I don’t think Barnsley needs to calm down.

+1

Don’t get me wrong, I have no sympathy for Lee Rigby’s killers, I just don’t think offing them would help – I doubt they woke up one morning and just decided to kill somebody, they were more than likely groomed and coerced into it, and the arseholes responsible are still out there doing the same thing. It’s not often I agree with woppit, but some terrible things are carried out in the name of religion.

Oh and woppit, I’ll risk a ban for something that’s important to me.

but some terrible things are carried out in the name of religion

E.g. The messiah, Tony Blair, started an illegal war in Iraq as a result of which hundreds of thousands of people lost their lives…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War

Bearing in mind the concept of ‘human rights’ is a fabrication

Yes, few would argue that human rights are found under a rock somewhere, but they’re our fabrication. That’s kinda the point – broadly agreed codes and norms about how we should live. This in my view makes them more special, not less, as we take onus and responsibility for what we want to be, rather than having rights and norms imposed upon us.

You can’t rope me in the same category as those mongs just because I don’t subscribe to the view that there is anything special about the human race over anything else. That was my point.

If you are in favour of premeditated killing on a personally held principle then yes you are in the same category. You probably wouldn’t actually follow through though I suspect.

On the subject of killing, most species don’t kill for the sake of it. Arguably puts us as a lower form of life than most.

What other species do is entirely irrelevant to this debate. However these two weren’t killing for the sake of it. They had a cause they were pursuing, in their own heads.

I want you to understand that your reaction to this is simply down to your social conditioning – one which I share. But social conditioning is a dangerously flexible thing, because it’s just ‘what everyone else is doing’. See Nazi Germany, Rwanda and just about any other atrocity.

In their eyes, what they were doing was justifiable amd for a good cause.

We’re not special.

We are arguing about ethics and justice on the internet. Of course we are ffs.

Well I’m special. That’s for certain! It’s everyone else that’s the problem! 8)

Yes, few would argue that human rights are found under a rock somewhere, but they’re our fabrication. That’s kinda the point – broadly agreed codes and norms about how we should live. This in my view makes them more special, not less, as we take onus and responsibility for what we want to be, rather than having rights and norms imposed upon us.

I saved a good quote on this from somewhere…

Nature is tyrannical, not free. The strong feast on the weak. There are no “rights”—a uniquely human concept—and the only protections are those that individual organisms or herds evolved. Indeed, outside of man, there is no mercy, there is only power.

And here’s a good quote from Hoffer:

“Man is the only creature that strives to surpass himself, and yearns for the impossible.“

And that is a moral distinction that distinguishes us and makes us unique from all other known life forms in the universe.

Eric Hoffer opposed tyranny and supported human exceptionalism. That is not an accident. The two are inextricably connected.

This is how we are different, it is both a gift and a curse.

barnsleymitch – Member

It was the post about disposing of broken members of our society that I was questioning, but using the term ‘mongs’ really **** me off. I’d rather be over sensitive than a ****.

I assume you’d never use the words ‘idiot’, ‘cretin’, ‘moron’ or ‘imbecile’ either then?

I know what you’re saying, but mongs is probably the term that’s most recently used. And no, I’m careful about using the other terms you mentioned as well. Sickening, aren’t I ? 😉

Moron is also Swedish for morning, can be used as a greeting; and Welsh for carrot.

Mong:

Material Organic Non-Gycerol.

Pretty well sums them up!

I assume you’d never use the words ‘idiot’, ‘cretin’, ‘moron’ or ‘imbecile’ either then?

It’s 2014 and people still say stuff like this. Won’t someone think of the PC Brigade? 🙁

Someone that wants to kill lesser people should probably pick up a history book and go easy on using the word “mong”.

And be less of a dick.

Certainly not fan of the death penalty, and would not like them to see a belt or shoe laces when in prison.

