Donuel, on a personal basis probably not if I am to be honest. It is a bit like my attitude to crime. On a personal basis, I would like to get hold of some of the cruellest offenders and rip them to pieces. That would be even more true if my friends or family had suffered.

A responsible society has to do a bit better than that.
A bastard like say Pinochet, for instance, deserved to be hanged many times over. Even those, who would happily have strung him up, would have to admit that it could only have been done once. So any sort of realistic retribution is out of the question for a start.

I like something, which McGrath of Harlow said a couple of years back. He said that forgiveness is good for the wronged. I can't speak for Kevin, but I assume he meant that it relieved them from wasting energy on something, which they could not hope to achieve anyway. In any event, I can't imagine a more complete and satisfying revenge than getting genuine repentence or a sincere apology from the perpetrator. It does not always happen, but it has happened in many cases and it will happen again.

I quite like the Bhuddist attitude of that magnificent Burmese woman Aung San Suu Kyi, who believes that it is better by far to suffer from evil than it is to perpetrate it. She believes that the only real harm, which can come to you, is if you do wrong. I believe she is right. Whether I could ever live up to those demanding standards is another question!