First and foremost,
Marija_Magdalena, I completely agree with you. It’s what I've been saying all along concerning Horatio’s position, and I also think that it is us everyday Joe’s responsibility too, as a civilised society, to respect the law of the land as well.
All I'm going to say is that over here in the UK a Paedatrician was beaten to death because the stupid, illiterate ignorants who murdered him thought that a Paedatrician was the same as a Paedophile, so in that respect, in fact in any respect, no-one has the right to take the law into their own hands, and most especially those whose job is to 'enforce' the law.
First of all that is not the result of someone taking the law into their hand, thats the result of idiocy, and a lack of education.
Um, yes it is taking the law into your own hands. Those who murdered that Paediatrician made a judgement (an erroneous one) and then acted on that judgement by committing murder. That’s taking the law into your own hands. Just because they were too stupid to
not know the difference between what a Paediatrician is and what a Paedophile is, is neither her nor there.
Second of all lets get beyond the superficial shall we? The law is ultimately nothing more than an agreed to code of conduct created by politicians who many of you feel are corrupt. It is for all intents and purposes a set of papers, a socially constructed set of barriers.
In my opinion, the laws of the land are a set of standards that prevents the innocent from being persecuted, murdered (such as the Paediatrician), beaten, physically abused, stalked, etc, etc, etc. It is a set of standards that if broken then a punishment befitting the crime is applied.
How about if you were to put a family member of yours in the same position as the Paediatrician, an innocent who was murdered? Would you want a family member to have been beaten to death and have it quantified as those who murdered that family member were obviously stupid and ignorant and had simply made a mistake? Or would you actually want those who murdered your family member to pay for the crime they had committed?
Now, judging by some of the comments I’ve read in this thread and elsewhere, I think some might opt for the “eye for an eye” and go seek their own form of justice. So, say you go and do that, which will also be taking the law into your own hands, and you go murder a member of their family. Well, once you’ve done that, what’s to stop them from opting for the same option and avenge their family member’s death by murdering another member of your family? ...and so on and so on, until all members of both families are pushing up daisies.
Would you be willing to risk the annihilation of all your family members, or would you rather know that the remaining members of your family are safe from the ones who initially committed a murder because they have been dealt with by the law? I know which one I would prefer.
To begin with the question what makes a judge, jury, or executioner special, what gives them the special privilage to dictate justice. Is a local bystander who is also familiar with the law not capable of judging, and determining fair retribution? Additionally isn't a jury itself just a bunch of citizens unfamiliar with the law.
Isn’t that what we have now? Isn’t a Judge a local bystander who is supposedly knowledgeable of every quarter of the law? Isn’t he the one who determines an appropriate sentencing in accordance to the crime that has been committed?
A member of the jury is not required to know the law, and shouldn’t be required to know the law because they are not there to determine an appropriate sentence according to the laws of the land, they are there to determine whether the man or woman is innocent or guilty of the crime they have been accused of and they are also members of the public who are, or should be, impartial to the crime that has been committed. In other words they are not emotionally involved with the person who may or may not have committed the crime and also the prosecutors.
Whether the Politicians/Judges/Members of the Jury are corrupt themselves or not is neither here nor there, because all in all they are only enforcing the law, they are not the law themselves.
Yes, it is true that this is not an ideal world we live in, but not all Politicians are corrupt and neither are all Law Enforcement Officers/Judges/Members of the Jury. To think that they are is, in my opinion, idiocy itself.
The point is can we move beyond simple illogical claim statements like "no one should take the law into their hands"; tell me why. Why is locking someone in a barred room any more just than a cop beating them up? Why is what H did not morally justified?
The definition of Morals is: Definition - "Moral
adj: relating to, dealing with, or capable of making the distinction between right and wrong in conduct.
Given that Horatio Caine is a Law Enforcement Officer, I would say his own personal morals coincide with the reason
why he chose a career that involves the upholding and protection of the laws of the land and also the protection of the innocents who adhere to those laws. I would also say that we’ve had plenty of evidence in past seasons showing us that this could said to be true of Horatio.
So, I would say that the reason Horatio Caine was morally unjustified when he supposedly beat up this Paedophile is because he went completely against his personal and professional
law abiding tenets that come with the job that he does, by committing a criminal act himself, which involved administering a punishment that
he alone saw as a fitting one. He made a judgement on the Paedophile that was not impartial, and then acted on that judgement, which as a Law Enforcement Officer or even as a law abiding citizen of Miami, he should not have acted on.
