Concering Cruelty and Clemency, and Whether it is Better to be Loved than Feared?
363142
Niccolo Machiavelli's "The Prince".\n\nIt's a good read.\n\nEDIT: Anyways, I feel it is better to be feared. Like Machiavelli said, love is too easily discarded to rely on it.
798827
Is man good? You are knowledgable. I have seen your questions and replies....you seem to have a head on your shoulders. So. Like law regarding entropy, is man born going from good to better, or is man born and molded, pushed, punished, terrorized, into beinf what we call morally acceptable? I, as an opinion, can not believe in an'inherent goodness' in man. I just look at a child who is becoming self aware, and the first things learned are "NO!", screaming for attention, taking toys from others...doing everything we have to teach them not to do. They do not come out and learn politeness and giving, first. They are changed into that.
941260
Not easily.  It wasn't a completely coherent question.\n\nThe area of pain and suffering is a longstanding issue in the question of the existence of a loving God.\n\n"If good not God, if God not good" goes back a long way.\n\nFor me, that some can believe in spite of terrible suffering and injustice is rather more evidence for the ability of humans to have faith than in the existence of a loving deity.
113037
Yes.  You posted this in Law & Ethics, and good for you, because the religious folk will have a field day with this one.  If a person is suffering and there is no hope for treatment or even for relief, why should we force them to stay alive?
1167077
innocent to be locked up.  if someone has a propensity for criminal behavior, there is a chance they will meet justice eventually.
326341
Nope. He tortured people, right? I would torture him like he did those innocent people. Or, elecric chair and hanging would be perfect for him. Anything where he suffers.
45035
When it comes to the free-moral agency of man, your question can be answered "yes" and "no".  People do things for two reasons...because they feel they "have to", and because they "want to".  I don't like being told to wear my seat belt, and often times don't, till I see that ploice officer in the distance.  I used to be a slob.  I got married, and my ex-wife demanded neatness, so to keep peace in the house, I complied.  As soon as my ex left me, I reverted to my original standards.  In both of these cases, my behavior was modified only insofar as I wanted to avoid the consequences.  But as far as my thought process behind my actions, my behavior wasn't truly modified.  As soon as I feel I can get away with my normal behaviors, I revert to them.  Behavior in humans is only truly capable in humans when one can modify that person's conscience to feel guilty if they violate a given expected behavior.  If all they fear is consequences, but don't feel guilty, their behavior has never been truly modified.
1107093
I meet and work with people every day I would really really like to hurt, maim, or kill.  I think most people do.  What makes a society is the will power to NOT kill them.  I haven't followed through on those desires....  yet
1137471
I see it a lot.\n\nSome people just can't LET GO...\n\nSome people think that if they make another person's life WORSE, that means their life gets better.\n\nThey won't do the WORK to keep him.. but they will work their A-S-S off to PUNISH HIM.\n\nI find it amazing.
215774
Woo hoo what a nutter! \nFollowing ur logic(!)if someone who is subsequently found to be INNOCENT is tortured to death (oops), then the people responsible should also be tortured. I notice u didnt include murderers in ur little rant or did u just forget to include them? U really should be sectioned and placed in a secure unit for everybodys safety. If anyone could be called 'evil' heres its u!
564288
my personal opinion is that fear "in general" keeps us from maybe going to far, making us question wether or not we are decent humane beings someone who isnt or thinks they are afraid of nothing are weak emotionally or mentally  to bne afraid of nothing is to have no conscience
543234
Freedom is the only value I have, understand and will protect at any cost. I feel u share similar points of view to a life.\nThere is a freedom! Even a prisoner has got one if he wants to, your mind is free and one can stop u thinking until u're dead.
878797
Depends how hard i'd be tortured. No, I changed me mind. I'd so rather live. It might give me a new aspect on life - though I'd be traumatized as hell! One of my WORST fears is getting kidnapped.
420702
I think that if you love your partner and he or she does not love you at this moment you are suffering. While you are loved you do not suffer but probably feel good or even proud of himself or herself. So i think it is better to be loved than to not to be loved. Maybe my opinion does not sound good but it is the truth.
1090347
It's about the greater good and it could be applied to most things. Would it better to kill one person or let many more die? Would you then be responsible for their others death if you did nothing? And would you be able to live with the guilt thereafter if you did nothing? But if it came to a choice of killing one person of them killing my loved ones then i would certainly kill that one person. However, i could not hoestly answer if it was unknown people about to be killed. I would like to think i could but, in reality, would I and would anyone else?
1028637
Is it wrong to do a smaller bad-thing, when others are doing what in your mind is the worst bad-thing?\n\nDo you want an answer that says it is less wrong to poke holes in your body to make yourself feel beatiful and to verbally abuse people, than to take anothers life?\n\nAre you trying to draw lines between far-away things in order to blur your perception of reality?
794186
Yes I am concerned, but Congress rolled over and it is legal to torture....which I think makes us all the more unsafer. Think of a soldier captured and getting tortured.