"Reasonable" Punishment
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Hi Barclays, I haff to disagree with you that a jail term for animal abusers is too harsh.
Of course it must hurt to be in the clangers for harming your potential "lunch"
While I have to agree an animal's life is worth much less then that of a human's(I wonder if killing 100 dogs will get me a death sentence)
But first we need to examine the act which brought the jail sentence punishment. Of course to survive, I would kill a cat, a dog or a cute furry wabbit. But these actions are purely done out of an instinct to survive.
Kicking the dog to death, burying the kittens and pups alive.... these people have commited the act out of maliciousness and cruelty and there was no rational behind all these acts.
I'm for a jail term sentence for these people coz a stiff fine would just be too easy on them for an act so cruel.
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Tell me why?
I want the meaning of my life....
Do I try to live? Do I try to love?
X-Japan - Art of Life -
hi Terence,
of course you donÂ’t think itÂ’s a waste of money, youÂ’re enjoying life way too much in uk. *envy you*
so is your butt shaking any good? can you shake your bon bons just like latino Ricky Martin? 
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Barclays, Barclays,
Just when I was building up a fairy tale image of you in my heart, you had to take a pin & burst the bubble ;(.
Just because animals are animals, that doesnÂ’t give humans the right to kill them as & when we wish for sport. Most of us are carnivores, sure I will eat the animals like fish, pig, chicken, etc, to keep me alive ... I donÂ’t have a stomach for the more exotic animals, anyway I digress.
The reason why these animal abusers were jailed was to send a signal to the public that the law in SÂ’pore doesnÂ’t condone cruelty to animals & also to prevent the brutal streak that lurks in all of us from bursting forth and given a free rein. More often than not, bullies, people who resort to violence & murderers, they start small & then they build up their courage by going on to bigger things.
Firstly, one kills a stray cat or dog for a lark, once one acquires a taste for cruelty, then one starts on defendless children or old people, then one realises that one needs more serious harm to be inflicted to get the same high, vicious assaults emerged & finally one becomes so enbolden that murder is just a step, a skip & a hop away.
Thus, curbing cruelty to animals by jailing the perpetrators who tortures these animals just for the pure fun of it in my view instills in all of us the sanctity of life, be it an animal or a human.
Humanity is what separates us from the animals & when we lose our humanity with regards to the other species of living things, what hope is there for us?
Barclays, truth be known, humans have been known to kill & eat another human being in the quest for survival during harsh times or war.
IÂ’m not flaming you, I have a special flaming partner for this pleasure. -
colette,
i shook my bon bons so hard the other day i damn near lost them.
at the risk of diverging,
"Just because animals are animals, that doesnÂ’t give humans the right to kill them as & when we wish for sport."
even if the sacrifice of an animal is constitutional to the culture of a people? fox-hunting, sacrificial animals for religious purposes? are you going to tell the ambabwei tribe in africa that their heritage of sacrificing a cow to the gods for argicultural protection is wrong?
"then one realises that one needs more serious harm to be inflicted to get the same high, vicious assaults emerged & finally one becomes so enbolden that murder is just a step, a skip & a hop away."
very interesting assumption. so, can you show how animal-killing automatically leads or incites desire for murder?, i.e. show its causal effects? i'm dying (pun intended) to hear your evidence.
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There are a number of mechanical devices which increase sexual arousal in women. Chief among these is the Mercedes-Benz 380SL convertable.
P.J. O'Rourke -
Sacrificial of animals are very common among the tribal grops in Africa as well Native Tribes. It is usually used in ritual ceromonies as to appease the Gods and give them harvest for their crops or even to cleanse their spirits.
However, in tribes like those their culture is simply very different from us. Take for example, genital mutilation which seems as brutal in the eyes of our society are considrered as a ritual of conserving their body to the opposite sex as well as to reduce promiscuity. They have no choice and have to bear all the pain and after effects of the non professional surgery by the women in their tribe. Resentment and anger is repressed and no utter of cry of cry is allowed by the males or it will be considered a coward act.
There is certainly no right and wrong in killing in animals for their own selfish use depending on which culture u are brought up. If there is a religious cause to do it. the animals are mostly substituted for a human being instead. So is it better to sacrifice a human or an animal though both of them are living being? You decide.
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Writing is a weapon that is more powerful than a man's fist. -
Rinoa,
What is the percentage of people who are wrongly convicted to capital punishment? I believe (correct me if I'm wrong) that the percentage is pretty low. If you say that capital punishment should be abolished because of the possibility that the judge or the jury make a mistake, does that mean the authority should be lenient to ALL criminals just because of the small percentage that may be wrongfully convicted?
