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the ultimate throwaway baby - makes me sick


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I don't know that I have all the answers to these questions, but I can try to explain how I feel in regards to them.

She should still be punished.

How would you punish her, for what purpose, and how would you know whether your purpose had been accomplished?

I'm not sure what the best punishment would be, although the purpose would be to correct an obvious behavior flaw. In the case of my example, it was for pure selfishness and disregard for life. In the original post, because of a lack of information, it is unclear as to the reasons for what she did so I can not be sure. I can say that in watching these stories time and time again on the news, it always seems to some down to the same thing, lack of compassion and total disregard for life. What would be the best punishment? It really depends on the person. Every person responds to things differently. That is why our justice system doesn't work. I think being plunged into doing service hours with an organization like the one I volunteer with would maybe have an affect on them. There is a judge in the neighboring county, that when faced with a juvenile offender, throws the penalty book out the window. He spends approx. half an hour with each first time offender as to get to know them a little bit. He then decides what he feels is the best sentence for them. It may be hard time if he feels they are a hard egg to break, or it may be service hours with the many organizations in the area. What he is trying to do, is reach inside these kids and get them to realize that having respect for others and one's self is an imperative part of life. He is also trying to teach them to have compassion towards others. I'm not saying that this works 100% of the time, but he does have I high success rate for non-repeaters. He is tough, but does it with compassion. You have to be able to get to the core of the individual and basically reprogram. You take away what they are used to, the finer things in life. You give them only the basics needed to live and teach them to appreciate those things first. Once they have learned to appreciate the few things they have, you allow them to work towards the privilege of gaining access to the finer things that they once had. You don't make it a cake walk either. You make them truly work for these things.

Many parents don't take the time to show their children how to love.

How would you address the results of that once those children have become adolescents or adults?

Again, it comes down to a reprogramming of who these adolescents/adults are, although it is much harder to accomplish in an adult. The younger the person is the easier this task can be accomplished. When a child is involved I think the punishment should be twofold. It should involve not only the child, but also the parents of that child. In many cases, when a child/adolescent is unable to show love and respect, it's because the adults in his/her life have never shown him/her love and respect. The adults should have to take parenting classes and together, with the child, some type of family togetherness class. They should also have to do community service together. It brings back the family unit as it should be. I also believe that parenting skills should be taught before ANYONE has a child. I think my 14 y/o daughter put it best when she asked, "Mom, why is it you need a license to drive a car, shoot a gun, drive a snowmobile, shoot dumb animals, and even babysit; but any jerk can be a parent? Wouldn't it make more sense if parents had to have a license to raise kids?" I couldn't have agreed with her more (the jerk is her father or sperm donor as she calls him). I know many schools are implementing programs where students have to care for these electronic babies to deter them from having babies themselves, but maybe the real answer is to teach these kids how to truly love these babies instead.

I also know that it is possible to teach a child that has never had love in their lives to love. It is not easy, but it can be done.

when they get caught, they give some sad story and they get their baby back. How is that right? How is that fair to those innocent babies?

What would be fair to those innocent babies?

These babies should be taken away from the mothers permanently and placed with families that truly want them and will love them. Let them have a chance in life.

there is no easy solution.

What is the difficult solution?

That it will take time, lots of money, and many people to rectify this problem. Even more so than any of those, it will take a willingness to want to change, not only how the child thinks, but how we, as adults think.

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She should still be punished.

How would you punish her, for what purpose, and how would you know whether your purpose had been accomplished?

I'm not sure what the best punishment would be, although the purpose would be to correct an obvious behavior flaw.

Which is most important, punishment or correction?

Are both actually important?

If there were a pill that she could take to correct the behaviour flaw -- permanently and completely -- without her suffering any actual punishment, would that be good enough for you?

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I completely agree. In both cases, I am completely unconcerned with the actor. It is only the behaviour that I consider. And the goal in both cases is the same: to protect society from such behaviour in the future.

My wife points out that sometimes when I undertake these types of arguments that I assume that some things are a forgone conclusion, for instance, holding this woman responsible for her actions. I should make it clear that I'm not suggesting that because I don't believe that punishing her is the solution, that it follows that I also believe that there should be no consequences for her actions. We must protect society from her behavior regardless of the reasons for that behavior. Punishing her will not effect the future, only identifying the cause, and preventing those "wired" like her from offending in a like manner will do that.

Agreed. But I don't believe that society has a responsibility to do that. Their only responsibility is to protect the rest of society from those behaviours by removing the offender from society for as long as s/he presents a danger. Any correctional or curative action is not society's responsibility to force upon them.

I agree that legally that would be societies only responsibility. But it's a waste of time as society is producing offenders at a much higher rate than we are able to lock them up. It's a feel good strategy that is failing terribly. In the scary land you live, when a suicide bomber successfully delivers his/her mayhem, does the military celebrate because he/she got what they deserved? Or do they instead recognize that if there is one, that may be evidence there are more? Don't they then dissect the person and device, pick each apart piece by piece in an attempt to deduce how and why this happened and then use that information to take steps to prevent another such occurrence in the future? Is the next dead baby so much less important than the next dead soldier? In the system that we use, that many here propose, we're supposed to celebrate the bombers death and then simply wait to see if it happens again. That's unacceptable to me. We have the tools to attempt protect the next baby, and the next soldier, not to use them is criminal.

