News Human Rights For Sex Offenders

[Ronin]

Thanks @joeylittle and @Cashew, my mother sexually abused me

You're welcome. I don't talk of the mother that raised me for similar reasons. The mommy I talk about was actually an aunt of mine, who thankfully had her head on straight and didn't view power as something to employ in bad and worse ways. Close relatives of mine may in times still live, though they're still dead to me.

I'm so sorry for what she did to you. You're courageous speaking up about it.

 

[Weemie]

why are we considering the human rights of offenders who gave no consideration to the human rights of their victims?

it's really hard for me not to see things in a human element. and i think this question sums up the dichotomy in this thread. like, what do we do with people who treat others without regard for their humanity? do we just kill them, throw them all in a giant pit and burn it down?

i have to believe that despite what other people do, we are responsible for what we put out in this world. no matter what other people do to us, we have a responsibility to react with humanity and decency. because at the end of the day, we really have no idea why people do the things they do. we've already proven via mri that psychopaths have actually different brain structures. you know, and i don't believe that people are separated into this “good/bad” system. people aren't intrinsically good or bad, they're a result of a series of actions.

through my own history, i have seen just about every flavor of pedophile. i can identify some pedophiles just by how they walk and talk, i swear to god, like it's a genetic thing. i'm not naive, i'm not underexposed.

it's not a popular opinion, i know. i guess i just don't believe in punishment. punishment doesn't have anything to do with the perpetrator. it is solely to do with the punisher, how the punisher thinks, how it makes the punisher feel. and i get that many, many people have zero problem with this. and i can understand why, and i can admit point blank that if i saw someone raping a child, i would murder them myself.

but it's- you know, it's like people who get mad at me for being against the death penalty, oh, well would you murder hitler? that's not the death penalty. that's not what the death penalty means. the death penalty, the penal system, is a government institution, a majority institution. it is not the product of one person reacting to one other human being in one isolated circumstance. it's a guideline, and a moral standpoint. and that's where i go murky.

 

[Kintsugi]

@lightraze I want to like that 100 times.

 

[Ronin]

i have to believe that despite what other people do, we are responsible for what we put out in this world. no matter what other people do to us, we have a responsibility to react with humanity and decency. because at the end of the day, we really have no idea why people do the things they do.

If there's no humanity and decency shown in the first place? I don't really believe in that 'turn the other cheek' thing (besides, in historic context of the era it was 'be defiant & fight for what's right, not what you're told to do'). That's basically saying perpetrators are owed kindness. Why would they be? Lines were crossed. Irreparably. Affecting not just the victim(s), but their families, friends, whole communities, whole nations, some times for hundred of years. It's not a small one-on-one thing.

We are responsible for what we put out in this world - yes. Predators make other choices, with the same responsibility. Where was THEIR responsibility? Where is -their- accountability?

With humanity and decency... both really isn't doable so many times. Do they even deserve that? Just because it's somehow instilled in some moral codes of people?

We have no idea.... - no, I'd disagree on that one, and I bet you quite a few LEOs and forensic experts as well as multi disciplinary psychologists and psychiatrists have actually a pretty good idea of why these people do what they chose to do. 'They are just sick' just won't do. It's an excuse, it's apologetic.

Good x bad doesn't enter the equation in the same way postulated here. 'Good' people may do terribly bad things and vice versa. Good people may do bad things and compensate by other 'good things'. Good and bad aren't on the same scale as abusing vs. not, torturing innocent children vs. not doing that, f*cking up entire generations vs. not doing that. It's not that simplistic discussion.

Opposing points by the way, not meaning this as 'mad at you' in the slightest. Hopefully it doesn't come across as harsh.

 

[Weemie]

@Cashew not taken that way. and ditto on my response.

like i said, other people's behavior in my own opinion cannot impact how you choose to treat them if the way you choose to treat them is to deny them their humanity. i've been denied my humanity, i'm sure many people feel like they've been denied essential human experiences. it isn't within me to knowingly do that to another person, to participate in that, no matter if it's “eye for an eye.”

i'm not judging people who do think like that, because again, i can understand where that comes from. that rage, that disgust. i get that, hell the criminal minds trauma association in my brain once went on a vigilante spree and bashed in some guy's car windows because i thought he was a pedo. i get it. but when you start talking about human rights, you know, on a grand scale, on an intellectual scale, on a moral scale, it gets much murkier, when you advocate stripping people of their humanity and essentially torturing them or murdering them, you know? it doesn't gel with me.

maybe i'm a hypocrite. who f*cking knows. people are multi-faceted, you know? people are contradictions, people are hypocritical, because you examine the situation with more than one lens, with more than one part of your history. i've been strapped to a f*cking table, i've, you know? and it's not some special woe-is-me thing, and hell, your own experiences could be similar and still informing your opinion that these bastards have no souls. no souls, no mercy. i get that. parts of me are right in it. i've got torturers in me, they're right f*cking in it. but when you think of, you know, denying someone their human rights.

i just can't go there, with the part of me that fronts, with the part of me that guides everything together and marshals us all into a person who acts, i cannot condone putting that out there, not from myself.