Personally, I don't believe that criminals who got capital punishment will ever change to the better regardless of the amount of time and opportunity given to them. People who commit senseless murders do not change overnight. The idea of giving them a second chance is a noble one but I don't think they deserve it. How about the victims, do they have a second chance of enjoying normal lives (at all)?
Death is too easy for them, I agree, but why should resources be wasted on them? Moreover, why should they be given chance to be free someday? I believe there are some tricks that the lawyers can pull to get the criminals parole so they don't have to serve their full jail term. Why not stop them from committing more crimes once and for all? -
YHL
Maybe I am too empathetic or compaasionate to be a lawyer or even in any of the professional in the jury system cos if U were to read true stories of ppl getting convicted for the wrong reasons...U will feel for the ppl who are innocent...
I can just pray that those blooodsucker lawyers can be fair to justice but not the temptation of the root of evil and become the devil's advocate. Till now, I rest my case.
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Writing is a weapon that is more powerful than a man's fist. -
Colette, Colette...
*abashedly scratch head* Wow! My very first compliment. I must follow MayaJ's example by printing this up and framing it. :p
Umm.. I'm more moderate than what you mau suppose. I'm not saying that we can treat animals cruelly as we please (after all, I do insist on free-range products whenever I can) BUT, I do see a jail sentence as too harsh. A stiff fine is more appropriate. By way of a jail term, the person loses a large part of a normal, productive life simply because he/she will be stigmatised and reacted against every single time his status is questioned. Like the Mike Tyson's episode here, a convicted felon of more than 1 yr is not allowed into GB.
I hardly think an animal (no matter the circumstances) should warrant that part of a human being's life.
Like Eck said, I agree to disagree with his point (THANKS for replying sincerely Eck)
I dun think I can (or want) to change anyone's stance on this. I just wanted to point out the tremendous impact of a prison term can be. Rinoa's rehabilitative system of righting civic wrongs has a long way to go to redress social injustices.
As for someone who pointed out that the money can come from someone else, and thus the lesson is not learnt... umm... I dunno. I mean, unless you are incredibly rich that money doesn't matter to you, I think a stiff fine (like mebbe $10,000 depending on the seriousness of abuse) will elicit a painful lesson. Blardy hell, my Coffee Bean stint yielded $4 an hour ... how many years of my life had to be forfeited to pay for a crime of such nature?
cheers.
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No universal history leads from savagery to humanitarianism, but there is one leading from the slingshot to the megatonne bomb.
Adorno -
bait bait bait, chomp chomp chomp!
i thought the discourse between the prosecution and defense was ALL about playing devil's advocate. prodding, inquiring and testing. the only way a prosecutor can be 'fair to the judicial system' is to do his job well.
no rinoa, you're not too empathetic nor compassionate for the legal profession, just too emotional.
cheerio
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There are a number of mechanical devices which increase sexual arousal in women. Chief among these is the Mercedes-Benz 380SL convertable.
P.J. O'Rourke -
hi Barclays,
*grin* your first compliment? you mean from me or from all the forumites who have ever replied to you? if itÂ’s the latter, sure, youÂ’ve got the print it out & have it framed, it may the one & only youÂ’ll ever get! hee hee ... no offence intended.
so what if the person loses a part of his/her normal life or will be stigmatised? the poor doggie or kitty is dead, yeah sure, they may not be a fellow human being with brains like ours to make a living like ours, but theyÂ’re still living things. even though iÂ’ve no qualms about eating animals to fill my tummy but to kill them cruelly & needlessly just for fun,
thatÂ’s inhuman & beyond disgust!
we’re supposed to be a civilized society in S’pore, such cruelty to animals is just unthinkable & they deserved the jail time. just levying a stiff fine is no good ‘coz some people here make obscene amounts of money just speculating in shares & houses. have you also noticed that lately there’s a spate of maid abuse stories in the papers? some people just think that they’ve money & they’re king! they treat these foreign maids who helped make their daily life easier like dirt. these people should go to jail & they deserved the shaming they get when their pictures appear on national papers. i’ve no sympathy or empathy for them. just because they’re lucky to be born in S’pore & given a chance for the good life, they think they’ve a right to humiliate the others from poorer countries than ours, they’re a disgrace. -
hi Terence,
read your reply from the “would u” thread, *sob* still have recovered from the shock of the views you hold, i don’t have mood to flirt with you anymore. anyway, why waste my time when i don’t even meet your basic requirement? *sob sob sob*
oh, that was for your bon bons remarks. i still have to reply you on the others.
