Am I a bad person?

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

I do love the ideas of impartial justice, but the sheer number of people who are guilty of having gotten away with vicious, inhuman crimes past the normal level of cruelty, even if they "felt sorry," but never turned themselves in, is staggering when you take into account just the last three centuries. 21st century, 20th century, and 19th century. I do hope there's some kind of after-world where the guilty face some kind of sentencing to see from their victims' eyes, or are dealt pain that is in equal proportion to what they dished out. Justice is balance, and it is never about escalating and lashing out at unarmed people who personally never hurt you, huge groups of people that have nothing to do with your conflict. It needs to be measured and careful. Too many people don't do that, however. It's about wild animal passion. Sad truth of history.

My personal feeling on the matter is that impartial justice really shouldn't be, say, exciting. Like you're trying to say, it's a balance. It is and it's also no more or less than just a balance of things. People take things into their own hands on account of this kind of emphaticism, and I just don't really like that in itself. Emphaticism itself is kind of a neutral term, but there's so easily a visceral component to it when you're not channeling through the vein of the impartial system thus set up. And again, I recognize it familiarly. I also understand a somewhat necessary component of activism in our society that emulsifies that impartial system. Finally the subjective aspect is just that; subjective. It can exist on its own and I'm fine just not scrutinizing it for people on either side of the moral divide.

That last part in consideration, I don't care about the assailant feeling sorry or not. I won't get started on public relations apologies lol. ... I don't know I guess I'm just kinda Nietzschean on the matter. That impartial system is far from adequate, but there is a societal development in spite of personal atonement in the eyes of specifically the public. Private matters, sure. Personal commitments shouldn't be left vulnerable to unaccountable perpetrators what not. We like the closure, it's how we're biologically wired even as enlightened social beings. But I don't believe that necessitates a universalization of that construct.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Can a person change? I make no bones about not being at all concerned about people suffering who I think deserve it, but on the other hand I'm also scornful of "they deserve to suffer" - a misjudgement, or an action later sincerely regretted, then it become simply vindictive to say anything more should be done. If there's remorse that's enough.

This is actually a fun thought experiment. And I don't think it comes up much in speculated fiction what have you. Implications of it can be rather problematic, but I do side on the issue that yes people can change.

I mean in my first philosophy class it was a pretty open and shut case. Incarceration -- what do we do it for? Punitive measures, deterrence, and rehabilitation, if I'm not missing one or a few others. Rehabilitation on its own can speak volumes in spite of the other two, but it's just not very practical by objective standards.

[Beastro]

Am I a bad person?

Yuke, I think we have some common here.

By that, I mean when I face a situation or think of it, my thoughts always go to a famous crime in the 1970s where a women was raped, then murdered in an alleyway. The thing was, the women screamed and cried for help and was within view of one end of the alleyway. When police came to take testaments, they discovered the whole neighborhood heard her and did nothing, not even phone. People walked by, looked down the alleyway, say her looking at them pleading for help and kept going.

My thoughts come to that when I face a situation where I don't necessarily want to act, but I recognize that, like if I were in the position those in that neighbourhood were in, I would be nothing like what I'd thought I was for my entire life up until that point. Turning a blind eye to something like that, I'd die along with women because I'd be a stranger to myself living without lending aid, even if I failed to provide any relevant help to save her life and even died myself. At the very least, the person in her position I'd be faced with would know someone tried to help, and maybe they wouldn't die alone.

So, when it comes to you asking this question. I don't know, I don't think any of us can say for certain, but we can speak with some degree of certainty when we seize moments and act out who we think we are and make them reality. I doubt you hear the term in church growing up, but that is Orthopraxis, acting out ones religion and not simply tritely making a mental choice of belief and then not having your actions align with it. Sadly, too many in Western world, especially within Protestantism hold such a position, and I lament that it's a legacy of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, where factionalism came before Christ's universal message.

Yeah, it genuinely brings a happy smile when I think of some of the most rotten people in the world today having this happen when they die.

