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Tuesday, April 28, 2009

People I Knew Growing Up - Part 1

Warning. Do not click this link if you are easily shaken, or in a fragile state of mind.

Despicable. This is why life in prison should mean exactly that.

2 comments:

Tommyboyjedi said...

Its worrying to me that we live in a society where this happens. As much as i agree this guy should NOT be given parole in 7 years, I also think his actions stem from a much bigger social problem, i.e. lack of decent education.

Stan said...

I don't think education has anything to do with it, Tommyboyjedi - 100 years ago far more people didn't have access to the sort of education we have now (and were considerably poorer) but didn't go around setting other people on fire. As I hinted, it's not anything to do with poverty either - except moral poverty. What people lack these days is a clear understanding of what is wrong and why they shouldn't do it coupled with a severe punishment if they do. Instead they get mixed and often incoherent messages which just leave them unable to understand what is and isn't acceptable to society. Look at the issue of drugs - regardless of where you stand on whether they should or should not be legalised - the message we send out is equivocal. It's sorta wrong as it's illegal, but it's OK really as lots of people do it - some get really really screwed up while some don't and who knows if you'll be one of the lucky ones or not, but its kinda up to you and if you do get screwed up we won't punish you for doing something illegal we'll give you welfare and benefits and help to get off drugs - or to stay on them if thats what you really really want. We'll give you a subsititute for when you can't afford the really good stuff and that'll tide you over till the next benefit cheque rolls in. It's really the pushers who are bad as they are feeding the demand - but not the pushers on the street just the drugs barons getting rich by exploiting your weakness - so it's all capitalism's fault really.

That is the sort of message we send out - whether it's drugs, teenage sex, thievery, fraud or what have you - confused and incoherent expcept for the part where it's never their fault.