Mayfly's a criminal...

[Valdulan]

I wouldn't look at her kindly in real life, and I don't do it here. I acknowledge her efforts, but her debt to society is unpaid, and should be.

[Juron Pilo]

Ok... could you at least try to acknowledge a little that there are other viewpoints out there? Maybe? Technically she's doing community service, and thats well within the law. Besides, there is socialogical evidence that detterence doesn't deter, and that rehabilitation is no more effective. Of course, whether this is a problem with implementation in prisons or just a failure of the tactic, I never got to ask or find out. Personally, I think taking a shot to save a president and suicide bombing/distracting lockdown more than makes up for any crime on her part. I'd say thats action worthy of pardon even.

[Valdulan]

You ask me to acknowledge other viewpoints? I do. How about you acknowledge mine? To me, she's a criminal still. Thats my viewpoint. Because I don't intend to just forgive right off the bat. A criminal action remains a criminal action. She didn't steal a candy bar from a drugstore. She attacked a bank in full power armour. There's a definite degree here.

[Kasaii]

Whoop, don't get too carried away, folks.

Juron, Valdulan is expressing his opinion about Mayfly. And it really won't be that simple. There are a few problems with easily pardoning someone for major criminal activity, and some of them will be touched on in the future.

(As Mayfly's writer, obviously, I believe that she doesn't deserve to go to jail. However, I don't know that, were I to live in the setting, I would be quite so sanguine; I have the advantage of actually knowing what she thinks and is like. )

[Juron Pilo]

Yar, but you used wording like "is" and "we" that bothered me. At any rate, I'm satisfied.

[Tinkerbell]

I think as long as she's genuinely remorseful and trying to make good on what she did - which, for better or worse she clearly is - I can forgive her (mind you, I'm a pretty forgiving person; it took me less than two months to forgive the guy who stabbed me).

I don't know whether her debt to society is paid in full yet (you're talking here about quantitative justice here, it's a very slippery concept; how many points of personal suffering are equivalent to how many crime points earned from armed robbery?), but if Friv's careful about the trauma she should be suffering as a result of being shot and the resultant anxieties that will leave her with for years afterwards, I think she's definitely getting there.

I personally think it's fair to say that, given she didn't hurt anyone and people are far more important than money (I think she didn't hurt anyone; I haven't time to check. Correct me if I'm wrong), and she's now taken a bullet in the line of duty, her debt is paid. Don't get me wrong, I'm a hardliner on criminal justice (I think if you violate someone's rights it's a clear statement that you don't believe those rights should be attributed to human beings and therefore they shouldn't be attributed to you when you're being punished), but getting shot? That's a *really* hard line. Fighting on with an injury like that? Wayyyy above and beyond the call of duty.

Just a thought,

Tink

[Kasaii]

(I think she didn't hurt anyone; I haven't time to check. Correct me if I'm wrong)

Well, she did hurt Lucky, but not very much. And there's an understanding that superheroes take bruises. (There was some comic that made a joke about that, something like superheroes not being covered under assault laws).

[Juron Pilo]

Thats actually an important question I have. Were they commiting robbery or burglary? A quick check at the comic shows that "they chased everyone out and went after the vault", so I guess then that this is more robbery than burglary, although its somewhat of a close call. Clearly robbery, but borderline. No civilians hurt, and no hostages taken, at least.

So eh, that muddles it up a bit. Still I was pretty much trying to say what Tink was saying, and his point about quantitive justice is also a good one.

edit:I ALSO ALSO agree about the humans rights thing. You violate someones rights, you lose those same rights. I want to point out though that the Constitution is not to be taken too strictly. All the rights mentioned(plus the rights to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness) are bent or broken on a daily basis. Why? Because the constitution makes no distinction as to what happens when two people's rights conflict. Thats somewhat up to the discretion of legislatures, judges, and individuals. Also, I'm of the opinion that freedom of religion and freedom of speech should be called more accurately: "freedom of belief" and "freedom of expression" although in no way does this grant someone the right to make noise and bother people for no good reason or interrupt their lives. We have the right to liberty that overrides freedom of expression, which means if we want, we have the choice to simply not listen. Anyways, woo, that was more than necessary, but fun.

[Tinkerbell]

No civilians hurt, and no hostages taken, at least.

