Every time I think about this, it frosts my ass!



Where was the compassion for the 270 people he killed?



Life imprisonment is just that--LIFE--regardless of how long has remaining to live, or regardless of how one's death in prisonment occurs (natural, heart attack, cancer, etc.).

I just hope that his death is slow and very painful!

Deplorable..........worse, a throng of greeters in Libya, worst, Kadafi embraced this mass murderer.

Compassion isn't something you do for the other person, it's something you do for yourself and your own sense of morality.

Let's hope that neither of you are ever in a position to have to rely on another's compassion.

So it's "compassionate" for Scotland to release someone convicted of murdering 270 people when said criminal was sentenced to "life" imprisonment? Is it moral to do so?

Of course, Scotland can't show compassion for the families of the 270 who were murdered, according to your above statement. I suppose that's not as "moral" or important as the miserable life of one terrorist.

Who the heck are you? SeaCraig?

TRL

SeaCraig, you're kidding, aren't you?

Not at all. I don't believe in stewing in revenge. Should that guy have been punished. Sure. And he was. Now that he has a few weeks/months at most to live, and there's no chance he'll re-offend, what's lost by letting him go home and die with his family?

The whole retribution thing really bothers me. IMHO it's part of the reason why we have such a difficult time helping our own citizens.....they did it to themselves...they deserve to be poor...if they only _________..etc..

It's part and parcel of a power struggle. Anyone with small children knows you don't win a power struggle through force or punishment. You win through negotiation. Since Reagan, the conservatives have made "tough on crime" one of the "third rails" of politics. But where crime has fallen how has that happened? Through longer, stronger sentences? No. Mainly through community policing where cops are familiar with the area they patrol and are able to show a human face to law enforcement. If retribution worked we wouldn't have the most prisoners in the world.

If my grandfather were in prison for ________________ (fill in the blank with whatever is the worst crime to you) and he was near death, I would hope that he would be released to die with his family. How could I want that for someone in my family and deny that to others? To ME, that would be hypocritical.

And morally I'm complex. I'm the most anti organized religion person you'll ever meet, yet I believe many things that those religions espouse. And I tend to gravitate toward the things that bring people together rather than create a power struggle.

What that guy did (and that's still a big if given there is a credible argument that he either wasn't involved, or didn't do it alone) was heinous. And if he weren't near death he'd still be in prison.

We are really measured by how compassionate/forgiving/nice/helpful to the least amongst us.....imho.

You characterize this as "revenge". Is it not better described as "justice"? The man was convicted of murder...why is it seeking revenge to expect him to pay the price society/the law put for that?

It reminds me of the white man who was well over 70 when he was finally charged/convicted of murdering the four black girls at their church in Birmingham, Al, in 1963. Heard several people say something like "he's so old...that was so long ago...where is your mercy to put an old man in jail...". Ignoring the fact that he had lived decades afterwards as a free man....while those 4 girls were dead. Ignoring the fact that he had murdered those girls. Was putting him in jail "revenge" or was it from a sense of (very delayed) justice?

You can have compassion for him without making the choice to let him walk free. It's a pretty slim branch to equate compassion with letting him go free. How compassionate is it for the families of those murdered...why wait until he's terminal to exercise compassion...does compassion exist alone or is justice also something to be valued consistently?

And he was convicted. If people have doubts, they can/should pursue them. But how do they simply ignore the conviction and proceed to releasing him and then justify it by saying there were questions? Or that he was near the end of his own life?

I don't believe in capital punishment. And I do think that there should be means of reviewing cases based on new evidence, especially since so many have been exonerated as a result. But, I don't think a convicted murder such as this man should be set free unless his conviction were to be overturned. He should be treated with dignity in his final days, given food and medical care, which is compassionate. But not set free.

Good lord, I feel like a bad Hallmark card just vomited in my lap.

Perhaps the more compassionate course would have been to invite his family to Scotland to be with him at his death.

Many people in Scotland have been released from prison before their sentence was finished on these compassionate grounds. Why should he be any different. He's not being released to summer in The Hamptons, the man is soon going to be dead.

What is the purpose of prison? If it's to stop the person from being able to re-offend then someone on their deathbed is no threat and doesn't fit the definition. If it's to punish the person, to get back at them for what they did, then that is revenge.

