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Moral dilemma

(100 Posts)
thatbags Fri 13-Sept-13 18:35:15

I've just read that four men convicted of gang rape in India have been sentenced to death. I've always thought I was totally against death sentences until this moment.

hummingbird Thu 19-Sept-13 13:04:11

I'm inherently anti-capital punishment, but some crimes are so vile that only the death sentence seems fitting. This is one of them.

sussexpoet Thu 19-Sept-13 12:28:49

I'm right with you, Vampirequeen: with the addition that I would have rapists and paedophiles castrated (and I don't mean chemically)

Penstemmon Wed 18-Sept-13 22:37:30

In Britain at least 2 women a week are killed by 'partners' as a result of 'domestic violence'.

NfkDumpling Mon 16-Sept-13 19:03:54

I hope these animals appeal as that will give the world media a chance to condemn them and the morons who think it was excusable.

And how dare they say she wasn't respectable - and even if she wasn't that's absolutely no excuse for their lack of control and bestial behaviour. Thank goodness we live in a country where this sort of lilly livered, weak, unmanly behaviour isn't the norm. B*****ds.

NfkDumpling Mon 16-Sept-13 18:55:14

Grrrrrrr!

Iam64 Mon 16-Sept-13 18:47:22

yes, we should learn from history pen. I hadn't realised how endemic rape is in India either thatbags. Friends who lived there twice, for several occasions say it hasn't got worse, which is what I'd suspected. It's always been there.
What about the US congressman who said a similar thing, that if women don't want to be raped, their bodies wouldn't conceive.

Penstemmon Mon 16-Sept-13 18:27:13

There are hideously right wing well educated westerners too.

I feel that the media is manipulating this dreadful situation to whip up further anti-foreign attitudes. It happened in the 30's financial depression and ended up with the Nazis becoming powerful, the holocaust and WW2. We do not learn from history.sad

feetlebaum Mon 16-Sept-13 18:25:21

... sounds completely immoral to me, Petallus.

petallus Mon 16-Sept-13 17:33:48

Identifying, vilifying and punishing wrongdoers has the effect of making other individuals and society at large feel cleansed of their sins.

It's the scapegoat effect mentioned in the Good Book when originally an actual goat was used.

thatbags Mon 16-Sept-13 16:46:25

I, for one, did not realise how endemic rape was in India before this news came out.

thatbags Mon 16-Sept-13 16:45:17

I don't think it does let society off the hook at all. The more global publicity there is about such atrocities the more educated and sensible people in India and elsewhere will begin to question wrong notions such as the ones described by eloethan.

petallus Mon 16-Sept-13 16:39:57

I do so agree with your last sentence Eloethan. A similar thing has been going on here with celebrities who have been accused of sexual abuse.

Eloethan Mon 16-Sept-13 16:08:42

www.nydailynews.com/news/world/tk-article-1.1236369

The lawyer for three of the defendants in the Indian rape case has stated that the girl who was so brutally attacked and who subsequently died from terrible internal injuries, was not "respectable" and was therefore responsible for what happened. A Hindu guru has also made similar comments.

If supposedly "respectable", well educated men in India make these sorts of comments, it is hardly surprising that huge numbers of women suffer horrendous domestic violence and that brutal rapes occur on a fairly regular basis. It lets society off the hook by saying that these four men were uniquely evil and that by wiping them out everyone can relax and consider the matter resolved.

thatbags Mon 16-Sept-13 15:16:40

nfk grin huge chuckle!

NfkDumpling Mon 16-Sept-13 15:12:01

Knitting at the ready!

petallus Mon 16-Sept-13 14:55:06

Oh we seem to have our own little Gransnet lynchmob! grin

janthea Mon 16-Sept-13 14:13:02

Actually I don;t mind how they are despatched - so long as they are despatched!!

NfkDumpling Mon 16-Sept-13 14:08:31

Hanging is too quick..... Obliette them.

janthea Mon 16-Sept-13 14:04:23

Hang 'em!! Faye If it's disturbing to the children who live in India, then perhaps it may deter future rapists! And those children deserve to be safe from rapists.

thatbags Mon 16-Sept-13 11:51:26

OK, absent. Please could you explain to me what the political motivation is in your view. I'm not saying it isn't there, only that I don't understand what it is or, if it is there, why that matters when the death penalty is still on India's statute books and is still used. I can speculate of course but I'm not convinced by my speculations so far so I'd be glad to hear your view.

soop Mon 16-Sept-13 11:38:08

When I heard the news that these wretched men had been sentenced to death...I *CHEERED* out loud.

Faye Sun 15-Sept-13 23:36:31

I am totally against the death penalty, it doesn't deter murder and rape. I also think it would be very disturbing for the children who live in those countries where capital punishment is used.

absent Sun 15-Sept-13 23:18:39

Bags I said politically motivated which is quite different from merely political.

Ariadne Sun 15-Sept-13 20:41:14

The OT god is a god of vengeance, who punished sinners. Jesus came to pay the price for our sins, so that we can be forgiven. The NT supersedes the OT, surely.

Greatnan Sun 15-Sept-13 13:38:35

Didn't Jesus also say that we should forgiven 'even up to seventy times seven' and love our neighbour? And we should turn the other cheek? No point in quoting the OT - there is always something either there or in the NT to contradict it.

Not that I care as I am an atheist.