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Author Topic: "Arrest us all"
Rakeesh
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Well, that certainly lends clarity to my uncertainty [Wink]

----

No, what you do is 'pressure the police'...ummm...more.

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Toretha
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Tres-think of it like black women reporting a white man raped them in the south, right after the civil war. I'm told that the situation of untouchables is in many ways comparable to that.

Sure, they could wait for the jury to find the man innocent. They could try to put more pressure on the police. But the conclusion is the same: man gets off, and comes after them.

Would you risk a child in your neighborhoods life on a system that's been proven over and over to be corrupt working?

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Rakeesh
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Well it's better than killing that poor man!`
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Olivet
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*laughs heartily*
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Storm Saxon
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Out of curiosity, does any religious-ish person on this forum think the women committed a sin and, thus, the women should not have killed him no matter what?
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quidscribis
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Not me.

Personally, if a man is intent on raping me, and the only way to prevent his success is for me to either severely injure or kill him, then that's what I'll do.

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jebus202
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But murder is a sin. And the pains of this life are nothing compared to the rewards and punishments of the afterlife.
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Xaposert
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quote:
Okay, seriously, what do you mean by "not giving him more opportunities to rape them?"
Well, I'm not sure about the details of their situation from this one article - but they could live together, or figure out some way of keeping watch and calling others if something happened. How would they prevent rapists if there were no police to protect them (which, apparently, there aren't)?

quote:
Tres-think of it like black women reporting a white man raped them in the south, right after the civil war. I'm told that the situation of untouchables is in many ways comparable to that.
Black women did not change things by starting mobs and killing the white men who raped them. They, too, would have been wrong to do so, and probably just would have brought down the wrath of the white community if they did so. The fight against racial discrimination in America is an excellent example of why placing pressure on the government to change is a much better strategy than lynch mobs.

quote:
Sure, they could wait for the jury to find the man innocent. They could try to put more pressure on the police. But the conclusion is the same: man gets off, and comes after them.
Unless the jury didn't find him innocent, or the police caved to the pressure, or they figured out some other effective method of stopping this guy, or any number of other possibilities occurred. You can assume these things won't happen, like Rakeesh seems to, but it's still just assumptions - assumptions on which a person's murder and the dissolution of the rule of law rest. I don't trust people's future-predicting abilities enough to say they should take it upon themselves to raise a lynch mob every time they assume all other methods of protecting the innocent will fail.

And if we are making assumptions about what will probably occur and these people really are in the situation you say they are, someone probably is going to come after them regardless. If the man in question is dead then it will be his friends or the police or someone altogether different. But now that they've murdered someone, whoever that is will only be more justified in the eyes of those biased against these women.

quote:
Would you risk a child in your neighborhoods life on a system that's been proven over and over to be corrupt working?
No, but I don't get a mob and murder the threat.
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Olivet
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I don't think killing self-defense or in defense of one's family is a sin. But then, you weren't asking me.
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jebus202
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quote:
I don't think killing self-defense or in defense of one's family is a sin. But then, you weren't asking me
I don't remember that clause in the bible.

Edit: Also I don't see how it can be defended by religious reasoning.

IF there is an afterlife, then death is inconsequential. However, killing someone is not inconsequential, as it has been specifically stated as not.

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Olivet
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Check the Old Testament -- those effers killed folks like it was one sale. It wouldn't be out of line for a bunch of people to stone a rapist or murderer to death. I think it may even have been called for by the laws handed down by God.

But I'm sure there are lots of people on Hatrack who know TONS more about Jewish law than I do.

There were also plenty of times that God supposedly directed people to commit genocide, so pardon me, but I think there are probably a LOT of clauses in the bible that most of us are unfamiliar with.

Sin, though... it's probably up to God to judge that. Self-defense is a legal defense that most people find morally acceptable.

However, I wasn't the one being asked the question.

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Toretha
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And how long did the civil rights movement take? Cause I seem to remember it taking an awful long time-so not much chance of them being safe anytime soon.

It's not an either or situation. Since the creation of the government a few people have been trying to change the government. But it takes time-what about the people killed in the meantime? Do you value their collective lives less than the murderers?

