Human Rights gone bad.

[DaveP]

I mean, at this point - unless I'm missing something - all I see is you complaining about what these people say, not about any specific legal outcomes. What am I missing here?

What you are missing is empathy for the victims families.  Unless you have that, you will be forever thrashing around in purely legalistic arguments.

I'll spell it out for you.  Your precious daughter has been murdered and after years you are trying to heal, then the murderer (who has never shown remorse) exercises his human rights on some issue and the whole pain of loss is revisited again, and you can't stop him twisting this knife in your heart whenever he pleases, because the human rights legislation unwittingly gave him the freedom to do this.

Because the state takes the prosecution over, the victims families (until recent times) have been treated as inconsequential.  Now at least they are allowed to read an impact statement before sentencing (in the UK).

The problem with the Belgian security system was that there are 12 police forces in Brussels alone, half Flemish and half French and none of them were talking to each other (maybe they are now)  I heard yesterday that they used to ring up the UK police for intelligence because their own people told them little.  On top of that they have the multicultural complexity of a population who do not pass on local intelligence to police.  I guess they will change all this now in the light of what's happened.

DaveP

 

[mattiasNYC]

What you are missing is empathy for the victims families. 

Well you are quite the presumptuous tit, aren't you. I happened to be in Sweden when Breivik struck, and I was as shocked and disgusted as any other Scandinavian, because we are "brothers and sisters" up there. So you can take that "lack of empathy" crap and shove it where the sun doesn't shine.

 

[mattiasNYC]

Belgium is arguably a little too PC not executing police raids after 7 PM or something like that... I guess even criminals deserve a good night's sleep. (I don't mean to make light of their situation, Belgium is a small country with big country problems right now and need the world's support. )

JR

How do you know the Belgian police made a choice between raiding a known suspect's residence and not doing it after 7pm because of some vague PC rationale? And I'm seeing reports on a raid in Schaerbeek yielding materials tied to ISIS.....

!??

I was wrong but that's why I said "something like 7 PM". The law prohibits raids between 9PM and 5AM (I researched that because you didn't believe me).

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/17/world/europe/belgium-says-law-limiting-raids-may-have-allowed-suspect-in-paris-attacks-to-escape.html?_r=0

I guess 7PM would be too early for terrorists to go to bad... they usually don't die of old age, so are typically young pukes.

FoxNews....

"Belgian police continued their dragnet Wednesday for the mystery man who appeared with two suicide bombers in a surveillance photo taken a day earlier, moments before explosions ripped through Zaventem Airport, killing at least 11 in the first of twin attacks that shook Brussels.

Overnight, police in Brussels executed several raids and made an arrest in connection with the terror attacks, but later dismissed reports that it was the man seen in the photo with the two bombers. "

ABC....

"It's only in recent weeks legislation was changed finally allowing police to conduct raids at night."

I notice the suicide belt maker managed to escape... they also found one explosive belt abandoned (his?)... I guess the brainiacs don't blow themselves up, they use the low-information terrorists for that. 

JR

That's how it goes. The "brains" get the dumber/more indoctrinated people to do the dirty work. Why the latter never understand how they're being used and abused I'll never comprehend..... or maybe I will.... but you get the point.

 

[DaveP]

Well you are quite the presumptuous tit, aren't you. I happened to be in Sweden when Breivik struck, and I was as shocked and disgusted as any other Scandinavian, because we are "brothers and sisters" up there. So you can take that "lack of empathy" crap and shove it where the sun doesn't shine.

What else were we supposed to think?  You admitted you were missing something, and you never did grasp the point about the families suffering, or if you did you didn't choose to admit it because it doesn't fit in with your political agenda.  Being shocked is not the same as empathy and I hope you grasp the difference when you grow up.

DaveP

 

[cyrano]

And now we have one of the Paris IS mass murderers protesting about his extradition and suing the French prosecutor.

He's not suing the French prosecutor. His lawyer is protesting the fact that the prosecutor cited from the dossier, before the dossier was even in the posesion of the defense.

That's standard procedure and it would be negligent if the defense lawyer didn't do it. It won't matter in the end, but it's the way the game is played.

It's pretty stupid for the French prosecutor to cite from a dossier on camera. He should know better.

 

[DaveP]

He's not suing the French prosecutor. His lawyer is protesting the fact that the prosecutor cited from the dossier, before the dossier was even in the possession of the defence.

Sorry, my mistake, I was only repeating what I read on the news.

DaveP

 

[mattiasNYC]

What else were we supposed to think? 