i was writing about what Barclays felt about the jail sentences some people got for treating animals cruelly in SÂ’pore. generally, i was talking about civilized societies. tribal societies, hmm ... just the mere word tribal excuses them, theyÂ’re not like city folks, so i canÂ’t judge them by civilized standards. anyway, who knows they may have customs which makes civilized society behaviour seem barbaric too? fox-hunting which the English seems to enjoy, yeah, itÂ’s barbaric but itÂ’s their choice, if their laws doesnÂ’t prohibit it, who am i to say anything? but if i should fall in love with an englishman, he should not like fox hunting. iÂ’m not ashamed to say that iÂ’m glad that SÂ’pore law has very tough penalties for people who commit crimes against animals.
as far as i know, most sacrificial animals for religious purposes are the very animals i eat, so how could i say that they are wrong? even in biblical times before Christ came to earth as the ultimate sacrificial lamb, the Isrealities also offered animal sacrifices to God to atone for their sins, thereÂ’s a whole book on it - Leviticus.
i believe all of us have a dark side in us & civilized social behaviour expectation is the only thing that keeps it from having fun. well, maybe not everyone has a dark side, but i do. my logic goes like this: if i can kill a cat or puppy, a cute fluffy ball of nothing, in cold blood, i will acquire a taste for killing sooner or later. slowly, iÂ’ll torture little children & old defendless people just to savour the terror in their eyes as they anticipate my next sadistic move. left unchecked or even if i get caught but the punishment by the law is so lenient that it doesnÂ’t deter me. embolden, i will kill because by then i should have lost all respect for human life & i need a bigger thrill or high from these bullying acts.
i love killing cockroaches in my home, i don’t kill them anymore if they’re found outside my home because i think they deserved to live, well, they’ve got to live somewhere. even now, occasionally i’ve the urge to step on them just to hear the crunching sound when my shoe lands on it or to see if my reflexes are faster than theirs, only the realization that they too have a right to live keeps me from doing it when i encounter on their turf. but woe betide whichever stupid roach bold enough to show its face to me in the kitchen, i’ll get a slipper & run after it for its life. i try to kill them with one blow so that it doesn’t suffer but there is a part of me which sometimes wonder if i could ‘play’ with it a bit by ripping off its feelers & legs one by one when it doesn’t die immediately [i usually slapped it another time to put out of its misery]. if i had given in to my curiosity or urge to torture, i’ll be nurturing my dark side & who knows what darker nature i’ll nurturing in future if i give in to my every dark desire.
human beings are inherently selfish beings and people predisposed to brutality & cruelty are even worse, without laws & the deterrence of capital punishment, theyÂ’ll have a field day.
[This message has been edited by colette (edited 13 March 2000).] -
Hi, YLH,
A friend of mine, studying the American law system told me that by statistic, there is one of two cases in American criminal cases of murder where the justice is questionable, because of the jury system.. So, it is not a trivial issue... Otherwise, there would not be so much debate in UK presently in removing most of the cases to be trial by jury... -
colette,
i always skip levitcus cause it bores the crap out of me. i'm not an anthropologist so the hebrew procedures on how to ceremonially clean hooved animals do not provide interesting bedside reading. now if you want to talk psalms or songs of solomon.....
anyway, you said,
"well, maybe not everyone has a dark side, but i do. my logic goes like this: if i can kill a cat or puppy, a cute fluffy ball of nothing, in cold blood, i will acquire a taste for killing sooner or later. slowly, iÂ’ll torture little children & old defendless people just to savour the terror in their eyes"
this means killing an animal does not elicit the same desire in ALL people. by admitting not all animal-killers graduate to murderers you have shown no causal effect. is not your example more revealling of your personal nature? if animal-killing does not trigger off same desires in all, only a few, is this not indicative that latent defects lie in the individual and not animal-killing per se? its like saying watching porn encourages rape but not all porn-viewers are rapists.
cheerio
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There are a number of mechanical devices which increase sexual arousal in women. Chief among these is the Mercedes-Benz 380SL convertible.
P.J. O'Rourke -
yep...it is the INTENTION...not the crime itself...
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I confess that I have not read all the longish replies to this thread so, I might be retreading old ground.
Should we have capital punishment?
Firstly, we have to establish why we need to punish:
i) Incapacitation: to deprive the offender the capacity to harm others.
ii) Reformation: deterring the offender from future violations, or improving his character so that he no longer gives in to the temptations of committing such violations.
iii) Deterrence: of someone other than the offender.
iv) Retribution: Nuff said.
