Thought for the Day (Nov 4)

Subject: Thought for the Day (Nov 4)
From: Peter T.
Date: 04 Nov 99 - 09:26 AM

Last week I was on an interfaith television programme (as a tame Buddhist) and the subject was capital punishment (which Canada currently bans). Most of the interesting discussion didn't make it on the air, as usual, but we battled it back and forth. Since my opponents were mostly Christian fundamentalists, I pointed out that Buddhists believed in the potential for redemption, which I had always thought was a Christian specialty until recently. This got everyone rolling, and after covering victims rights, and the need to "pay for what one has done", we got on to rituals of sacrifice in various cultures -- the need to reestablish the moral order by cleansing it through human sacrifice. Everyone was very polite: they didn't budge from their pro-capital punishment stance, and I didn't budge from my anti-stance.

This week, Canadians have heard again from Karen Homolka, who was an enthusiastic partner with an equally psychopathic boyfriend in a horrible series of sex killings that make you want to go and be sick every time you read about them. She has recently been awarded a degree in psychology from Queens University pursued while in prison, and while she is awaiting parole is writing letters that say things like: "I have learned to get rid of my mistrust, self-doubt, misplaced guilt and defence mechanisms. I am now completely in touch with my inner feelings. My self-esteem is quite high and I am fairly easily able to deal with confrontation".
Everything I have ever read by her and about her, including this week's letters in the press confronts me with what Hannah Arendt called 'the banality of evil": not some snarling villain, but something much more frightening. All I can think of when I read about her is an image of her mind as a bleak and abandoned parking lot late at night, bright with cold arc lamps, and blotched by dark discoloured stains spreading out on the asphalt. I realize that the part of me that desperately wants to kill her does not want justice, or revenge, or all the things I said on that program: what it fears is the cold antihuman emptiness that seeps out whenever she, and the others like her, surface. I am still against capital punishment: but it is not as easy as I made out on TV.

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day (Nov 4)
From: JedMarum
Date: 04 Nov 99 - 09:55 AM

Death is certainly not the worst thing that can happen to you. Redemption and acceptance of responsibility for one's actions are not mutually exclusive things. There is no reason I cannot seek (and even obtain redemption) - and still willingly accept the consequences of my behaviour. In fact, there is no reason I cannot accept even an unjust sentence. The 'executee' is free from concern over the justice of his/her fate (ie execution or no execution).

Capital punishment is an action taken by society-at-large. It is a public, dare I say, ritual in which finality is declared for gross transgressions. It should not be argued as a reasoned or corrective action for an individual behavior. The Christians with whom you argued apparently miss the point.

Capital punishment, as practiced currently in the US, is a extremely rare event (per capita) that serves as a symbolic, to those who support it (and the majority do). It is society's retribution.

Do I support it? Not particularly. Do I oppose it? No. Would I impose it? Maybe.

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day (Nov 4)
From: catspaw49
Date: 04 Nov 99 - 10:34 AM

I'm an 8x8 Shit in a Can guy myself. If you're convicted of a heinous crime, death is pretty easy. I'd just as soon my tax dollars were spent supporting the perp for the rest of their natural lives...eating cheap food and living in an 8x8 block cell on a 24/7 basis. give them a concrete bunk and a can to use and forget 'em. One visit day per year, clean boxers weekly, and a nice view of the mortar.

Just a tought.

Spaw

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day (Nov 4)
From: katlaughing
Date: 04 Nov 99 - 01:41 PM

That's fine, Spaw, as long as they STAY in prison! I just read about a fellow who was convicted of murder a few years ago, got let out, and is now going on trial for several recent murders.

I also do not support capital punishment; would just like to be sure that parol and/or commuted sentences do not extend to murderers.

Peter, she sounds like an epitome of cold evil. Are they seriously considering letting her out?

