Can you have compassion, love even, for someone who has committed horrific acts? Honest question, what are your limits of compassion?

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al_borland 8 hours ago | parent | next [-]

When that compassion leads to them being back on the street to find more victims, that's a problem... a problem we seem to be facing more and more these days. Where is the love and compassion for the would-be victims of these people who have shown themselves to be the type to commit horrific acts? I have more compassion for innocent people I don't know than for murders I don't know.

Is the death penalty cruel or is it compassion? That's a hard question to answer. We say it's cruel to lock an animal up and let it suffer its whole life. The phrase people tend to use is, "put it out of its misery". When it comes to people we don't do that. We lock them up in a cage and let them stew with it for rest of their life. The whole time, giving them hope they might find a loophole to get out. A false hope is cruel, but letting them out if they find a loophole is also cruel to anyone who might end up their next victim.

I could flip the question around. What are the limits of your empathy? Are you willing to risk innocent lives to provide unlimited empathy and 2nd, 3rd, 10th chances for people who have committed horrific acts?

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kelseyfrog 8 hours ago | parent [-]

How did you get from me have compassion to concluding that this meant releasing them?

	▲	al_borland 8 hours ago \| parent [-]
		That's often what I see when people talk about compassion in this context, especially when talking about the limits of compassion. How far are you expecting a person's compassion to go? The ultimate extension of compassion for a person would be letting them out and expunging their record to give them a full second chance to start over. Can you clarify what you meant?

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worried4future 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Can you have compassion, love even, for someone who has been the victim of horrific acts? Honest question, what are your limits of compassion?

Do you have compassion, love, or have you given a thought to the next victim of these criminals?

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kelseyfrog 8 hours ago | parent [-]

Yes, I feel compassion for the victims of horrific crimes too. I can hold both of them in my heart at the same time.

Simultaneously, I can understand the desire for the closure that comes with enacting the death penalty while being completely against it.

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worried4future 4 hours ago | parent [-]

Its not about vengeance or a desire for closure, I simply do not want these people to continue to exist. They offer no benefit to my society, they contribute nothing beneficial and never will, the sooner they are erased the better for society.

	▲	kelseyfrog 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Why would I choose to believe that my existence is predicated on my value to society? The modern project has been one of establishing a reality where individual moral status is inherent, rather than tied to God, the state, ethnicity, or social worth. I don't see a series of steps that would take me from my current stance to any of those. I'd have to overcome a very real moral revulsion.