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Tresopax
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quote:
IF there is an afterlife, then death is inconsequential.
This is not true. Just because you exist in some form after life does not mean giving up life is insignificant.

quote:
But it takes time-what about the people killed in the meantime? Do you value their collective lives less than the murderers?
I value them both, which is why the best course is a middle course, that neither accepts the status quo nor casts aside all laws and morality in the name of self-defense. And I do not favor assuming away all possibilities other than those two extremes, because people have proven themselves incapable of knowing what is possible and what is not.

And remember, if you're considering suggesting that murderers are worth less than the innocent, these women are murderers too. And in a world where lynch mobs are acceptable, they would be likely to be mobbed for their murder just as quickly as they mobbed the original rapist - only the men who would mob them would be thugs and policemen armed with guns, rather than untouchable women armed with knives. It is fortunate that things remain at least civil enough that the police and others will not openly commit that kind of genocide, because the women would probably not survive. Yet it is really the public's commitment to the rules of law and order that stops them, as I'm sure there are men in that area worried about the possibility that untouchables might gang up to kill them and burn down their houses too. I think that if all sides in India accepted the logic that lynch mobs are acceptable in 'extreme' cases, the women would probably be the ones that ended up dead.

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Dan_raven
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But you are confusing cold blooded murder and rape with hot blooded momentary anger.

Kasturba Nagar is a small part of a larger city, but it is a separate political jurisidiction. The government of that jurisdiction broke down long before the women took up knives and powdered pepper, so the inhabitants did what they did to reclaim a bit of that government.

We are talking hundreds of people, all in their own squalid houses. They are underfed and undernourished. The man they killed led a group of armed and brutal men.

When one person tried to organize them into a cohesive political force, she was raped herself.

This man bribed to death the old government, and literaly beat and threatened to kill those who would create a new one. This man whom they killed became the main impediment between the people and a government.

On the other hand, I agree with you that someone should be punished for this death. Manslaughter or Second Degree murder at most since it seems to be an act of passion not premeditated. And it should not be the woman they arrested, who has an alibi for the time of the murder. She never incited these people to kill the rapist, but since she is a threat to the corrupt officials, she risks being the one punished.

Her sin is not murder or rape. It is the sin of threatening the livlihood of those in power.

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Lalo
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Tres, please stop trying to play devil's advocate. You're not very good at it -- and these women deserve, if not your support, at least better prosecution.
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Foust
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quote:
You can assume these things won't happen, like Rakeesh seems to, but it's still just assumptions - assumptions on which a person's murder and the dissolution of the rule of law rest.
But the rule of law never even had a chance to disolve - it never existed there in the first place.

The vast majority of the time, I would agree with you, Tres. But in this case, no other recourse was reasonable.

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rivka
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quote:
Originally posted by Olivet:
I don't think killing self-defense or in defense of one's family is a sin. But then, you weren't asking me.

I'm not entirely sure, but I think I was asked.

I agree with Olivia.

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ketchupqueen
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I wasn't asked either, but I agree, in most cases. I have to consider carefuly whether this was one of those cases; I'm not necessarily saying it was or wasn't. But as a general rule, I agree. AND I usually don't think it's murder.
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Dagonee
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As for whether a sin was committed, I'd venture to guess one was. Even if his killing was necessary, which I won't go into here, there was rage attached to it, and attempts to cause more pain than was needed to kill him.

Were I prosecutor (under our laws), I'd definitely try to prosecute the women who did the actual killing. But I'd hope for a really good defense attorney who would use either excuse, justification, or emotional distress to get all the facts about the dead guy in. Then I'd hope for jury nullification. If convicted, I'd ask for the lightest possible sentence. I'd also take pleas that could result in light sentences, including no jail time.

In a corrupt system where these women's peers would not be on the jury, I'm not sure what I'd do.

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imogen
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Tres/Xap - you are approaching this situation from your world.

Please try to appreciate that these women do not live in your world. I don't know if you've been to India (I presume not, but I could be wrong) and I don't know whether you've done much research into the status of many women in India today.

I have done both. While I am not saying "You go girls!", I think your perspective is based on a very different reality to what these women face.

