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Peggy and I took a walk. Two blocks from home, we came across a broken bottle on the bike path, so I went home for a broom, a bucket, and a dustpan. I didn't do this because I'm kind but because if I can spare other people (and dogs) a big headache by undergoing a small headache myself, decency dictates that I do so. This means that I deserve no credit for what I did, but that those who could have removed the glass and didn't deserve censure.
Pedestrians often break bottles on bike paths. I suppose some do it because many cyclists are jerks who haze pedestrians for using their path (although it is a multi-use path), but however the glass breakers rationalize their behavior, it is inexcusable for the same reason that carpet bombing is inexcusable.
"Many People Are Alive Because It's Against the Law to Kill Them"
I agree with the above bumper sticker. If, by pointing my thumb up or down, I could kill anyone who intentionally breaks bottles on bike paths, I would kill them, and while I was at it, I would kill pedophiles, cat torturers, members of the Islamic State, people who drop boulders onto cars off overpasses, various members of the Trump administration, and many others. Not all people deserve a second chance, yet I live under a legal system that keeps giving criminals chances until they've raped or murdered so many people that we finally lose patience and lock them up for life. To show sympathy for a hardened criminal is to become a party to his crime.
I've heard, and it makes sense to me, that people with a high empathy quotient tend to favor harsher penalties than those who have a lower empathy quotient because they feel the victim's pain more acutely (they're also prone to burnout when they enter one of the helping professions, but that's another subject). This is true of me.
Some people, conservatives mostly, mistake me for a liberal, but I deny it because liberals believe that people are inherently good. Ann Frank was a liberal:
"It's a wonder I haven't abandoned all my ideals, they seem so absurd and impractical. Yet I cling to them because I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart."
As liberals see it, criminals deserve help rather than censure, which leads them to devote the most resources to the people who deserve them least. Here's an example. Three teenage boys burned down a beloved baseball stadium a few blocks from here. Of the many people who wrote to the newspaper about the crime, one suggested that Eugene's residents need to come together to make these boys feel loved and supported rather than penalized and shamed. No such deluge of love was proposed for kids who work their asses off to make something of their lives.
Conservatives are the polar opposite of liberals in that they believe that people are inherently evil. I'm neither a liberal or a conservative. I believe that people have an enormous capacity for both good and evil. One of the most interesting aspects of war is that the same people perform acts of good and evil in rapid succession.
I believe that I am good inasmuch as I wish death on people who torture cats, and I believe that liberals are evil inasmuch as they aid and abet evil by showing kindness to people who torture cats. Some crimes speak so profoundly and so lastingly about whom a person is within his or her deepest being that there is no possibility of redemption. Some might argue that, when a person is killed, all the good that he (or she) might have done dies with him. I say
Let It Die
because if there's one thing we're not short on, it's people.
Something else I ponder from time to time is the question of which crimes should be punished most. As I see it, the punishment for a crime should be based upon the crime's reasonableness. Killing an abusive husband when he's sleeping is reasonable. Littering is unreasonable. Hence I would lightly, if at all, punish people who kill their abusers, while I would severely punish litterers. Another factor that I would consider is the likely damage to people other than the victim. For example, by breaking into one house, a burglar frightens an entire neighborhood, yet a first time burglar might not serve a day in prison.
There's a push here in America to punish people less severely because, it is believed, severe punishments don't deter crime. I rather think that we haven't made the punishments severe enough to know, so while I wouldn't send anyone to prison for using heroin (I would even consider decriminalization or legalization), I would see them dead for cheating old people out of their life savings. As things stand, "white collar" crime is lightly punished. Steal $10 in an armed robbery, and you might serve 10-20 years (sentences across America vary widely), but cheat scores of old people out of their life savings, and you're looking at 2-6 years. This leads me to another thought. Psychopaths and sociopaths can't be fixed, so if you have a person like that, a person who is certain to go through life committing one foul deed after another, why wait for him to do it? Why not respond to him (or her) as to a rabid dog who must be euthanized before he bites someone?