After yesterday's news and this morning's about Hawaii and Seattle, I emotionally felt an immediate need to scream out loud to the whole USA, "How many more will it take!?" For the first time in my Western-born life, I actually feel we would be justified in destroying all guns. Heard on the radio this a.m. that around 1,000 workers die of violent means AT WORK, in the US every year! For the life of me, I cannot figure out why people are not up in arms, demanding, in a collective voice, the end of this kind of opportunity for the sick bastards who do such things.

Some imbecile wrote a letter to the paper today, saying Mat Shephard was at fault for living a lide of perversionand he wouldn't be dead if he hadn't been in a bar and looking for a companion; this so-called moral person said nothing about the immorality of murder.

The defense lawyers tried to say the perp wouldn't have murdered Mat, if he hadn't been on drugs, drunk and not been supposedly grabbed by Shephard. By those standards, I figure half the men in the US could be justifiably murdered the next time they lay an unwanted hand on any woman, esp. if she's been drinking or taking drugs!

Sorry, Peter, I've just been fuming about this and your posting brought it all to mind. Can't wait to move out of this gawdforsaken, s**thole of extremists!

kat

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day (Nov 4)
From: JedMarum
Date: 04 Nov 99 - 02:00 PM

People murder. It seems to be an age old behaviour, and even seems to appear prominently in all human mythology systems. It seems murder for some imagined personal gain is more understandable (though not any more acceptable) but murder just for the hell of it? Why do so many whacko's seem to be following suit these days? Copying the latest outrageous act? It is troubling, to say the least.

Likewise, why do so many of us continue to kill ourselves and our fellow humans with our cars, drunk or drugged while driving? Surely the outrageous act of killing someone by my careless consumption of alcohol is just as devastating as these senseless shootings.

Let's eliminate both sets of weapons (alcohol/dope and firearms) from the face of the earth. At least if we're going to kill each other we can use a good old fashioned boulder (a la Cain and Abel).

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day (Nov 4)
From: Tony Burns
Date: 04 Nov 99 - 02:11 PM

Kat asked, "Peter, she sounds like an epitome of cold evil. Are they seriously considering letting her out? "

Yes they are Kat. She plea bargained a deal, testified against her husband and only got 12 years. She is could get early parol after 8 years. I think that happens next summer or the year after.

She is a self-centerd little creep who seems to have no understanding of what she did.

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day (Nov 4)
From: katlaughing
Date: 04 Nov 99 - 02:19 PM

I am sorry to hear that, Tony. How imperfect our world is.

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day (Nov 4)
From: JedMarum
Date: 04 Nov 99 - 02:20 PM

Oh well, not to worry, maybe she and OJ will find each other!

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day (Nov 4)
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 04 Nov 99 - 02:57 PM

I feel exactly what Peter feels when he reads the newspaper stories about Karla Homolka. Horror, a kind of anger that I can never put into words. If I had the slightest drop of faith in an active diety, perhaps I could hope for her redemption - but I don't, so I don't. The fact that her defence was that she was a "battered woman" has caused me to continue to have less and less faith in ANY legal system. If anyone thinks I'm espousing arch-conservative views with the last statement, your wrong. I'd prefer not to give details of this case, because they strain credulity and are completely revolting, but a battered woman she was NOT. What hurt me most though, was the admission by two women columnists in Toronto that when asked, more than half of their male colleagues said they would gladly have had sex with this creature (She's very attractive) knowing what she had done.
Two members of the jury that convicted her have written letters of support for her early parole. I know that in cases like this juries are chosen from people who neither read nor apparently think, but I was sickened again.
Oh, what could I say to the Mahaffey and French families? Nothing I guess. They've got their god..I hope it's enough.

Rick Fielding

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day (Nov 4)
From: Peter T.
Date: 04 Nov 99 - 03:10 PM

Yes, Kat, Tony is right. She plea-bargained, in part because it was not clear that the authorities (who did not cover themselves with glory) were going to be able to carry off a trial otherwise. It was one of those cases in ordinary white suburbia that chills a whole country for a time.
yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day (Nov 4)
From: JedMarum
Date: 04 Nov 99 - 03:14 PM

Rick - your quoting the Toronto newswriter certainy gives me hope for my (here-to-fore) flippant suggestion. If she really is a looker, OJ's bound to fall for her!

