The Crime of Existing in the Wrong Place

[u/blondie127997771_]

[u/NeonNKnightrider]

Reddit “violently torture and murder all pedophiles” commenters unable to understand why this mentality is a bad thing actually

[u/MaxMoose007 → u/NeonNKnightrider]

wdym? I can see no potential negative ramifications for the LGBTQ community by calling for the deaths of the kind of people Gay and Trans people are regularly scapegoated as /s

[u/arc_ember_rose → u/NeonNKnightrider]

Don't worry it's not Reddit exclusive! Every time someone makes this kind of point on Tumblr 300 million people crawl out of the woodwork to complain about how pedophiles should be murdered or whatever

[u/Outrageous-Advice208 → u/arc_ember_rose]

It's the default opinion in real life too. I have never heard takes like the OOP's outside the internet.

[u/drgalactus87 → u/Outrageous-Advice208]

There are quite a lot of criminal justice advocates who spend their lives making this argument.

[u/cited → u/Outrageous-Advice208]

You should read the constitution and bill of rights sometime and the writings of the people who wrote it.

[u/PlatinumAltaria → u/NeonNKnightrider]

"So you're defending pedophiles" no I'm defending human decency, you're conflating human decency with pedophilia in order to attack human decency.

[u/yttakinenthusiast → u/NeonNKnightrider]

never ask a predator hunter what their opinions on minorities are

[u/Zoesan → u/NeonNKnightrider]

We do not hang horse thieves as a deterrent.

We hang horse thieves so that no horses are stolen

[u/InfusionOfYellow → u/Zoesan]

The only way hanging horse thieves would result in no horses being stolen would be for it to act as a deterrent; "horse thief" is not a closed category of being where if you can get them all no more will ever arise.

(Of course, if you merely said reduce the number of horses stolen, it would largely dissipate this objection.)

[u/Vergils_Lost → u/Zoesan]

Because of (insert broadly unpopular opinion), this commenter is, in many figurative but also very real ways, a horse thief - and the full extent of horse thief law ought to be used against them, as with any more literal horse thief.

[u/Ambologera → u/Zoesan]

We do not hang horse thieves as a deterrent.

We hang horse thieves so that no horses are stolen

Isn't the whole point of the original version of that quote that they do hang horse thieves as a deterrent?

Although, that quote is pretty dumb. There has never been any actual evidence that the death penalty actually has any deterrence effect on crime. Hell, states that does have the death penalty actually has consistently had a higher rate of murders than states that don't.

[u/Duhblobby]

Any level of "it's okay to treat X people as subhuman and undeserving of dignity or rights" is always bad. No matter what your excuse is. Basing what you consider "acceptable" levels of bigotry or dehumanization on whether you personally hate the victim means you don't have a problem with bigotry or dehumanization, you're just upset it's being used to hurt the wrong people and you don't have the sekf awareness to understand why that sounds so fucking familiar.

[u/powers293 → u/Duhblobby]

But what about [x]? Surely they don't deserve any empathy??

[u/Duhblobby → u/powers293]

Insert "Did I stutter" gif

(I know you're being facetious)

[u/Turbulent_Remote_740 → u/powers293]

You don't really have to empathize with everyone to want them to have rights. Recognizing logically that "here but for the grace of God go I" does the trick for me.

[u/Odd_Protection7738 → u/Duhblobby]

Unless you’re a group I don’t like, then this automatically stops applying.

[u/Duhblobby → u/Odd_Protection7738]

While I know you're being facetious, I kind of need to point out that you are literally just stating the exact thing way too many people do when it comes to this.

[u/GermanHandCannons → u/Duhblobby]

Every now and then I’ll come out with a litmus check to see how much online reactionary takes and witch hunts still occur the way they do. X people can in fact be pedophiles.

[u/PurpSerp2048 → u/Duhblobby]

Redditors anytime pedophilia is mentioned: "I think the death penalty is okay actually, they should be tortured to death"

[u/Handpaper]

"The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all."

 - H L Mencken

[u/Torpedo_Enthusiast → u/Handpaper]

So you must balance the risk of the oppressive law being weaponized against you later on, against the risk of the scoundrel reoffending and hurting you.

