(urth) This Week in Google Alerts: Home Fires

[Lee Berman]

>Marc Aramini: An emasculated justice system can never truly cope 
>with those who are still feral at heart, and nothing on earth can 
>change them if they do not want to change.  It is only fear that 
>will keep them behaving, and swift pain that they cannot endure.
 
Thanks for the heartfelt and sincere post, Marc. I too have found
in life that the threat of violent retribution or actual fighting
is a very effective deterrent against bullying behavior.
 
Where I disagree is that what you describe is a person-to-person
conflict. Should our justice system try to duplicate this sort of
conflict with its own citizens? Is government a "person"?
 
I suppose it is the crux of the difference between liberal and 
conservative thinking about government, at least in the USA,
that liberals think of government as taking a parental role while this
is generally abhorrent to conservatives.
 
Perhaps it can be understood that there is a difference between
a person making efforts to fend off a bully and a parent who is trying
to help their own child, who is a bully. Is it an effective strategy
for a loving parent to correct their own child's behavior with the
threat or use of violence?

The evidence strongly suggests that parents who use violence to control
their children gain short term results. But at the expense of complete
failure over time. Beat your child and they will fear you. But they will
run wild and rampant as soon as they lose their fear and are old enough 
to do so.
 
If the government uses torture to put fear in the hearts of criminals, it
may last for a while. But not for long. They will soon lose their fear
after being released. If we go the route of creating torture chamber prisons
we might as well, as you suggest, go the China/Iran route and just start
executing criminals with impunity. Punishment and fear barely work with children
and they certainly don't work with adults. Without attempts to rehabilitate 
prisoners via creating a pro-social environment in prison,  we might as well 
just kill them all.
 
I am a realist, not a bleeding heart liberal or a gentle "what would Jesus do"
Christian. Killing all incorrigible criminals is a social scenario I am 
willing to at least consider. But I am able to extrapolate this scenario to the 
hellish nightmare it would create. We don't seem to be ready for such a brutal, 
cold, unforgiving society at this time. I guess the death penalty is America's
way of recognizing the significant portion of our society that does lean in that 
direction.