"we"??? Don't try to hide behind others. I've only seen you accuse me of a lack of empathy.

You admitted you were missing something, and you never did grasp the point about the families suffering, or if you did you didn't choose to admit it

Do you lie for a living or is it just a hobby? Did you not see me fricking SPECIFICALLY ADDRESS JUST THAT???

You talking about "grasping" anything is ironic if you can't tell the damn difference between understanding and agreeing with. Get it? I understand your argument and I think you're wrong. I didn't not admit anything.

because it doesn't fit in with your political agenda. 

Yeah, because it has to be MY political agenda, not YOUR political agenda, right? And just what is my "agenda"? Being pro-life in general? Being pro-Human Rights as opposed to advocating execution? Yeah, you know what, I proudly stand by that view, ideology or "agenda", whatever phrase makes you feel like you've defined your opponents secrets....

Being shocked is not the same as empathy and I hope you grasp the difference when you grow up.

Ah, so in addition to claiming I lack empathy, can't understand what you're saying or are ignoring it, those who disagree with you are immature. Well done sir. I'm quite impressed.  I really didn't think you could devolve this thread any further Dave.

If I SAY I was empathetic, does that suffice? Or do I have to send you some pictures of me shedding tears... Or do I have to show letters sent to the families or my Norwegian friends giving my condolences? Or perhaps images from Facebook or something? What satisfies YOU Dave? What do I have to do to convince YOU that I'm empathetic with those families?

Your mind is firmly planted in a bi-polar world view. It's us and them. It's conservative or liberal. And so to your intellect it's either empathy+death penalty or no death penalty+no empathy. Because you clearly can't wrap your intellect around one feeling bad for victims yet SIMULTANEOUSLY not wanting state-executions.

Or I can just reply in kind and call you an old person no longer capable of changing his mind, a reactionary conservative in favor of uncivilized behavior most of the 'civilized western world' already has condemned and left behind due to not wanting to be stuck in the middle ages..........

 

[mattiasNYC]

He's not suing the French prosecutor. His lawyer is protesting the fact that the prosecutor cited from the dossier, before the dossier was even in the possession of the defence.

Sorry, my mistake, I was only repeating what I read on the news.

DaveP

I'm sure this makes you reevaluate your position..... not.....

 

[JohnRoberts]

It would be nice to hear more discussions about "human rights gone bad" and less pejorative opinions about each other.

JR

 

[DaveP]

"We" because  your comments are public.

For a clever guy with an apparently good grasp of English, you make a lousy job of understanding my comments.  I don't expect automatic agreement, but no matter how clear I try to make it you just don't get it and that makes me suspicious of your agenda.

I have consistently talked about the families after the event and the re-opening of wounds, yet you seem determined to muddle this with my views on capital punishment for mass murderers.

I don't doubt you wrote to Norwegians after Breivik or that you are all brothers over there.  I repeat again, I don't think mass murderers should be able to exploit the human rights act and it needs amending.  That's it period.

You have tried to pigeon hole me on numerous occasions, but I am not a conservative, although some of their thinking is correct and I am not a socialist either, although some of their thinking is correct too, I will admit to being 66 and a pragmatist if that is helpful.

I have a very dear friend now in his early seventies, in his youth he was a Trotskyist then later on an ordinary communist.  I talked to him about another young communist acquaintance I know who is very angry about everything, much like you.  He laughed and said that he was like that too when he was younger, it seems to go with the territory.  I hope the years have the same mellowing effect on you Matt.  But until they do I will not have any more discussions with you, because I don't learn anything other than you have a chip on your shoulder and that your arguments are stereotyped, predictable and above all tedious.

PS. JR is getting concerned too :

DaveP

 

[JohnRoberts]

JR wouldn't mind if you both stopped talking about each other...

Accurate or not it is unlikely to be received well.

JR

For the record I am speaking for myself, not the forum... You are free to say whatever you want (within reason), I just don't expect personal criticism to ever be productive.

 

[mattiasNYC]

I have consistently talked about the families after the event and the re-opening of wounds, yet you seem determined to muddle this with my views on capital punishment for mass murderers.

No, I have not. My disagreement is about suspending human rights and engage in barbaric last-millenia behavior because victims are upset. The death penalty is just an example of the larger principle, an example you brought up by the way.

You have tried to pigeon hole me on numerous occasions, but I am not a conservative, although some of their thinking is correct and I am not a socialist either, although some of their thinking is correct too, I will admit to being 66 and a pragmatist if that is helpful.

