviving them from suspension (remember it is *for legal pruposes*
considered "death") into youthful good health?
In article: <19...@osiris.win-uk.net> burr...@osiris.win-uk.net (P.
Paul Talacko
Owen Lewis <o...@eloka.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>>No, I can't disagree more. We live in a society that is based on the
>>Christian ideals and morals that were set out some 2000 years ago. The
>>basis of our own Western morality is that: 1) Human life is sacred,
>
>Oh, do come along. Sacred for whom and why? There is no firsthand record of
>Christ's teachings and the second (or third) hand disciples' accounts do not,
>as I recall, make mention of this shibboleth you brandish do freely. The
>Jewish teaching, on which both Moslem and Christian faiths draw, is 'Thou
>shalt do no murder'. That is hardly the same as proclaiming that human life
>is sacred. Anyway, Christian history shows them to be a pretty bloody-minded
>lot.
Oh, really. The existence of first hand records, and, in fact, whether
Christ existed at all is of no issue here. What we are talking about is
tradition and religion. I do not want to refer to that great
post-structualist work, the Bible, but will a little bit. The basic theme
running through the New Testament is one of self sacrifice and serving
others. The greatest self-sacrifice is that of Christ's own. Yet he does
it for us, he also forgives his killers. This sort of self-sacrifice is
only worth while if people are worth helping and they are.
If everyone is worth helping it must be because they, or at least their
souls are sacred. To oppress others or not allowing them to worship.. or
whatever is a no no. This is why it is the West which abolished Slavery
first (and fought a war about it), it is why we have basic ideas concerning
human rights and it is why the death penalty is proscribed in most Western
countries. It is why we have documents which go along the lines of: "We
take these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal..."
>
>2) any
>>person can be redeemed.
>
>That is Christian teaching. However that teaching stops short of promising
>redemption upon this Earth (AFAIK only the Marxists were daft enough to
>promise that). You also conveniently avoid the point that the power to redeem
>rests in the Trinity and not in some po-faced social worker.
>
>>A ban on the death penalty is quite in keeping with these morals.
>
>Quite possibly. But you have not authenticated their standing.
>
>>It is
>>those societies that retain the death penalty who are turning their backs
>>on basic morality.
>
>Ah, so almost 2000 years of Christian tradition was wrong and immoral, was
>it? What Second Coming has provided you with the gift to overturn it?
Er..I don't follow your logic here, there is plenty of attempted sarcasm,
but it falls flat because there does not seem to be a point. Oh, and sorry
for my ignorance, but I am not into this born again fanatical second coming
codswallop.
>
>>Killing is still killing, even if it is someone like
>>Mira Hindley. Once you take a life you have transgressed and if the state
>>kills in cold blood that is even worse.
>
>Well, that states your view, but offers no reason in support of it.
Yes, because morals are objective and absolute and state supported killing
is not on.
[stuff deleted]
>
>>After all killing her
>>will not bring back her victims.
>
>Now that is a fact. But their resurrection is not the aim. The permanent and
>irrevocable severance of a sadistic child murderer from all human society is.
Protection of society is a valid aim of the criminal justice system, and it
appears to have achieved that without killing Mira Hindley. Thanks for
showing that the death penalty is not necessary for this aim of the system.
>>
>>No, not true. A society that keeps such person alive is acting in
>>accordance with the principal that human life is sacred, even if it is the
>>life of a horrible murderer.
>
>That really will not do. Once again, sacred to whom and why?
>
Sacred to us, who believe is some fundamental priniciples about how society
should be run. After all, who are you to judge whether someone should live
or die?
Owen Lewis
na40...@anon.penet.fi "Big Ears." writes:
>(*) any female over the age of 21 should be called Mrs. As men are not
>discriminated against on the basis of their marital status, women should not
>be either.
Oh God! Newspeak. What a short memory you have. In times not so long ago,
when social niceties were more punctiliously observed, in Great Britain
(and, AFAIK, most of the English speaking world) a commoner male was
addressed as
Master until his majority , whereupon he was addressed as Mister. It being
considered impolite to be aware of the age of an sexually mature female, she
would -as a particular politeness - be addressed, at any age, as Miss until
she married, that change of status being marked by the change of mode of
address to Mistress.
I can well remember writing to maiden aunts as The Misses X.&Y.ZZZZZ. They
would have been mortified to have been addressed any other way.
The Continentals, influenced by that latin ruffian, Bonaparte, never showed
such finesse.
Owen
Owen Lewis
na40...@anon.penet.fi "Big Ears." writes:
>Owen Lewis wrote:
>
>> I see no logic, only sentiment. Please help me. Show me the logic.
