January 05, 2006
soul sickness...
This is the sickness of liberalism:
[link] There was outrage Wednesday when a Vermont judge handed out a 60-day jail sentence to a man who raped a little girl many,many times over a four-year span starting when she was seven.
The judge said he no longer believes in punishment and is more concerned about rehabilitation.
Prosecutors argued that confessed child-rapist Mark Hulett, 34, of Williston deserved at least eight years behind bars for repeatedly raping a little girl countless times starting when she was seven.
But Judge Edward Cashman disagreed explaining that he no longer believes that punishment works.
"The one message I want to get through is that anger doesn't solve anything. It just corrodes your soul," said Judge Edward Cashman speaking to a packed Burlington courtroom. Most of the on-lookers were related to a young girl who was repeatedly raped by Mark Hulett who was in court to be sentenced....(Thanks to Michelle Malkin)
Symptoms of the sickness...
- As always, it's other people who do the suffering while liberals and pacifists posture and feel superior.
- As always, there's no sign that the victims mean anything to the liberal--only the criminal.
- The Rule of Law means nothing--just his feelings
- Justice means nothing.
- The statistical fact that a sex offender of that age is NOT going to be rehabilitated means nothing. (Unless he's on Death Row--then he will write a children's book and be "redeemed" before you can say Tookie five times.)
- If this scumbag rapes some other child, the Judge will NOT take any responsibility, or re-think.
- As always, the issues are framed falsely--nobody's claiming that indulging anger is going to "solve things." Nor is it a judge's JOB to "solve things."
- The wishes of ordinary people are held in contempt. The judge has innate superior knowledge that the simple folk lack.
- Feel-good mushy thinking is presented as known truth. So, "anger corrodes the soul?" Says who? On what evidence? And exactly whose souls are being referred to here? And what-the-hell business is it of a judge to pontificate on other people's souls?
There are many things which are "soul-corroding" but are sometimes necessary. They are necessary to keep society functioning.
Because of this, I believe that the death penalty should be kept as an option, if limited to cases of real danger to society such as murderous sociopathy (i.e. Ted Bundy) or treason. But it needs to be there becomes sometimes, the need is greater than the danger.
And now I'm going to bring pop culture into the mix. At the end of the fifth season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a world-destroying event is precipitated by a god who is forced to share the body of a human being. After a fight in which Buffy is assisted by several high-magic weapons, the human who shares the body is lying broken on the ground, not a threat for the moment but a potential threat later on, when the god will be strong enough to re-emerge.
Giles, Buffy's mentor, talks to the guy for a few moments about how Buffy— off dealing with the bigger situation— would handle this, citing forgiveness and how she would believe in a possible rehabilitation. "But then, she's a hero," he goes on. "Not like us."
And then he smothers the guy.
Giles was able to both see that the future threat outweighed the danger of not forgiving, and to know that the necessary course of action was a distasteful one. (Seriously. Smothering someone can't be fun unless you're psychotic, and the character was clearly not.) And then he did what had to be done, knowing as he did it that he was not the hero, merely the guy who did the necessary thing.
I really, really hope that I'm never in a situation where I have to do the necessary, distasteful thing. But I know that some things can be both horrible and needful, even in a society that longs to do beautiful things.
Posted by: B. Durbin at January 5, 2006 08:57 PM
