Enough to make one support the death penalty...

[Peter May]

In general I agree with you. But here we have two deed teen-aged girls, brutally murdered and their bodies left hanging in a tree. What is the appropriate punishment for the perpetrators?

Cruel and unusual punishment!
But I will settle for whole life imprisonment.

 

[Darth Rotor]

In general I agree with you. But here we have two deed teen-aged girls, brutally murdered and their bodies left hanging in a tree. What is the appropriate punishment for the perpetrators?

Make them sit in a cell and listen to Justin Bieber 24/7.

 

[sgtbaker]

Make them sit in a cell and listen to Justin Bieber 24/7.

In that case, killing them is probably the more merciful option.

I am not going to lie, when I read stories like that, my knee-jerk reaction is to fantasize about using torture devices so obscene that they do beg for death. It is horrible to imagine what the girl's loved ones must endure or worse, what the girls themselves endured. Why I agree with Trakar is, we respond to the initial brutality with horror; that only animals could do this, then decide to seek revenge by resorting to the same animalistic brutality that made us cringe in the first place. Just as we can justify in our heads that they deserve it for whatever reason, I am sure they have some twisted way to justify that those girls deserved it. If we are morally above them enough to recognize their behavior as sub-human, we should have the capacity to recognize our own violent revenge fantasies are sub-human, as well. To me, it seems as cyclic as spanking a child for hitting someone.

 

[Arcade22]

My priority is to get people to quit resorting to violence to demonstrate how righteous they are in their moral and ethical beliefs.

Why would you ruin this fine source of entertainment? Impotent rage and revenge fantasies by people completely powerless to affect anything is really entertaining.

 

[MontagK505]

That you would feel unhappy about it shows that you think it's a bad thing.

Less bad than dying, but certainly not good.

Bad analogy. I would feel unhappy about having surgery to remove a tumor but it's not a bad thing to do so.

 

[Trakar]

If killing is necessary to save my life, the life of someone I care about or even the life of a stranger it is in fact a desirable event. It is not wrong to do so. Now admittedly, it's highly unlikely I would dance on the grave of someone I was forced by circumstance to kill, in fact, I would be very unhappy, but I wouldn't regard it is wrong.

Sometimes we may individually feel that the only choices left to us are bad choices (Killing, or being killed, for instance). That happens, you make a choice and accept the consequences of having made a bad choice. You don't need to "justify" that your actions were somehow good and desirous. In fact the only real benefit to making a bad choice is in acknowledging that it was a bad choice with bad outcomes, otherwise it becomes a choice that doesn't seem so bad. When bad choices seem less bad, they are more easily made, more often, with less of a need to consider, regret or justify.

Accepting that you occasionally make bad choices with bad consequences helps you to keep from ever developing the mindset that a bad decision is a good or desirous choice to make. Any decision that results in death is a bad decision, sometimes we choose to live with bad decisions, that does not make the decision good, or the outcome (a death) desirous.

 

[MontagK505]

In that case, killing them is probably the more merciful option.

I am not going to lie, when I read stories like that, my knee-jerk reaction is to fantasize about using torture devices so obscene that they do beg for death. It is horrible to imagine what the girl's loved ones must endure or worse, what the girls themselves endured. Why I agree with Trakar is, we respond to the initial brutality with horror; that only animals could do this, then decide to seek revenge by resorting to the same animalistic brutality that made us cringe in the first place. Just as we can justify in our heads that they deserve it for whatever reason, I am sure they have some twisted way to justify that those girls deserved it. If we are morally above them enough to recognize their behavior as sub-human, we should have the capacity to recognize our own violent revenge fantasies are sub-human, as well. To me, it seems as cyclic as spanking a child for hitting someone.

OK. We'll just behead them, so they don't suffer as much as their victims. One could argue that defending yourself with deadly force makes you just as bad as the person you are resisting.

Also note: The thought is not the same as the deed. Having sexual fantasies with people you regard as beautiful is not the same as rape.
Treating the thought as being the same as the deed is a bad (stupid) idea.

