Wow, 12 year old kills playmate and gets 26 years.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Lorizael


Yes, because what I obviously meant was that murder is okay, and even good, when you're just murdering a stupid '****. My point was that while it sucks that someone has been killed, and while we don't want people to be killed at all, there's nothing that we can do about that now.

Yes, there is. Obviously, duh, you can't bring back the dead. However, you can consider the victim's situation, how the victim was selected, and the nature of the crime to determine the appropriate punishment. In this case, the little '**** basically had no friends, since he's a little middle-school age '**** with a degree of autism thrown in. Not exactly Mr. Popular in the middle school social circle.

These two little bastards barely knew him. They were not his "friends" and never hung out with him. They just decided he'd be an easy target, so they go over to his house, for the first time ever, ask him if he wants to "go out and play" with them and the poor kid is so desperate for acceptance and to make friends that he begs his mom to let him go. And that was that.

The little asswipes preplanned a random killing for fun, picked an easily manipulated, vulnerable victim, and had the audacity to go to his house, make nice with his parents, without the slightest concern for what effect their son's slaughter might have on them, pretended to befriend this kid, and led him off to the woods to be slaughtered.

So sorry, but the victim, and the circumstances of the victim's murder, is a hell of a lot more important than the age of the murderers and their ****ing "opportunity to be productive. 26 years and 14 years are light sentences for this type of killing.

The reality of the situation is that someone has already lost their life and that cannot be undone. So then the question is, what can we do to make it better?

There are two bad things here. One is a dead person, and one is an evil, crazy murderer. What I would like to do most is to make the dead person not dead anymore, but we can't do that yet. So we have to deal with the evil, crazy murderer.

People with schizophrenia, people with depression, people with all sorts of crazy disorders, have been cured.

There are a whole mix of reasons from environmental to biochemical for many personality disorders and mental disease. The fact that some are treatable doesn't indicate that all will be.

But the government doesn't want to spend money on figuring out how to cure murderers, because they're murderers, so why should we treat them!

That presupposes that effective treatment is available. Or would you propose experimental treatments, and then we could release murderers back into society to guage the effectiveness of those treatments? It also presupposes that that kind of research is a governmental function.

The only reason we can't cure things like sociopathy is because we haven't researched it enough yet.

This ain't Star Trek. Don't you think it's a bit naive to assume that enough science and technology will magically cure everything? How much is "enough" research? And how much is "enough" certainty of "cure" to justify, in your mind, releasing a sociopathic killer back into society?

Getting rid of perpetual criminals seems like a worthy investment to me. What do you think?

Yes, by all means, let 's buy more rope.

*snicker*

I hear he does great ribs.

I know what the DSM-IV is. Please, if you're not a psychologist, don't try to diagnose people. Technically, I fit the criteria for schizophrenia, bipolar, and a host of other mental illnesses according to that checklist, but that's not all that those in the mental health profession use to diagnose people. You're not actually an expert on everything, MtG.

I couldn't care less about diagnosing him. I'm referring to the behaviors manifested in the premeditation, victim selection, commission of the crime and subsequent behavior. I don't care if it's diagnosed sociopathy, just an amoral self-absorbed little ****, or what. It's the nature of the crime and the reasons for which it was committed, and the criminal's behavior.

Vengeance is not justice. Eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. Bla bla bla. Come on.

Vengeance would be taking the little **** out to the woods. Not all punishment is vengeance, and removing a killer that heinous from society is not vengeance either.

I think the little asswipe should get life without parole, but I wouldn't have a problem to a lifetime commitment to a mental health facility. He's lucky to get 26 years, and his little accomplice is lucky to get 14 years, because they'll both have a lot more "opportunity" to be "productive" than they gave their victim.

[SlowwHand]

MRT. I, in a way, hope you end up with a challenged offspring. Maybe it will knock some of the ******* off you.

[Arrian]

You want MRT to reproduce?

-Arrian

[MichaeltheGreat]

Kinda difficult for that to happen with his hand.

[MRT144]

Originally posted by SlowwHand
MRT. I, in a way, hope you end up with a challenged offspring. Maybe it will knock some of the ******* off you.

so whose the bigger *******, me for using the word ****, or you for wishing my offspring are mentally challanged?



cmon now buddy, lets not get carried away.

i truly feel sorry for the family of the victim, and I know that the perps of the crime are going to get their's in prison.

[Meticulous Man]

This is terrible, and a 12-year-old killing another child in this fashion has a sinister aura that, in my opinion, is far greater than the one surrounding the school massacres committed by people in their late teens.