India is a developing country. And in some parts, it has a great justice system. And in others, abuse of women ("accidental burning" is a number one abuse) is almost the norm. It is under-reported, and where it is reported it is often disregarded. In those situations, your conception of a justice system just doesn't apply.

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Olivet
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No, ketchup, I think you WERE asked. He wantedthe opinions of a religious-ish person. Fifteen years of religious education not withstanding, I hesitate to make that claim about myself, but I think you qualify.

I think the question here is more social than religious, though. Injustice can only be born so long before the society undergoes this kind of spasm. Think of the French Revolution - started by hungry, angry people whose needs were disregarded by their monarch. Then there was Robespierre (I spell for crap, and am lazy), who went too far and got caught in a social spasm himself. It was the bloody, grotesque birth of democrasy.

Moral or not, this is what happens.

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Xaposert
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quote:
Please try to appreciate that these women do not live in your world.
I think I have, as much as I can, given I don't live in their world and can't possibly know exactly what it is to live in their world. But no matter how much they are abused by their own society, I still think it seems very likely that they had other options available. (The trouble is that someone asked me to list those alternative solutions and, having not lived in that situation, I can't detail what would work and what wouldn't work for sure.)
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Rakeesh
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They've told you that there were no other options. People have told you that their description is very likely correct, based on treatment of untouchables in that place.

You've chosen, however, to think that you know better...living over here, in your comfortable First World Western life. You know better, based on...what? Really only your own certainty that there was 'very likely some other option'. But what is that likelihood based upon?

Speculation. And your speculation is not founded on actual knowledge of the situation, it's founded upon comparing their situation to the closest things you've heard of-things which, I might add, you also have never experienced.

But that doesn't stop you from saying, "They were wrong. They should not have done what they did. It would have been better to do something else, and they were destroying society when they did it." And yes, you've said all of those things. But you won't change your mind, because to you this is an issue of faith.

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Xaposert
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quote:
But that doesn't stop you from saying, "They were wrong. They should not have done what they did. It would have been better to do something else, and they were destroying society when they did it."
Nor does it stop you from choosing to speculate that they were right to murder him, despite the fact that you know their situation no more than I do.

Will you change your mind, or is this an issue of faith to you too? (Or perhaps faith is not the only reason people, such as myself and yourself, don't change their minds when other people tell them to? Perhaps we have reasons for opinions we hold? [Wink] )

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pH
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I'm religious, and I really wouldn't call the killing of this man a MURDER.

Tres, do you ever think killing in self-defense is justified? Ever? After all, there probably is some wild way to defend yourself without actually killing the guy. For example, you could severely maim him. Hey, at least you're not killing him, right?

-pH

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Toretha
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the difference between our "speculations" and yours, is that we offer reasons why they were right, and why they didn't have other options as such. You have yet to offer reasonable alternatives.
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Storm Saxon
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I'm not very religious-ish, but am definitely spiritual-ish, and my gut feeling is that 'sin' was committed, but a greater 'sin' would have been committed had the man been allowed to continue his reign of terror. Most moral systems allow for defensive killings, which this almost certainly falls under.

I don't think Tres is playing devil's advocate, since I have seen him consistently advocate for mercy on behalf of the jackasses of the world. I think Tres really is trying to practice his belief system.

If Tres really honestly values this, mercy, and really works to make this a part of himself and practice it in his daily life, then I have a great deal of respect for him.

If, on the other hand, he's just goofing around and playing devil's advocate, then, while I still respect him for giving us all a chance to think, my respect would be tinged with sadness because the world needs people who say and really feel in their heart that 'Everyone deserves mercy and compassion, no matter what.'

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quidscribis
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quote:
Originally posted by Xaposert:
quote:
But that doesn't stop you from saying, "They were wrong. They should not have done what they did. It would have been better to do something else, and they were destroying society when they did it."
Nor does it stop you from choosing to speculate that they were right to murder him, despite the fact that you know their situation no more than I do.

Will you change your mind, or is this an issue of faith to you too? (Or perhaps faith is not the only reason people, such as myself and yourself, don't change their minds when other people tell them to? Perhaps we have reasons for opinions we hold? [Wink] )

Does my opinion count? I live in Sri Lanka, off the south east coast of India, and while the cultures are not identical, there are a lot of similarities. I also know a *lot* of Indians and have for decades, some were my closest friends. I've also lived in a few neighborhoods in Canada with large Indian populations.

