Be Excellent To Each Other

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-11045848

What are people's thoughts on this? On the one hand I am rather quick to feel a bit disgusted. On the other hand, I don't know the full story, or the situations involved.

Jesus fucking Christ. That's intentional, irrevocable, unimaginable torture and barbarism. If they do it we have to pull all citizens out and cut off all contact, political or commercial.

ONNOWAITSORRYOIL.

Existing eye-for-an-eye punishment is pretty damned disgusting too

His spinal cord isn't anywhere near his eye, so I think it's ok.

That's utterly hideous.

No it should not be allowed.

It's not for us to stand in judgement of what is and isn't acceptable in other countries. Half of the problems in the world today are down to people using their own values to judge other people.

I do think it's fine to tut and make a little noise, but no more than that.

Meanwhile, the other half of the problems are extenuated by other people saying "meh, it's not in my back yard."

They want to cut someone's spinal cord on purpose, for fuck's sake. If it's not ok in the UK, why should it be handwaved away because it's in Saudi? That's why we don't rendition people to foreign countries to be interrogated in ways that contravene our torture lawsnohangon.

I'm pretty sure there are certain unalienable rights offered to humanity wherever in the world you are, and not having your spine pulled out is one of them.


On the other hand

Basically you shouldn't be allowed to be in the UN which says, "THIS IS A BAD THING" if you do that sort of thing.

I know this means the risk of eventual global war but hey, the toy, movie and computer game industry have sort of strip-mined bare WWII by now, so we need some new Golden Age baddies.

I agree.

I agree.

DOUBLE AGREE!

On the other hand the people of Saudi may consider the UK to be a country that lets criminals off lightly. It works both ways. People wonder why some of these extremist groups get so worked up, it's because the West goes around trying to force its beliefs on other cultures.

It's not a soft Western belief that cutting out people's spines is a bad idea, you loon.

Medical testing! Double medical testing!

Of course it's a bad idea. But it's also a bad idea to start telling other cultures how to carry out their business. It just proves how the Western world just doesn't get why Bin Laden and his mates are just so pissed with us.

Let them be pissed at us. You don't get to do shit like that, just like you don't get to stone people for having sex with someone when they're married. That's not Western lack of cultural sympathy, it's a group of nations that need to realise they don't get to act like animals any more.

Note - there's a difference between saying we have a right to go and do anything about it (which I'm not) and saying that anyone who advocates something like this is a sick piece of shit (which I am).

Vocal criticism doesn't equal telling them what to do chinny, your arguing with a straw man.

Yeah, we shouldn't go throwing our weight around — but we shouldn't keep our mouths shut about it either.

See also: the rendition blood on our hands and america having the death penalty.

There is also the aspect that currently a man who crippled another man after severing his spine with a meat cleaver has been imprisoned for seven months only. What is justifiable punishment for such an act?

You are trying to equate another countries cultural values with your own. You may find it abhorrent (something I agree with 100%) but its their belief system. In the USA they still have the death penalty in some states, in Korea they eat dogs. No amount of hand wringing is going to change that

I don't know what this means, but I now have an image of Craster looking like Wurzle Gummidge.

No, I'm not equating anything. I'm saying it's flat-out wrong.

Also, this isn't Saudi Arabia's cultural values. It's one judge, and he's a cunt.

Easy to say it's barbaric. Easy to say it's torture.

Which of course I agree with both. However.

I would strongly imagine I would not feel either way if -

1. That was the law out there and fitting punishment.
2. It was me he had paralysed and left without a foot.
3. 2. Was one of my family.

As for soft Western beliefs? Well up until recently (40 years ago now or so?) we carried out the death penalty. In the U.S.A they still do.

We don't eat cats, dogs or whales, but others do.

I'm not 'for' things like this, but hey, I suppose at least you could take the mentality that it may make some other nasty cunt think before doing the same. Unlike here where kids stab people all the time.

Bottom line is this: fuck 'eye for an eye'.

I'm plumping for 'if you do that, you're as bad as them'.

Thug paralyses someone in a fight. JUDGE(!) wants to paralyse thug to get back at him. That is fucking insane.

Victim: still paralysed. Judge: now a thug, but with a shit-ton more power, and some precedent.

