Quote:
|
Originally Posted by me283
I see your point. However, that is slightly different to executing someone whose aim and intention is to commit genocide, and who actually went some way in his attempts. Further, he stabbed several police officers, killing one of them. That isn't someone who might become a troublemaker, that is one loaded gun with a hair trigger.
|
If the only way of stopping him from murdering others would be to kill him, then I could accept the neccessity in that. But it clearly wasn't neccessary in this case.
Where it becomes tricky is what you might call 'non-defensive' but morally right wars.
E.g. : second world war; Hitler admired the British and would have settled for occupying Europe, and just leaving Britain be. So were we right to join the war to protect the millions facing genocide in mainland Europe? I'm pretty sure we were.
E.g.: Iraq; much less clear cut. There's little doubt that thousands if not hundreds of thousands of people will now not be murdered by Saddam as a result of the war. I think it was the right thing to do to protect them, even though 'we' weren't directly threatened by Saddam. Many people obviously disagree, but none of the people who I've spoken to who opposed the war seem to have had any alternative, other than to leg Saddam get on with doing what he was doing and presumably leave the people of Iraq to whatever fate he was going to hand out.
But back to Ricin man - it's plain as day that murdering him would be wrong.
__________________
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by me283
Indeed, in response to your comment that "killing people is wrong".
Let's try an analogy here: if you had a dog that bit people, the courts would order you to have it put down on the grounds that a) it was dangerous and b) you couldn't control it.
Statements a) and b) could equally be applied to this Algerian lunatic; who may have "human rights" but seems to me to be sub-human.
|
What does 'sub-human' mean?