10 comments:
There are a whole lot of people I would give thumbs down and let them leave the earth as there is no hope they would become better. I wonder too about giving people so many chances. Now the state is wanting to become parents to all the misbehaving school children and children with severe issues that could probably all mostly be traced back to their parents. Why not just say schools are for learning? Why not admit they cannot address the issues children have because life at home is crap with bad parents who haven't a clue nor want to be decent at parenting? Maybe the kids were born on drugs, what do you do with that? So many are now. Seems overwhelming. My ultra conservative friend claims its all because of the state interfering in parenting back in the 70's. She is about the same as those who think government can solve everything in that she thinks government causes every single problem, except when conservatives are charge, I should add. It's the same mentality really, when you think about it. Just flip sides to the same coin. Anyhow, I bet Oregon throws money into becoming parents for children who have lousy ones. Animal abusers are awful people, without souls, cowards to the core, and there's no hope for them. Thumbs down.
There is a passage in Harry Potter that says
It’s not our abilities that define us. But our choices
I can break bottles, throw stones, and probably kill if I got angry enough
But I choose to not do these things
We all have the ability to be good and kind or evil and abusing
It all depends on what we choose
I mistakenly (by hitting the wrong button) put this then unfinished post online two days ago, and by the time I noticed the error and took it offline, Angela and Strayer had responded. To them I would say that I made some substantial changes.
"There are a whole lot of people I would give thumbs down and let them leave the earth..."
You receive almost no money, support, or respect from your community, and you see the worst in people; yet, year in and year out, you go on recusing cats. As I I've told you many times over the years that I respect no one more than I do you.
"Why not just say schools are for learning?"
I would devote a lot more money to kids with at least average promise, and none really to kids who hardly know the world they're in. I would also take a lot more kids away from their parents, and sterilize those parents, but none of these things is likely to happen. You might recall that Peggy was an L&D nurse for much of her career. Upon learning what she did for a living, people would often smile and say to her that L&D must be a happy place to work, but they were wrong because the number of parents who seemed stable and intelligent enough to even be having babies were in the minority. She saw many, many druggies giving birth; many, many women who were having their second or third child and that child being immediately taken from them by the state; and many, many families who were more interested in watching the TV than in witnessing the birth of new family. I can' tell that liberals or conservatives are going to save us because there is neither the wisdom nor the strength to do what must be done to remedy so many things.
"Animal abusers are awful people, without souls, cowards to the core, and there's no hope for them. Thumbs down."
I reflect upon how wonderful and vulnerable our four cats are, both physically and emotionally, and I think of the millions upon millions of cats who are no less wonderful and vulnerable, and I feel sad. I can but be glad that ours, at least, don't know what the world is like outside the windows of our home, and I surely hope that I can always keep that outer world at bay. I think of the cats that you protect, and how they don't know that the only thing standing between them and deprivation is you. My older sister told me recently that one of the reasons that God allows suffering is that the suffering of some inspires others to do good. I thought to myself that THERE is the religious mindset at work, by which I had reference to, in her case, an intelligent woman who can say things like that and actually expect them to be taken seriously. Trillions of creatures suffer and die every year, but God wants it that way so that people like you can be inspired to do good. How grateful you must be!
"We all have the ability to be good and kind or evil and abusing. It all depends on what we choose."
You wouldn't know it from this post, but I actually doubt that any of us have any choice about anything. When I look at how the universe works, everything that I see is the result of cause and effect, so by what logic why should we consider ourselves exempt? Before now, determinism has been a philosophical position, but with MRIs has come the ability to watch the brain make decisions, and what has been found is that our decisions are made prior to us being consciously aware of them. It's as if we're being presented with decisions rather than creating them.
A lot of interesting stuff going on in this post. I can only add that things don't necessarily have to be one thing or another. As you say, you don't have to be either a liberal or a conservative. You can be a mixture of the two, or something else entirely. Similarly, you can punish criminals for what they've done, but also offer them help so they won't do it again ... and also because it's the humane thing to do. And yes, science has found that a lot of our behavior is ingrained in our biology. But we still have a choice. Like the alcoholic and the teetotaler. One says: I drink because my father was an alcoholic. The other says: I don't drink, because my father was an alcoholic.
My political views are generally liberal. I believe some folks are good and some bad. Most can go either day depending on the immediate rewards and punishments involved
"As you say, you don't have to be either a liberal or a conservative."
