Which crime do you rate as the most heinous?

[ZombieNixon]

Poll question: Which crime do you rate as the most heinous?

We're talking crimes on a personal level, not war crimes or genocide.

I'd have to go with child molestation. The younger the child, the worse it is.

[loudestchick]

1. It destroys a child's innocence and trust. It destroys families, too.

[Jamastiene]

2. Definitely rape, but

I see child molestation as a form of rape also. I wish I could vote for both of those and hate crimes equally.

[Goldmund]

3. Murder,

obviously.

[ZombieNixon]

4. Which type?

Murder of a gay man because he burned your house down or murder of a gay man because he was gay?

[Goldmund]

6. I dunno, it's hard for me to wrap my brain around that question

after death, there's nothing. So everything else seems trivial in comparison, including maybe even the motive.

[forgethell]

26. He's dead in either case.

So what's the difference? Revenge or bigotry, both are directed by hate.

[Momgonepostal]

8. Agreed and I don't see the difference between...

hate crime murder and non-hate crime murder. Whether I kill you for your wallet or because of your religion/ethnicity/gender/sexual preferences, dead is still dead.

[Goldmund]

11. Though it's hard to emotionally approach it...

...I think that society has to recognize a difference between the two. The mindset behind hate crimes is something that the culture can directly address and affect by its value system. Hate crimes basically provide an additional set of motives to murders that otherwise would not happen. So, while the number of non-hate crime murders IS generally affected by broad socio-economic conditions, the number of hate crimes can DIRECTLY be addressed.

[forgethell]

27. Ah! an optimist.

I don't think that it can, myself. What are you going to do. Pass a hate-crimes bill? Frankly, I just rather they get the guys (or girls) committing these crimes and throw them in prison, or execute them for murder and rape. This will directly affect the cause of crime: the idea that they will be able to get away with it.

[Worst Username Ever]

5. Jay walking.

Those mother fuckers.

[ZombieNixon]

7. Mow 'em down, all of 'em!

[trof]

9. Other: any taking of life.

People can recover from other things.
Some better than others, and some maybe not at all, but, as they say, "life goes on".
When you're snuffed, you're snuffed.
Zero chance of recovery.

[CalebHayes]

24. I can agree with that.

[WoodrowFan]

10. child mollesting murderers who drive with their turn signal on!

[Name removed]

36. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Dogmudgeon]

12. Molestation, 11; All Others, 7

It's PEDO FEVER!

--p!
With or without cowbell

[Mr. McD]

13. Murder in general

What more can you take from someone? None of the choices are good but at least your alive and with help you can learn to cope at some level.

[Burma Jones]

14. Murderous Child Molesters are the most venal of all

[mvd]

19. That is my answer

Child molestation sickens me the most, but as others have said, with murder, it's all over. So I didn't feel comfortable choosing.

After murder and child molestation, torture would be next.

[Deja Q]

15. Sorry, but the more personal issues can only be resolved once

the base environmental and psychological issues are resolved or at acknowledged and addressed.

Fraud, corporate bribery, corporate theft, corporate book cooking. They are far more vile than one person murdering or molesting another.

Corporate chicanery hurts a LOT MORE people because our society is based on money and the people running it seemingly greedy beyond all definition.

Money is the root of all 'society' and in the vast majority of 'personal' crime, money is an issue.

Those who are homeless... I wonder how many of them are happy to be where they're at because of * and how the neocons are perverting 'society'.

[forgethell]

28. You can only

buy into that odious philosophy if you are under the mistaken belief that these "issues" are only "personal" ones.

Maintenance of the public order is a prime function of government.

[liontamer]

16. Rape

Murder and assault can sometimes be justified but rape exists only to exert power over another. (Child molestation is also rape)

[Goldmund]

17. What if you adopt the definition that...

...murder and assault are inherently unjustified?

[liontamer]

32. what do you mean by that?

Murder and assault can have many causes, whether one believes they are justified is usually a matter of perspective.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

33. even in self defense,?

[Euphen]

34. If it's in self defense it's not murder. n/t

[blondeatlast]

18. I would have included driving under the influence that resulted in death.

Although that would not have been number 1 for me.

It's a tough call, but child molestation is what I chose. Once that's happened to a child, something does die, I think.

There is simply no chance for a child in that situation; even in a murder of an adult it's a battle among somewhat equals.

