Justice is Revenge

From: Yak Wax (yakwax@yahoo.com)
Date: Mon Jan 05 1998 - 12:58:15 MST


Michael Lorrey wrote:

> I highly doubt and dispute the idea that the only reason we see
justice
> for murder as a need for revenge. If it is not made a strong meme in
> society that ending anothers life without cause is wrong, morally
> ethically, and legally, then those with sociopathic and psychopathic
> tendencies will feel free to act out in the open, and the mayhem
> resulting will bring utter chaos. Not to mention that being permissive
> on ending another's life puts our own at greater risk of being ended.

Who said anything about being "permissive"? Self-defence isn't
permissive.

And then he wrote:

> > Can you give examples of justice that isn't revenge?
>
> I have a bit more for you here. Civil law seeks to recompensation to
> victims for damages incurred. This is not revenge, merely compensation
> for damages, reestablishing a semblance of the prior continuum.

Have you ever been in a competition and lost? Property is whatever
you can stop someone else from taking. That's not my "property is
theft" opinion, that's fact (go ahead, put it to the test.) Property
law is simply intervention by a third party. If you loose a race and
then go and break the winners legs, that's revenge. If you loose to
crime and then punish the criminal, that's revenge.

And trust John K Clark to write:

> >Yak Wax:
> >Justice is the need for revenge
         
> That's an idea endorsed by the Christian God with His invention of
"hell",
> it's the conventional view, and a view that has caused more grief
than any
> other in the history of the world. When an idea doesn't work it
needs to be
> junked. This idea doesn't work.

So you've got some clever scheme for non-vengeful justice?

> >when someone commits a crime against you, what reason do you
have to
> >contact the police?

> To stop that person from committing new crimes against others and as
a
> deterrent discouraging others from committing new crimes against me.
> That's justice, one bit more and it's vengeance. Making a person
unhappy
> because you don't like him and think it's fun to see him suffer is
something I want
> no part of.

They've committed the crime, you lost out, and any "justice" incurred
beyond that point is by definition, revenge.

==
--Wax
It may be bullshit, but it's inspired bullshit
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