I have no problem with him being convicted and sentenced and serving time. However, making him suffer in prison does not bring one of the people who died back. It doesn't improve the lives of any of the surviving friends or family. It only satisfies the desire some have for retribution.

The notion of a Penitentiary comes from the Quakers. It was supposed to be a place where the offender went to contemplate what they had done, how it had affected the society and that after that reflection the person would be able to re-integrate into society. It wasn't a place to be degraded and tortured and subjected to violence and humiliation. There are too many people who believe in retribution to change that, but I do think we can say someone who is at the end of their life is eligible for that kind of release. That we can demonstrate that we are more than "an eye for eye" type society.

In terms of justice, Scotland has this policy. It's what they're country has decided is justice. If you're convicted of a crime there and approach the end of your life you can apply for the compassionate release. He should be able to take advantage of it as any other person can.

Either or. It sounds like you think prison is either or. Again, I ask the question. What of justice? This man is a murderer. Is it just for a convicted murder to be free? Why is holding him accountable for his actions, at least in terms of the greater society's judgment about consequences, somehow seeking retribution? Is it not a consistent response to him regarding his actions (the focus being on him, not trying to change him or somehow extracting retribution). A man commits murder...he is caught, convicted, and sentenced...and that's retribution? Not the same way I would define retribution. Of course some want retribution. But that doesn't reduce prison to contemplation or retribution.

I follow your argument that Scotland sets other criminals free who are dying. So within the context of Scotland's practices, they are arguably consistent.

But justice is more than Scotland being consistent with their practices, just as compassion is more than setting a murderer free. And, therefore, I criticize Scotland for freeing a man who was found to be guilty of murder. And unless there is abuse, he is not "suffering" in prison in any way other than his own making. He is dying...he is suffering because he is dying...which he will be doing free just as he was doing in prison. Such suffering is not alleviated by either being in prison or being free.

I appreciate that you have responded thoughtfully, and hope to have done the same. We obviously have fundamental differences of opinion about things that are at the heart of this.

Maybe we can apply the same moral compassion to Richard Cheney and George W. Bush as Scotland's courts applied to Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, should there ever be an administration that will bring them to justice for the deaths caused by the Iraq War.

Perhaps the surviving families, including those of the US soldiers who died, will be equally forgiving.

Well, Sea Buscuit, maybe compassion and justice will win out with his slow agonizing death before year's out. I don't have any sympathy for this guy, unless he was wrongfully convicted, which doesn't seem to be the case.

TRL

So it's revenge when a convicted murderer is sentenced and serves the time to which he was sentenced? If so, then no one should ever be incarcerated using your twisted logic. He was NOT punished. He was sentenced to life imprison. The key word there is "life." Whether he dies naturally in prison, suffers a fatal heart attack or stroke, is killed by fellow inmates--whatever--he dies in prison. THAT is the compassionate thing to do for the 270 families of those who were brutally murdered.

You may not espouse this particular point of view, but most people who have been against his release have said things like "he should suffer in prison", etc... Given that they have the policy they do, to deny him the same opportunity that other convicted criminals are given is retribution. Further, the conditions in prison are horrid. Beyond just being uncomfortable, lonely, hard, etc....the conditions are horrid. And I would dare say, those who are against this guys compassionate release would say that these horrid conditions are ok. That the prisoners deserve this.

Some of the things going on are no beef or no green leafy vegetables in most federal prisons. This leads to an iron deficiency. I have a family friend in federal prison who has injured his leg, it's swollen twice the size of the other leg, the skin is broken and infected. He believes he has fractured his leg. He was given a tube of neosporin. That's it. No xray, no antibiotics, nothing. Now in order to get what I would categorize as basic human treatment he has to file a complaint and be subject to retribution by prison administration and guards. This is outrageous. If we treated a dog in this way someone would go to jail.

As for justice: it is a difficult concept to enact. It's subjective on it's own terms. Every day similarly situated criminals are adjudicated in different manners with different outcomes. We strive for justice to be "blind", but as it's practiced it is not blind at all. I have a feeling that one reason there is so much outrage re: this guy is he's Libyan. If he were Irish and had bombed London and they let him out would there be as much outrage? I don't know for sure, my guess is not. Why is that?