[Bok_Tukalo]

20. Property

<eom>

[HeyManThatsCool]

21. They are all horrid. But defiling a child is so evil, so sick

Last week on 20/20 John Stossel did a piece at the end about forgiveness. And they were talking to this mother who had her child abducted during a camping trip 20 or so years ago. The girl was missing for a YEAR... and during the time the mother decided she had to forgive whoever did it so that she could move on.

A year to the day after the abduction, the kidnapper called the mother. The mother told him that she forgave him- then sat on the phone with him for an hour. Turned out he had already raped & killed the daughter. After talking to her he was arrested & convicted and then died in jail.
The mother then WENT TO THE CEMETARY with the guys parents & laid flowers on the grave of the man WHO KILLED HER CHILD.

I was SO SO SO sick over that. I would never, ever do that. I understood her having to let go of her grief, to a point. But forgiveness? How could you forget that he caused your child pain? That she was probably terrified & cold? That her last moments on earth were so violent?

I couldnt stop thinking about it. Maybe she is right & I am wrong, but I couldnt do that. I am more the Ellie Nessler type. If some son of a bitch raped my kid.......

The other part of the 20/20 story was about one of the twins practiced on by Dr. Mengel in Nazi Germany. The Nazis killed her parents & brothers and sisters.... but she forgives them. Can I tell you how weirded out I was by that? There are thousands of survivors still out there, and hundreds of thousands of families who lost love ones at the hands of the nazis. I dont think forgiving them is an option for most of those people. More than a million people were killed because of Hitler & his Nazis. Thats pure evil.
Frankly, I dont think forgiveness is the way to go



End Rant

[miss_kitty]

23. John Stossel is an evil right wing lying asshat, IMHO

if he were dying of thirst, I would not give him the steam off of my dog's pee.

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1133

[miss_kitty]

22. I think war and genocide ARE crimes on a personal level

You have murder, both as a 'hate' crime and not, rape as a 'hate' crime and not, torture as a 'hate' crime and not, I'm sure some child molestation-especially when gangs of soldiers are committing genocide and grabbing up little girls, especially.

Christ. Why do you think war and genocide are not 'personal?' I'd take it very personally if I were living in Iraq-the way our government did 9/11. Unfortunately, they decided not to prosecute the criminals, but to punish 2 whole countries who weren't seeing the oil thing their rich friends' way.

[ZombieNixon]

31. In cases of war and genocide,

those who commit the atrocities are either
A) acting under the orders of a governmental authority (the Janjaweed in Darfur acting as an arm of the Sudanese government) or
B) acting in an environment created by an order of a governmental authority (Lt. Calley and the My Lai massacre, while not ordered by the US government, were acting in a situation - Vietnam, that was created by an order of the US government. If we had never gone into Vietman, that particulr incident would never have occurred)

Neither of these reasons can be used as an excuse, but had it not been for the powers-that-be, those who committed the crimes would not have been in the situation in which they did the deed. By contrast, the Witchita strangler is not acting as an agent of a government (as far as we know), and chooses to go out and kill people.

However, if a soldier who kills an innocent family during a battle, that is a "personal" crime. By "personal," I mean that you can see/hear/feel/otherwise sense the physical prescense of the aggressor. When the US invaded Iraq, the Iraqi people could not "see" the US as a whole, it was just a faceless aggressor, the soldier on the ground, while the personification of the US, does not, in their personal being, represent the entire United States.

[forgethell]

25. Murder is ALWAYS

a hate crime. And is much worse than anything else to anyone who values human life.

[MrSlayer]

29. Sometimes murder is justified, child molestation can never be.

Not that raping an adult or beating someone up just because they are "different" can be either, they just aren't worse than molesting a child. I advocate the death penalty for child rapists.

[benny05]

30. I voted other

Because there are so many heinous crimes out there. The hate crime, James Byrd, was pretty awful. Yet, I think our current administration is pretty heinous for not sending out their best soldiers (not the inexperienced) if they needed them for a war. Instead, we have too many dead, injured, and it stinks to high poop that our President didn't suggest his daughters to go serve, unlike FDR's sons, all who could did for a good cause.

As the Germans protested today, we had our Hitler, now you have yours. That protest depressed me as you can imagine.

Bright side, DU, the One America Committee blog, JREG, Dkos, etc.

[parsifal_e]

35. Murder ofcourse....

for Murder is the end of two lives, the murderer's and the victim's...