I can tell you that in Sri Lanka, the sort of situation described in the newspaper could happen. There is no untouchables caste here, but. . . The Tamil Tigers routinely kidnap and force children to become Tamil Tigers - and get away with it. The police are corrupt - as is the government as a whole. I've been warned that western women cannot take public transportation as we'll be sexually assaulted - this from women who know because they're regularly sexually assaulted on public transportation, but can't afford to take alternate transportation, and when they complain, the bus drivers and/or police just laugh. Men and boys regularly bathe at a local watering hole (the lake surrounding the new parliament building) wearing, if we're lucky, just their undies. I have seen naked men standing on the side of the road, sometimes on the sidewalk, not caring who sees.

I've been warned that it's not safe to go out at night by myself, and if I'm attacked/raped, the police won't do anything. But then, I've been told that, no matter what happens, there's no point in complaining because the police won't do anything. Whether this is true or not, I don't know - I haven't had occasion to test it. Regardless, this is the prevailing attitude.

From everything that I know about India - from newspapers, books, online sources, friends from India - the newspaper account sounds completely plausible and unsurprising, and it's likely that the rapist and murderer would have been let go and he would have continued to terrorize people. He would have retaliated by murdering and raping more. No one would have stopped him. These people would have been victimized until they were all wiped out.

It seems to me that there were few, if any, options left to these people - kill him or be killed. Yep, that's pretty much it.

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Eaquae Legit
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I think also the fact that this was spontaneous should be taken into account. My impression from the article was that while the women were prepared for violence, they weren't actually planning anything. And then that last snowflake fell, and the one woman who begun it didn't even seem to mean to - she was whacking him with her shoe, after all. Unlike his crimes, this was not purely premeditated.
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Dagonee
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quote:
Unlike his crimes, this was not purely premeditated.
Which is not something the defense attorney would want to highlight were they attempting to use self-defense or something like it. (Edit: Classic self-defense requires imminent harm, something clearly not present here. But a justification defense is allowed in some jurisdictions based on perception that this would action was necessary to save a life. This doesn't really meet those elements either, but the real purpose is to get the facts out there to convince the jury to either nullify or at least mitigate.) That helps with a mental distress based defense, though. Again, in our legal system, which I know isn't directly applicable.

[ October 02, 2005, 11:47 PM: Message edited by: Dagonee ]

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Xaposert
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quote:
From everything that I know about India - from newspapers, books, online sources, friends from India - the newspaper account sounds completely plausible and unsurprising, and it's likely that the rapist and murderer would have been let go and he would have continued to terrorize people. He would have retaliated by murdering and raping more. No one would have stopped him. These people would have been victimized until they were all wiped out.
I believe you about their situation because you certainly know more than me, but still not about the certainty of your prediction that all alternatives to killing would certainly fail, or the prediction than killing him will produce any more safety for them. There must be many other women in India who are in similar circumstances, yet have not chosen to kill their tormentors. If the only options are killing and being wiped out, why aren't they all wiped out? Are they constantly being raped all the time? And if so, what does killing a single offender matter? If the system is as bad as you and the article are saying, won't other criminals simply take up where this man has left off?

quote:
Tres, do you ever think killing in self-defense is justified? Ever? After all, there probably is some wild way to defend yourself without actually killing the guy. For example, you could severely maim him. Hey, at least you're not killing him, right?
The answer is yes and no. I do think there are situations in which killing would lead to the best results. However, because I don't think people can predict the future well enough, I think it is impossible to distinguish the few situations in which killing would be best from those many many situations in which killing just seems best but where other better alternatives were available. So, since I don't think you can know when killing is the best choice, I don't think you should kill - unless a situation somehow arises in which it is obvious. And that's the paradox - how do you know when it truly is obvious and not just seeming to be obvious?

