To some it may sound like heresy but in the future I suspect we get to the point where we realize many of these crimes, or what we define as “evil” are genetic propensities or differences in the way the brain functions. A psychopath has a clearly different brain scan and certain parts of the brain that filter such inappropriate activity are much less active. True young pedophelia is likely a different functioning of the brain. In some cases the behavior may be learned or a result of past trauma. That’s not to excuse any of the behavior and we can’t afford to let people who are a threat to others in society freely exist. But it changes the way criminal behavior is framed and the focus on punishing “evil”. We don’t have all the evidence here but I strongly suspect this is a case of supremely stupid but not recurrent behavior.
I think all that is correct, but man the possibility of abuse if we empower governmental action based upon such "findings"
I was going to say something along these lines. Whatever crossed wiring goes off in certain human heads that causes them to view children sexually is not any different (biologically speaking) than many of the other fetishes that I also don’t understand or want to. The only difference as far as I can tell is the degree to which society expects one to cope with (by suppressing, not indulging) said urges.
Yea. Let’s keep this stuff over in the football board. I’ve stayed off it there as I have no idea what to say. Utterly speechless (or is it postless).
It's bad. More facts. Very bad Details revealed in Florida Gators QB Jalen Kitna’s child pornography case
"When police searched Kitna’s phone, they found three more images of two nude pubescent juveniles in the shower, according to the report. All three of those images appear to be self-produced and were saved onto his cell phone last December." Not sure if it matters, but I'm not sure what "self-produced" means in this context? I assume it's not alleging that Kitna took or produced the pictures. Is it asserting that the girls produced them? How would they know that and why would that be relevant to the charges?
Some will know me as the GC member who’s not afraid to ask hard questions. That said, I do believe that, as a society, it’s high-time we decide whether certain acts are to be regarded as evil or as stemming from biological predispositions. I mean, how can we be angry with sick people ?
Is it your 'biological predisposition' to be that kind of guy? Or could you control yourself if you put your mind to it?
It's an interesting issue. If free will is real, then even predisposed people have choices to make. If free will is an illusion, then we can still be angry at a sick person's behavior and remove them from society when they harm others.
I don’t have a problem with protection from further harm. But are you saying that if free will is an illusion, that we can pretend to make sense of anger towards the sick ?
IF free will is an illusion, I think a case could be made that it's not helpful to be angry at the person - as opposed to their actions. But I'm personally not sold that people lack free will, and I'm not sure how that could really be proven either way. Having said that, I don't doubt that there is a small percentage of people who are truly delusional/insane and think they're battling dragons or something when they hurt someone. But I don't put those folks in the same category as someone like Ted Bundy. I think he knew what he was doing was wrong and kept doing it anyway.
Biological determinism is a pretty shoddy belief too. People may be "born" sociopaths, but not all of them manifest sociopathic behavior in that they kill people or seek to harm them. A lot of them just perform empathy and live normally. Which is what most people do to some degree or another, perform the behaviors other people expect you to do.
I took "self produced" to mean selfies. Perhaps sent to him directly of just posted on the internet and downloaded maybe? The digitized world in our hands has been a Pandora's box.
I have mixed emotion on this. First, let me say that a death penalty is far too lenient for child molesters. Depending on what comes out later in the legal proceedings I will make judgment on this case. I do hate to see a 19 year old’s life ruined due to incredible stupidity.