[95th Rifleman]

We are getting into the murky business of ethics and morality in regards to crime and punishment here.

These discussions never end well as each person has their own ethical and moral stance. Some are considered overly liberal and tame while others are considered barbaric and obscene. However I will state what is essentialy the core of the European view on crime and punishment.

I can't speak for America but in Europe we have a history that goes back two thousand years. We have seen the results of barbarism and cruelty and how it doesn't really deter crime in the long run. Every European nation has instituted laws and punishments that would make the harshest American consider it inhuman and this blood has stained the hands of our nations for centuries.

This is the essence of the European "liberal" approach to crime and punishment. Perhaps we have gone a little too far in our liberalism, but we will never allow ourselves to slip back to the days when we had no true justice, but public spectacles of vengeance and blood.

Taking a life is not a valid justification for state sanctioned murder, humiliation and torture is not justice. If we, as a society, are to take the moral high ground and judge these criminals, to sentence them in punishment for their crimes we can NEVER allow ourselves to become that which we sentence, otherwise we stand for nothing but hypocrisy.