And I don't think it's a matter of not understanding the situation at hand - it's a matter of simply not being able to see all ends, no matter how well you understand the situation these women face in India. Even the actual women in question, who know every detail of their own situation far better than I do - I think even they can't claim to know that all alternative options would have failed. Unless they somehow can. One thing I do know, though, is that whenever people tell me they only have one option to solve a problem of theirs, it is almost categorically always wrong... and people do claim this all the time.

Yes, if there are people tied to train tracks and you have to kill one to save a thousand, yes, it's okay to kill. But if there are a million different tracks to switch to, and you have no idea which tracks will hurt which people if any, then I think you should avoid killing even one to hypothetically save a bunch if your predictions about the future were to turn out right. Predictions just aren't usually accurate enough to trade one guaranteed death to several hypothetical ones.

quote:
I don't think Tres is playing devil's advocate, since I have seen him consistently advocate for mercy on behalf of the jackasses of the world. I think Tres really is trying to practice his belief system.
I would not call it mercy as much as advocating understanding of the guy in question - which, in turn, implies mercy. A human being so corrupted that he believes it is okay to rape and/or kill hundreds of women is still a human being, still fundamentally good, and still worth as much as the women each are. I can only speculate what twisted beliefs lead him to do such things, but I believe that if you took those beliefs and put them into your head or mine, we would probably act the same. I'm not just playing "Devil's Advocate" when I say that - although I guess I am advocating understanding of the devil, more or less. But I do believe it, and based to some extent in reason, but also partially a matter of faith - this is a major part of what I believe Christianity is fundamentally about. (God, as I conceive of Him, is the ultimate Devil's Advocate, because He knows all our situations, understands why we make the wrong choices we do, and loves us despite them.)

One suspicion I have here is that people here might be more willing to consider the possibility that alternatives might work if they cared more about the life of the man who was killed. If it were your son or husband or daughter or wife they "had" to kill in order to protect themselves, I suspect many would hesitate and consider "Maybe there is an alternative to killing him..." But when the guy getting mobbed is a murderous rapist who you care little about, it's easier to say they had to do it - it's easier to assume nothing else would have worked.

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Toretha
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quote:
But when the guy getting mobbed is a murderous rapist who you care little about, it's easier to say they had to do it - it's easier to assume nothing else would have worked.
Yes, it is easier. And what makes it easier still is the total lack of any reasonable alternatives being suggested.
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Xaposert
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"Reasonable" alternatives, from page 1:
quote:
Well, he was in court at the time - they could have at least waited to see if they'd send him to jail, instead of assuming what the outcome would be. They also did burn his house down - they could have waited to see if this would be enough to force him to leave. They could have banded together to defend against him, should he return to their neighborhood. They could have tried any countless number of nonviolent or less violent methods of protest to force officials into action.
Reasonable is in quotes because you can deny they are reasonable, if you assume they won't work, but I think they are reasonable, because I don't think we can make those assumptions - at least not in regards to every possible instance of the types of alternative listed above.

And really, if you're going to complain that I have not experienced the life of an untouchable woman in India and therefore cannot know what might and might not work for them, why are you asking me to then tell you what might and might not work? That's like demanding that a non-farmer speculate on how to plant corn fields and then, when he does so, complaining that he's not qualified to speculate on the matter because he isn't a farmer. (That wouldn't prove non-farmers have no reason to think it's possible to plant a field!) If you don't think I'm qualified to answer your question, don't ask me to answer. Obviously, I can't give you exact details on a plan that might work for them. That does not refute the logic that with so many variable in the situation (including how the police might react to various alternatives, how the man might react to various options, etc.) it is unlikely, given how unsuccessful people are at predicting the future, that they could say with any sort of confidence that there was no other option. (That'd be the Burden of Proof Fallacy - suggesting that my conclusion is false because I can't prove it to be true with an alternative that I can prove would work. I can't tell you with authority what definitely had a decent chance of helping them, but I think there's good reason to believe that at least some options did.)

[ October 04, 2005, 09:15 AM: Message edited by: Xaposert ]

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K.T.
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Well, he was in court at the time - they could have at least waited to see if they'd send him to jail, instead of assuming what the outcome would be
quote:

It has been mentioned that they already tried this and he kept getting off.
If you do what you have always done, you will get what you have always gotten.
If you do what you have always done expecting a differrent result, you are classified as "Crazy."

