I just read a statement from someone (an American, in case you wondered) regarding crime and punishment. He stated that he thinks the law should LITERALLY impose exact “punishment” upon wrongdoers. You know, literally do the “eye for an eye” thing (which, by the way, was meant as a limitation, not necessarily as an absolute demand, but that’s another discussion).

He also stated that we should not only impose the death penalty on, well, pretty much everyone, I guess, but we should torture them first. Yes, he was serious.

I’m actually nauseated. This is someone who is walking around in society right now, and who was a member of the military. He’s advocating torture, mutilation, etc., as a matter of law. To hell with humane treatment (yes, he basically said that), and apparently to hell with the right to freedom from cruel and unusual punishment. Let’s just TORTURE the bastards and then kill them, probably slowly in gruesome ways. That’ll teach ‘em!

He has actually directly advocated putting people on the rack. The RACK. Of course, I doubt sincerely he has any idea what the rack actually does to people (he also has asserted that other Western nations don’t have real freedom of speech and that only Americans do, so that shows just how ignorant he is, and also how great the American school system is).

The thing that disturbs me is not that someone would advocate this. People have been doing this sort of thing since they crawled out of the primordial soup. No, the thing that disturbs me is that people are walking around in supposedly civilized society believing, actually believing, that it’s okay to torture people. That when someone commits a crime or crimes (even evil, horrible, vile ones) they give up their right to be treated humanely, because their jailers should be as bad as or worse than the criminals.

This, of course, is pretty much the justification that abusers use. The victim did something to “deserve” the treatment they got. You talked back, you didn’t scrub the corners of the floorboards by hand, you didn’t do your homework, you forgot to buy beer, whatever. You gave up your right to be treated reasonably because you transgressed the rules (real or imagined or even made up on the spot), and therefore you deserved it.

I just feel sick at the moment. Coming face to face with someone who apparently genuinely believes that people deserve to be tortured is very disturbing and deeply troubling.

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