The point was that your ad hominem attack, calling me unempathic, was uncalled for, presumptuous and wrong, and that it and your subsequent continuation of said attack on my person can be met exactly with them same type of ridiculous off-topic irrelevant rhetoric. The point wasn't that I think you are as I described you in that paragraph, you being that way or not doesn't prove or disprove my points or lessen or strengthen my arguments, the point was simply to make you think about your personal attacks on me. Clearly that failed.

I have a very dear friend now in his early seventies, in his youth he was a Trotskyist then later on an ordinary communist.  I talked to him about another young communist acquaintance I know who is very angry about everything, much like you.  He laughed and said that he was like that too when he was younger, it seems to go with the territory.  I hope the years have the same mellowing effect on you Matt.  But until they do I will not have any more discussions with you, because I don't learn anything other than you have a chip on your shoulder and that your arguments are stereotyped, predictable and above all tedious.

PS. JR is getting concerned too :

DaveP

"angry about everything, much like you"
"when he was younger, it seems to go with the territory"
"chip on your shoulder"
"arguments are stereotyped, predictable and above all tedious"

Is there ANYTHING there on-topic? I'll be honest, for a second, like, a while ago, I thought you were an intelligent reasonable person with whom I had some disagreements. But if the above is all you can muster, then I was clearly wrong. In the world of predictability, a person making strong statements, and then resorting to ad hominem attacks when questioned about them, not to mention the " I will not have any more discussions with you", is pretty much textbook "predictable" for a certain personality type.

 

[JohnRoberts]

Heaping on more criticism is not how to stop this.

Feel better now?

I am really tempted to erase all this nonsense, but I think I should leave it up to embarrass the both of you, and serve as an object lesson for others.

JR

 

[mattiasNYC]

It would be nice to hear more discussions about "human rights gone bad" and less pejorative opinions about each other.

JR

I agree. And here's the brief definition of Human Rights on Wiki:

"Human rights are moral principles or norms,[1] that describe certain standards of human behavior, and are regularly protected as legal rights in municipal and international law.[2] They are commonly understood as inalienable[3] fundamental rights "to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being,"[4] and which are "inherent in all human beings"[5] regardless of their nation, location, language, religion, ethnic origin or any other status.[3] They are applicable everywhere and at every time in the sense of being universal,[1] and they are egalitarian in the sense of being the same for everyone.[3] They require empathy and the rule of law[6] and impose an obligation on persons to respect the human rights of others.[1][3] They should not be taken away except as a result of due process based on specific circumstances;[3] for example, human rights may include freedom from unlawful imprisonment, torture, and execution.[7]"

Again, I don't see how any laws or procedures were subverted in either of the two cases in question in the OP, do you?



" one of the Paris IS mass murderers protesting about his extradition and suing the French prosecutor."
"He's not suing the French prosecutor."
"Sorry, my mistake, I was only repeating what I read on the news."

Leaves Breivik as an example then....

" the Norwegian mass murderer Breivik giving a Nazi salute in court and protesting about solitary confinement and lack of internet access."

How does that affect Human Rights?  It does not, in and by itself, without a verdict. Here's the Washington Post:

"Through his lawsuit, Breivik is arguing that those responsible for his care violated the European Convention on Human Rights, which protects a person’s right “to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence” and prohibits “inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”"

"The court hearings in the case were set to begin this month."

So, either due process itself is a problem. In other words once someone is sentenced to a punishment there should be no checks and balances on whether or not the punishment indeed violated human rights. Or, we WAIT until the verdict is in, and THEN make up our minds about whether or not the verdict was fair.

 

[mattiasNYC]

Heaping on more criticism is not how to stop this.

Feel better now?

I am really tempted to erase all this nonsense, but I think I should leave it up to embarrass the both of you, and serve as an object lesson for others.

JR

Yeah, whatever. I didn't see you step in when I was accused of lacking empathy for the relatives of children slaughtered by a neo-nazi mass-murderer. In my opinion that would have been a good time to do so.

 

[DaveP]

OK, One last try.

This is what you said....

If Breivik protests in court, so what? Who the heck cares? He's an insane psychopath. He's locked up. Let him do his Hitler cheer all he wants, I don't care.

Well I care and because you had obviously not considered the effect on the families of having their loss revisited by Breivik upholding his "human rights", I called that a lack of empathy for their present condition, which I still feel is fair comment.  You tried to associate this with your obvious concern at the time it happened, but that was never the issue.