>
>Sorry I can't help you. Fundamentally, killing is wrong.
Thank you for an honest response. I believe that the large majority of those
who feel as you do are also unable to articulate a logical argument for it.
>I could waste
>countless hours of my valuable time giving a multitude of rational
>explanations why killing is wrong. However it is simply wrong, just as
>burning down my neighbour's house is wrong, just as stabbing someone with a
>knife is wrong.
>
>There are some things which one inherently knows to be wrong. Murder -
>regardless of nicer names for it - is one of those things my innate
>instincts tell me is wrong.
And in this you are right. It is deep within most of us that we should not
harm our neighbours and it was to constrain those who may stray from this
that law first came to be. The Ten Commandments?
Perhaps most deep seated is the instinct that it is wrong to kill another of
one's kind for personal gain or pleasure. The likes of Miss Hindley somehow
have lost or never had that instinct. This makes them uniquely dangerous to
have loose in society.
>I am an animal of instincts and emotion and I live according to these
>natural feelings.
And so are we all, to a greater or lesser extent.
Your difficulty, and the difficulty of many who think as you do, is a refusal
to distinguish in moral terms lawful from unlawful killing. More in a linked
post.
Owen
Owen Lewis
na40...@anon.penet.fi "Big Ears." writes:
>Please do not distort what I have repeatedly stated:
>
> ALL KILLING IS WRONG full-stop.
Now that is plain silly. How do you live? On fresh air?
Would you see the tsetse fly lay waste half of Africa as it one did?
Would you see malaria and yellow fever decimate the uman population within
the Tropics?
Perhaps the syphilitic spirochetae should once again be allowed to bless
newborn infanft with the gift of GPI (for those not old enough to remember,
general paralysis of the insane - a cute litle euphemism if ever there was
one).
Did you know that the last living specimens of smallpox bacteria are kept in
captivity in Porton Down while the ethics of sending their breed to
extinction is debated?
If I may say so you wrongly elide the unlawful killing of humans with
most other forms of killing. If I amm wrong in this, please do explain how
it is you manage to live? You *do* have a choice, you know.
Owen
bob whitaker
Owen Lewis
an...@bwh.harvard.edu "Andre Robatino" writes:
>Owen Lewis (o...@eloka.demon.co.uk) wrote:
>: In article <4f1399$l...@molokini.conterra.com>
>: bw...@conterra.com "bob whitaker" writes:
>
>: > "Death is a natural concommitant to life." "Disease is a
>: >natural concommitant to being healthy." How silly!
>
>: Not so. Healthy is a relative term and is not an absolute. Without disease
>: it has no meaning.
>
> You mean, without the _possibility_ of disease it has no meaning.
Without disease, there can be no possibility of disease. Your response is
tautological, I think.
>if biological aging is eliminated, there will still be the possibility of
>disease and death due to accidents, etc. Backups can reduce this further
>by some orders of magnitude but still not to zero.
> Also, people are continually "dying" in a sense, as their minds develop.
>The old person is gradually lost. This will not change (at least, I hope
>not). Eliminating biological death just means we don't have to be constantly
>starting the whole process over from scratch. Death will occur at the level
>of software, not hardware (sorry about the terminology).
>
>: Now, would you care to set out your concept for life to which death is
>: not a concommittant?
>
> See above. It's all in how you define "death".
OK. So , hypothetically, people don't die. Then how long, hypothetically,
before their starvation causes the first hypothesis to collapse.
So, hypothetically, there's an infinite supply of synthetic food. How long
before the press of bodies causes suffocation and population collapse?
>Do you think that some
>particular minimum rate of disease and death is necessary for life to have
>meaning, and if so how much?
No, I don't think so.
>: Owen
Brian Wowk
>In article <889787...@longevb.demon.co.uk>,
>John de Rivaz <Jo...@longevb.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>>The use of an enduring power of attorney (EPA) for people in cryonic
>>suspension is an interesting thought.
>>
>> ...
>>
>>My question now is, would an EPA allow someone to appoint attornies
>>to direct their estate for as long as it takes science to develop a way of
>>reviving them from suspension (remember it is *for legal pruposes*
>>considered "death") into youthful good health?
>Not a hope. Trusts in perpetuity were explicitly abolished quite
>a while back in the UK (and, I believe, in many other countries).
>The current English limit is 21 years or "a life in being". The
>reason that you will not see this changed is that most governments
>regard such trusts as a threat, with good reason.
