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Friday, March 11, 2016

Residual Christianity Syndrome

Theodore Dalrymple: Sorry Excuse
Posted by Ilíon at 3/11/2016 02:10:00 PM
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7 comments:

Drew said...

Christianity doesn't teach that contrition should affect a criminal punishment. Christianity teaches lex talionis. It's not two eyes for an eye because you're unrepentant.

Of course, there is no way to implement lex talionis for drug crimes, which is why they should not be crimes.

March 20, 2016 at 12:27 AM
Ilíon said...

"Christianity doesn't teach that contrition should affect a criminal punishment."

Indeed, it does not. This is why Dalrymple, at the end of the piece, called it "Residual Christianity Syndrome".

Recall a couple of Easter seasons ago, when I mocked the commie popelet for his staged photo op of not only washing the feet of prisoners, but *kissing* those feet -- "Look at me! I'm so humble -- and holy -- that I can out-do Jesus!"

What Dalrymple is talking about is another example of this. That is why the "judge" got so angry when she found out that the drug pushers had mocked her after she released them -- they mocked and insulted her divinity.

"Christianity teaches lex talionis. It's not two eyes for an eye because you're unrepentant."

Christianity does not teach 'lex talionis', for ever and ever, world without end. Christianity teaches justice, that the punishment fit the crime … and taking into account the toll that inflicting a just punishment may have upon the inflictors. In a world in which there were no magistrates, and thus vendetta and blood-feud was the only possible response to an injury (and, by the nature of the beast, to a mere slight), 'lex talionis' was an important step toward justice.

“Of course, there is no way to implement lex talionis for drug crimes, which is why they should not be crimes.”

Hmmm … so, rather than *merely* imprisoning a rapist, we should order someone to rape him. And then, we have to release the rapist back into society; for, after all, he has been punished for his crime.

Drug dealers – and users – are dangerous: no only to themselves and to one another, but to us. We need to keep them – both the pushers and the users -- isolated from us; and there are only two ways to do that: execute them or imprison them.

March 20, 2016 at 6:44 AM
Ilíon said...

Drew, "libertarianism" is just as mindless as "liberalism" -- and, ultimately, both stances are just catspaws for leftism.

March 20, 2016 at 6:47 AM
Drew said...

The old testament seems to teach capital punishment for legitimate rape, so you are wrong in mocking my legal theory on that basis.

As best I can tell, the old testament does not criminalize drug possession. And for a long time, the modern world didn't, either. The Bible says that the law of the Lord is perfect. It wasn't just a "step toward justice."

March 20, 2016 at 8:04 PM
Ilíon said...

Drew, since when is pointing out a flaw in your reasoning mockery?

Yes, the Old Testament prescribes execution for rape ... and for adultery. But, execution is hardly an eye for *that* eye, now is it?

"The Bible says that the law of the Lord is perfect. It wasn't just a "step toward justice.""

You're really not listening, are you?

"As best I can tell, the old testament does not criminalize drug possession"

The OT condemns drunkenness. The OT also prescribes various punishment for injuring someone through carelessness or through indifference.

And, as I've already pointed out, druggies, both the pushers and the addicts, are dangerous to themselves and, more importantly, to the rest of us.

There are claimed statistics that crime has gone up in Washington and Colorado in legalization of pot (for instance, here). And, of course, the libertarian pot heads are going to insist that there is no increase in crime ... and, if there is, you *know* they will be working overtime to sweep it under the rug.

Before getting on a high horse about the supposed injustice of the criminalization of such drugs, why not give it a while? If there is a crime wave, and it's currently being swept under the rug, there will come a time when the rug won't be big enough.

March 20, 2016 at 9:17 PM
Drew said...

If the person injures someone through carelessness, he can be punished appropriately. If you think that these acts should be criminalized without injury, then point me to a passage that spells out what their punishment should be. The Bible doesn't advocate prison sentences in the first place, so I don't expect that you'll find any specific number of years in prison ever specified.

In the common law of America, it used to be that negligence without injury wasn't a crime or a tort. Now we've got loads upon loads of crimes that are designed to eliminate any possibility of injury.

March 20, 2016 at 9:56 PM
Nick said...

"Drew, "libertarianism" is just as mindless as "liberalism" -- and, ultimately, both stances are just catspaws for leftism."

Exactly. The libertarian philosophy carries within itself the seeds of its own destruction. It is NOT the opposite of Marxism, but a more subtle means of disseminating the goals of Cultural Marxism and leftist ideology.

April 14, 2016 at 5:24 PM

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