And I'm betting that a fair few places out there 'innocent until proven guilty' isn't an iron-clad rule. So then you get the precedent leading to innocent people being spine-jobbed too.

But just to say, though I'd be in strongly set on life imprisonment for the cleaver-wielders, I just couldn't wish it on someone else. Even if it had been done to someone in my family. It's living hell we're talking about here. And what the fuck on the 'seven months' thing? That's clearly balls. And they go around banging on about how our culture is morally bankrupt (to be fair, in certain respects it is) so surely we get the right to bang on about how they're fucking off their head when it comes to - er - having people off with their head and stuff.

Anyway, this is all moot. Reavers did it.

I think that if people feel that government punishments are too severe than maybe they should move to Somalia.

Somalia has a government?!

It's my understanding that punishments have 4 aspects to them.

1) retribution
2) stopping the person doing any more crimes
3) deterent to others
4) rehabilitation

An eye for an eye type punishemnt I imagine is pretty good at 1,2 and 3 but doesn't leave much scope with 4 if you are killed are paralysed.

Others would argue that our system is pretty crap at all 4 of those objectives.

I can certainly see the merits of a like for like punishment, and to be honest, if the vicitm has had to suffer paralasys, then why shouldn't he be made to feel the same pain he inflicted on his vitim? And if you know that you are likely to have that sort of punishment metted out to you, then you are really going to think twice about committing them in the first place unless you are caught up in the heat of the moment and then there is pretty much nothing which will stop you as you're not really in your right mind.

The one big problem is that there is the always the issue of the court getting it wrong and doing something like this to an innocent person. Which is a major concern.

On the whole, I do think if we are having any pretense at being civilised then we really should be "rising above" tit for tat style punishments, but I also think it's important we do have systems in place for all 4 of the aspects above, how that's achieved I'll leave for people more in the know than me.

Malc

Yes, we do.

The idea that someone would, in cold blood, be deliberately medically paralised in what is essentially an act of revenge is, to me, reprehensible and condoning the notion that people should be able to do what they like in their own countries without any attempt to hold a mirror up to those decisions is incredibly dangerous. You have every right to rail against the things that you believe to be truly 'wrong' regardless of any fleeting notions of that other place's sense of right and wrong. History teaches us we have a responsibility to act. cf. Genocide. The argument works when taken to its extremes: either with one man, a group or a entire people.

Well said, Sir Hugh.

my avatar looks quite sinister next to that.

Cultural relatavism is for cunts.

As Craster's said, some things are just wrong. You don't sit and say, "well brutally torturing each other is a cultural thing for the Malingi Burbas, so we really should leave them to it because even commenting on how it's a bad thing would be us imposing our Western standards on them". Torture is wrong, end of. As are many other things.

And at the end of the day, our culture is the most peaceful, tolerant and civilised one.

*narrows eyes*

Like Bovril, and celery.

Wanna fight about it?

(actually I agree with wot u said, just being sarky)

And cucumber. As Samuel Johnson put it, "cucumber should be well sliced, dressed in vinegar and pepper and then thrown out".

Celery is excellent. In Thai food and soups. No good raw though.

I love celery. I dislike cucumber. I'd probably rather eat cucumber than be paralysed, though.

I like cucumber but hate paralysis.

I wish to know if a man can function if his spine is replaced with cucumber. See to it.

Most of the bananas.

So what people are saying is an individual can act in anyway they see fit, but a decision making group process can not. Interesting.

That is not what was said at all.

Warm Vimto also.

Dude... you're getting your comprehension criticized by Kovacs. BY KOVACS!

That's like when Neil corrected my spelling...

Really? A man attacked another man with a meat cleaver, and his brother asked for retribution, because the law of the land in which the attack occurred allows this. The judge, applying the law of the land stated that this was an acceptable thing to investigate.
Because the law of the land allows for such a thing, it is "unacceptable" and "torture". However, would people be saying these things if the man's brother had gone out and performed this himself? I doubt the response would be so one sided.
The response is so because it is deemed to be inappropriate for a judicial system to offer out such a response. Not for the actual action. If it were for the action, then people would be upset with the man who performed the initial action, that is, slicing someone's spine with a meat cleaver.