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[stevejames]

What I am trying to say is that everything has a effect. (ie. butterfly effect) When we tamper with natures course and play god, how do we know we are not affecting the entire fate of the universe? Now, this has gone pretty off topic but you get my point.

This assumes that nature actually has a "course"... and that such thing as "fate" exists. I don't see any evidence for either of these things to be true.

I am just saying, that I don't think anyone has the right to take peoples lives based on what they think is right and wrong. Killing is killing.

I'm completely with you on that.

[whereshegoes]

What I am trying to say is that everything has a effect. (ie. butterfly effect) When we tamper with natures course and play god, how do we know we are not affecting the entire fate of the universe? Now, this has gone pretty off topic but you get my point.

This assumes that nature actually has a "course"... and that such thing as "fate" exists. I don't see any evidence for either of these things to be true.

Perhaps. This does come down to ones personal beliefs. But nature does seem to have a cyclical pattern, no? Circle of life? Well, that's my observation. Fate on the other hand is something we would need to start an entire new thread for.

[radsolv]

Several points: In different Posts.

My understanding of 'fate' is that it is all predetermined and unalterable; only a drama to be played out according to the fixed script. Therefore, neither man nor god can interfere with it as exemplified in many Greek tragedies. Oedipus Rex, eg.

"killing is killing" seemingly with the implication that it is never justified no matter my personal beliefs. Now one of my personal beliefs happens to be that my life is as precious to me as yours is to you. If it is clearly a case of you kill me if I don't kill you first. for me that's a no brainer. A decision every combat soldier must make every time he faces the enemy. And some ghetto dwellers when facing gun drawn racist police. But sometimes an brandished ID card is no match for 40 slugs from five cops.

Now a Jain would die first before taking the life of a deadly tse-tse fly as would some Buddhists. But the rest of us??

[radsolv]

A week or so ago I watched a reporter on '60 minutes' get a surprising interview with George W. Bush. He asked some hard questions and got the usual evasive answers.

One of the questions asked of GWB was had he watched the video of the hanging of Sadaam Hussein. Yes he admitted, part of it. "Not where he fell through the trap door?" "No, I did stop watching before that." I find it most interesting. As governor of Texas Bush allowed some 130 capital executions to proceed never commuting or even investigating a single one. But he couldn't summon the stomach to watch this arch villain twist in the wind.

And yet he continues to send thousands to their deaths -- Americans as well as Iraqis.

[radsolv]

Double Standards.

A few of the above Posters imply that there are some double standards at work, especially as regards the USA. And I agree completely. Double standards have always angered me, ever since an elementary school teacher would decide to make an example of some one ignoring much more serious offenders.

The victors not only write the history but also put the losers on trial, often retroactively applying new laws made to fit the circumstances and the pre determined outcome.

There was, and again, is no death penalty in Israel, but it was instituted for the benefit of Adolph Eichman and John Dumaniak.

Now Sadaam was sentenced to death after being convicted of executing some 130 Iraqis. They had been convicted of participating in an attempted assassination of Sadam. Of course you say that he also killed thousands of others, probably true.

But Madeline Albright, Clinton's Secty of State, did not deny that sanctions caused the deaths of half a million Iraqis. "We feel the price was worth it." But who paid the price.

And Tony Blair when asked how he slept being responsible for the deaths of hundred thousand Iraqis responded: "I think you'll find it was closer to 50,000."

And George W. Bush?? With his Shock and Awe. For how many deaths should we hold him responsible?
Depends on whose stats you believe. But several orders of magnitude more than SH.

My point is GWB should have been in the accused dock along side the Arab Hitler. With judges and jury from Antartica or Mars. Such a trial of course could never happen.

However, some years ago I saw an interesting TV program: [Such things Do exist.] "The Trial of George Washington" It's premise was that the Rebels, and remember that is what our 'Founding Fathers" were, lost the war against Great Britain and GW was put on trial for treason. Funny, I forget how it came out. But think maybe he was convicted and possibly condemned to hang.

So innocence or guilt depends not on abstract immutable moral principles, but whether you won or lost the fight.

I think it would be a most interesting exercise for maybe a talented play write to write a drama in which Stalin, Hitler, Churchill and Roosevelt all go on trial at the same time with the same Single Standards applying to all their acts. But above all, the writer must be objective.

[radsolv]

One final thought on the death penalty. I am not philosophically opposed to it but in practical terms I am pretty much aligned with those who oppose it.

If someone has committed a particularly heinous crime and it can be proved beyond, not a reasonable doubt, but beyond the shadow of a doubt, I'd say go ahead and it could be as cruel and unusual as the crime itself.

Recall that not too long ago insane people were blamed for their own insanity and treated cruelly. Now of course we accept that insanity is a defect in the brain and the insane are treated with compassion in most countries. Even the criminally insane are treated decently though incarcerated, which is logical.

So little is known about the human brain and mind. Defendants can plead insanity but it is often rejected.

The point I want to make is that rather than executing some of these killers, rapists, wouldn't it make sense to do some basic research, with proper safeguards naturally, to try to discover some of the root causes of such behavior? And hopefully some ways to modify it in more benign directions.