Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Capital punishment through the kitchen door?

How can the "fear of serious violence" be used to condone murder? British law is supposedly based upon what's happened in the past, not what could have happened in the future!

Do the three women defending the changes, Harriet Harman, Attorney General Baroness Scotland and Justice Minister Maria Eagle, oppose capital punishment!?!

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Disagree with you on this one. Nobody should have to put up with years of violence. The loss of the life of a man who knocks a women around for years is no loss at all.

Snafu said...

Xoggoth, I agree that no one should put up with years of violence.

Do changes in the law suggest that womens' refuges and all existing laws fail? Too often it's the men who are murdered and the women literally get away with murder that would have been a conviction had the sexes been reversed.

In particular, a fear of violence is not the same thing as violence, apart from terror offences, I'm not aware of any crimes punished for what you were about to do.

Letters From A Tory said...

If someone is a victim of domestic violence, walk out the door, call the police, get help from friends - frankly, I don't care what you do but you are NOT allowed to murder someone because of being badly treated.

Anonymous said...

Here's what I'm wondering. If some old man in his house has a load of chavs throwing bricks at him sometimes and some have hit him (and this has happened), can he now go round and execute the little scrotes?

And if not, why not? If it's good enough for a wife with an abusive husband, why is it not OK for old men facing chavs?

Anonymous said...

Sorry letters from, but I think the walk away stuff can sometimes be simplistic. Women in this sort of situation are hardly likely to be strong willed independent characters, if they were, they would not have got themselves into it in the first place. They will often be too terrified to seek help.

Snafu, we will have to see what the actual law is in detail but as far as I know there is no gender specific rule proposed. In principle a bullied man (it does happen) would have the same let out. However, for the obvious reasons women are the usual victims. About to do? Perhaps you mean about to do AGAIN, as far as I know also there will actually have to have been a history of major violence, not simply threats or the odd slap.

My answer to the last commenter would be that in the last resort, if the authorities will not take effective action, the old man should be able to. Civilised society is supposed to work both ways, we give up our right to take action ourselves in return for protection by the law. If the law repeatedly fails to protect us for whatever reason we should regard the contract as void. Nobody should have to put up with their lives being ruined over a long period.

As an atheist I have no automatic respect for human life, people should be accorded the respect they earn and there are too many violent criminal people making other peoples' lives a misery. I am against capital punishment but if people are killed while committing violent crime or indeed any other serious premeditated crime like burglary, I personally do not give a damn.

Snafu said...

Xoggoth, burglary is not treated as a "serious" crime in the UK.

Murder, rape, racist insults and defrauding the taxman are the only "serious" crimes in the UK these days.

I think the law is gender specific, men are assumed to be far more likely to murder than women, therefore, women who murder are assumed to have been driven to it through years of abuse.

Anonymous said...

It might soon be cheaper to murder your husband than divorce him.
wait till he sleeps and hit him with a brick. And presto you own everything.