I'd like to think any human being would feel that even if their next thought is to rein it in given the dark, evil road it can lead to. The problem with things like cruelty and such are that they're addictive. You do them enough, even justified and you come to want to do them more, and therein lies open the path to acting out of pure malevolence.

With that said, Robovski is right, Yuke. You need to seek help and talk to someone in real life. Get off of this pseudo-fiction called the internet and ground yourself. I know how difficult that can be, but even if you simply spend more time sitting outside observing nature or the flowing stream of a ditch, it will do you more good than delving into the abyss of the mind the internet opens up.

My personal feeling on the matter is that impartial justice really shouldn't be, say, exciting.

It's why I hate all the silly, exotic ways people try to find to make the death penalty humane. Just put a bullet in the back of the head of the vile person and be done with it. Oddly, in that regard, I find Russian execution more sensible and humane than ours, given that that's what they do, in a sound proof room, abruptly without any ceremony of last meal.

We can fiddle over exactly who is being executed, by the practice in and of itself is preferable to the drama of lethal injection.

[Wargriffin]

It's why I hate all the silly, exotic ways people try to find to make the death penalty humane. Just put a bullet in the back of the head of the vile person and be done with it. Oddly, in that regard, I find Russian execution more sensible and humane than ours, given that that's what they do, in a sound proof room, abruptly without any ceremony of last meal.

We can fiddle over exactly who is being executed, by the practice in and of itself is preferable to the drama of lethal injection.

Justice should be Quick, Logical and Efficient... unfortunately those things seem to be the Antithesis of Modern Humans

[TGLS]

By that, I mean when I face a situation or think of it, my thoughts always go to a famous crime in the 1970s where a women was raped, then murdered in an alleyway. The thing was, the women screamed and cried for help and was within view of one end of the alleyway. When police came to take testaments, they discovered the whole neighborhood heard her and did nothing, not even phone. People walked by, looked down the alleyway, say her looking at them pleading for help and kept going.

I suppose you're referring to the Kitty Genovese murder from 1964. The problem with your argument is that it falls apart. Many of the 38 witnesses were unable to discern what exactly was happening; some thought it was a lover's quarrel or drunks fighting. Few were able to see the events. The situation was complicated by there being two attacks. The police were apparently called after the first attack. It is by no means a simple situation.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

By that, I mean when I face a situation or think of it, my thoughts always go to a famous crime in the 1970s where a women was raped, then murdered in an alleyway. The thing was, the women screamed and cried for help and was within view of one end of the alleyway. When police came to take testaments, they discovered the whole neighborhood heard her and did nothing, not even phone. People walked by, looked down the alleyway, say her looking at them pleading for help and kept going.

I suppose you're referring to the Kitty Genovese murder from 1964. The problem with your argument is that it falls apart. Many of the 38 witnesses were unable to discern what exactly was happening; some thought it was a lover's quarrel or drunks fighting. Few were able to see the events. The situation was complicated by there being two attacks. The police were apparently called after the first attack. It is by no means a simple situation.

What argument? That example they gave wasn't a supporting point for a claim about anything, it was just a hypothetical that shapes their personal prerogative.

[Beastro]

By that, I mean when I face a situation or think of it, my thoughts always go to a famous crime in the 1970s where a women was raped, then murdered in an alleyway. The thing was, the women screamed and cried for help and was within view of one end of the alleyway. When police came to take testaments, they discovered the whole neighborhood heard her and did nothing, not even phone. People walked by, looked down the alleyway, say her looking at them pleading for help and kept going.

I suppose you're referring to the Kitty Genovese murder from 1964. The problem with your argument is that it falls apart. Many of the 38 witnesses were unable to discern what exactly was happening; some thought it was a lover's quarrel or drunks fighting. Few were able to see the events. The situation was complicated by there being two attacks. The police were apparently called after the first attack. It is by no means a simple situation.

What argument? That example they gave wasn't a supporting point for a claim about anything, it was just a hypothetical that shapes their personal prerogative.

