• Tedesche@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I don’t give 2 shits about punishment for punishments sake. If anything I only see that as causing more harm.

    Yes, this is the standard view I get from a lot of liberals these days. Maybe you’re right that most liberals are more aligned with me than you, but I’ve personally seen your views getting more popular with time, and I really don’t like it.

    Reason being, your view only takes into account the likelihood of future harm, but explicitly fails to address the harm already done. It’s like you don’t give a damn about the people criminals hurt, only their likelihood of hurting people in the future. Let’s say this driver had merely been drunk, rather than racist, and he accidentally killed this family. In your view (and correct me if I’m wrong), he should only be incarcerated in a treatment facility for as long as it takes for his treatment providers to feel he is no longer a danger to society. Let’s say this is the only time he’s ever driven drunk, and its enough of a wake-up call for him that he’s sober and remorseful within a year. That means he would be free and back to his life while the family of the people he killed are likely still mourning their deaths. Does that seem fair to you? According to you, it doesn’t matter. Who cares? To me, that means you don’t really give a damn about justice.

    Like it or not, punishment is a part of justice. It’s not about revenge—that’s why we have punishments decided on and doled out by an impartial third party—it’s about making someone who has made others suffer suffer themselves in some humane way, because if we don’t, most people do not feel justice has been done. But you think we shouldn’t even do that. This astonishes me. It makes me think you need to be the victim of a major crime, to be seriously hurt in some way by someone else, and then see them get a slap-on-the-wrist sentence, and see how it makes you feel.

    I’m going to tell you right now that I’ve had this conversation with people like you many times over the years, and so I don’t expect you’re going to offer me any arguments that I haven’t heard before. So, if I don’t respond to your next comment, that’s why. Just FYI.