It seems to me that these women did what they felt was their only alternative. In the moment of madness I really don't think these women had time to moralize what they were doing. They just wanted to make sure what had happened to them wasn't going to keep happening. He was the threat at this point, so the threat was removed. No more threat. Sure, his boys might have become a bigger threat, but do you really think the women thought this one through? They did what they felt needed to be done.

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Rakeesh
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Let's see.

It's stupid to suggest that it is reasonable to wait to see what the outcome would be. He'd waltzed in and out of law enforcement's hands repeatedly.

It's stupid to think that he would be frightened away by burning his house down without him in it. The man went into people's homes and raped their daughters in front of them.

It's equally stupid to think that 'banding together' would work, because he had a freaking band of his own already. These things indicate a great and terrible power this man had locally, Tresopax. Your methods are shooting at a giant with a bow made of a willow branch and strung with twine.

What other nonviolent methods might work? NAME ONE. Every single alternative you've mentioned is ridiculous to everyone but you, Tresopax. Everything you've suggested has been refuted, and all you're left with is your belief that there must have been some vague, unnamed, generic thing that could've been done.

That doesn't, that is, require women to accept ongoing rape. It's disgusting what you're asking. You're not the one being victimized in such a situation, Tresopax. Not only are you not there and still telling them that they should've done something else, if you were there, you wouldn't even be the one getting raped!

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K.T.
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Sorry, I haven't figured out the quote thing I guess.
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Olivet
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They had no 'reason' to believe this time at 'court' would be any different than the several dozen times before. But I guess if they clapped their hands and clicked their heels and believed really hard the police who had dismissed, ignored and even jeered at their complaints might have suddenly decided to forego the bribes they usually got from the man...

No... I just don't think anyone is that stupid. I mean, you put a monkey in a cage with an electrified wall, it's eventually going to realize 'wall cause pain' and stop touching it. At some point, it would be obvious that the police and court officials were not going to do what they should. *shrug*

I'm not saying that it isn't wrong to kill. But it IS idiotic to be surprised that people will eventually take extreme measures to protect themselves when civil authorities have lost all semblance of protecting them (and thereby abdicated any moral authority).

If the villagers, as a group, had had more education or other resources, maybe it could have been different. This sort of thing is actually a fine example of social/emotional pressures leading to a societal self-correction, on a small scale.

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Xaposert
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quote:
It seems to me that these women did what they felt was their only alternative.
I most definitely agree with that.

quote:
It's stupid to suggest that it is reasonable to wait to see what the outcome would be. He'd waltzed in and out of law enforcement's hands repeatedly.

It's stupid to think that he would be frightened away by burning his house down without him in it. The man went into people's homes and raped their daughters in front of them.

It's equally stupid to think that 'banding together' would work, because he had a freaking band of his own already. These things indicate a great and terrible power this man had locally

I don't think you should assume as much as you are here about what everyone would or would not do in all these different situations - at least not when murder is on the line. If you were going to assume stuff like that, it'd might also be 'stupid' to think these women would ever be able to get close enough to kill the guy at the courthouse. But they did.

quote:
Everything you've suggested has been refuted, and all you're left with is your belief that there must have been some vague, unnamed, generic thing that could've been done.
As I said, I'm not a farmer so I can't tell you for sure how to plant a field, but there's still good reason to think the field can be planted. I can offer ideas, but if you're going to assume they are all "stupid" and impossible, and claim to refute my arguments to the contrary on the grounds that not being a farmer I can't know, why do you want me to offer more ideas?

You are right - I don't have any sure specific solution to their problem. My reasoning is not based on the grounds that I do.

quote:
They had no 'reason' to believe this time at 'court' would be any different than the several dozen times before.
There was a difference this time though - there was a big mob of angry, murderous women at the court. I think this at least has a shot at making a difference from previous cases.

quote:
I'm not saying that it isn't wrong to kill. But it IS idiotic to be surprised that people will eventually take extreme measures to protect themselves when civil authorities have lost all semblance of protecting them (and thereby abdicated any moral authority).
I'm not saying I'm surprised at what they did, though - I'm not suprised, and the authorities in India should not be either. I'm saying I think it was probably wrong.
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Olivet
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Well, they say that two wrongs (though I think there are a LOT more 'wrongs' involved than just two) do not make a right. However, wrongs do sometimes help to correct a broken social order, and in that sense I am grateful for them. Democrasy is often built on blood, and 'heroic' wrongs.

