Gotta agree with old anomy up there. Besides killing someone is like a free pass, you kill them and they’re dead. Put them in jail and they have to spend the rest of their life miserable in jail. Much better ^_^

I just hope that he is suffering while rotting away in prison up until the point he is executed.

Gotta agree with old anomy up there. Besides killing someone is like a free pass, you kill them and they’re dead. Put them in jail and they have to spend the rest of their life miserable in jail. Much better ^_^

I personally believe that the death penalty was never truely intended as a “Punishment” for the guilty. It sure as hell isnt a deterrent. The death penalty is a reminder that we are human beings, and really not much different from animals no matter how civilized we profess ourselves to be. People who are against the death penalty always point out that it is either too cruel (pitiable bleeding hearts with no immagination) or that it is too easy for the condemmed (I consider this argument a cop out). As a human being when I am faced with a danger to myself or more importantly to what I love, I will destroy it, its in my nature. When the threat has been removed but is still existing somewhere else then it will affect my life detrimentally until it is permenently removed such as Jeffery Dahlmer in a weight room (thank you prison guards). I would never want to know that some horror was out there living in squalor locked up and thinking about me or mine every day. I would rather know that the problem was dead and burried, gone forever. So would most victims, and if they didnt they plea to the judge which is always taken into very serrious consideration.

So I say hangim, slowly, Ill bring the rope.

It’ll be a sad day when and if the death penalty is abolished. Let’s enjoy it while we still can! I’ll bring popcorn..

like someone else here said, it’s interesting to see all of the would-be killers (*”i’ll pull the lever” “i’ll help,” etc.) come out of the woodwork to comment on this killer. this cult-leader is an abomination to society, to be sure, and so is murdering him for that fact.

some here have said they would be glad to be the one who gets to kill asahara. i take them at their word. they’re not just “talking about it,” i believe they would actually do it, if they had the chance. hence, would-be killers. if you’re not sure about that, ask them yourself.

NHK today said that his lawyers are ready to start the second trial for Shoko, meaning the first trial took ten years, GUILTY, and now the second trial will take another 10 years, GUILTY, and then there will be 10 year appeal process, so Shoko lives for another 20 years, at least, if he doesn’t die of natural causes in Kosuge.

they should have hung him long ago. My ex-girlfriend was on one of those train but just for a short bit. She didn’t notice anything wrong until she got to work and couldn’t tell that the light in the office was on.

Richard,

Perhaps if you had seen the people gasping for breath from their seared lungs, as I did that appalling spring morning, you would understand these comments.

Aum is still looking for recruits, BTW.

Somehow, “hat trick” just doesn’t work.

Thank god there are still a few civilized countries

If you are talking about Japan in terms of capital punishment, you have a very rude awakening coming your way.

Richard,

I am surprised to see that you feel it necessary to start calling people, including me, names.

Please be careful.

JP

Mr. Pink: It seems to me that you make the false assumption that those who are against the death penalty are by default insensitive to the feelings of the victims.

Honestly, I think Richard’s posts display an unwarranted emotional outburst. But characterizing people who think justice is best served by means other than killing people are not necessarily insensitive to the feelings of victims. And I think you will find that not all victims of violent crime (or surviving family members) want the perpetrator(s) to be put to death. To assume that victims, as if by default, want perpetrators put to death is itself another blanket generalization.

To d. weber: You state “He should be put down like any mad dog.”

Shoko Asahara is not a dog. He is a human. It is interesting that you use an animal metaphor. You justify killing him by calling him an animal.

The military does this to trainees, especially during wartime. “The enemy isn’t human. If they were human, they wouldn’t have done such-and-such,” etc.

It’s brainwashing, pure and simple.

Shoko Asahara is a human being who directed a horrendous, despicable act. He should be judged as such, not as a “dog.”

And no, calling him a “mad dog” isn’t “just an expression.” You’ve dehumanized him in order to justify killing him.