Hobbes pointed to a state of nature in which life of man is ' solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short'. As such, the drive of self preservation will motivate the community nto use4 all means to protect themselves if one of them becomes a threat to the community , which would entail the banishment or death of the offending individual.
By repudiating the discipline of the group by words or actions, he has placed himself outside the 'pale of the law' and have thus lost the immunities that membership in a group confeered upon him, including the immunity from physical harm by other members of the group.
People accept the legal sanctions against wrong-doers becos they accpet the discipline and authority of the Govt. bec of the protection they believe it is able to afford themaginst the others who wopuld depive them of their property, liberty and lives.
Many of the people have advocated the retributive 'lex talionis' as their standard view of murderers and rapists. By this I mean that Punishment should be PROPORTIONAL and not IDENTICAL. 'Rapists should be raped'. *hiak* where'd you get guys like these?
I have to agree that I tend to favour a more hardline approach of sanctioning with extreme prejudice. Why?
Immanuel Kant maintained that from a moral point of view, punishment is essentailly retributive. He made an example that if the world were to come to an end, and it was therefore evident that no one would benefit from the punishment of prisoners, who have been sentenced to death, those prisoners would nevertheless still be executed in the interest of righting the balance of justice.
Kant believed in the punishemnt of the guilty is good in itself, regardless of the benefits that may flow from it. In his view, it was the nature of crime committed that determined the type and severity of the punishment that was to be imposed.
No man should ever be used as a means to another person's end but should always be treated as an end in himself. Therefore, punishing one man in norder to deter another potential offender for committing a similar crime in the future would be to use the person who is being punished.
Punishement for the sake of reform would have to rest upon the assumption that the punishing authority knows more about what is in the best moral and spiritual interests of the person being punished than he does himself. This is an imposition by the authority of an image of the offender and denying the offender the right to his own moral choices.
I have spoken to friends about the human rights issues of Prisoners. The thing is, if the Human Rights of life, liberty and pursuit of Happiness is encoded into the American Constituion, then how can Texas, amogst other states still permit Capital punishment?
The thing is, the utilitarian argument of public interest comes up. So they're in fact still within boundaries.
Still the issues of whether Prisoners have rights are still a very sticky situation. If they do, what rights and how much? -
hi Terence
i do have to agree that Leviticus is boring but thereÂ’s significance to that book, basically it shows us how to live our lives right before God but after Christ came, a lot of the sacrificial rituals were abandoned, probably God got so fed up with ManÂ’s disobedience that He doesnÂ’t want to be grieved any longer.
the book of psalms? wow, i love that book! especially those cursing psalms, reading them is like a balm to my wounded soul. eh, songs of solomon? not my particular favourite.
iÂ’ve never said that people who kill animals will graduate to become murders per se, if i did, iÂ’ll tell my parents to be doubly wary of the butcher, fishmonger, etc, etc when they do marketing. i qualified my statement by writing that if people predisposed to brutality or cruelty, if & when they are caught torturing a defendless animal are not dealt with severely, they may graduate to murder because they are will definitely grow bolder & would only value their own lives above others. thatÂ’s why we keep reading of ungracious people behaving appallingly or hit & run drivers or crimes of passion where when one lover wants to leave the other that one can become so enraged that he/she rather kill him/her than to let him/her go. these people have gotten to the stage that they rather kill the one they professed to love than to let her/him find happiness with another.
who knows what kept me from holding my dark side in check? God or the fear of life behind bars? i truly donÂ’t know, if pressed for an answer, i guess it would be God. similarly, for the majority of the people, if theyÂ’re even aware of their own dark nature, what keeps them in check?
what i am saying is that if thereÂ’s no threat of punishment, most of us would give in to all our desires & anarchy would result, just like what happened during the period of the Judges, everyone did as he saw fit when they had no (human) king nor God in their lives. just imagine Terence, if you were a gal & iÂ’m a strong handsome brute of a man, if you donÂ’t love me, so what? as long as i love you & there is no law to punish me, believe me my darling, i would drag you by your hair into my lair & ravish you. when iÂ’m done, i may keep you for further amusement or maybe move on to another conquest *drools at the thought* hehehe ... ...
similarly, without the threat of capital punishment of life for a life in serious crimes, we would be living in fear - fear of offending someone or stepping on the wrong toe. have you seen the way i flame that little toad Only4Lamer? gracious me, if there is no capital punishment in SÂ’pore, heÂ’s probably stuck in some sewer plotting my demise even as iÂ’m writing this reply to you. of course there are people who are willing to kill another for the right price, but that's another story altogether.