Admittedly, one issue with English Common Law is that it does not take into account the lasting effects of the wrong committed against them. I am very opposed to the cannonization of victims that seem to be happening lately. It's horrid when anyone dies, yet we lost our minds and spent billions on the families of the 9/11 victims. What do we do for the woman who loses her innocent child to gang violence (also terrorism, by the way), what about the 18,000 people who die each year due to lack of health care? Where is the outrage and rabid protection for them? It's not there because we've created a hierarchy of justice. I'm not opposed to helping victims families, but lets do it for all victims families. That will never happen because we value some more than we value others (we in the greater sense of we).

Where's the outrage at Israel for destroying family farms and Arab families only way to support themselves while building a wall that separates families from each other? And it's not a matter of Israel being able to "protect" themselves, it's the manner in which they're doing it.

It's easy to segment and compartmentalize an event, like 9/11 or Lockerbie , but true justice would demand that we treat all victims of terrorism with the same fervor. And we don't. And a lot of people are OK with that.

And now there's uproar over investigating alleged torturers and prosecuting them. Doesn't blind justice demand that we investigate, and if they have violated the law, prosecute them?

It's hardest to uphold "justice" when to do so would be against one's personal opinions or morals; but, unless we do that it's not justice, it's tyranny.

And you're the king of Scotland, I assume?

No, I'm someone who has the intelligence to know a sentence of "life without parole" means until one's life ends, not until somebody decides that said convict should be let go for some touchy-feely reason that is totally unacceptable and ridiculous.

ROFLMAO

Actually King James VI of Scotland - also King James I of England, the first to rule both; as well as officially the king of France - was a pretty intelligent guy for royalty. He wrote several books. And was probably not bad looking if you like long-nosed gingers:



He also commisioned and funded the most popular version of the Bible which bears his name. I happen to have a leather-bound edition of the red-letter version, as much for reference as for comfort; so he might well have been in favor of "forgiveness" of a sort.

To top it off the guy was probably at least bisexual; a subject of chatter in such exclusive surrounds as the Privy Council (how gay is that?)

He referred to hunky George Villier as his "wife" and called himself his "husband". Yet he was buried with a "male suitor" beside him.

That's a well developed response. However, from my pov there are a couple of problems with it. One....the appropriate response to "horrid" problems in prisons is to address/fix those problems. Not to use that as justification for letting the prisoner go free. And I am unclear....are the problems in the Scottish prison as bad as you have described in the federal prison (I assume you mean in the US)? For Scotland, which has such an idea of compassion that they would allow a murderer to go free, to have horrible care for its prisoners is implausible. Horrible care of prisoners is scandalous...if that's what's going on in Scotland, then shine a light on that. But it is not causal for release, imo.

Of course we have ideals that are not practiced fully. How could they be? When even given the best of motives different people place importance on different things. Compassion should be applied blindly as well, if you're going to frame it that way. But it's not being applied so. It's being applied narrowly in this case, without compassion others who were affected by this horrible attack. Does that mean you don't consider compassion when dealing with this (this type of situation)? Of course not. Any more than you stop considering justice even when you know you can't be perfectly just in every case.

And thus we are back to the same spot...."compassion" being defined as releasing a man who was convicted of murder is an arguable definition of compassion.

As far as your speculation regarding his being Libyan...and that somehow an Irish bomber being released would not provoke the same type of reaction.....Of course it would not for some. If they support the cause the Irish bomber was supposedly motivated by. I remember years ago hearing many passionate comments for the IRA's "efforts" in No. Ireland...not talking heads, but relatives and friends (Boston is the defacto capital of united Ireland, isn't it?). But I could never get it....to support someone who blew up people, including civilians, women and children, non-combatants....I could not see that as supportable. And when at least one of them went on a hunger fast in prison.....all I could think was "you've made your choice, now live with it. If this is how you want to end your life, then that's terrible, but society cannot be coerced like that."

Sorry, not sure how related that is, but using the Irish example took me back. What was this Libyan motivated by? Attacking us (us the US, us the UK, us the West, us the decadent infidels, us the Jew supporters)? Or are you trying to frame this as prejudice against Arabs/Muslims? Of course there is that. Just as there are those who will excuse because of the person's race/background (as examples see those who won't criticize Israel....see those who don't call for the Palestinians to get on with making peace). But for me those Irish "freedom fighters" earned their punishment...as did this man...and for it to be cancelled on misplaced compassionate grounds is galling.

Again, appreciate being able to dialogue on this. Thought provoking when we actually have to articulate what we think...and when we listen to someone else with a different point of view. So much "discussion" is not discussion, but hurling insults.