 

[Anarchy]

and i can admit point blank that if i saw someone raping a child, i would murder them myself.

but it's- you know, it's like people who get mad at me for being against the death penalty, oh, well would you murder hitler? that's not the death penalty. that's not what the death penalty means. the death penalty, the penal system, is a government institution, a majority institution. it is not the product of one person reacting to one other human being in one isolated circumstance. it's a guideline, and a moral standpoint. and that's where i go murky.

@lightraze you might like Ludwig von Mises on that. From his magnum opus, "Human Action"

First we must realize that all actions are performed by individuals. A collective operates always through the intermediary of one or several individuals whose actions are related to the collective as the secondary source.
It is the meaning which the acting individuals and all those who are touched by their action attribute to an action, that determines its character. It is the meaning that marks one action as the action of an individual and another action as the action of the state or of the municipality.
The hangman, not the state, executes a criminal. It is the meaning of those concerned that discerns in the hangman's action an action of the state.
A group of armed men occupies a place. It is the meaning of those concerned which imputes this occupation not to the officers and soldiers on the spot, but to their nation.
If we scrutinize the meaning of the various actions performed by individuals we must necessarily learn everything about the actions of collective wholes. For a social collective has no existence and reality outside of the individual members' actions. The life of a collective is lived in the actions of the individuals constituting its body. There is no social collective conceivable which is not operative in the actions of some individuals. The reality of a social integer consists in its directing and releasing definite actions on the part of individuals. Thus the way to a cognition of collective wholes is through an analysis of the individuals' actions. [p. 43]

HTML page with this sectionLink Removed
The full work as free downloads in several formats https://mises.org/library/human-action-0

Where economics and interpersonal boundary work meet and embrace each other.

 

[Weemie]

you might like Ludwig von Mises on that. From his magnum opus, "Human Action"

"Economics is human action." one of my fav quotes. :wtf:

 

[Ronin]

My point is it's different to deny humanity... and deny humanity just for the kicks of it, to the most vulnerable people out there. People that didn't even get the chance to explore their humanity in the first place, before it was taken from them. People doing that to kids? They sure had the power to restraint themselves. Yet they chose otherwise.

There's something like righteous rage, protective rage, taking care of threats no matter what it takes... and preying on the vulnerable. They're very different.

I don't think you're a hypocrite. ;) You're a critical thinker with an open heart.

I'm not talking souls / mercy / whichever it is honestly. All I'm talking is choice. Choice that isn't coerced. Choise that is made of a free will. Metaphysics don't have much to do with that in my opinion.

I believe in human rights. Wouldn't be at the point of my life if I didn't. In the same time, there are people acutely risky for dozens of other people. And if I believe in something more than human rights looking right in discussions? It's actual applicance of human rights for people who have been denied them their whole lives. Who have been forced to acts deemed inhumane. Who have been hurt profoundly just for who they are. Who are systematically hurt. Who cannot defend themselves. Who don't even have the idea they could defend themselves. Who disappear and die an ugly death without any justice. Not who did it to them.

Some people remove themselves from humanity by their choices. (And again, choice is a complicated matter. Not enough complicated though to not be figurable. The example of psychopaths? I wouldn't know about psychopaths specifically, we don't mesh well at all. Sociopaths though? They're able to mentally and intellectually reason what is less harmful and more harmful and what are societies expectations of appropriate behavior. There are checks of control. There IS understanding of some things considered basics.)

 

[Anarchy]

To try to get this down briefly;

If in the heat of the moment, someone causes serious harm to a person as they save another who is being victimized, that is one thing.

To do the same harm as an act of revenge or retribution when it wasn't you being harmed - is something very different.

Taking the biblical, the mosaic law "eye for eye", and new testament "turn the other cheek", are not incompatible.

In the biblical and in many customary law systems (but not in our present positivistic legal framework) The victim, or their representative, is welcome to take actions of retribution - up to, but not exceeding, what was done to them (eye for eye - tooth for tooth). If they exceed, then they themselves become the perpetrator of an unjustified assault. (a very different interpretation to Ghandi's execrable; "An eye for an eye just makes the whole world blind").