Was what they did right? Probably not, but I think it needed doing, for the good of everyone. I admit it would have been better if the proper authorities had punished him, but they showed no signs of ever doing so.

Give the women a medal? No. But I think they have been punished enough.

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camus
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I think we can all agree that the government should be the entity to administer justice and law, and individuals should not be allowed to take the law into their own hands. But what happens when the government fails to administer the functions for which it was created to do?

"That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it"

I think in this situation, a practical government ceased to exist a long time ago. That leaves no choice but to take the law into one's own hands. That is what the rapist did, and that is what the victims were obligated to do.

Does that justify it in a religious sense? Of course that depends on which religion and which God you believe in. The OT refers to many instances of punishment in the form of murder. In the NT we have the example of Paul who, when named Saul, was responsible for the deaths of many Christians. Obviously he was not punished eternally for that. In any case, we humans are not able to condemn anyone for their actions, because how can we really know that our beliefs are correct? All we can do is judge what we feel is right for ourselves and let God judge the actions of others.

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Katarain
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quote:
A human being so corrupted that he believes it is okay to rape and/or kill hundreds of women is still a human being, still fundamentally good, and still worth as much as the women each are.
I find your statement above so ludicrous and utterly offensive. This man is still "fundamentally good?" Oh no. Evil exists and this man possesses a healthy share of it.

I don't believe that you really believe that this man is equal to the women he raped and/or killed. Based on your own statements, I think it is more true to say that you value the rapist far above the women, because you deny them basic human rights--such as protecting their own lives.

Your views are not merciful or compassionate to the victims, only to the rapists and murderers of the world.

I think God loves us all, the most horrible sinner to the most innocent child. And He loves us equally. We are all precious to Him. But even God understands that we must suffer the consequences of our actions. If you threaten someone's life, you can reasonably expect to be killed yourself. He offers ultimate forgiveness and eternal life to anyone who accepts His sacrifice--but just because you've been redeemed by God doesn't mean that you are not obligated to make restitution while you're still on Earth and suffer the consequences of your actions. You might receive mercy from your victims--but you are not entitled to it.

When a man makes a choice to kill someone else, he is making a choice to potentially be killed himself. He is not a victim because the person who defends himself/herself against him didn't stop to consider that he's emotionally traumatized because mommy didn't hug him enough.

I understand the value of non-violent protest. I can admire someone who chooses to act passively and let someone murder them rather than take another life. What I can't admire is when someone expects everyone else to react in that way. What I can't admire is when someone stands by while another is murdered, rather than doing something to help--whether it is killing the threatening man or something else.

You admit that there is no way of knowing whether killing is the only option. Because there is no way of knowing in so many situations, then I, personally, cannot condemn someone for choosing to kill because the other methods seemed so tenuous. I would not expect them to gamble with their own lives or the other lives being threatened. (Also, this person has shown his ability and willingness to take life. Letting him live is dangerous for the community.) The one who has decided to threaten murder is the only one who made a choice to be in that situation--knowing full well that his own death could be a result. I have no tears for him if he dies. He made the choice.

It has been suggested that since this man was only one man who had his own band of rapists/murderers, that killing him would have no affect on their safety. They would still have to be concerned about the other men.

I disagree. Those men now know what can happen to them as well. And no amount of bribing money could protect them from it.

-Katarain

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Dagonee
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Punishment here can actually serve a purpose. Most people agree that there are situations where it is OK to kill. Most people also agree that such situations should be severe. There are legal standards of when it's OK, but most people don't know them. Plus, they are both under and over inclusive - barring killing when it's necessary and allowing it when it's not.

One possible use of punishment, or at least prosecution, here is to assist individuals making the decision whether to use lethal force. One would then have to decide, is my use of such force worth the punishment I might face? In the case of women about to be raped, the punishment should be set so that the answer is "yes." In the case of a man about to be relieved of 10 dollars by a pickpocket, the answer should be "no." Setting punishment levels (weighted by probability of conviction) appropriately can have a big impact here.