Perpetual trusts *are* legal in Wisconsin and South Dakota
within the United States, and in several other countries such as
Liechtenstein. CryoCare has expended considerable effort in
investigating the legalities of establishing such trusts for our
members, and we expect to provide "boiler plate" paperwork for
this purpose within the next year.
We have already established a system of Patient Advocacy
that is similar to the concept of Enduring Power of Attorney.
CryoCare members may optionally appoint a person or organization
called a Patient Advocate to supervise their long-term care as
CryoCare patients. These Patient Advocates have broad powers,
including special CryoCare Board voting priveledges, and authority
to transfer patients between long-term care service providers.
We believe that this "watch dog" function provides an invaluable
feedback mechanism to ensure the long-term stability of CryoCare.
***************************************************************************
Brian Wowk CryoCare Foundation 1-800-TOP-CARE
President Your Gateway to the Future cryo...@cryocare.org
wo...@cryocare.org http://www.cryocare.org/cryocare/
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Brad Templeton
in the world that allows such a trust, though you do have to worry about
challenges to your will stopping the money from leaving your own country.
I am told that some people are counting on Luxembourg.
--
Brad Templeton, publisher, ClariNet Communications Corp. in...@clari.net
The net's #1 E-Newspaper (1,160,000 paid sbscrbrs.) http://www.clari.net/brad/
Garret Smyth
> >> The legal status of frozen people (e.g. taxes, voting, inheritance
> >> and all that) is currently that they are dead. Exactly what status
> >> would they have if there was a known technique for reviving them
> >> that needed 20 years more development before being used on humans?
> >They would be
> >a ward of court.
> Actually, if they are adults, I don't think they can be warded. There
> are difficult issues here - remember the case of the mentally
> incapacitated adult whose carers wanted sterilised for her own good...
> I'm not sure to what extent the Court of Protection or the High Court's
> jurisdiction extends in these circumstances. It is not at all obvious.
Here I must admit my lack of formal study of the law. It would be hard to
make and adult a ward, I suppose, but there are provisions for adults who
can't do anything for themselves. The enduring power of attourney that
someone suggested might be okay. If there were a lot of people in suspension
needing affairs administered legislation would probably ensue, but until
then previous precedents would have to be relied on. After all there have
been underage monarchs, people in comas, estates belonging to people who have
disappeared and so on.
I'm afraid the Hotblack Desiato scenario wouldn't get past the League of
Vampires - oops, the Inland Revenue. It is said to say that everyone else
is unready for cryonics, but the Revenue already have us nailed down. It is
already law that tax has to paid on your estate and money coming into it, so
they already get you, alive or dead. Death and taxes, eh. Good old Ken Dodd!
Voting would be interesting. If someone arranged a proxy vote before being
frozen and were deemed alive then the vote would go on. A lot of cryonic
suspension patients all stored in one place could swing an election. Mind
you, each person doing the voting can only hold three proxy votes.I presume
the law was written that way to stop block votes. Too bad. We won't have any
suspendees elected to Parliament, then. Not that you'd notice the difference.
Oh, there I go, and I said I'd try not to be rude about MPs, despite what
Mr Mellor said about me [Sunday Telegraph, 19th March 1995].
Of course all this speculation hinges on those in suspension being considered
alive, or at least having a strong potential to be. Here the act about frozen
human embryos is an intriguing taster. It was passed 5 years ago and it seems
that it says that embryos can only be stored for 5 years. Oddly enough, a lot
of the "right to life"ers want them destroyed, whilst sprogless parents don't.
A problem worth watching.
> >And anyway, current procedure is to freeze at the point of *legal* death
> >(which is different form biological death).
> Is it? Can you explain the difference? I thought both looked to
> activity in the brain.
I'll answer this in another post because I'd like to quote someone else's
response to the question, and my software is too cumbersome to amalgamate
the messages (good old Demon!). I'm not ducking the question, though (it is
a pretty serious one).
TTFN
Garret
--
Garret Smyth
Gar...@destiny.demon.co.uk
Phone: 0181 789 1045 or +44 181 789 1045
Big Ears.
> And in this you are right. It is deep within most of us that we should not
> harm our neighbours and it was to constrain those who may stray from this
> that law first came to be. The Ten Commandments?
I'm not religious. I regard religion as a confidence trick.
> The likes of Miss Hindley somehow have lost or never had that instinct.
> This makes them uniquely dangerous to have loose in society.
If people are dangerous to our society, then confine them but respect them
too.
Big Ears.
> Oh God! Newspeak. What a short memory you have.
Not understood. Please elaborate.
