There's a special place in hell...Follow

Who are these "ordinarily rational people" you refer to?

Only so we could devour its entrails together.

I wonder if we could get Varrus to officiate our wedding, considering our miraculous ability to procreate.

What's the difference between Goggy & zepoodle and a really stupid ****?

Goggy and zepoodle are two stupid *****

April fools?

First, I believe in the death penalty. However, I always liked the Russian version: Take the person sentenced to a room with a drain in the middle, and shoot them in the back of the head, and left to die there. Wash up and there ya go. Ammo's cheap, isn't it? And yes, it's cruel and inhuman, but at the same time doing this should be only for those with no hope of rehabilitation or control. Charles Manson is the type I'm thinking of.

Second, this woman does not deserve the death penalty. Yes, that feral, protective side of me would love to rip her to pieces for murdering a defenseless child, especially her own. But first, she's seeking death. It wouldn't be a punishment. Her punishment would be to rehabilitate her, and make her understand what she did, then force her to live with it the rest of her life.

Third, we are protective of children out of instinct. They are (normally) defenseless, and unable to save themselves. They have rarely, if ever, done something to deserve to die. So we feel a greater sense of anger due to the fact that the life was taken without reason, without a chance to see more of life, and in a way that is monstrous to our view.

A victim that can defend themselves gets (slightly) less sympathy because they can try to change the course of events.

Children, the elderly, the extremely ill, they lack that ability if someone has determined to kill them. As such, we view the killer as even more cruel and inhuman, for choosing a victim that had no ability to defend themselves.

It's the old "pick on someone your own size" ideology.

Edit:

I had another thought in regard to this: We also hate those that abuse the power they wield, whether that be political, financial, or physical.

No one would have pity for me, a 5' 9" overweight guy, if I walked up and picked a fight with some UFC fighter. However, if the same UFC fighter came up and just started beating on me, people would be sympathetic to my plight and spiteful to the fighter for attacking someone definitely not able to defend themselves.

Edited, May 23rd 2009 2:59pm by Pawkeshup

Well Mr. Spock, humans are emotional beings, after all.

But juries and judges are.

Emotion may not affect the charges, but it will affect the sentence.

Then let machines decide the fate of the accused.

Asking people to not be swayed by emotions is akin to asking the sun to stop rising. It's just the way it is, and no matter what you do, you can't take the emotional edge of the decision making process short of mind-altering drugs and brain surgery.

Accepting human inperfection equates to destruction of justice?

You want a rational, unemotional evaluation of facts, you need to use a computer. It will show no bias, make no leaps of faith, and take no risk. It will add up the facts it is fed, and produce a result. Whether that result is appropriate or not is irrelevant to you, apparently. Justice is blind, it holds only to the facts.

However, if you want actual humans to judge, you need to deal with human bias. We love, we hate. We show fear, and we show courage. We are never able to lock away that part of ourselves that brings up emotion unless we are broken in some fashion, either through birth defect, accident, surgery or medication.

But while bias works against justice, causing us to condemn someone more harshly, it also works for justice, and allows us to show kindness and fairness to those who act rashly. If we judged as you would want us to judge, all murderers would receive the same sentence regardless of severity. You kill, you get X years, or life imprisonment. But because our justice system integrates the human component, and not some highly mechanical series of calculations, each case is judged honestly on its merits.

You can argue that this is not true, pure justice until the heavens fall from the sky, but I defy you to bring forward a fair alternative in whicn cold, emotionless reason can deliver just sentences for all situations.