An Eye For an Eye
#21
12-16-2008 | 02:13 AM
Redcoat, & Maxwell's Silver Hammer, MVN and curmudgeon
Joined: Dec 2007
Posts: 11,608
Likes: 5
From: Mud hut, Zululand
#27
12-16-2008 | 11:44 PM
Retired Moderator
Joined: Aug 2006
Posts: 2,406
Likes: 1
From: ATL GA State Pen
RE: An Eye For an Eye
ORIGINAL: Shadow
For all of you who hold with the restraint of the so-called civilised world,
I will ask but one question.................
Would you feel the same if it was your little sister who was blinded ?
For all of you who hold with the restraint of the so-called civilised world,
I will ask but one question.................
Would you feel the same if it was your little sister who was blinded ?
It*s difficult to explain without getting political, much less to a judge, but simply and non-flippantly the answer for me is yes. Would I want that severe of an immediate retaliation? Yes, that is human nature but would I feel it really solved or helped anything after the immediate gratification in the big picture? No.
I am looking outside of myself with the restraint. Historically there is a direct correlation/lineage between mob rule mentality leading to dictatorship leading to subjugation. Without even going into the ramifications of possible false accusations and convictions which are irreversible, it sounds simple to say an eye for eye leads to justice but the Idi Amin, Pol Pots' etc... of the world came from those types of environments (not saying that was the only cause) and no one fared well. It may sound far fetched to correlate the two but delve a bit deeper than the surface and you may see it. Furthermore, and without getting specific, I will just say that if history repeats itself what starts as "an eye for any eye" ends up with much more devastating consequences when power corrupts and people pervert the definition to fit all sorts of *supposed* crimes.
Sorry, I want to be clearer but that is the best I can do without getting political.
#28
12-17-2008 | 12:56 AM
Senior Member
Joined: Jun 2007
Posts: 6,026
Likes: 2
From: Dalton, GA
RE: An Eye For an Eye
ORIGINAL: WhiteDealershipRice
Actually they cut off your right hand first...
On the Muslim world your left hand is considered "unclean" ( the only thing the left hand is used for is to wipe yourself after relieving yourself ) so loosing the right hand makes them a social "Pariah", and perpetually unclean in their religion's eyes... basically forced to either depend on others for their evry need, or use their "toilet paper" to perform their evry function.
(Imagine having soiled toilet paper wrapped arround your left hand constantly... that's what the left hand is considered in the muslim world)
ORIGINAL: woo545
That´s only because it gets harder and harder to steal things when you have no hands. Duh!
ORIGINAL: Shadow
Theft in Mozambique under the Portuguese - lose a hand
Second offence, lose the other one
This has a special significance if you're a Muslim.....
Very little theft there, then.
Theft in Mozambique under the Portuguese - lose a hand
Second offence, lose the other one
This has a special significance if you're a Muslim.....
Very little theft there, then.
On the Muslim world your left hand is considered "unclean" ( the only thing the left hand is used for is to wipe yourself after relieving yourself ) so loosing the right hand makes them a social "Pariah", and perpetually unclean in their religion's eyes... basically forced to either depend on others for their evry need, or use their "toilet paper" to perform their evry function.
(Imagine having soiled toilet paper wrapped arround your left hand constantly... that's what the left hand is considered in the muslim world)
#30
12-17-2008 | 03:19 AM
Redcoat, & Maxwell's Silver Hammer, MVN and curmudgeon
Joined: Dec 2007
Posts: 11,608
Likes: 5
From: Mud hut, Zululand
RE: An Eye For an Eye
Kewl, the whole question of civilised behaviour has been around since time began - what is seen as civilised in one society, and in a specific timeframe, may be viewed as abhorrent in another- it's all a question of culture. The Aztecs were seen as one of the most advanced civilisations of their time, but they indulged in human sacrifice, which would be anathema in today's world.
We tend to react to specific issues based on our own set of cultural values, instilled in us from birth.
Civilisation - cut away the veneer which covers almost everyone, and you will find the basic primate underneath. The activity during your last major natural disaster showed both the best, and the worst that I can think of - looting and general mayhem on one hand, and heroic self-sacrifice on the other. Civilised ? Depends on your own standards. Looters were in some cases shot on sight. The correct decision, based on the circumstances prevailing at the time.