> In times not so long ago, when social niceties were more punctiliously
> observed, in Great Britain (and, AFAIK, most of the English speaking world)
> a commoner male was addressed as Master until his majority , whereupon
> he was addressed as Mister. It being considered impolite to be aware of the
> age of an sexually mature female, she would -as a particular politeness - be
> addressed, at any age, as Miss until she married, that change of status being
> marked by the change of mode of address to Mistress.
That was in the past. The past is past. We have a new social order now.
Leo
>Owen Lewis wrote:
>
>> Now, what makes the selective killing of some criminals so absolutely wrong
>> from an ethical, logical or a practical point of view? If you can set that
>> out, you will will have achieved what no other contributor to this thread has
>> yet achieved.
>
>Please do not distort what I have repeatedly stated:
>
> ALL KILLING IS WRONG full-stop.
Apparently this is what passes for argument in Toytown.
--
Leo
Leo
>The opposition to capital punishment should come from the fundamental
>starting point that it is wrong for the state to kill, that when mistakes
>are made innocent people are executed, that there are cheaper ways of
>protecting society, that capital punishment has no demonstrable deterrent
>effect, etc. etc.
For me, the main reason to oppose capital punishment is my perception
that to give in to the baying mob whose great numbers give political
force to calls for its reintroduction would only encourage them.
British society has not moved on so far from the days when the streets
were lined with crowds from the City to Tyburn, and a public execution
was a spectacle to be enjoyed. Nowdays it is done at a remove, through
tabloid newspapers mainly. To me this tendency of the British public
to gloat over the fate of those it marks out as villains (e.g.
Silcott, who would surely have been hanged if he could have been) is a
trait to be deplored and if possible extirpated but certainly not
pandered to.
--
Leo
Marshall Rice
o...@eloka.demon.co.uk "Owen Lewis" writes:
> Did you know that the last living specimens of smallpox bacteria are kept in
> captivity in Porton Down while the ethics of sending their breed to
> extinction is debated?
As a matter of fact (I take no issue with the posting under reply) they are
cultured in living chimpanzees, at Porton and several other centres worldwide
(Birmingham amongst them until when, a few years ago, some urine from a
diseased chimpanzee leaked through a floor and infected a technician in the
medical school lab below!). The isolation hospital where she was treated
(and died) was subsequently razed to the ground.
No one wants to risk destroying what may be the last cultures, in case
they are ever needed to develop a new vaccine. No one knows whether or not
there are pockets of the disease surviving, and possibly mutating, in remote
parts of the world, or genetically engineered strains in the arsenals of
gentlemen such as Gaddafi or Saddam.
--
Marshall Rice
John Sharman
[..]
> Please do not distort what I have repeatedly stated:
>
> ALL KILLING IS WRONG full-stop.
SOME KILLING IS RIGHT full stop.
Which of us will have the harder job holding his ground, B.E. ?
John de Rivaz
> In article <4f2vjt$m...@newsgate.dircon.co.uk>
> na40...@anon.penet.fi "Big Ears." writes:
>
> >Please do not distort what I have repeatedly stated:
> >
> > ALL KILLING IS WRONG full-stop.
>
>
> Would you see the tsetse fly lay waste half of Africa as it one did?
This reminds me of the story of the man who rescued a rabbit from a weasel.
He then felt sorry for the weasel, having deprived him of his lunch, and
brought him some food. The weasel came back every day for his hand out, and
eventually another weasel turned up with a live rabbit...
Government doesn't really work any more than perpetual motion, or
product-less pyramid marketing or professions that create no real wealth.
(See Harry Browne's article on my web pages.) So the system we use to
control the crime of murder is at best an approximation of an ideal.
What we do to protect ourselves agains murdurous insects and bacteria has
to take into account that we are part of a survival of the fittest
universe. It will be impossible to achieve an ideal until human minds can
be uploaded into artifical systems using light for energy and inert matter
for mass. And that is a lot further into the future than many of its
proponents suggest.
Nothing is acheived by humanity failing to destroy a species, eg smallpox,
that threatens it. It may be possible to genetically modify tetse flies not
to spread diseases - there is no real difference in doing that to
eradicating the original designed(evolved)-to-spread-disease variety.
If humanity is eradicated, the universe will still carry on with
individuals competing within species and species competing with each other.
If humanity (or other spentient technologically advanced species) develop
they may eventually be able to leave the evolutionary environment and move
to a self-directed path of development that will transcend the cauldron of
death and suffering which is life today.
Humanity is the only technologically advanced species we know of, it could
be the only one in the universe - there has to be a first. By preserving
humanity ahead of smallpox viruses and tetse flies we are at least
presenting a path to a possible future where an individual can survive
without killing anything else. If humanity self-destructs out of a desire
to let hostile unintelligent species survive, the killing will never stop.