Now, let's all put on our matchmaker hats and figure out; how can we arrange for her to meet OJ?

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day (Nov 4)
From: Cara
Date: 04 Nov 99 - 03:36 PM

This discussion reminds me of a book I read a while ago on the origin of evil. Dr. Robert somebody, I think... any way I'll dig out the title tonight and post it. Very interesting theories presented, and some chilling case histories.

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day (Nov 4)
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 04 Nov 99 - 04:52 PM

I find it amazing that Ted Bundy, against whom there was a preponderance of evidence of him being responsible for a score of serial killings, was offered a plea bargain by the State of Florida. His own egotistic conviction that he was smarter than the justice system resulted in his not pleading, and eventually being convicted of murder and sentenced to die. I believe that that verdict was the correct one, and I am glad he was executed for his crimes.

I believe that much senseless killing is the result of a kind of autism. Individuals who manifest this autism are completely devoid of any sympathy for other human beings, and instead experience them as objects to be feared, desired or abused as suits their whim. I also believe such individuals are no more capable of understanding concepts like regret or redemption than a shark who has just completed a kill.

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day (Nov 4)
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 04 Nov 99 - 05:33 PM

Tolkien in Lord of the Rings put it nicely. I've got swiss cheese for memory, so I'll paraphrase.

Some who live, deserve to die, but some who died, deserved to live. Who are you to question which?

The Karla Homolka thing is something that either didn't really reached the UK, or else I just missed it, but we have our own in the person of Myra Hindley, found guilty with her boyfriend Ian Brady, of enticing youngsters into a car, asaulting, abusing and murdering them, dumping their bodies on Saddleworth moor in the 60's. She insists that she has changed, and that she can function in a normal society. Ian has been committed indefinately, she is continually refused parole and is in solitary for her own safety. They were sentenced after the abolition of capital punishment here, over 30 years ago. There is a danger with these long term prisoners to forget the horrors of their crimes, compared with those that happen now. What difference 6 or 7 compared with 21 at Dunblane, or the Ted Bundy/Peter Sutcliffe/Fred & Mary West scores? I was born at the time the Moors murders happened, and so didn't really know what they were about. To 'celebrate' some anniversary, or to coincide with her latest parole request, they had a documentary on TV which basically told the whole lot from start to finish, including her 'return' to the moors to attempt to identify possible burial sites because the police never did find all the bodies. Telling it again, makes people like me, the younger ones who only see a person in prison against their will, think again, about why they are there in the first place. The phrase 'throw away the key' is going round my head, and I suspect a lot of others feel the same way.

LTS

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day (Nov 4)
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 04 Nov 99 - 06:47 PM

Hope this works. This is the story from yesterday's Toronto Star. If it doesn't I'll be asking for some help from Tony or Peter.Karla

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day (Nov 4)
From: Bill D
Date: 04 Nov 99 - 10:44 PM

.......I really WANT to belive in some sense of 'the sanctity of life'...etc. and to be against capital punishment, but I simply cannot any more.......

at a certain point, it becomes meaningless to talk about how many 'years' a person should serve in prison for deeds such as this pair committed. It is sad that ANY human ever become so amoral, and the exact causes vary, but once a person is so warped that they are capable of these things, I see no use in keeping them around...even in prison.
(Yes...I know ALL the arguments against capital punishment..).....if there were a way, I would prefer to have them just *poof*...disappear, rather than have public executions or parole hearings..but.........

if you do a search in AltaVista..(but please don't), you will find 635 hits on this woman..as well as entire web pages and a newsgroup....ENOUGH!

