Posted on 11/16/2009 8:46:10 AM PST by GodGunsGuts
Abstract:
This paper questions criminal law's strong presumption of free will. Part I assesses the ways in which environment, nurture, and society influence human action. Part II briefly surveys studies from the fields of genetics and neuroscience which call into question strong assumptions of free will and suggest explanations for propensities toward criminal activity. Part III discusses other "causes" of criminal activity including addiction, economic deprivation, gender, and culture. In light of Parts I through III, Part IV assesses criminal responsibility and the legitimacy of punishment. Part V considers the the possibility of determining propensity from criminal activity based on assessing causal factors and their effects on certain people. In this context, the concept of dangerous individuals and possible justifications for preventative detention of such individuals in order to protect society is assessed. The concluding section suggests that the law should take a broader view of factors that could have determinant effects on agents' actions.
Then I guess I have no free will when I empty my S&W sigma into a criminal’s face.
"To some it will appear that I am inventing a factitious difficulty for my Conditioners. Other, more simple-minded, critics may ask, `Why should you suppose they will be such bad men?' But I am not supposing them to be bad men. They are, rather, not men (in the old sense) at all. They are, if you like, men who have sacrificed their own share in traditional humanity in order to devote themselves to the task of deciding what `Humanity' shall henceforth mean. `Good' and `bad', applied to them, are words without content: for it is from them that the content of these words is henceforward to be derived."
How many Harvard professors does it take to prove that all white gun owners should be locked up?
In the “conditioners” minds, the mere fact that you believe in the right to keep and bear arms means you are a dangerous criminal who must be prevented from acting on your pre-determined thoughts and emotions.
The first time I had my eyes opened to this sort of thing was eighth grade (1974). That was the first year they didn't give us a History class, but insteasd presented something called "social studies". It was a lot like history -- but it diverged down certain unexpected pathways.
The lesson that stuck in my mind (I believe it's a classic and well known) is the father with the sick child who cannot afford medicine. Should he break into the pharmacy and steal the medicine? Would that be an immoral act? Or -- conversely -- would it be an extremely moral act? Our teacher laid it out: your intentions are what matters. Stealing may be the right thing to do if there is a good reason why you are doing this.
From such a "lofty" moral position, there is nowhere to go but down.
The Debbul made me do it!
At one point in time a decade ago 40% of Black men had an arrest record. 60% didn’t. Some years prior it was 20-80. And some years prior to that it was 10-90.
Is this explained by genetics/heredity? by environment ... expansion of entitlement programs and government in general? Or maybe our criminal justice system is more anti-Black now than pre-civil rights?
Should the majority that are law abiding be brought down to the lowest common denominator of the law breakers?
Yes, detain them in mental hospitals for “anti-soviet attitudes”.
*There is nowhere to go but down.*
It will be like in the days of Noah...just like Jesus said.
RE: other “causes” of criminal activity including addiction, economic deprivation, gender, and culture.
So, like Whoopi Goldberg done told us, when Roman Polanski was drugging and hosing that thirteen-year-old girl, it wasn’t his fault, and it wasn’t rape-rape?
[[Our teacher laid it out: your intentions are what matters. Stealing may be the right thing to do if there is a good reason why you are doing this.]]
Yep- very slippery slope- their ‘lofty high moral reasoning’ knows no bounds- by their reasoning, it should then be ok for me to rob a bank so that “I don’t ever fall into financial difficulty whereby I’m forced to steal for a living”. My ‘honorable intentions’ are to avoid poverty which would spur me to criminal activity (Of course nothign is deemed ‘criminal’ to these high and l;ofty subjective moralists, because there’s always, always some underlying ‘condition’ that excuses their immoral behavior. Their subjective morality simpyl does not recognize that their is a universal objective morlaity- there are no absolutes i ntheir minds- only ‘interpretations’. Just liek those opposed to the death penalty and approve of abortion- they pick and choose whatever they like, then try to force their subjective morality on the rest of us as htough it were an objective irrefutable truth- They reject objective morality, then turn right aroudn and declare their subjective morality as ‘objective truth’- they are so freakin inconsistant in their warped little minds that they can’t even see how hypocriticle they are- flip flopping is a way of life to these folks- and they are determined to ram their moronic reasoning down hte throats of our kids because kids are the only ones who buy their crap these days
Government schools just love filling our children’s heads with false dilemmas. It’s what they do best.
We did a snapshot sampling of folks in our jail. Of 94 inmates that day, 84 had been previously incarcerated. Looking at their records, the 84 accounted for more than 500 incarcerations in the past decade. Of those 84, all had relatives that were also incarcerated.
Given this information, the shear costs of this criminal behavior to the individual, families and community, coupled with the intergenerational nature of the behavior, what would some alternatives be to simple incarceration to stop recidivism and keep other family members from the same culture? The current methods are not working folks and they are bankrupting the state and local governments. Also, these are very often the same families that are involved with CPS.
Herrnstein and Murray in “The Bell Curve” predicted that if current trends continue, something like this would happen.
Since single mothers in the underclass are correlated with low cognitive ability and tend to mate with other people of low cognitive ability, and because cognitive ability is to a large degree heritable and negatively correlated with aggression and criminality, as the state continues to subsidize and liberals continue to encourage underclass illegitimacy, something the authors call the “custodial state” may come to pass in which there will be something like a cradle-to-grave supervisory custiodianship administered by society over the growing underclass in order for the rest of society to protect itself from the adverse effects of this population.
If Obama and his Islamo-Commie minions get their way, that’s exactly where we are headed. But I don’t think we are there yet...that is, if we get proper conservatives elected, and not only halt, but rollback whatever they have accomplished by the time we take the government back. This means undoing all of his socialist legislation, firing every single person ObamaNation hired into government, and then slowly shrinking the size of government every single year for the next eight years. Oh, and while we’re at it, let’s relocated the UN to Zimbabwe!
The father doesn’t have to do his own stealing. The government already stole the money from the tax payers and all he has to do is go down to the Social Services office and pick it up.
This is just part and parcal of criminalizing thought. If we are born thinking that way, then when a person speaks out against those in power (D and R) it instantly brands them as “defective.”
How soon before the obama / DC country club demands a final solution?
I've known too many people who have chosen to change the way they live and act despite terrible backgrounds not to believe we all exercise a independent will. Little wonder the Scriptures say so much about guarding the heart, purifying the heart, self control and so on.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.