That problem is beyond the control of society.

I can't accept that. It's beyond the will of our society perhaps, but the ability is there. Perhaps it's beyond their control for your world, and mine, but I'm working on our kids' world now...and it's doable.

...Somebody's bound to get upset, offended, or even hurt,...

Not among friends. It's been my experience here that those that are easily offended seldom are very productive, and certainly not friends. Michael and I have had a few conversations where the only thing that kept me out of jail was that there is no "choke' function on my keyboard. Your thoughts and opinions are always welcome in my brain...

When nobody wins, we both lose.

Naw...If we both come away a little smarter we both win. Though we may have to admit that we didn't have the moxy to solve all of societies problems in a single thread...I'll try and live with that.

But what I was getting at was that, if nobody can win, and we all eventually lose, it might as well be over, as there really is no point in continuing.

I tend to believe that showing others how to have this argument, for this long, without evoking Godwin's law is a huge success of it's own! How to debate passionately, and aggressively, yet respectfully is a skill I'd like to pass on to kids...That in itself might resolve a few issues.

Thanks for your thought ol' man! Come home safe!

Dwayne

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Any correctional or curative action is not society's responsibility to force upon them.

Out of the blue the above sentence popped into my head and it occurred to me that I'm not sure what you meant, but I have a tickle that it might be an imprtant thought.

Is "them" society? Or those to be corrected? Or am I missing the point entirely?

Dwayne

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My wife points out that sometimes when I undertake these types of arguments that I assume that some things are a forgone conclusion, for instance, holding this woman responsible for her actions. I should make it clear that I'm not suggesting that because I don't believe that punishing her is the solution, that it follows that I also believe that there should be no consequences for her actions. We must protect society from her behavior regardless of the reasons for that behavior. Punishing her will not effect the future, only identifying the cause, and preventing those "wired" like her from offending in a like manner will do that.

Dwayne, you're wife's very observant, and her observation applies to others who share that tendency as well, as in approximately everyone.

The hardest feature to identify in any perspective is its "frame"; its assumptions, its unexamined premises, what we exclude from consideration when we formulate and pronounce about its content. Exchanging views about concrete events offers opportunities to work our way back toward our own unstated, and often preconscious, assumptions, for example concerning the proposition that vengeance is an integral part of justice, or the comparative value of liberty and security. But it's hard to exert the patience and stamina to reconsider the elements about human nature we take for granted, because we tend so to identify with our opinions that to risk modifying them can seem like courting self-annihilation.

In my account of the points you consider, I'd perhaps modify only the terms: I find "society" a fiction. In my experience, only individuals exist, only individuals act and are affected, only individuals are responsible and merit protection. No one can motivate "society" (except through totalitarian measures*), no one is harmed or benefited by "society," and "society" has no problems, no solutions, nor will "society" change anything; only individual agents will, sometimes in concert with certain other finite individuals. The least painful way to change is voluntarily, for example as described in the previous paragraph.

A scarcity of individuals who are ready to modify their assumptions about human nature, and therefore about individual human beings, may be the deficiency alluded to several times in this thread. To be ready to think something new about someone else, to listen to another individual's own account of who that individual is, might be to supply what katbemeEMT-B finds deficient in those parents who "don't take the time to show their children how to love." Nor have I found evidence that anyone's felt need to be encountered by those open to new information terminates at maturity.

*Did someone say Godwin?

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This is what I am referring to. In most cases, these girls just don't care. That's what upsets me. It's a total indifference. I will say this. I don't completely blame these girls either. I do feel some it comes from their upbringing and society. Many parents don't take the time to show their children how to love. They are too busy with their careers and their own lives. Society makes it acceptable and almost glorifiable for girls to have sex at earlier ages, to have babies without being married, and to dispose of those babies without consequence.

For this and a thousand other things, I blame the Baby Boomers.

Some of them are great parents. But the rest produce soulless hell-spawns like the girls discussed in this thread.

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I can understand the want to find the cause of the problem to identify it in future offenders. I also understand that rehabilitation should be the goal of detention. However, I don't believe that the cause is that mystic in this case. I can maybe, almost, barely believe she didn't know she was pregnant and this delivery scared the heck out of her. But if she was scared, why did she not call for help. If anything 5 pounds or heavier drops out of me, rest assured there will be screaming. I believe that the delivery came at an inopportune time and she came up with a very poor plan to deal with the situation. Maybe the investigation will prove otherwise, but I'm not holding any breaths.

I believe there are two reasons people follow rules: fear and faith.

Considering the casual attitude that surrounds most religions, I believe religious faith is pretty weak (in America and not including religious radicals, their strength of faith is scary). Given the state of our world, I don't believe it's much of a stretch to say that the faith in the brotherhood of man is on it's last legs as a whole. Granted there are times when it strengthens, these time usually follow some sort of catastrophe.

This would leave fear. I do believe that there are many people who fear our judicial system but the number is in decline. Most fear comes from the possiblility of being sued. Maybe if someone would sue the mothers on the baby's behalf, this would happen less. The judicial system needs to be feared by the guilty, not the honest and I don't see this as being the case. I think that the punishment of the guilty does more than make my id happy, but maybe that's just my superego talking (sorry don't remember much past Freud from psychology). :lol:

Given the time of day that I'm writing this, I'm sure there are holes in my reply. Feel free to tell me where I need the plugs.

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