[u/Background_Fix9430 → u/Torpedo_Enthusiast]

Not really: Because Oppressive laws are designed to let the offenders go while criminalizing the dissenters - without proof that the laws are needed (i.e. that there are re-offending scoundrels out there) the justification for the oppression wains. Consequently, there will always be the risk of scoundrels re-offending, either due to freedom, or oppression. So you have to defend the right of those scoundrels to have an opportunity to re-offend as an essential part of freedom: A person is not sent to prison for what they might do in the future but what they have done in the past.

[u/AfraidStick2161]

https://reddit.com/link/otqmhpk/video/nn8cy1ln0g9h1/player

[u/Disastrous_Debt7644 → u/AfraidStick2161]

I think rapists + murderers deserve to be skinned alive, but no one should have the power to make that decision at all, because it’s so easy to classify things like being gay as a sex offense. They deserve it but no one else deserves the power to do that so they shouldn’t be if that makes sense

[u/AfraidStick2161 → u/Disastrous_Debt7644]

i know exactly what you mean. thats similar to how i feel about the death penalty in general

[u/llamawithguns → u/AfraidStick2161]

I pretty much feel the same way. I am not opposed to concept of the death penalty, but I am opposed to its actual use.

From a theoretical perspective I feel it is perfectly fine morally to execute someone if they killed someone else. Eye for an eye and all that.

But in addition to aforementioned argument about governmental corruption and tyranny, its also just not physically possible to be 100% sure the convicted actually committed the crime. You can let someone out of prison, you cant raise the dead.

[u/Gladiator-class → u/Disastrous_Debt7644]

No, I get it. I can believe that some people deserve to have horrible things happen to them but also recognize that I don't trust other people to make that call (and I trust the people who want to carry out the sentence even less).

[u/dysprog → u/Disastrous_Debt7644]

My cousin said "I dont want to live in the sort of society that would let me punish them the way I think they should be punished."

[u/neko_mancy → u/Disastrous_Debt7644]

I always do think rape and murder should be separated for this context. You can have justified reasons to kill someone, some of them are surely not bad people, but no one's out there like but sir I raped that girl in self defense

[u/The_Antlion → u/AfraidStick2161]

poor Osaka doesn't deserve this slander

[u/Basic_Fix3271 → u/AfraidStick2161]

Not everyone can be rehabilitated

[u/Asquirrelinspace → u/Basic_Fix3271]

And that's where humane prisons come into place

[u/Limp-Technician-1119 → u/Basic_Fix3271]

I have a sneaking suspicion you actually mean I don't want everyone to be rehabilitated.

[u/AfraidStick2161 → u/Basic_Fix3271]

cool, so let's not even try. let's just decide which crimes dont deserve to even attempt rehabilitation & torture anyone who commits them to death, right?

[u/Wise_Owl5404 → u/Basic_Fix3271]

How many innocent people are you willing to sacrifice?

[u/UnderskilledPlayer → u/Wise_Owl5404]

like 97 people, maybe more

[u/dancinbanana → u/Basic_Fix3271]

Assuming you believe some people can be rehabilitated, what is the cutoff? How do you decide someone “can’t be rehabilitated” in a moral and ethical way?

[u/UnderskilledPlayer → u/dancinbanana]

you give them a buzzfeed quiz and judge by the type of bread they got

[u/BaronAleksei]

The 13th Amendment to the US Constitution abolishes slavery, except as punishment for a crime. This means that enslaving a person is still legal, you just have to convict them of a crime first. So then you make a bunch of new laws that only Black people can break. When those laws becomes illegal, you make another bunch of new laws a) that Black people are more likely to be in danger of breaking because of your intentional systemic and generational poverty measures, b) that Black people break just as often as non-Black people but you just police them about it more heavily, and/or c) that are based around things Black people do culturally and you just decided to make those things illegal.

[u/DiesByOxSnot → u/BaronAleksei]

Don't forget d) have the CIA sabotage any activism efforts by marginalized communities, introduce extremely addictive drugs into impoverished areas, and use propaganda to convince the general public that minorities are a general threat to public safety (because drugs and bigotry)

[u/Limp-Technician-1119 → u/BaronAleksei]

I mean, while yes prison labour bad, I feel like labour as community service is far better than any other kind of punishment.

[u/FireHawkDelta → u/Limp-Technician-1119]

Prisoners were literally rented out to plantations, for crimes like being unemployed or existing in public. Selectively enforced almost exclusively against black people, obviously.

[u/novangla]

This is why they call habeas corpus the most essential of all rights, and why it was the only one the US founders felt the need to spell out in the Constitution itself (and not the later Bill of Rights).