I'm curious what you guys think of the notion of 'legitimate targets' (as in the argument that in war, soldiers on both sides are legitimate targets because they've volunteered their lives and so on) in non-wartime situations. Are the Heroes legitimate targets? (ie. are injuries caused to Heroes in the course of fighting crime not counted in to the villain's moral burden?)


Juron: The problem with this model of human rights is application; too often, it risks us enacting some irreversible punishment (for example, the death penalty, which I'm not in favour of for this reason) on someone who may later be shown to be innocent. 'Make the punishment fit the crime' too often requires us to be absolutely, perfectly certain about guilt, and we almost never are (I mean, we have a system where guilt is generally decided by twelve men and women in a room with all the evidence that has been presented to them; like you said in the other thread, humans are only human ^_--).

As an aside, I'm British, and generally over here we do think in terms of 'freedom of belief' and 'freedom of expression' rather than the older terms from the American Constitution. Except, of course, our Government is trying to take them away from us (this week, my university's philosophy department felt obliged to put out a press release saying it would never relay opinions of students to third parties, in response to stories in the press that some universities have been asked to monitor the opinions of Islamic students in case they have fundamentalist leanings. I want to emigrate, but I don't know if there's anywhere in the world where things are significantly preferable).

Tink[/quote]

[Juron Pilo]

I'm not sure I understand. They didn't really "attack" the Patchwork Heroes. They just escaped using flight. I was simply saying that scaring everyone off with the threat of force if they don't leave is somewhat different from holding them hostage and telling them to freeze. Your still endangering people, but its significantly less drastic, I think.

Although certainly I feel one is more justified in fighting and killing someone who expresses or demonstrates intent to get involved in battle than someone who doesn't want to at all. However, I disagree with my own government recently, in that I still give people the benefit of the doubt at times. In short, I handle the grey area you speak of by assuming innocence and non-involvement. Willful combatants is a fine concept if you don't take too many liberties with the interpretation of other's actions. If we don't make any exception, we wouldn't be able to practice self defense.

In case you were wondering about the recent war, no I don't support it, but(to some degree) I do support the cleanup. Also, while I don't have a firm party alignment, I do specfically dislike Bush, or especially so over most politicians anyways. His actions are far more criminal than Clintons ever were(the guy did great things as far as his actual policies).

edit: Ok, short excerpt from my philosophical perspective. I agree that we can never be certain of guilt or innocence(if we can define those at all), but I don't feel that EVERYTHING requires perfect knowledge. Assumptions are necessary and inherent to thought entirely, and we simply don't have the knowledge or tools necessary to collect all knowledge. We just gotta act with what we've found.

[Valdulan]

This IS still about Mayfly, right?

Right?

[Juron Pilo]

Um... would you believe me if I said yes?

Yeah ok, we got off topic .

[Tinkerbell]

I don't think we did get off topic, really. It's not like we're arguing about llamas or something (that sort of topic shift happens on my message board with bizarre regularity). We're still discussing the ethics of crime-fighting and criminal justice. It's not a crime to go from discussing a certain situation to making general pronouncements based on analysis of said situation (I'm working on a paper at the moment that does exactly that, though not in ethics).

On the subject of Iraq and supporting the clean-up, I have to agree with you. At the moment, Liverpool (where I live) is still plastered with flyers for a 'Time to go' protest urging the British government to pull its troops out of Iraq. Every time I see one I want to scream. Going in may have been a bad idea, but pulling out now... well, I could easily see it triggering a very much larger conflict. I'm not quite prepared to say 'World War III', but we could certainly see terrorism on a much larger (in the sense of 'more acts of', not 'blowing bigger things up' - I don't mean to belittle 9/11 in any way) scale across the 'Christian' world.

Just a thought,

Tink

[Juron Pilo]

On the subject of 9/11, I was horrible, don't mistake me. It just wasn't sufficient justification for our responses. I also have quibbles with comparing it to other great tragedies, or any "greatest" awards it was always being given. Don't hear so much on it now that the propoganda died, huh?

Also the problem with government is that its unattractive to those who would serve justice best, and greatly attractive to those that would seek injustice and self profit only(and only is important in meaning here). As you say, I propose little better for solutions(some definate changes to the electoral process and constitutional rewordings aside)

edit: to put it that last paragraph another way:
The judiciary stays ROUGHLY clean in comparison because it is seen more as a BURDEN than a gain in power. The difference is purely in perception, but its important, and explains the more consistant rulings. Fear for the day when its power is fully recognized>.>.