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The reason I don't own a gun

Discussion in 'Fred's House of Pancakes' started by naterprius, Feb 9, 2007.

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  1. jimmyrose

    jimmyrose Member

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    <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(MarinJohn @ Feb 10 2007, 01:15 PM) [snapback]388081[/snapback]</div>
    Tough choice. My pick for worse would be the one who was killed - he/she has no options, no possibility of having an opportunity to truly do something worthwhile in his/her life, since it was robbed. We are all a compilation of every moment in our lives and how we have reacted in those moments. Those who suffered abuse as children (abuse being a very slippery word these days - no disrespect or attempt to belittle anyone's personal definition of abuse should be interpreted here), have at least an opportunity to overcome their history and rise above it - the dead child does not.
     
    #21 jimmyrose, Feb 10, 2007
  2. fshagan

    fshagan Senior Member

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    <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(MarinJohn @ Feb 10 2007, 10:15 AM) [snapback]388081[/snapback]</div>
    I'm truly sorry to hear this. The impact a thing like that has a person is often greater than the event itself, and I hope you find your current life much more rewarding.

    But to the question of "quick" death for this child as opposed to a lifetime of abuse, I can only say that the child is the one to decide that. There are many survivors of child abuse that, while never "getting over" the trauma, nevertheless have lives they value and times they enjoy. There are others who find the pain too unbearable and commit suicide. Most choose to live, if you can believe the statistics on the number of children abused and the relatively low rate of suicides. Only the individual should choose if they live or die, not a person with no impulse control or normal parental emotions. So, it would have been better for this little girl to have lived, in my view.

    Society has a right to do something to try and prevent a person such as this parent from hurting someone else, and I think the most humane thing is to imprison them for life.
     
    #22 fshagan, Feb 10, 2007
  3. efusco

    efusco Moderator Emeritus
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    <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Feb 10 2007, 10:23 AM) [snapback]388031[/snapback]</div>
    I don't think we disagree that much, maybe rather that I stratify the severity of the crime by the circumstances and intent and you choose to see them as equal.

    I think it's clear that if we drop a bomb on a house of an enemy that, unchecked, would kill many more innocent people (via a series of suicide bombers and road-side IEDs maybe) and it results in the deaths of but a few innocents that, though tragic to lose those few, a greater good was achieved by saving the lives of so many others who'd have otherwise died.

    I don't think there's any arguement that the death of innocents in any case is reprehensible. I also readily admit to an emotional bias here having dealt with more of these abused kids than I ever dreamed I'd want to. So many that don't die end up permanantly disabled due to brain damage from shaken-baby syndrome. And those without permanant physical damage almost universally have permanant psychological damage.
     
    #23 efusco, Feb 10, 2007
  4. daniel

    daniel Cat Lovers Against the Bomb

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    <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(fshagan @ Feb 10 2007, 12:54 PM) [snapback]388137[/snapback]</div>
    Unfortunately, young children are seldom or never given the opportunity to decide whether or not to remain in an abusive home.

    I don't think anyone here would say that the child is better off dead than abused, and I'm sure John would not say so either. But the large number of run-aways should tell us that, as a society, we need a way for children to break the legal ownership their parents have over them, and a place they can go instead. There are (or have been) societies where children are raised in common, and when a child is unhappy with his own family, he can go stay with another for a while.
     
    #24 daniel, Feb 10, 2007
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