Emacs - Edit MACroS

2006-10-23

Space/time continuum

Relevant history.

Is everything that has an actual effect on things in the current slice in the time space continuum. Anything that has ceased to have an impact on the state of things as they are now, should be considered history. History is useful only in the sense that it can give us some guidance. It should not be used as a reason, in it self, to do anything. the motive behind ones actions should be based on what is actually true in our own slice of reality. Not in what was true yesterday.

Personal view

2006-10-23

Death penalty

The reasons for my dislike of this way of punishing wrongdoers is not based on any particular sympathy for the devil, but rather on the question of responsibility for my own actions. The person strapped down to a hospital bed a few seconds from death might himself subscribe to a moral system in which execution is a viable alternative to imprisonment, but if he does deserve it because he himself subjected another human being to execution, then what does his executioners deserve.

Since it is impossible to fill a hole with another hole, what GOOD does capital punishment do?

How can a person that does not consider himself to be a murderer, or a criminal, commit the worst criminal act known to man and still not take responsibility for his actions? This is exactly what is happens every time a less civilized nation executes someone. The consensus seems to be that the criminal has brought it upon himself. A ridiculous statement. A criminal, is just that, someone who has brought another person harm and in doing so, turns himself into a criminal. I as an individual cannot take responsibility for the actions of the criminal, but that does not mean that I can wave responsibility for my own! This is the basic difference between an upstanding citizen and the criminal.

And since I don't shun my own responsibility in this regard I cannot support murder as a form of punishment. One cannot dip a toe into criminality and then, when the foul deed is done, pull it back out again as if that would make the cold-blooded murder alright. Claiming that a criminal brings it upon himself is just an excuse for murder. The criminal brought it upon someone else ergo the name criminal.

Murder as Therapy?

How can the murder of a murderer really be considered productive? Perhaps if the family of the murdered person can get emotional closure? Is one mans closure really worth another mans life? Should a grieving person be left with that decision? Because there is one less murderer on the streets? Since the criminal is obviously incarcerated already that argument falls on its own accord

These are all highly simplified and irrational arguments. Letting emotional responses dictate what justice is can only be described as spineless.

What message does the practice of death penalties give? Perhaps that the permanent destruction of another human being is acceptable if you outnumber the person in question. To the argument that the murderer put himself in the position to be executed I would say that this cowardly attempt to put the blame of society's reprehensible behavior on the convict is nothing more than a spineless attempt to exonerate oneself by accusing the victim of suicide by proxy

If you believe that capital punishment is morally defensible then it becomes hard to justify the statement that "murder is never OK" since obviously in some cases it would be considered OK.

Other ways of punishment can generally be defended by the fact that there might be no better solution than to lock people up. If you put someone in jail however, that is later found to be innocent, you can always set him free again. Even if he is inconvenienced, to say the least, by the experience he will probably be glad that his prosecutors didn't decide to execute him.

On the other hand if you realize your mistake after the person in question has been executed, the mistake can't be rectified, can it? Where does this leave the executor? As someone who has slandered, kidnapped, incarcerated and tortured an innocent person with promises of execution? And then after years of not knowing if he is to live or die at the hands of his captors to finally murder the individual, in cold blood. What do you call someone who does this to someone else?

What does it matter if his prosecutors believed him to be guilty when they ended his life? The murderer of a murderer is still... A murderer.

This scenario also means that someone spent the last years of his life knowing that the people around him would one day strap him to a bed and kill him. Knowing that somewhere there are people that with exposed teeth and blood in mind that are exited at the thought of killing him.

Feet of clay

2005-11-08

Feet of Clay

by Terry Pratchett
(A Disc world Novel)

Feet of clay is a very entertaining fantasy/comedy. It is built like a detective-story, set in an imaginary medieval time and place. This gives it a sort magic/romantic atmosphere that runs through the entire experience of reading the book. The book is rather easy to read but that doesn't mean that the story's less complex or intriguing. The best way to describe it would be as a humorous detective-story with a medieval, magical twist to it.

The disc world itself consists of a giant disc set on the backs of four giant elephants that in turn are standing on the shell of an enormous turtle called A-tuin, the star turtle. As the disc world turns, the story of the lives of its inhabitants slowly unravels in an exotic, almost chaotic explosion of words which results in the upheaval of logic and reason that , for a while, transforms reality into something else and in doing so makes us forget about our own boring everyday life. In other words leave your brain behind if you want to venture in to the insane world of Mr Pratchett.

Well, about the story can be said that it has a sort of philosophical theme to it. The main message of it concerns values. Thoughts about what life is and isn't, he also brings to the surface thoughts about racism, sexism, and about the workings of society etc etc... There are too many different things going on in the book, since the book is somewhat written like a detective story, to bring them all up here. What I would call the main events are the mysterious murders of two citizens, that includes a loaf of bread (and not just any bread but some of the finest of dwarfish battle-bread), an ingenious poisoning-scheme and how feet of clay changed history.

A reoccurring thought that seems to pop up is how the only thing that really matters to people is that "every day is followed by another one just like it." The person mainly responsible for keeping things in that way is Lord Vetinari, who is the "Patrician" of the city and does hold a very important position, in the sense that "life with him is just slightly preferable to life without him". The main character in this book is Commander Sir Samuel Vimes of the Ankh-Morpork City Guard... who rather would walk the streets of the city as an ordinary copper but has, though no choice of his own, been exalted to the honorable position of police-chief...

There are many distinctive characters in this book, some are more of the "cartoon" persuasion than others but what they all have in common is that they represent the wide spectrum of life we call society, at least in Ankh-Morpork, but I think that it is also applicable (in a way) to our own society. He describes in a police force that is a mix of all races and sexes (Alloys are stronger according to Lord Vetinari) that when push comes to shove, have a common goal in making Ankh-Morpork a better place, if for no better reason than the fact that they all seem to be stuck there. This book might seem to be little more than an excuse for the numerous gags found within its covers but it does have a message even for us who do not live on the disc. He's illustrated in the complex relations between the characters in the book how differences between (even though they are proper races in this book) races, sexes and creeds can lead to unnecessary conflicts...

Take the most improbable ingredients put them in a bar-mixer and hit frappé and voila there you have it a Disc world Novel! The book covers ideas such as when is life life? Is the existence of thoughts sufficient reason to call an object living, or does it require organic matter? What is freedom? The book raises these questions with a bizarre sense of humor and eccentricity that is definitely needed in this day and age!