Maybe he should be put to death; but as a human, not as a “dog.” If you are going to support the death penalty, at least have the self-respect to state clearly that it is a human being you propose killing.

Tatari, I don’t think all opponents of capital punishment are necessarily (note qualifiers) are insensitive to the victims. I do think most opponents of capital punishment are excessively sensitive to the perpetrators and not sensitive enough about the victims.
And while some relatives of victims may be willing to forgive, I don’t believe society as a whole can afford to adopt such a posture.
To put it in pretty raw terms, we humans are engineered to demand revenge, and a society that fails to deliver it for us is going to break down into individual vengence — not a good thing.
The tired old argument over deterrence is fallacious on both sides.
It would be a good thing if hanging Asahara deterred some other lunatic from copycat killing, and horrible if it prompted someone else to it, but those potentialities are unimportant next to the fact that his hanging would absolutely prevent him from killing again.
As to your comments re d.webers note, I would say Asahara dehumanized himself far more effectively than any words. Humans are animals; the fact that we are self-aware and other animals may or may not be is irrelevant. A dog, a cat, a chimpanzee — all will fight to the death to protect their young, and to my mind thus earn an infinitely greater right to life than any human who kills (especially the young) merely for, what for a better term I’ll call, a cheap thrill.

Tatari: I’d never deny that Asahara is a human being; I just don’t think being human entitles him to any special consideration. I realize that many people, faced with the choice of saving his life or that of a newborn kitten, would choose to save him on the grounds that “he’s human” — I’d save the kitten, as it’s more worthy (IMHO) of life and far more likely to contribute to the sum total of happiness in the world.

It always boggled my mind how some people can rally to defend the rights of heartless criminals like this piece of filth yet at the same time by and large the very same group has no problem with abortion and sometimes even actively advocate it. I’m a pretty hopeless liberal, but in this case common sense is definitely NOT with us..

Let’s remember, everyone, that we have very strict policies here about turning these discussions into debates about the U.S.

Tatari, I agree completely on the need for transparency. And I certainly don’t advocate indiscriminant capital punishment. I would reserve it for those — eg Asahara, Bundy, Dahmer — whose guilt is truly beyond doubt AND who manifestly pose a danger to society at large. A single murder would have to be pretty heinous (for example, that kid who killed the little boy, decapitated him and stuck his head on the school fence) before I’d favor execution over life in prison. Obviously, there have been some enormous mistakes and miscarriages of justice in the past. And I would always be concerned about the potential for more such. The solution to that is more and better education, technology and training for criminal investigators, and, as you point out, transparency in the judicial process.
As far as the dichotomy goes, feel free to pose any one you like. I’m not saying that’s the choice we’re faced with, simply that I’d have no problem making my choice if it were. I could, of course, offer some far more complex hypothetical, but why? To me, it is in fact that simple — innocence always trumps malignancy.
Those like Richard who claim to be espousing some “higher” morality by defending the lives of Asahara and his ilk are– assuming they’re sincere — simply deluding themselves. There is no higher morality within a civilized society than the protection of its innocents from harm.

Apologies to all if this got a bit disjointed; wrote snippits in between unavoidable demands at work.

It would be a good thing if hanging Asahara deterred some other lunatic from copycat killing, and horrible if it prompted someone else to it, but those potentialities are unimportant next to the fact that his hanging would absolutely prevent him from killing again.”

so would keeping him in prison for the rest of his life, too. killing killers has never been a deterrant, only a form of sanctioned vengence.