 

[Trakar]

In general I agree with you. But here we have two deed teen-aged girls, brutally murdered and their bodies left hanging in a tree. What is the appropriate punishment for the perpetrators?

What good does "punishment" do in a situation like this? If you are saying you want to make sure that these people do not repeat those actions, I'm all with you on trying to prevent these people from killing again. But in-kind punishment or retribution, is a perpetuation of the problem not a solution to the problem.

 

[MontagK505]

Sometimes we may individually feel that the only choices left to us are bad choices (Killing, or being killed, for instance). That happens, you make a choice and accept the consequences of having made a bad choice. You don't need to "justify" that your actions were somehow good and desirous. In fact the only real benefit to making a bad choice is in acknowledging that it was a bad choice with bad outcomes, otherwise it becomes a choice that doesn't seem so bad. When bad choices seem less bad, they are more easily made, more often, with less of a need to consider, regret or justify.

Accepting that you occasionally make bad choices with bad consequences helps you to keep from ever developing the mindset that a bad decision is a good or desirous choice to make. Any decision that results in death is a bad decision, sometimes we choose to live with bad decisions, that does not make the decision good, or the outcome (a death) desirous.

Killing a potential murderer to stay alive is a good and desirous outcome. I don't see defending your own life as morally wrong. Are you suggesting allowing myself to be killed rather than kill, is a morally good decision?

 

[sgtbaker]

OK. We'll just behead them, so they don't suffer as much as their victims. One could argue that defending yourself with deadly force makes you just as bad as the person you are resisting.

I am not trying to attack you, there is no need for eye rolling if you wish to have a discussion. Can we simply make our point without demeaning gestures? In order to make a proper comparison between defending yourself from violence and actively pursuing the role of executioner, I would need more details on defending your life. How did you end up in the defensive position?

Also note: The thought is not the same as the deed. Having sexual fantasies with people you regard as beautiful is not the same as rape.
Treating the thought as being the same as the deed is a bad idea.

I never said the thought is the same as the act. I admit to having violent revenge fantasies when I hear horrible stories like this. I check my thoughts though and they fail to stand up to scrutiny.

 

[trustbutverify]

One of the problems I have with this kind of thread is the way in which respondents launch into language like “scum” and “vermin”.

Please address the problem and not just hurl abuse: if your vocabulary is that limited please try to expand it. Verbal abuse adds nothing to the discussion except allows others to find reasons to ignore what you say.

In a thread about a mob torturing, raping and murdering kids, your issue is verbal abuse being directed at that mob?

Wow.

 

[ehcks]

It seems you are more upset by the fact that these vermin are going to be sentenced to death for their gang rape and lynching of a pair of young children that you are by their sickening actions.

Death is too good for them. The deserve to live with their guilt.

If they do not feel guilty, they need to be educated on how what they did was unacceptable, and what actual damage to society their actions cause.

Eventually they may become rehabilitated and released into society.

 

[ehcks]

In a thread about a mob torturing, raping and murdering kids, your issue is verbal abuse being directed at that mob?

Wow.

Dehumanization tends to be a major cause of torture, rape, and murder.

They're still people. They are not just a mob.

 

[Bikewer]

We could go on at some length on this situation.....

In India in particular, and in the entire region in general, women are often considered little more than property. Having a daughter is considered a burden on the family, since the only way to marry off the daughter is to grant a large dowry to the potential husband.

The numbers of murders of women in rural areas, where the husband kills his wife (normally by setting her on fire and claiming a "cooking accident") for same dowry are still very high.

If a woman survives her marriage but the husband rejects her, she is sent home in disgrace to be a further burden to the family... Now unmarriable.