In Africa, the veneer is thinner, as norms and standards of behaviour learned over millenia have been modified by exposure to other cultures, which have 'enforced' their particular version of civilisation on the inhabitants. The colonialisation of Africa is largely to blame for that.Here in Zululand, King Shaka ordered his soldiers to dance on the long camelthorn bushes, and any man who cried out was put to death....barbaric ? By today's standards yes, but Shaka ended up with an army better than anything which was thrown at them - the Rangers/Recces/Commando's/Marines of their era. They, like the Marines and others, took no crap from no-one, and they didn't take prisoners either.
In Asia/Europe/Russia - all are different, all have different 'standards' by which they, and the society in which they live, carry on their daily lives. In Russia, appeals don't take 14 years, which I believe to be cruel and unusual punishment, they are handled expeditiosly, and the criminal, if sentenced to death, is done by a single round to the head in a tiled passageway with a sprinkler system and the crematorium at the other end.
The people in the US have their own version, learned from Europe but adapted to the specific circumstances on a new continent, where the 'old rules' were often impractical. You used to hang a man for stealing a horse, remember ? Barbaric in today's world ? Sure, just like transportation to Australia for life, for stealing a loaf of bread, that the Brits did.
People still hunt animals with clubs - civilised ? Not by my standards, but I wasn't brought up in that world. The guillotine - barbaric ? perhaps - interesting item is that a nation other than France used the guillotine in over 20,000 cases during WW2, which is I believe, more than all the people it was used on during the French Revolution.
I've seen so much depravity, that my respect for the human race is certainly not perhaps the way I was brought up for it to be........I am also a product of my environment, as we all are.
Perhaps now, my mindset is more 'old Africa' - an eye for an eye - than it perhaps should be.
Does that bother me ? Yes, of course it does, but the next time you have before you 5 men who have systematically gang raped a woman to death, and all have AIDS, I wonder whether the decision you would hand down will be based on your loathing for them as less than human, or tempered by the norms and standards by which we live, but which they have forsaken ?
I wonder...............
We tend to react to specific issues based on our own set of cultural values, instilled in us from birth.
Civilisation - cut away the veneer which covers almost everyone, and you will find the basic primate underneath. The activity during your last major natural disaster showed both the best, and the worst that I can think of - looting and general mayhem on one hand, and heroic self-sacrifice on the other. Civilised ? Depends on your own standards. Looters were in some cases shot on sight. The correct decision, based on the circumstances prevailing at the time.
In Africa, the veneer is thinner, as norms and standards of behaviour learned over millenia have been modified by exposure to other cultures, which have 'enforced' their particular version of civilisation on the inhabitants. The colonialisation of Africa is largely to blame for that.Here in Zululand, King Shaka ordered his soldiers to dance on the long camelthorn bushes, and any man who cried out was put to death....barbaric ? By today's standards yes, but Shaka ended up with an army better than anything which was thrown at them - the Rangers/Recces/Commando's/Marines of their era. They, like the Marines and others, took no crap from no-one, and they didn't take prisoners either.
In Asia/Europe/Russia - all are different, all have different 'standards' by which they, and the society in which they live, carry on their daily lives. In Russia, appeals don't take 14 years, which I believe to be cruel and unusual punishment, they are handled expeditiosly, and the criminal, if sentenced to death, is done by a single round to the head in a tiled passageway with a sprinkler system and the crematorium at the other end.
The people in the US have their own version, learned from Europe but adapted to the specific circumstances on a new continent, where the 'old rules' were often impractical. You used to hang a man for stealing a horse, remember ? Barbaric in today's world ? Sure, just like transportation to Australia for life, for stealing a loaf of bread, that the Brits did.
People still hunt animals with clubs - civilised ? Not by my standards, but I wasn't brought up in that world. The guillotine - barbaric ? perhaps - interesting item is that a nation other than France used the guillotine in over 20,000 cases during WW2, which is I believe, more than all the people it was used on during the French Revolution.
I've seen so much depravity, that my respect for the human race is certainly not perhaps the way I was brought up for it to be........I am also a product of my environment, as we all are.
Perhaps now, my mindset is more 'old Africa' - an eye for an eye - than it perhaps should be.
Does that bother me ? Yes, of course it does, but the next time you have before you 5 men who have systematically gang raped a woman to death, and all have AIDS, I wonder whether the decision you would hand down will be based on your loathing for them as less than human, or tempered by the norms and standards by which we live, but which they have forsaken ?
I wonder...............