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day (Nov 4)
From: thosp
Date: 05 Nov 99 - 12:07 AM

there are valid arguements for both positions-for and against capital punishment-- i choose to come down on the against side--- i think (hope)that in the long run --that position sends a message to the young --that it is wrong to kill period!--- capital punishment sets standards that say it's ok to kill in this situation --but when you are young it might be too fine a point to distinguish and maybe to easy to personalize --i.e. in this case i can kill peace thosp

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day (Nov 4)
From: katlaughing
Date: 05 Nov 99 - 12:35 AM

Sometimes I think the best thing would be like in old times with some Native American tribes; the offender would be literally cast out with nothing to use for survival. So, how about this heinous bimbo gets dropped off in the farthest frozen wastes up near the North Pole? I know it sounds horrible, but nowhere near as sickening as what she did. Before your link, Rick, I read several reports on Yahoo which told me more than enough.

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day (Nov 4)
From: JedMarum
Date: 05 Nov 99 - 02:36 AM

I believe in the sanctity of human life, as well. And I support capital punishment.

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day (Nov 4)
From: Grubby
Date: 05 Nov 99 - 06:44 AM

What shits me about these cases is the gaggle sanctimonious defence lawyers that Queue up try to justify why these creatures carried out the heinous acts. They do it they say, in the name of justice and fair trial. Bullshit! I say, they do it for the glory, the greed and kudos in the hope of the dismissal to advance their career and or the huge payout whichever way the verdict goes. One day the law will get a conscience and walk away from these people and leave them to their well deserved fate. But unfortunately we will all be long gone before greed and mans lust for power is conquered

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day (Nov 4)
From: Mbo
Date: 05 Nov 99 - 08:24 AM

HEY! Another Tolkien fan! Here's the quote, direct from me, the biggest Tolkien scholar this side of Raleigh! I believe the exact quote is "Death? Yes, many who live deserve death, and many who die deserve life. Can you give that to them? Then be not so hasty to dole out death. Even the wise can not see all ends." Not that I support the release of this fell creature, but maybe she can knock herself AND OJ into the Cracks of Doom and do us all a big favor!

--Mbo

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day (Nov 4)
From: JedMarum
Date: 05 Nov 99 - 08:59 AM

".... she can knock herself AND OJ into the Cracks of Doom and do us all a big favor! "

I love it!

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day (Nov 4)
From: catspaw49
Date: 05 Nov 99 - 09:21 AM

I dunno' folks....I'm still for the 8x8 & shit in a can approach. Basically cheap, no way to get out (same as a death sentence) and you could provide each "cell" with a length of rope or cyanide tablet so the asshole always had a choice.

Spaw

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day (Nov 4)
From: JedMarum
Date: 05 Nov 99 - 10:16 AM

hmmm, now spaw's choice is worth considering!

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day (Nov 4)
From: Fortunato
Date: 05 Nov 99 - 10:26 AM

Peter T.

You ain't scared of the big questions. Good on you. But what's a 'tame' buddhist? I consider myself a jackleg zen buddhist cause they can't make me say gassho and I sit or stand when I please. But I sure ain't tame. I don't think you are either.

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day (Nov 4)
From: Bill D
Date: 05 Nov 99 - 06:36 PM

I knew a woman who considered herself a Buddist..(what she actually tried to practice was Jainism...but...) she refused to step on or spray cockroaches, but she WOULD scoop them up in a paper towel and toss them out into the snow!....

"My desire is to have them NOT be in my house" she said..."what God does with them after that is none of my business".....

so maybe katlaughing's idea is not TOO far-fetched...though I'd LOVE to watch THAT debate in Congress!..*giggle*

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day (Nov 4)
From: catspaw49
Date: 05 Nov 99 - 07:11 PM

...Hey Fort!!....A "Jack-Leg Zen Buddhist?" .....LMAOWROTF>>>>>>>>Oh man is that a keeper or what...I'm stealing it immediately!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Spaw

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day (Nov 4)
From: BK
Date: 06 Nov 99 - 01:42 PM

Look, gang; this is a tough one - I work in a prison, as I have often said on this forum. For you folks this subject may indeed be horrible, & can cause upsetting emotions, but you must know that when you move on to something else or go to your day job you can forget about it (at least temporarily). Unless you have lived it, you can't possibly imagine the complications and complexities of prison reality. And that is in our "civilized" western democracies.