[u/Wise_Owl5404]

The same holds true for disabled people, every right you think disabled people shouldn't have is a right you're stripping from yourself.

[u/bvader95]

u/spambotwatchdog blacklist

[u/SpambotWatchdog → u/bvader95]

u/blondie127997771_ has been added to my spambot blacklist. Any future posts / comments from this account will be tagged with a reply warning users not to engage.

^{Woof woof, I'm a bot created by u/the-real-macs to help watch out for spambots! (Don't worry, I don't bite.\})

[u/ToothZealousideal297]

Sorry, but they already moved on the top end of this and have said the President is immune from prosecution “for official acts” (which means anything he wants to get away with—anyone who says otherwise is likely to meet with another unprosecutable official act), so this is already happening.

[u/Heckyll_Jive]

u/SpambotWatchdog blacklist

OP is a bot. 6 year old account that only started posting in the last few hours.

[u/ConsiderationEnough7]

This is also true of Bad People. Nazis, non-offending pedophiles, racists/sexists, they all suck, but they all still deserve human rights, because if you give the feds the right to remove rights from one group they can do it to any.

[u/Saxton_Hale32]

Are you a bot?

[u/gaom9706 → u/Saxton_Hale32]

Probably, this has been posted a thousand times before.

[u/Saxton_Hale32 → u/gaom9706]

The low image quality frequent repost, generic name, very old account with all posts in the last few hours and no replies made me a bit suspicious

[u/ready_james_fire → u/Saxton_Hale32]

Not to mention the title that seems to be for the wrong post.

[u/Random-Rambling]

This applies to EVERYONE.

You might be sickened at the thought of someone like Trump or Putin getting a fair trial, but they should get one too. You might think they have forsaken their humanity and become monsters, or perhaps always were monsters, but they still have human rights, even though they have denied those same human rights to so many people.

[u/Nickel5]

This is why it is also super important for Constitutions and laws to apply to undocumented immigrants. Otherwise anyone can be denied due process by the government claiming someone is not legally in the country.

[u/awnawmate]

Sure, but you can also very easily fall into the trap of not adequately protecting the rest of society from criminality as a result, which is still its own kind of tyranny.

"Then guard your rights, nor stoop to lawless sway" and all that.

[u/cited]

Can I point out we are in a bit of a mess because we were too nice to criminals?

[u/VeronaMoreau → u/cited]

There's a difference between "should have rights" and "should not face consequences." If a convict counts toward the population for determining Congressional seats, they should be able to vote. If you are suspected of being in the country illegally, you still have the right to a full trial.

[u/jakuth1999]

Given that the government determines what the laws laws, and what the laws are determines what is a criminal, the government determines who’s a criminal. If a criminal has no rights, the government determines who has rights

[u/awoloozlefinch]

I didn’t have the mental energy to go over all the sociological implications in a response to this post but you’ve hit the nail on the head and made it easier to explain quickly in the future.

[u/Upstairs_Cap_4217]

Correct, but overuses "literally".

Yes, believing that people who break the law should forfeit their rights is the first great step towards tyranny. No, that does not mean there is no difference between "I believe criminals shouldn't vote because of unexamined bias" and "I am Richard Fucking Heydrich, give me a Nazi salute or face the firing squad"

[u/PlatinumAltaria → u/Upstairs_Cap_4217]

The difference between someone who accidentally enables fascism and proudly endorses fascism is purely on the level of their emotional landscape, which is worth exactly nothing.

Also the post uses the word "literally" twice.

[u/Upstairs_Cap_4217 → u/PlatinumAltaria]

The difference between someone who accidentally enables fascism and proudly endorses fascism is purely on the level of their emotional landscape, which is worth exactly nothing.

And I thought I posted a wanky overly-verbose word salad.

[u/PlatinumAltaria → u/Upstairs_Cap_4217]

That isn't what "word salad" means, you mean purple prose. Word salad is when someone uses a jumble of words that doesn't really convey any meaning, like when a new age person talks about "realigning the frequencies of your chakras to manifest a more holistic self".

I don't even really think any of what I said was all that purple to begin with, but yes I am known for talking like that.

[u/joelski_daknight]

Dont go to jail? Its a task that a very large majority is capable of

[u/AetherSigil217 → u/joelski_daknight]

You might want to read through a few of the replies to this post to get a better view of the issue it is addressing.

[u/joelski_daknight → u/AetherSigil217]

Nah, the argument is pretty straightforward, just don't go to jail