Darcy – I admitted in my original post that I was probably being a bit pc. I think the point I was trying to make was that yes, all those terms were at one time used to diagnose mental disorder and learning disabilities, but ‘mong’ is the only one still in use (sadly) as a derogatory term for people with downs. It’s as outmoded and offensive as many of the other terms that were popular in the 70’s, I really don’t get why people think it’s ok to use it. Right, handwringing over, I’m off for a pint.

**** them Barnsley. Hope you had a good pint.

Darcy – I admitted in my original post that I was probably being a bit pc. I think the point I was trying to make was that yes, all those terms were at one time used to diagnose mental disorder and learning disabilities, but ‘mong’ is the only one still in use (sadly) as a derogatory term for people with downs. It’s as outmoded and offensive as many of the other terms that were popular in the 70’s, I really don’t get why people think it’s ok to use it. Right, handwringing over, I’m off for a pint.

In case my sarcasm didn’t come across marnsleybitch, I’m in agreement with you dude!

Christ knows Darcy – sometimes, I don’t know who I’ve pissed off, and I do get on my high horse (occasionally). I’ve just re – read that, and it doesn’t even make sense to me. It was a very big pint. Night all!

You won’t get this on the 6 o’clock news 😯
[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6kinJ8xSS4[/video]

I’m surprised at you being taken in by a conspiracy theory, smith – unusual for you.

What a pile of shite that film is.

I don’t support the death penalty, but I do find myself wondering if they could come up with an environment and/or punishment that would really scare people and act as a better deterant. The problem is that it would be legally against a criminal’s human rights and be morally reprehensible.

Ideally we’d ship them off to a desperately unpleasant jail in a country that ignores such things. I can’t condone physical torture though, but maybe you could work with deprivation and the mental torture side? Imprisonment is largely a mental punishment anyway.

So what would scare potential martyrs? Something in a Room 101 style where they have to endure what they fear the most? Tailored to the individual even so it’s not even known what it might be. Given all the things they hate it should be easy. How about deprogramming them to be American?

I acknowledge such thoughts are fanciful though. Hopefully no offence has been caused.

That would definitely work. Everyone knows that Russia, Honduras, Brazil and South Africa have really low murder rates because their jails are so hellish.

That link is hillarious – see what a grip on reality he has .

In one of the articles Kollerstrom wrote that one million Jews had died in the Holocaust, not six million, that gas chambers had operated in Auschwitz only for the purpose of disinfection, and that “the only intentional mass extermination program in the concentration camps of WW2 was targeted at Germans … in French and American-run concentration camps,” material he said had been “erased from the history books.”[13] In another he wrote that Auschwitz had had art classes and a well-stocked library for inmates, as well as an elegant swimming pool where inmates would sunbathe at weekends while watching water-polo matches.[14]

I think we wont find it anywhere because it is complete bollocks – imagine how his family feel having to hear this shit

I do find myself wondering if they could come up with an environment and/or punishment that would really scare people and act as a better deterant.

I doubt anything would deter mentally unstable jihadist or any other religious extremist tbh.
In the past we used to hang everyone for almost every offence and led to the line might as well hang for a sheep as a lamb, Ie if you are going to get bad treatment anyway do a worse crime.

http://wikiislam.net/wiki/72_Virgins

This was the most comprehensive link I happened to look up relating to virgins for martyrs.

I thought maybe I had wrongly assumed that the virgins would be for sexual gratification. If a martyr is to receive a reward of virtuous women on the basis of their supposedly virtuous act, maybe they all just hang out being virtuous?

But no, my assumption was correct. I don’t understand how it doesn’t all fall down as soon as you ask some basic questions. What’s in it for the virgins who’ve presumably saved themselves within their own lifetimes? Where would all the virgins come from? Is there a reason why they’re still virgins? Do you need 72 of them because they’ll no longer be virgins once you sleep with them? Isn’t this all tremendously disrespectful to women?

Stop banging on about virgins then.

I still think it’s raisins, or possibly some other dried fruit. Hope it’s candied peel, that’ll learn ’em.