Because we are at least nominally "democracies," we actually do get a spectrum of folks drawn from society at large and there even are some rich guys in jail - generally the lawyer-who-paid-someone-to-kill-his-wife types, or physicians or other educated men and women who've committed sex crimes. On the other end of the wide spectrum we get, we have the kids who came up in the ghetto with no functional parents. They literally grew up on the streets. There is a large body of scientific information about psychopathology caused by a lack of maturation. The big point this literature usually makes is that some steps in the development process of a fully functioning mind never happen. What I see is that many of these people, like this evil woman, simply do not have any identifiable evidence of what we would recognize as a "conscience."

When you work with inmates, you inevitably feel very sorry for some of them, and tainted - even assaulted- by evil just to be in the presence of, others. and sometimes, no matter what their sentence is for, you won't know what will happen until after you have interacted with the person.

I'm completely convinced both by observation and what I have seen of the scientific literature that there is no way to instill a functioning conscience after a person has become an adult. These are the "cancer cells" of society. All you can do with cancer cells is cut them out. It's easy to say don't kill them, just lock them up and treat them accordingly.. But it's much harder to deal with them through a long life, in which they and their lawyers will demand "humane" conditions and medical care.

In a presumably sane, ethical western democracy I don't believe that we want concentration camp or "devils island" conditions to prevail in any of our public or private institutions. And this is truly a noble and appropriate instinct. Some of our guys just made (often stupid) mistakes & are chagrinned at it all, & just doin' their time, embarrassed & apalled at themselves, & ashamed for themselves & their families. THEY rarely are trouble makers.

On the other hand the twisting and perverversion of those noble instincts by SOME inmates, who often are those who have committed the most devastating, heinous, disgusting, utterly evil crimes, is almost beyond comprehension. You really have to experience it to believe it. The public media do not even portray 10% of the tip of the iceberg. It would take a lot of bandwidth just to encapsulate some of the more egregious cases and issues I have been - & still am routinely - involved with.

I have no easy answer for the question of capital punishment. I clearly see that we must cut out these cancer cells but, in all fairness, there are also many other societal "cancer cells." I would also feel better if I thought western "justice" systems were more equal in their treatment of crimes.

The "O.J." travesty is a case in point. I used to do forensics, and as a trained forensic practitioner (let alone a nominally reasonable adult human being) I consider the "O.J." case a galling insult to logic, science, morals, and any last pathetic vestige of integrity the courts may have had. It's no wonder the public has a a low opinion of the court system. Even most of the black inmates that I know were appalled at this case, and pointed out that with THEIR finances, they would have been convicted and executed long ago.

Lastly, I have had to take care of 20 year-old men in good health who murdered upwards of 20 to 30 people in gang wars. Incarcerated for life w/out possible parole - & maybe they should'nt ever be paroled, for they will surely (most of them) kill again, and likely to live another 40 to 70 years, and the type who have no conscience, they go REALLY crazy. I truly believe would be kinder to kill them.

Talk about no easy answers...

Peace, BK

Gotta go see the Battlefield Band!

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day (Nov 4)
From: The Mink
Date: 07 Nov 99 - 05:20 AM

Paraphrasing heinlien:- Many crimes are so hienous that they can only have been commited whilst crazy.

Either the criminal can later be cured and will have to live with what they have done(doesn't sound like a recipie for continuing sanity) or they won't. In which case they get released back into society with an lesson in being more careful next time but no increase in "conscience".

he was a big believer in Capital punishment. Given the exorbitent costs of maintaining high security prisoner "for-ever" compared with the exorbitant cost of appeals to a "high" court, the descision shouldn't be made on monetary grounds.

TheMink*mailcity.com