On Oct 19, 3:20 pm, Anim8rFSK <ANIM8R... at (no spam) cox.net> wrote:
In article
b132a6f2-b4bf-41d9-bdd0-ef1fac34a... at (no spam) g23g2000vbr.googlegroups.com>,
moviePig <pwall... at (no spam) moviepig.com> wrote:
On Oct 12, 12:21 pm, Howard Brazee <how... at (no spam) brazee.net> wrote:
On Mon, 12 Oct 2009 08:29:52 -0700 (PDT), moviePig
pwall... at (no spam) moviepig.com> wrote:
The question here should be, imho: Does Polanski's freedom pose
any
continued threat (either actual or by example), or in any way add
to
his victim's anguish? As I understand what's been said, the answer
is
a definite 'no'... and the rest of the controversy is merely
villagers
bearing torches...
Those aren't the only reasons given for punishment.
I can't easily think of other good ones. (I assume we're both
rejecting, e.g., quotas, character-building, and the will-of-God...)
One reason given for punishment is to deter others from doing the same
crime.
Yes, that's what I meant by "posing a threat by example". And if you
claim that prospective dangerous criminals would indeed see a Polanski
amnesty as an encouraging relaxation of child-protection standards,
then I'll still disagree, but only as a matter of opinion.
How about "it encourages convicted criminals to escape and hide, because
if you hide long enough, you don't have to serve your sentence at all"?
Yes, it might do that. And, thus, even if Polanski were suddenly
demonstrably innocent of his original crime, it might still be
necessary to fry his ass in order to protect civilization as we know
it. But I'm guessing that, in actuality, the number of miscreants
likely to be affected by Polanski's example is vanishingly small...
along with society's danger from them...