All of the customary law systems that I have read up about, would prefer that one or more cool headed mediators look at what has happened, and seek to placate the injured party and make them as whole again as possible, with compensation from the offending party and their insurers (in customary law systems, whether Anglo-Saxon England, Medievel Ireland, the Israelites described in the book of judges, or the present day Somali Clans - every individual in a society is a member of an insurance group, so even if the offender absconds, the adjudged compensation will still be paid by their insurance group). Obviously in the case of child rape, "making whole again" is not possible, but an agreement on compensation is still possible - in so far that it is the price necessary to buy off retribution.

None of that precludes "turning the other cheek".

All of that is a far cry from our current positivistic system, where the state extorts the compensation and keeps it for itself, or has everyone pay towards the offender being caged.

 

[Weemie]

@Cashew, for sure.

i kind of view it like quis costudiet ipsos custodes, though, you know? who tortures the torturers. and that's not a place i want to live, where that's an ethical dilemma, where that's a requirement. because, yeah, there is no justice. most of the time, there is no justice. and what is justice? is justice an eye for an eye? is justice money? should they pay victims the dollar amount of suffering they endured? is justice murder, is justice torture, or is justice rehabilitation?

and is rehabilitation even possible? (because that would mean that, like us, sex offenders are reacting to developmental factors, and in some cases i really think this is true, but then there are other types of predators that we can't quantify so easily- and we can't just say “this is the reason” because it calls back that really harmful stigma of abuse cycles. etc. in most cases i really do think we have no idea what motivates people to act the way they do. is it biology, psychology? we really don't know, we can't with our current level of technology.)

and that's a necessary point to make, on your part, as well. how do we protect the human rights of victims, while simultaneously protecting the human rights of abusers? and is it denying the human rights of victims, to allow abusers to continue to hold their own humanity? (this is where, i think, i differ from most people. because i tend to think of it like a loss. a loss to me, to think that way, a loss to myself.)

i've spent a lot of time thinking about what i would call justice for my abuses. and it doesn't involve denying my abusers their human rights. because, in the end, what does that accomplish? what does it really accomplish? satisfaction for me? but i'm still putting harm out into the world. when you tear someone down and hear them screaming, a raw nerve of exposed pain, they're no longer the person who harmed you. you're not yourself when you're nothing but pain. you're not punishing an individual, you're turning your abuser into a vessel of pain. (maybe that's a bit meta woo-woo, eh, i dunno.)

and i can't speak for other people, for what is right and correct for other people, or how other people should process their abuse or how other people should theorize on their abusers, or their abusers' punishment. i cannot speak to that, it wouldn't be right, and it wouldn't be fair. (because at the end of the day, none of us really have the power to institute any of this, we're not making these calls. so, yeah, someone fantasizing about cutting off johnny rapist's dick isn't morally wrong, because most people don't go around cutting off people's dicks.)

 

[Anarchy]

none of us really have the power to institute any of this,

under a "one size fits all" positivistic legal system, we don't. the monopolist does, and that monopolist isn't "us".

and i can't speak for other people, for what is right and correct for other people, or how other people should process their abuse or how other people should theorize on their abusers, or their abusers' punishment. i cannot speak to that, it wouldn't be right, and it wouldn't be fair.

That choice is taken away from each and every victim. the only choice they have in effect is to either keep quiet, or to trigger off whatever the self serving state functionaries might do.
(update - and that might be victim blame, nothing or drag you through a retraumatizing croiss examination in court which ammounts to a character assassination - or actually get around to doing what you'd hoped, which is in my anarchistic opinion, pretty feckin unlikely).

and what is justice? is justice an eye for an eye? is justice money? should they pay victims the dollar amount of suffering they endured? is justice murder, is justice torture, or is justice rehabilitation?

it's an individual thing, but shaped by the customary expectations of the culture and society which we grew up surrounded by.

we can't just say “this is the reason” because it calls back that really harmful stigma of abuse cycles. etc. in most cases i really do think we have no idea what motivates people to act the way they do. is it biology, psychology? we really don't know, we can't with our current level of technology.)

I think anything which omits any part of Bio-Psycho-Social is destined to be at best a gross over simplification, or more likely just plain wrong.

Traumatic re-enactmentis real enough, but, apart from the either the youngest or the most mentally handicapped individuals, we all have some idea of right and wrong and some degree of choice, and that implies that those who do offend have a degree of culpability for their actions. As @Simply Simon has said, there are pedophiles who are non offending. There is free choice.

 

[Pietro]

I agree with you on that one, but unfortunately society doesn't share the same point of view?

In western-based cultures, this is why justice is handled by detached third-parties. It discourages acts of revenge and vigilantism, which can perpetuate a long and bloody cycle of violence -- not very civil or Christian, nor does it promote security of the general public. :meh: