"Sadly JIm, this thread seems to be making very strage allies"
If it is allies you want Silas - then you land firmly in Josepp's camp with your:
"I would like to see these bastards wiped off the face of the earth."
I see no condemnation from you for his horrific suggestion that they be held on a newly created childrens' death row for six years and then topped - an establishment equivilent of what they did to a toddler - only much longer drawn out.
You select the 'victims' to whom you give your sympathy very carefully - as do others here. As far as I am concerned, everyone connected with this case is a victim; Jamie Bulger and his family, the Venables and Taylor families, even the two ten-year-olds who carried out the horrific acts, they all have my sympathy to one degree or another.
But it isn't sympathy under discussion here, it is what should be done when children commit serious crimes.
Your solution is to treat them completely as adults - mine is that, as the laws of our society make this impossible, they must be reformed, returned into society and monitored in some way or other until it can be ascertained as certainly as it is possible to do so, that they won't repeat their crimes.
To me, it is you who is taking an inhuman and irrational stance - eye-for-an-eye is as primitive and as vicious as it gets.
You haven't said how you would facilitate your revenge - do we repeal the laws that make it impossible to punish children; do we ignore those laws when it suits us; should there be any age limit whatever (I think Josepp drops it to 8 - can't really bring myself to re-read his postings).
Phrases like holier-than-thou, do-gooder really don't cut too much ice with me; they are meaningless convinience phrases designed to avoid thinking arguments through.
Jim Carroll