[Lorizael]

MtG, my response is probably going to be pretty weak, because I am simultaneously busy and lazy.

You seem to have two main points, the first being that what the kid did was pretty bad, and warrants some pretty bad punishment; the second being that this type of person is always going to be bad, so it's not all that bad to throw away the key and such.

To begin, I didn't know the details of this crime as well as you seem to, so let me say that what those two children did is pretty horrific. I can't imagine what sort of anguish the victim's parents must be going through.

Such a heinous crime boggles my mind. In fact, I have trouble understanding it at all. I don't think we can really look at all the circumstances of a crime like this and say that one particular punishment is more fitting than another. Nothing humane or not "cruel and unusual" really fits the bill.

The one thing that is clear to me, however, is that these two kids - and the actual murderer especially - should not be allowed near anyone that they could possibly harm, for as long as they are dangerous. If this means they remain in prison for the rest of their lives, then so be it; I'm perfectly fine with that.

I think that an arbitrary assignment of years such as twenty six or fourteen is really silly and borders on reckless, though, because there's nothing in that random number that guarantees they won't commit such a crime again.

There are only two things, unfortunately, that guarantee they won't do this again. The first is to execute the children, and the second is to change them so that they can still be productive members of society.

Now, I'm quite aware that it's not a direct function of the government to do the sort of research I mentioned yesterday, but the government's money certainly helps. A lot of research in this country relies on the blessings of university grants. Additionally, the government is quite capable of giving incentives towards work in various areas.

But none of this changes the fact that I really am a firm believer in Star Trek. I really do believe that there is a way to cure every disease and ailment - it's all just a matter of how. Every virus is, in the end, just a bug in our body. Every cancer is, in the end, just some mixed up cells. And every psychological disorder is, in the end, just some funny chemicals in our brain.

It's all a matter of figuring out how to find and get rid of those bugs, cells, chemicals, etc. I can guarantee that nothing in the laws of physics prevents any of this from happening. The difficulty is biology and chemistry of course, and finding a way to do these things while still leaving the patient otherwise alive and healthy.

Also, I would like to point out that on more than one occasion, Star Trek was quite capable of producing an incurable, terminal disease as a plot device. So there.

But the point is, I cannot conceive of any reason why we should not try to make bad people into good people. It's making the best out of a bad situation. Lock them up for the rest of their lives, sure, but don't stop there. It seems such a waste to throw away their lives, too.

How can it possibly be bad if, forty or fifty years down the line, after the sociopath that did this has had a lot of time to think about what he did, the medical community does, indeed, find a cure for sociopathy or evil or whatever it is that made the kid do what he did?

Why should we fight against the possibility of making something horrible and terrible and bad, good?

[OzzyKP]

That kind of Star Trek world where every thought is reduced to a chemical reaction that can be controled scares me more than anything, and scares me 100 times more than an army of homocidal 12-year-olds with knifes.

Once we have reduced every decision and behavior to a controllable physical symptom we will start "curing" people who go over the speed limit, "curing" homosexuals, "curing" people who speak ill of the government, "curing" smokers & drinkers & drug users, "curing" those who don't vote 'properly'. Our democracy and freedom will inevitablly be ruined by such a system.

This isn't paranoia either. Have you heard of "Oppositional Defiant Disorder"? This "disease" is applied to kids that don't do everything they are told. I can think of no more fascist concept than to say that those who follow orders unquestioningly are healthy and normal, and everyone else has a disease that needs to be cured.

But yea, this is an off-topic rant now.

[Winston]

Lorizael,

You speak as if we owe it to murderers to turn their lives around and provide them new opportunities to lead harmonious lives.

First, I don't think we owe them anything. Second, it is an irrelevant consideration in the context of meting out the appropriate punishment for their crimes.

[Arrian]

"Oppositional Defiant Disorder"

Seems absurd just based on the name. Does this have some sort of following?

-Arrian

[Winston]

Absurd!? It's ODD!

[Arrian]

Dude, that was awful.



-Arrian

[Winston]

/me takes bow, waves in royal fashion

[OzzyKP]

The NIH says that up to 20% of kids have this "disorder"

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/001537.htm

So if your child does any of the following:

* arguing with adults
* loss of temper
* angry and resentful of others
* actively defies adults' requests
* spiteful or vindictive behavior
* blames others for their own mistakes
* is touchy or easily annoyed
* few or no friends or loss of previous friends
* constant trouble in school

There is something wrong with him and he needs immediate medication.

[Arrian]

OMG! The President has it! Whatever will we do! Quick, give him some drugs! Preferably a particular herbal remedy. It's medicinal!

-Arrian