Peter H. M. Brooks
Jo...@longevb.demon.co.uk "John de Rivaz" writes:
>
> If humanity (or other spentient technologically advanced species) develop
> they may eventually be able to leave the evolutionary environment and move
> to a self-directed path of development that will transcend the cauldron of
> death and suffering which is life today.
>
Oh, no, they won't! This is exactly the same fallacy as theists fall into
when they believe in an everlasting afterlife. If you consider what makes
life worth living, it will soon become evident that without death or
suffering most of life would loose its point. Pain is necessary as a
counterpoint to pleasure abolish one and the other goes with it. Any
creature (or soul) that lives for ever with no pain or suffering is
certainly not going to be human and isn't going to be happy.
Anyway, evolution has worked very well to produce humanity as it is at
present and is the only credible show in town that provides any hope
of improving the model (I am not falling into the trap of believing that
evolution only produces improvements in an onwards and upwards sense,
but simply pointing out that any other method is less likely to produce results)
--
Peter H. M. Brooks
Owen Lewis
ta...@yarn.demon.co.uk "Paul Talacko" writes:
>In article <823157...@eloka.demon.co.uk>,
>Owen Lewis <o...@eloka.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>>No, I can't disagree more. We live in a society that is based on the
>>>Christian ideals and morals that were set out some 2000 years ago. The
>>>basis of our own Western morality is that: 1) Human life is sacred,
>>
>>Oh, do come along. Sacred for whom and why? There is no firsthand record of
>>Christ's teachings and the second (or third) hand disciples' accounts do not,
>>as I recall, make mention of this shibboleth you brandish do freely. The
>>Jewish teaching, on which both Moslem and Christian faiths draw, is 'Thou
>>shalt do no murder'. That is hardly the same as proclaiming that human life
>>is sacred. Anyway, Christian history shows them to be a pretty bloody-minded
>>lot.
>
>Oh, really.
Yes, really.
>>> ...any person can be redeemed.
>>
>>That is Christian teaching. However that teaching stops short of promising
>>redemption upon this Earth (AFAIK only the Marxists were daft enough to
>>promise that). You also conveniently avoid the point that the power to redeem
>>rests in the Trinity and not in some po-faced social worker.
>>
>>>A ban on the death penalty is quite in keeping with these morals.
>>
>>Quite possibly. But you have not authenticated their standing.
>>
>>>It is
>>>those societies that retain the death penalty who are turning their backs
>>>on basic morality.
>>
>>Ah, so almost 2000 years of Christian tradition was wrong and immoral, was
>>it? What Second Coming has provided you with the gift to overturn it?
>
>
>Er..I don't follow your logic here, there is plenty of attempted sarcasm,
>but it falls flat because there does not seem to be a point.
The point is simple. You say that all human life is sacred and offer no basis
for that beyond 'I say it and therefore you should also accept it. It does not
was. it also fails every test of argument. As a side issue, almost two
thousand years (well, fifteeen hundred) of Christian rule have been marked
by religious intolerance, internecine disputes and bloody war and persecution.
It you wish to claim Christian practice as an example of reverence for all
human life, I suggest that you first shut yourself in the cupboard under the
stair and speak very softly. That way no one may notice.
>>>Killing is still killing, even if it is someone like
>>>Mira Hindley. Once you take a life you have transgressed and if the state
>>>kills in cold blood that is even worse.
>>
>>Well, that states your view, but offers no reason in support of it.
>
>Yes, because morals are objective and absolute and state supported killing
>is not on.
Says who, and why?
>>>After all killing her
>>>will not bring back her victims.
>>
>>Now that is a fact. But their resurrection is not the aim. The permanent and
>>irrevocable severance of a sadistic child murderer from all human society is.
>
>Protection of society is a valid aim of the criminal justice system, and it
>appears to have achieved that without killing Mira Hindley. Thanks for
>showing that the death penalty is not necessary for this aim of the system.
You may take 'severance from all human society' as a polite expression for
being done to death.
>>>No, not true. A society that keeps such person alive is acting in
>>>accordance with the principal that human life is sacred, even if it is the
>>>life of a horrible murderer.
>>
>>That really will not do. Once again, sacred to whom and why?
>>
>
>Sacred to us, who believe is some fundamental priniciples about how society
>should be run. After all, who are you to judge whether someone should live
>or die?
As an individial I have no right to do so. I do have the right to joint with
others in making such a decision; *this* is a fundamental principle for the
government of a society.
Owen