Explosions of apartment houses in Moscow (1999) killed almost 300 hundred people. This case will never be solved so the real people, who stay behind the September 11th 2002 terrorist attack in the US will never be revealed. Both of those terrorist acts have the same nature not only because in both cases were exploded buildings with civilians, but most of all because in both cases wars with the Chechnya or Iraq, places of proposed terrorists, became unavoidable. Undoubtedly there are many people who understand that such devastating cases created the perfect platform for some political actions which usually based on the economical interests. The official investigations in both cases loose their credibility with time, when contradictory facts, speculation and evidences of alternative versions are refused to be examined by authorities. But what is obvious, that in both of those cases of terrorism there is a lack of ideological content

The Gas attack in Tokyo underground in 1995 had no ideological content either, which leaves it open for any interpretation. As one analytic said: “In Japan there never were any precedents of anonymous unmotivated massacre. The Gas attack in Tokyo was an attempt of anonymous mass senseless murder of civilian people (passengers of the underground) with the using genocidal weapon (fighting gas Sarin). For the Japanese this way of action is unthinkable! Definitely the gas attacks in Tokyo were planned by people whose brains are in an absolutely different political “culture”. In which is the question?”

My attitude to this story from the beginning was that it must be clear for any bit of a logical person that such an attempt of Aum Shinruko to demonstrate power is useless and pointless. I would sooner think of expansion of the areas of political influences. I think we had enough lessons by now to be able to learn a few rules:

Terrorist attacks, which do not have a clear ideological content, a responsible organizer and are surrounded by mystery and gossips, are appearing when politicians become limited in their influence in some area or on some people.

To understand a purpose of terrorist attack, find the real political target. Who will be affected most of all by that attack?

Keep up with the mass media. Often repeated information in news is what was meant to be achieved.

Creation of public opinion by Mass Media and politician’s speeches is the necessary step in realisation of initial ideas.

However a few voices behind the chorus of shocking headlines can’t change the fully formed public attitude to this crime. Osamu Watanabe is the man of noble personality, who organized the defence of Shoko Asahara, and was also the leader of the movement against the death penalty. As the state lawyer he conducted the first stage of the court. In his book he has promulgated the sad facts for a civilized society:
1. The outcome of the court has been predetermined prior to the beginning of court. Judges, shutting their eyes to the real facts, simply developed the script written by the state and daily sounded by mass-media.
2. The state has decided to execute Shoko Asahara at the stage of preparation for arrest.
3. In the court no proof has been presented of guilt of the defendant. All the charges were constructed only by misinterpretation of Asahara’s doctrines and the indications of several pupils.
4. Policemen garbled proofs and instigated the witnesses to lie.
Objective examination of the “poisonous substance” incident has not taken place. The real proofs have disappeared.
5. Policemen and the High court stated in the Sarin incident that the trace which is not concerning to Aum is involved. These facts try to deflect from business carefully.
6. The state did everything to lead the court without lawyers and without handicaps to enable them to execute the defendant. In particular, in the middle of process without any evidence of blame, they arrested the lawyer Yasuda Yoshihiro.

Asahara and his followers, along with the innocent civilians, who were killed or injured by Sarin gas, are victims in this story. The reputations of some Russian politicians were also affected.

The problem about us is that we have a short memory. Not that many people today remember about the announced goal of the Americans invasion in Iraq. No nuclear weapon was found, but thousands (not 12) of civilians were killed. We, the ordinary people have short memories, we are able to forgive and forget the mistakes and sins of the past. But forgiveness and forgetting is probably the biggest mistake of our society today. This encourages the repetition of similar scenarios. The way of ruling the world using terrorism has become popular!

Spanish philosopher-moralist Balthazar Garcia in the 17th century said: “Do not yield to the first impression. Do not fill your sense with the first impression, or your mind – with the first communication; this is the sign of the shallow depth. There are people with the quality of that kind of crockery which absorbs the smell of the first time filled in liquid – whichever it was fragrant or stinking. The bad thing is if others will learn about it, – that is what the treachery needs: ill-intentioned people will hurry to colour your trusting nature in their own colours. Let there always be a space for review of the opinion. Being at the mercy of the first impression is one step to a blind passion.”

2000 years ago Pilate asked the crowds, “What do you want me to do with Him?” and they replied, “Crucify Him!” I believe in the 21st century humanity must be able to overcame the ignorance of crowds, which combined with the lack of morals today can bring us to very frustrating results. “Virtue is wisdom” – Socrates said. I appeal to everybody – be virtues, be wise.