I wholly support the death penalty for premeditated crimes of particularly heinous natures, even crimes that currently do not carry such a penalty, i.e. kidnappers and pedos.
But therein lies the distinction. Someone who premeditates has deliberated on a course of action and those deliberations include "should I or shouldn't I" conversations in their heads. Loughner may have contemplated "how should I" but he was not capable of any other course of action. Perhaps that lowers him to the mental status of a rabid wolf but somewhere in there remains a human being locked into a mind it has no control over. That is the definition of insanity
The mentally retarded have the faculties of an animal as well. Jews and slaves were legislated to the status of animals.
Set aside your passions just long enough to carefully deliberate about the form and function of the government you would set to rule people's lives...
...unless passions hold greater sway over you than deliberation...
But then, you'd be no better than an animal.
I have been reading your posts SGT and find they have brought more questions then answers.
Who is to decide that any person is or will become a problem to society.?? Signs of instability in our youth can take many twists and turns. Those that call in bomb threats for amusement are much different then those of someone their age torturing animals.
The Sheriff said that they have proof this man had issued death threats lately to people in the community.--Why was he not picked up and held for that crime.?
People do slip through the cracks when their family has some influence and some kind of civilian politics comes in here.
So who would have been a good mental health Doctor to treat people like him, the Doctor that blew away our military yelling Allah Akbar.??-----The husband and wife team both Doctors that treated the children of the Hollywood stars for mental health problems that were arrested for chaining their 16 year old to her bed as they could not handle her.??
Take this and reverse it, parents with a child that has been diagnosed as Autistic and face a life time of caring for a child-Adult that has some kind of mind thought--different from the norm.
One day this child or adult finds something that fascinates them, a musical instrument or a broken clock. Out of no where the child learns to play the Piano or be able to fix anything and every thing that is mechanical in nature.
Don't forget Saint Francis of Aussie that went from a cruel monster to become the the protector of Animals.
Question, who is to decide on mental health when half the experts are themselves a bit titched.??
Who can tell, that wonderful child, male and female that change over time a slow progress and turn into monsters. Parents are the first to deny their kids are different until they see them in prison for life--then the parents blame themselves. Their miss placed guilt causes them to enable the child that leads to the child-adult committing even worse activities.
You raise questions SGT, next question is how and who is to decide that any human may, simply by their thoughts cause havoc, darn sounds like the thought police should be called in to question why a 5 year old boy cuts off the heads of their sisters dolls.
About all we can do is to take EVERYONE reguardless of their mental differences and punish them for anti society acts.
