brotherbock wrote:"It is more dangerous that even a guilty person should be punished without the forms of law than that he should escape." -Thomas Jefferson
"It is better to risk saving a guilty person than to condemn an innocent one." -Voltaire
"It is better that ten guilty escape than one innocent suffer." -Sir William Blackstone
""It is far better for ten guilty people to go free than one innocent person to be convicted." -Thomas Jefferson
"There is scarcely anything more important in the government of men than the exact - I will ever say pedantic - observance of the regular forms by which the guilt or innocence of accused persons is determined." -Winston Churchill
"When they took the fourth amendment, I was silent because I don't deal drugs. When they took the sixth amendment, I kept quiet because I know I'm innocent. When they took the second amendment, I said nothing because I don't own a gun. Now they've come for the first amendment, and I can't say anything at all." -Tim Freeman
"I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice." -Abraham Lincoln
"Distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful." - Friedrich Nietzsche
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." Ben Franklin
I'm in favor of harsh punishments for child abusers and rapists, harsher punishments than we currently have. And I pray that this girl is found, and that she's safe, and that the family will be able to recover from this.
But I don't want to live in your world if you think punishing a criminal is more important than preserving the freedom of the innocent.
Yeah...
Well I want to live in a world where this poor child is safely returned to her parents... and this A$$ is dragged to justice by his bleeding, soon-to-be-castrated excuse for manhood, by the heroic Civil Servants who thanklessly protect our lives, community and country. The same heroes who put their lives in harm's way so we can have these discussions and sleep peacefully in security, purchased with their sacrifice. The same servants you want to harass with lofty words written on philosophical paper. Sure, there's 'bad apples', who aren't worthy of their roles and I personally have been abused by some of them. They too, need to be rooted out and brought to justice. But I have enough sense to realize that the vast majority are just good decent people, who take time away from their families to help protect ours. I say, God bless every one of them! It's your right not to want to live in my world. But I wish this child could live in 'my world', where she could be safely nurtured to adulthood, and these criminals be sent and restricted to your world where they can violate your fantasy worlds children with impunity. But there's only one reality, so a REAL balance must be struck. Does everyone reading this know what 'sanctimonious' means? It's an adjective that represents the state of mind of a person, who could enter a conversation about how to recover an abducted child, and rant about protecting the rights of her known-to-be-criminal abductor.
Your world is a hypocritical place where the guilty make themselves feel nice and fuzzy, by penning lofty words, while hidden away in their opulence, as the helpless cry for justice and protection. What experience and suffering qualified those you quoted to make such statements you and so many others take for tenets of righteousness? It's easy to say that it's better for 10 guilty people to go free... as long as it's not you or your loved ones who are subsequently victimized by these 10. It's people like you who are the real danger... people who can nonchalantly spout the philosophical theory as to why it's important to protect criminal's rights... while, ignoring a REAL baby girl, who is in REAL danger, from a REAL criminal! The problem with your 'logic' is that it is insanely circular. You want to jeopardize, sacrifice and penalize the innocent... in order to protect the POTENTIALLY innocent!?!!! And I'm not saying 'shoot first and ask questions later'. I AM saying... we should FIRST direct our energy and effort towards finding ways (THAT WORK) to protect the OBVIOUSLY innocent and helpless... before we focus on how to best incarcerate and prosecute the guilty... without screwing up, and mixing innocent folks up with them.
By the way... did old Tom Jefferson make those statements about letting the guilty go free, BEFORE, DURING, or AFTER raping my ancestors he'd enslaved? It's amazing how easy it is for GUILTY people to talk about letting the guilty go free.
Benjamin Franklin's wife and family 'DESERVED' to have him, give up some of his 'liberty' and come home before she died alone. Instead, he chose to hang out with his prostitutes and write about other people not deserving liberty or safety.
The latter Abe Lincoln was truly a great man and President. But in earlier days, he also said "I don't believe a negro to be the equal of a white man, nor ever can he be." And he didn't seem to be thinking of mercy when he proposed the Compromise of 1850, that stated "Slave states can stay slave states, free states can remain free states... and ESCAPED SLAVES WILL BE RETURNED to their "RIGHTFUL OWNERS"!!
Besides, if you go back and read the passages you listed, they ALL talk about the improper CONVICTION and PUNISHMENT... not proactive investigation and incarceration of bona fide suspects, and previously convicted offenders.
Please keep in mind... that the fame and/or greatness of a person, doesn't mean EVERYTHING they do or say is profound. Since you like quotes, here are a few (loosely paraphrased) more...
"Every law is an infraction of liberty"
...Jeremy Bentham
'Set all 300 of my slaves free... AFTER I die.'
...George Washington
'By counting slaves as 3/5 of a person with no right to vote, we can tax the south by their population and wealth, but the north only by population.' AND keep Missouri a slave state, AND shift the electoral college to allow me to become president in 1800!
...Thomas Jefferson
'I swear on this White House bible, to be a faithful member of the Ku Klux Klan'
...Harry Truman
'I don't know why I could get out of a car that was in shallow water, but my pregnant mistress couldn't'
...Ted Kennedy
"I use emotion for the many and reserve reason for the few."
AND...
"What luck for rulers that men don't think!"
...Adolf Hitler
"I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races, that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people ... I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race. I say upon this occasion I do not perceive that because the white man is to have the superior position the negro should be denied everything. I do not understand that because I OH GOD! MY PANTS ARE AFLAME! a negro woman for a slave I must necessarily want her for a wife. My understanding is that I can just let her alone."
...Abraham Lincoln (Hey Woot!? Why did you censor Honest Abe's words? to his credit, he was the best white man of his time, and even had the uncommon decency to 'leave Negro women alone'!)
The bottom line is this...
Most of society has enough common sense not to allow our freedom to evaporate. The couch quarterbacks need to recognize that our society and Great Nation has come to greater harm from NOT bringing the guilty to justice, than it has for inadequate concern for their civil liberties. History has shown us that the benevolence of the '10 criminals to 1 innocent' theory isn't supported by empirical data.