yeap, capital punishment has to stay, if nothing else, it offers me peace of mind. -
Barclays and Colette, I want to barge into your fun
Maybe the animal abusers are jailed because <we> love those animals more than these animal abusers. Kittens after all are cute and innocent while animal abusers are big, ugly and mean. We love kittens more, send those goons to jail.
note: <we> being the majority of people pr the vocal not so majority or the government
Terence: It is disturbing to see people being cruel to mammals or aves without any acceptable motive like eating them. It's like if you're a soldier and you kill an enemy soldier for the purpose of war it's okay but you'll be a war criminal if you kill civilians. -
hi MayaJade,
wow, how long have you been on this forum? me? way too long, i wanted to reply to so many threads, gosh, i'm beat & i do need my beauty sleep. btw, know what, that mustard coloured nilly Only4Lamer didn't even return online to flame me, i'm so disappointed. ah well, that gave me time to reply to these threads.
okay, i can't make out what these are to mean, could you please explain?
note: <we> being the majority of people pr the vocal not so majority or the government. huh?!?
Terence: It is disturbing to see people being cruel to mammals or aves without any acceptable motive like eating them.
what is aves? kindly explain, thanks. -
not entirely sure. you'll have to ask maya. i always thought aves were short for avenues or a literary/poetic term for expression of good nature for farewell or greeting.
oh yeah,
"iÂ’ve never said that people who kill animals will graduate to become murders per se,.."
yes you have...
"Firstly, one kills a stray cat or dog for a lark, once one acquires a taste for cruelty, then one starts on defendless children or old people, then one realises that one needs more serious harm to be inflicted to get the same high, vicious assaults emerged & finally one becomes so enbolden that murder is just a step, a skip & a hop away."
(sounded like an argument to me)
i don't enjoy killing animals for pleasure but i don't want to say that
'It is disturbing to see people being cruel to mammals or aves without any acceptable motive like eating them.'
'acceptable motive' is very problematic. what about killing animals as part of human social discourse, religion and tradition? are these then not acceptable? acceptable is too arbitrary for me to swallow.
cheerio
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There are a number of mechanical devices which increase sexual arousal in women. Chief among these is the Mercedes-Benz 380SL convertible.
P.J. O'Rourke -
hi Terence,
>>"Firstly, one kills a stray cat or dog for a lark, once one acquires a taste for cruelty, then one starts on defendless children or old people, then one realises that one needs more serious harm to be inflicted to get the same high, vicious assaults emerged & finally one becomes so enbolden that murder is just a step, a skip & a hop away."
true, i did write the above, but i also wrote this preceeding paragraph before the above paragraph:
>>The reason why these animal abusers were jailed was to send a signal to the public that the law in SÂ’pore doesnÂ’t condone cruelty to animals & also to prevent the brutal streak that lurks in all of us from bursting forth and given a free rein. More often than not, bullies, people who resort to violence & murderers, they start small & then they build up their courage by going on to bigger things.
so, i stand by my statement "iÂ’ve never said that people who kill animals will graduate to become murders per se,.."
all of us have a dark & brutal side to us, if you were to tell me that’s not true, then i would say that the other people is either in denial or simply isn’t aware of his/her nature. *blush blush* me so angelic one, like 95% of the time also has a dark side, much less other people *paiseh paiseh*. yeah, you’d probably go “holy cow! she’s so blooming self-righteous!”, well that aside, survival & sadistic instincts are very strong in humans & sometimes for strange reasons known to God alone, human do the most cruel things.
do you remember the guy who said “i wouldn’t even hurt a fly!” or was it a friend of the guy who said “why, he wouldn’t even hurt a fly!”
>>'It is disturbing to see people being cruel to mammals or aves without any acceptable motive like eating them.'
the above view isnÂ’t mine & i donÂ’t understand it, so i canÂ’t comment much. -
T & C
aves are birds.
What I meant by killing without acceptable reason is precisely what it is. Many people think that it is okay to kill to eat an animal or to kill a snake that suddenly appear on your doorstep but it is not okay to brake kittens' necks to hear them snap. What is okay is decided by the popular opinion of that time and place. I don't want to argue whether or not it is morally wrong or fair, I was merely trying to explain why animal abusers get such sentences, which is *we don't like their behaviour, period.
Who are *we? The lawmaker, the majority, or the vocal minority, whatever.
As for traditions, it depends on the country these tribes are, doesn't it? If the leaders of the country think animal sacrifices are important then people won't be prosecuted for burning some goats alive.