More specifically, if it came to directly witnessing something that facing the fork in the road between the choices I'd make (or wouldn't make).

I ran into that last year coming across a guy passed out by an intersection near my home as I was carrying groceries. He was under a tree, and actually almost completely blended in in the dark with the way we gather shed leaves to decay around the base of tree trunks here. It was only the instinctual recognition of the silhouette of a face and two feet on opposite ends poking around against the street that made me take notice.

I got closer, asked he was ok and got no response. I then ran into the issue of what do, which given my lack of a phone, meant going around knocking on doors for help as well as mindful of the potential risks to myself. I was overloaded, tired and it was late. I felt that bit of me nagging me saying that he was fine, just passed out snoozing and we should get home drop all this crap we were carrying.

I gave one more bit of prodding questioning with a foot nudge and he came to. Asked if he was ok and he said he was as he got up and began to walk away. Asked him one more time with a worried tone if he truly was and got back "Naw, it's just life" before he wandered off walking decently for someone how'd just come too.

The way things are here, he was mostly like on fentanyl. I could have gone down that mental path of reasoning why I should ignore him but that hypothetical I'd thought of crossed my mind and it's relation to what I was facing. It made me reevaluate and I'm happy I have that as a mental check on my actions, if only to give me pause to really think over what I'm doing and why I really am doing it.

By that, I mean when I face a situation or think of it, my thoughts always go to a famous crime in the 1970s where a women was raped, then murdered in an alleyway. The thing was, the women screamed and cried for help and was within view of one end of the alleyway. When police came to take testaments, they discovered the whole neighborhood heard her and did nothing, not even phone. People walked by, looked down the alleyway, say her looking at them pleading for help and kept going.

I suppose you're referring to the Kitty Genovese murder from 1964. The problem with your argument is that it falls apart. Many of the 38 witnesses were unable to discern what exactly was happening; some thought it was a lover's quarrel or drunks fighting. Few were able to see the events. The situation was complicated by there being two attacks. The police were apparently called after the first attack. It is by no means a simple situation.

What argument? That example they gave wasn't a supporting point for a claim about anything, it was just a hypothetical that shapes their personal prerogative.

Thanks for the details of around what happened. It has been a long while since I read into the case and was mostly that reaction to it that I was left with after all that time. I know what a nightmare for people that can be.

I ran into an Indian woman while walking along the sea wall here years ago that began asking me what direction Vancouver was in, to which I pointed out towards the sea an got head shakes asking the question again. It took me minutes of talking to her to realize that she'd been on a boat the night before that had left there and dumped here here on Vancouver Island, something she refused to accept and began to cry over. We talked for a bit until a guy showed up that claimed he was a friend and casually told her to get up and follow her. As she got up to go with him I stopped her, looked her square in the face and asked if was going to be ok and didn't need my help now that he had arrived. She said she was an so I backed off let she went off with him.

I dunno what she was going through then, especially that night trip across the Georgia Strait. Maybe it was just some typical boat party... hopefully. I wonder if it was the right thing to let her go off with that guy like that even if she didn't seem scared of him, but given what I knew, I offered her the chance for help if she was in genuine trouble and that my worrying was just due to me being a stranger to the whole situation.

That's the thing, investigating a situation and openly asking questions that give the person in potential need of help the chance to request or refuse it.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

One thing that just came to my mind was the taking out of Osama Bin Laden. I'm not enthralled either way on the matter, but I kinda did a double take on people kinda celebrating here and there when it happened. I mean at least a few other people I remember agreed lol. Just kinda felt weird.

[Yukaphile]

What's weird is I celebrated Scalia's death... but not Osama Bin Laden's, and not McCain's or George HW Bush's. I guess... was it just a moment of weakness given I REALLY hate misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, and racism?

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Mass murderers aside, it is interesting to speculate the partisanship differences between someone like Scalia and McCain/Bush, as far as what we're talking about. Scalia seems more like a gatekeeper to bigotry while the other two are more broad shepherds of the perceived culture that houses bigotry.