june gloom on 7/11/2009 at 02:17

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I mostly think it's just funny at this point. ;) Your reaction helps.

Tocky on 7/11/2009 at 05:14

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To SDM and Paz:

I needed to hear what you said. That is why I goaded. I can't tell you why. It is too personal. If you pay close attention someone who is disturbed will eventually beat a path around something so that you can see the outline of it anyway. You can bar the doors and windows of your mind and it seeps through the floorboards but when you are a man and you have to be the rock others lean against you don't crack on the outside.

Life isn't a hypothetical. I wish it were. The bulwarks of reason we build would hold up if it were. I miss somebody very very much. I wasn't there to protect. I didn't know. I wish ohgod I wish to no purpose I can apply. 12 years now and when I'm reminded I still fill up with crazy and I try not to spill over. I taught him colors using hotwheel cars. I played chess with him. He was so bright and sensitive he was my hope for the world. And funny ohdamn you have no idea. I couldn't protect. What good? What good am I? What if I can't protect the others I love? I can't bear it. I must protect. If I go to jail and am assraped the rest of my life or hell for eternity or suffer the condemnation of all humanity and myself. I'm holding. Others depend on me. I'm only cracked a little. I'll be okay. I will. Heh. Although it may not sound like it just now.

When my dad, that wonderful goodhearted man in pain said what he did (that started this whole series in these threads that are tagged below) about molesters you can trust me when I say he had a very good reason.

Kolya on 7/11/2009 at 14:16

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Even if you feel you needed it to be cut in shape Tocky, it would have been your obligation to say right away that you're personally involved. It would have made your reactions understandable to everyone else, and yes, also irrelevant for a discussion about the ethics of vengeance. Ethical behaviour does not exclude sympathy for someone's loss and consequent feelings of rage, but it cannot be replaced by those either.
Since you decided not to come out with it, or could not, telling it now, after SDM measured the matter on an ethical level and you played along, looks like misleading him and sending him on a guilt trip afterwards. And in the end you seem no step closer to a reasonably detached view, but instead looking for sympathy which you would have gotten right away, if you would have just said something. That wasn't well played, not for you or anyone. Sorry for your loss.

Tocky on 7/11/2009 at 17:05

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You don't understand Koyla and I'm glad you don't. I wasn't planning to tell it but it got to the point I felt I owed SDM the explaination and then I went too far because that door is hard to shut again. I don't even know when the path is going to lead back to it. It was a mistake to take some of the turns I did.

And so help me if anyone treats me different I will crawl up your pants leg like a squirrel on acid and gnaw off your steel balls. I don't want sympathy. I want some insight. What the hell honest insight could I get admiting that to begin with, not that I could or even realize to myself that magnet is turning on high again and drawing me in because you always think you can escape event horizon. Remember it started with me making a comment to Dia that was meant as a condolence but my Dads character was then insulted and the magnet came on.

Mooseman I don't want you to feel bad, you had no way of knowing. We don't know what a lot of people carry around with them in life and you can't keep stepping out of the way of everybody or you will wear yourself out. Maybe the things you said before you knew will help me out so you did me a solid. We are cool.

Muzman on 8/11/2009 at 02:46

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This ain't hardcore stats, for sure. But whenever I've seen the abolition of the death penalty come up as a topic with US folks, the defense arguments invariably lose when you get down to brass tacks. During the discussion, however, someone always broaches the idea that you need it for 'justice', so that the law has the same teeth as the bad guys. The implication being that tit-for-tat is part of, or strongly associated with, the notion. And, perhaps more importantly, if you don't have that there, "people" (and this is where the point deviates from Aerothorn's as most times I've encountered it they aren't, per se, speaking for themselves wanting revenge should the need arise, but "people"), they'll want to take the law into their own hands. Take it away and we're virtually on a road back to blood feuds.

A look at the countries without capital punishment shows this isn't the case, but I've encountered this idea enough to think it's a pretty widespread notion. (And hey, maybe it's correct; maybe half the country is on the brink of lawlessness the minute they fear for 'justice being done' as they see it being weak or failing).
But, you're right. No stats let alone hardcore ones. Just the impression from some internet shit shooting from years past, which is pretty far from representative data. I think I know the impression Aero's talking about though.