Although the caste system has been illegal in India for many years, it's still very much in place throughout rural india. It's been noted that the victims in this particular crime were "Dalits"... the former "untouchables", and that an inordinately high percentage of rape victims are from these castes.
Where we might think of the perpetrators as sub-human, they in turn consider these lower-caste people to be literally so.
The sheer volume of sex crime in India is hard to credit, and the statistics are staggering. Even more so as the crimes are so often not reported and when reported dismissed by police with the same old excuses that were so popular here..
"She was actually a prostitute." "She was dressed enticingly." All of those.

In addition to the horrors of rape and other sex crimes, the woman who is victimized will be at considerable danger from her own family since she will have brought shame and dishonor upon the family.
"Honor killings" are still very much a part of the culture in the area as witness the recent horrific stoning incident (while police watched...) in neighboring Pakistan.

There are no easy answers for these problems. They are deeply a part of the culture in the entire region. As NPR's The World points out, there is a segment of these populations that are educated, civilized, progressive... Who are as shocked as we at this situation and want to eliminate it... But it's so deeply entrenched...

One more bit. The murder of these children may be an effect of the recent promises to crack down on sex crime. Whereas previously the girls may have just been left to tell their tale of woe to whoever... Now it may be seen as more profitable to murder the victim as well to eliminate the witness.

 

[trustbutverify]

Dehumanization tends to be a major cause of torture, rape, and murder.

They're still people. They are not just a mob.

It's difficult knowing who the greater victims are.

 

[Trakar]

Killing a potential murderer to stay alive is a good and desirous outcome. I don't see defending your own life as morally wrong. Are you suggesting allowing myself to be killed rather than kill, is a morally good decision?

Not at all what I have said. Killing is always a bad outcome. I am not saying that allowing oneself to be killed is a good or moral choice. I am saying that any choice which results in a death is a bad choice and should be viewed and acknowledged as such. Just because one has several choices to make does not mean that any of them are good choices or options. The point is not to try and justify a bad choice as anything other than a regretful, bad choice.

 

[sgtbaker]

Killing a potential murderer to stay alive is a good and desirous outcome. I don't see defending your own life as morally wrong. Are you suggesting allowing myself to be killed rather than kill, is a morally good decision?

If you don't mind me asking it in a different context. If you were defending yourself from a violent attack and there was a way to subdue your attacker and survive without killing them, would you resort to that method first?

 

[colander]

I didn't see a thread on this, but it made me sooo mad.

https://nz.news.yahoo.com/a/-/world/23980573/protests-over-rape-killing-of-indian-girls/

I'm glad that there are a lot of sane people in India protesting the actions of these... sub animal-kind (calling them animals is insulting to animals because even they don't do this sort of rabid and disgusting behaviour.)

Worse still is that two of the pack were supposed to be the very people that should have protected them from the bottom feeding scum.

Seems to me that this is the sort of stuff we need to be outraged over rather than a bit of photoshopping!

These sort of creatures need to be removed from society, permanently.

I wonder why nobody has pointed out that rather than simply being a product of a poisonous culture condoning hatred of women, the real issue is that these perpetrators may have been mentally ill?

 

[tyr_13]

I wonder why nobody has pointed out that rather than simply being a product of a poisonous culture condoning hatred of women, the real issue is that these perpetrators may have been mentally ill?

Because in this case there is no evidence of that. In other cases where that might very well be a primary or contributing factor, it would probably be part of the discussion.

 

[Blue Mountain]

What good does "punishment" do in a situation like this? If you are saying you want to make sure that these people do not repeat those actions, I'm all with you on trying to prevent these people from killing again. But in-kind punishment or retribution, is a perpetuation of the problem not a solution to the problem.

Again I agree with you: it's the culture that's the problem, one that sees women as less wothy than men and open to abuse. Changing that culture is a slow process. Heck, reading the thread about sexual allegations against Shermer and others shows me we still have major issues with this in 2014 North America,

"We do not hang horse thieves because they steal horses. We hang them so that horses may not be stolen."

I'll repeat my question, but phrase it differently. What should society do with these men? They've committed an awful crime against these two teen-aged girls, their families, and the village in which they lived. Is not some sort of punishment in order? Or should they just be given a severe talking to and let go?