I accept your opinion that you think the death penalty is archaic, I choose to differ, but only for extreme mass murderers, but again that was just a side issue after you asked for my honest opinion,

I'm sorry that JR has been upset, I have a lot of respect for him.
That is my last word on this topic.

DaveP

 

[JohnRoberts]

Heaping on more criticism is not how to stop this.

Feel better now?

I am really tempted to erase all this nonsense, but I think I should leave it up to embarrass the both of you, and serve as an object lesson for others.

JR

Yeah, whatever. I didn't see you step in when I was accused of lacking empathy for the relatives of children slaughtered by a neo-nazi mass-murderer. In my opinion that would have been a good time to do so.

excuuuuse me....

I have tried to ignore this thread as a black-hole time suck... I do other things in addition to posting here.

I chimed in with my personal observation that you both were in a spiral leading to progressively more abusive comments.  I respect both of you and don't like to see this happen.

It is the nature of written communication to lack the inflections and other cues that occur in face-to-face communications. Emoticons are supposed to partially supplant this flawed communication medium, but they rarely work effectively.

I appreciate the generally amicable exchanges of ideas that occur here, but I will not be everybody's emotional life guard (not my job mon).

Do not try to blame me or drag me into the middle of your drama.

JR

 

[bluebird]

As far as empathy in concerned, no one is really that empathetic for anyone they don't know. You say, "that's a really horrible thing that happened to those people half a world away" and then you go on with your day. In the case of a big disaster you may donate to the red cross, but that doesn't make you a better person than someone who doesn't.
So I don't see what empathy has to do with the original topic anyways.

Dave you're angry because you are seeing criminals asking for human rights as they are being prosecuted for very inhumane crimes.
I understand.  We are emotional beings, and reactionary beings. If someone was trying to do something inhumane to my children I would kill them right then and there.
Society had to put in place a method of controlling those emotions and reactions of the individual, to make sure they were warranted, or at least, that most of the population of that society was in agreement.
So everyone, even the worst of criminals are entitled to due process.

Yea yea yea, you know all this. I think what Matt is saying is who cares what they are doing, complaining about, waving their hands about...as they are moving through the process. It's only necessary that they are given the right to go through the process. They will get their punishment. Death where it is legal.  Obviously the criminals you are talking about are going to get convicted and locked away forever.

What I think you are saying (correct me if I'm wrong) is these types of people don't deserve due process.  And you know what, If I was where the crime was taking place, and I had the means, I would try to kill the guy myself. (hopefully I wouldn't run from my life...but who knows) I would not think "hmm lets give this guy due process".

But obviously due process is important because after stepping back from the incident, there might be reasons a person would commit such a heinous crime. Perhaps it was revenge for something done to him. Even so, killing another because they killed someone close to you doesn't seem right. I suppose killing them would depend on why they killed your people? Its starting to get complicated. Sounds like war.

I really don't know how to think about capital punishment. For me it depends on who's shoes I was in I suppose.

Most of us here are old enough to be stuck in our ways of thinking and perspectives. I always learn from these types of threads, Sometimes we get bent out of shape when our ideals are being challenged. But all in all it's a movement in thought and therefore valuable.

 

[DaveP]

Bluebird,
I was going to drop this as a bad lot, but you deserve a reply.

You have summed up how I feel very well, every criminal should have a fair trial or due process, where I differ from current practice is that for crimes of this magnitude (and only this magnitude) they should be locked up and the key thrown away.  There are so many who suffer from mass murder (Paris, Brussels Norway 9/11) that the overwhelming need after justice has been served is for closure.  We can't bring their loved ones back, but we can legislate to stop the criminals exploiting the system after conviction, we owe the families that much.  They should be spared the ordeal of seeing their children's killer on their TV screens several years down the line.
DaveP

 

[bluebird]

There are so many who suffer from mass murder (Paris, Brussels Norway 9/11) that the overwhelming need after justice has been served is for closure.  We can't bring their loved ones back, but we can legislate to stop the criminals exploiting the system after conviction, we owe the families that much.

I agree, and after an incident like this people get very emotionally charged. If one of my family members was killed I would want to bend the rules.

I too hope the justice system can be improved (OJ Simpson anyone?) But a system of justice can only be as perfect as the people who participate in it. And we as humans are deeply flawed in many ways so I'm sad to say Justice will only ever be as just as we are collectively. And if you take the whole world into account we have a long way to go. 

But we do need each other because only as a multitude can we get the perspective needed to create a system of justice that better serves a larger multicultural population.
The world is getting smaller and cultures are being forced to coexist. There's a lot of friction there. Hot hot hot....