Tom, are you one or the other? I've often wished I could be so I would (1) feel a sense of optimism that my values would be realized; (2) so I would feel a sense of belonging, and (3) so I would be willing to volunteer. As things stand almost no one shares the views I've expressed in this post, and I know that some of them are antithetical to the values expressed in the Constitution.
"you can punish criminals for what they've done, but also offer them help so they won't do it again ... and also because it's the humane thing to do."
I would hold that the humane thing to do would be to protect society from criminals whom give no evidence of being redeemable. Yesterday, I heard a radio program about local "nuisance houses," which are places that the cops get sent to repeatedly. On average, during the past year, they've gone to one such house once every four days. What do you think the odds are of those people being redeemable?
"And yes, science has found that a lot of our behavior is ingrained in our biology. But we still have a choice."
But, Tom, why is it that you think we have a choice? Could YOU choose to be transgender, or to hate chocolate, or to embrace the values of Bernie Sanders? In the MRI studies, people chose, among other options, what foods to select from a menu before they were aware of their choice, suggesting that they couldn't have made a different choice. Here are a couple of links regarding such studies: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4887467/ , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroscience_of_free_will .
As for alcoholism being a choice, the playing field is far from equal with some people and some ethnic groups being genetically prone to it, so if such groups contain far greater numbers of alcoholics than other groups, what is your basis for believing that the individuals within those group have a choice? Are Indians simply weaklings? I know that I couldn't be an alcoholic if I tried, not because I choose to say no, but because it would be impossible for me to choose to say yes.
"I believe some folks are good and some bad."
I think that some people's lives are such that the evil overwhelms the good. Take the Las Vegas shooter, for instance. Literally, in ten minutes, he killed or wounded upwards of a thousand people, and brought unremitting grief into the lives of thousands more. All that misery caused by one man, and for what--because he wanted to create on the outside the hell that he lived on the inside. Speaking of such things, yesterday the Connecticut Supreme Court ruled that Remington can be sued for the irresponsible advertising that might have inspired the murderer of six year olds at Sandy Hook. "Consider your man card reissued," one of its ads read. Imagine all those Remington executives saying that, yes, that's the ad for us. How can anyone sell guns based upon an appeal to childishness and insanity and still take pride in their work.
I think these days liberalism and conservatism have become like religions. To belong you have to take a lot on faith and believe in the "scripture." Me? I'm agnostic. As far as choice goes, I think you have your sphere of control. So we can't control the weather, but we can (at least in America) choose the climate where we live. We can't choose how long we're going to live; but we can choose whether or not we smoke. And sure, it's harder for some to give it up than others. But we can all do it. Millions of people have. I go back to the old maxim, which is largely (but admittedly not completely) true: if you think you can't, you can't; if you think you can, you can.
"I think these days liberalism and conservatism have become like religions...Me? I'm agnostic."
In politics as in religion, the agnostic position is that I don't have enough information to decide what is true here, so I'm just going to sit quietly on the sidelines and hope the right side will someday be shown to have prevailed; furthermore I don't think you have enough information to make a decision either. The fact is that someone must make difficult decisions, yet there are few situations in which all of the relevant facts are known, so taking responsibility means doing the best one can with what information one has. You mentioned the weather. No, we can't control the weather, but we are already controlling the climate, and we're doing it to our detriment. Or do you mean to say that, climatology be damned, you're an agnostic about that too? Let's say that you are an agnostic about climate change, given how high the stakes of inaction might be, why isn't the possibility that it's our fault and that we might reverse it, not sufficient grounds for action? The words, "Nero fiddled while Rome burned," comes to mind. Assuredly, if 99% of the populace become agnostics, the other 1% will run the world as it suits them.
Marion, oh Marion, I wrote while trying to get out the door for a cat charity event (no less), so now I have time to correct the typos....
Eye rolls are what superficially smug pre-pubescents use to show snarky contempt for their betters. Do you hold ME in contempt, Marion dear, and tell me this, please oh please, do you think that generalizations regarding group commonalities are EVER justified (I really WOULD like to know), and if so when? As the National Enquirer (I trust that you read it, so please don't disappoint me) would say, "Inquiring minds want to know?" and I really and truly DO want to know because it can be very hard to engage you, your comments often being reminiscent of drive-by-shootings. It's ever so much easier, you know, to converse with someone who doesn't abandon the conversation.
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