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Subject: 
Re: Misperceptions of America (Was: Conversation w/ a LEGO Rep)
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.off-topic.debate
Date: 
Tue, 31 Aug 1999 03:00:29 GMT
Viewed: 
4009 times
  
Mike Stanley wrote:
> 
> Christopher Weeks <clweeks@eclipse.net> wrote:
> > What I don't buy from Mike's opinion is that murder isn't sometimes
> > understandable.  For instance, I can imagine being a troubled thirteen
> > year old (I was) who is failing at school, but very gifted (I was), and
> > has a few misanthropic friends and no girlfriends while still having
> > raging hormones (me again), and is duped by youthful stupidity into
> > killing some particularly obnoxious peer (I didn't do this part).  Now,
> 
> That's one heckuva weird scenario.

What's so weird about it?  Seriously.

> I probably fit into most of that as well, and I don't ever recall
> being put into a situation where peer pressure or anything else might
> have suggested that I murder someone.

Really?  I got angry at people from time to time.  I took myself way too
seriously, and essentially plotted murder on a couple of occasions.
When the littleton killings took place, I thought 'there, but for the
grace of God, go I.'  I never killed anyone and I'm glad, but to some
degree I think it was more luck than some innate value.

> > you can take the hard approach and say that kid ought to be put down
> > before it breeds, and I can respect that, but I can also see how
> 
> Yep, put the kid down.

And if my feeling above is true, and we can (I hope) agree that I
shouldn't be put down by the system out of hand, then why if I had
slipped up, or been in the wrong place at the wrong time?

> > properly handled, such a child could turn into a very productive member
> > of society who lives a life remorse for his early crime.
> > 
> > Does that matter?
> 
> No.  Murder is final.  No second chance, no reformation, no getting
> better.  You commit murder (true murder, not justifiable homicides)
> and you lose all priveleges as a human being, in my mind.

Why?  How broad is justifiable?  You cite battered women, and I think of
that as an extreme of where murder is justifiable, not a maybe point.

> > What do we as a society do about that?
> 
> Dunno.  I think that scenario you described is a little too strange to
> really think about.

Again, I'm interested to know what's so strange about it.

Thanks,

Chris



Message has 1 Reply:
  Re: Misperceptions of America (Was: Conversation w/ a LEGO Rep)
 
(...) What's so weird? The actually following through on thoughts of killing someone, I suppose. (...) I'd like to think otherwise, myself. The few times in my childhood and adult life that I have been truly angry enough to want to do physical harm (...) (27 years ago, 1-Sep-99, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Message is in Reply To:
  Re: Misperceptions of America (Was: Conversation w/ a LEGO Rep)
 
(...) That's one heckuva weird scenario. I probably fit into most of that as well, and I don't ever recall being put into a situation where peer pressure or anything else might have suggested that I murder someone. (...) Yep, put the kid down. (...) (...) (27 years ago, 30-Aug-99, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

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