This isn't a very satisfying analysis, and I don't think it describes the entire situation. But if the legal system has as one of its goals the removal or reduction of violence from the list of acceptable actions, then this must at least factor into the decisions to prosecute, the standards for justification, and the mitigation effect of such prior violence.

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Xaposert
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quote:
I find your statement above so ludicrous and utterly offensive. This man is still "fundamentally good?" Oh no. Evil exists and this man possesses a healthy share of it.
There is a difference between possessing evil (or being possessed by evil) and BEING evil.

quote:
Based on your own statements, I think it is more true to say that you value the rapist far above the women, because you deny them basic human rights--such as protecting their own lives.
I don't believe the rapist, had he concluded the women were out to kill him, would be right to go kill them first either.
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Katarain
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My problem is that you seem to want to be understanding towards the rapist, considering what it was that made him who he is. But you seem to ignore what happened to those women, and the fact that what he did to them drove them to do what they did. It may not be right, but it is understandable--especially because justice had been repeatedly denied them, when this man side-stepped any consequences for his actions.

And can't you address my point that a man threatening murder has made a decision to murder another person, full-knowing that his decision might cause his own death (whether or not he really believes that anybody could possibly overpower him...the possibility is real and undeniable.), and has therefore forfeited his right to life? By his own choice? And what about his implied assertion that his life is more important than his soon-to-be victim? The victim has not made a choice to be there, showing a respect for life by NOT being a murderer, but the murderer is making a choice against life, by threatening another and putting his own life at risk.

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Xaposert
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I agree completely that what the women did is 100% understandable, and I might have done the same had I been in their situation at that particular moment. I'm just concerned that it was not right, and is not the sort of solution we want to glorify as right.

quote:
And can't you address my point that a man threatening murder has made a decision to murder another person, full-knowing that his decision might cause his own death (whether or not he really believes that anybody could possibly overpower him...the possibility is real and undeniable.), and has therefore forfeited his right to life?
Not knowingly, at least. I'd bet that guy suspected he would get away with it, even up to the moment they killed him, because that was how his world had worked up until then. And it's not really about his right to life - it's about the value of his life, which he cannot get rid of, even by his own choice. It's for that reason that it's wrong to commit suicide.

quote:
And what about his implied assertion that his life is more important than his soon-to-be victim?
That is not implied, though. It's not about the loss of a rapist's life being worse than the loss of a victim's life. It's about the actual loss of a life being worse than the hypothetical predicted loss of a life - hypothetical in that it would only happen if events progressed in the way we think it will. If you aren't confident that events will almost certainly progress in a way that will lead to that loss, as I'm not, then that trade-off is not worth it.
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Dan_raven
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Was his murder right? No.
Was it the better of two wrongs? I believe yes. Can I judge that definitively? No. That is for God or History to decide.

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pH
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Tres, do you have any evidence whatsoever to support your belief that things might have magically turned out differently this time?

-pH

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Olivet
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*claps hands*

I do believe in fairies! I do! I do!

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Rakeesh
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Tresopax, it is stupid and I do know what would've happened because it happened before. All you're doing is just tossing in variables at this point and saying, "But they haven't tried this!"

What other methods are available to an angry mob besides lynching? The cops and court would've talked to the women, soothed them, maybe...and then, when their back was turned, they would've let the guy go, again, and he would've been back to raping them until they formed an angry mob somewhere.

Your beliefs do value the victimizer-the rapist, the torturer, the petty tyrant-above his victims, because you're assuming that his life has as much value as those of his victims. That it's as much worth saving. That's what your belief system leads to, but of course you won't admit to that. You'll hedge, you'll fudge, you'll deny definitions and you'll assert that things could've been different, you'll even bring up a farming analogy instead of just admitting what is patently obvious to everyone in the freaking universe but you.

Oh, and people are very good at predicting the future in the short-term, Tresopax. Especially in groups. Check the weather channel sometime, if you want to go with utterly irrelevant comparisons [Smile]

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Toretha
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it's at times like this I wish we used contention numbers in discussions
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