If we look to history, not a 1000 years ago they tortured people in public, burnt them alive, and executed them for similar offenses. That was certainly an action by the state, would you say that’s just? Furthermore would you say that’s just while condemning the simple taking of justice into ones hand and beating up a pedophile who you know for certain committed a vile and heinous act against a minor?
First of all you are talking about laws that were around 1000 years ago. Admittedly such things still occur in certain parts of the world today, but I would hope not in Miami. I do know such things don’t occur in the UK. I would also hope that our laws today are far more civilised than those of a thousand years ago.
What does bemuse me though is why you are using history as a quantification of why you appear to feel that the laws of today are failing? Shouldn’t we actually be looking at what transpired in our History and be learning from that, and then actually admit that perhaps with these laws that do govern us now, we are a bit more civilised now than we were back then?
These are important questions you need to ask yourself, what made the government the sole moral actor when it comes to criminal law, and what made them so pure on that matter than any one else compromising that system is just as bad as the criminal they are punishing? Was it not four months ago that a judge if Vermont gave a pedophile twenty days in prison? Was that justice? Everyone has the capacity to be corrupt, especially the government.
As said earlier, this is not an ideal world we live in and that’s because Humans are corruptible, but then not
all humans are corrupt, or corruptible. Besides, in your example, it wasn’t the law that was corrupt, it was the official in Vermont who was. So, in my opinion, to disband the laws of the land, as I think you wish would happen, simply because
a few have been corrupted would, in my opinion, be committing Social suicide.
...Anarchy in the making because there would no restraint on anything. I could walk down the road, killing anyone I felt like, and without any law or law enforcement officers, and all that entails, to find me and send me to prison or the chair for that, I would get off scott free. Because just say that one of those was a member of your family that I killed, how would you, an every day joe, find me?
What matters is not the means that a person takes to enact justice but their intent. H's was clearly a pure intent of punishing the man for what he had done, and on the consequentialist side that same thing checked out. He didn't kill the guy it wasn't uneven retribution, and ultimately when that guy goes to prison the people there are going to be a lot less merciful than H.
Again, your proposal is ignoring the reasons
why Horatio chose a career in Law Enforcement. If he doesn’t believe in the application of the law anymore, then he should not be working under the pretence that he does. The badge and what it signifies cannot be placed to one-side when it suits him
Horatio is a 'Law Enforcement Officer', and a Law Enforcement Officer is someone who has been trained to 'enforce' the law. He is not someone who is the law, he is someone who is there to show us every day joes what the law represents... And as far as I can see, all Horatio is doing is giving people like the Mala Noche every reason to feel that what they do is right and just, because I would be grateful if someone could tell me just what the difference is between what Horatio has been doing over the last couple of episodes, to what the Mala Noche do.
Furthermore perhaps that was in Horatios mind the only way to enforce said law. And even so you have given me little to no substantive reason as to why his actions were wrong. And I do not mean on a legal level I mean on some kind of ethical or moral level. The law in this instance is meaningless; its just paper, and its made by people many of you condemn as I stated earlier.
The law should never be deemed as meaningless, especially when it comes to a law Enforcement Officer.
Let me ask you a question, why do you think Horatio chose to become a Law Enforcement Officer?
We need to get our heads out the clouds here, and consider something beyond this narrow, and ridiculous interpretation of ethical police work. Why should we protect people who commit such crimes, and why shouldn't they be made to suffer for what they did, just as they made their victims suffer? Why should we claim it lowers us, why should we feel guilt in such acts; should we not be proud of what H did? Move beyond the obvious there have been many societies in history, each with their own code of laws, and each society felt they were just. We should realize that these standards are subjective standards of conduct created by us, and are no more valid than my conception of justice or dogbert’s. Justice is relative, law is subjective, and there are few if any absolutes. If I want to take the law into my hand my justice may be just as just as that of the state’s. Its all matter of personal judgment.
The last thing a law does is protect those guilty of committing a crime.
As said before, the laws of the land are there solely to protect the innocent from murder, persecution, abuse, and so on, and it is also in place to punish those who commit any crime that breaks those laws. I also believe that the laws are there to protect us from ourselves.
In my honest opinion, Iamthey, your debate has been about corrupt individuals who have the power to act on behalf of the law, such as Judges, but it has not been about the laws of the land.
In my opinion, as in most things, it is not the laws that fail us, but
some of the people who act on behalf of the law. And yet, in my opinion, it cannot be said with any confidence that if all of us, as local bystanders, were given the power to administer our own punishments on those who commit a crime, that some of us would not become corrupted ourselves.
