I feel so angry after listening to the Radio

I was listening to BBC Radio just now and there was a programme on about amnesty for murderers in India, the BBC host interviewed several convicts who had been sentenced to death but was spared at the last minute through the interevntion of a British Comissioner and had their sentence changed to either 25 years or life imprisonment. During the interview several of the inmates who were once on the death row...*cough* or should i say MURDERERS were asked how they feel about having their death sentence quashed and spared from being put to death, and here's what each of them had to say:

BBC host: "what do you think about lives you took? now that you've been spared from the death sentence?"
Murderer #1: "i don't want to have anything to do with my past anymore, right now i just want to look forward to a better tomorrow and contribute to society."

Murderer #2: "i feel very lucky that i didn't have to die"
BBC host: "But what about the 2 people you've killed? did you not effectively serve them your own death sentence when you killed them?"
Murderer #2: "No that's different, because when a man kills another man and you sentence him to death, then that's wrong."


Later on the BBC hosts interviewed one of the victims whose mother had been shot by one of these men (i wasn't paying attention to who they were referring to as i was feeling too angry), the victim described how he had tried to tend to his mother who was just shot and lying on the ground, but he could only hear her mutter a few words before the killer shot her again in the chest and killed her. So the killer was either Murderer #1 or Murderer #2 and when i kept thinking about what those two murderers had to say about themselves taking the lives of others as being something that they merely "did" a long time ago or that it was something that "happened" in the "Past" while hearing them expressing their continuous joy and excitement at the prospect of able to keep living in this world or even to begin life anew again once their prison term is over...the very thought of which greatly disturbs and sickens me to no end, these vile wretches should not have been allowed to live if they do not even have even the slightest bit of guilt nor regret on their conscience.

why were they even saved to begin with? they didn't deserve to live precisely because they are not sorry for what they've done. Even to this day they're still only thinking about themselves and the kind of a future THEY will have once they're out. what disgraceful, disrespectful, and despicable animals that they are! how could these rotten people have been spared and to what end? what on earth were the people who made this happen trying to proof? i simply do not understand and when i keep thinking about it more and more i become even more furious and it makes my blood boil even more.

i believe in all the years i've listened to BBC this is the first time i've ever heard of a death row inmates even being ALLOWED to speak out over the air-waves on how they feel about being spared from the death sentence. And now after hearing all this utter rubbish that spewed out of their own mouths i can't even contain my anger and hatred for these murderous barbarians any longer( referring to the convicts! not the people of india!) nor could i even begin to fathom what goes on inside that twisted mind of theirs. i just feel so angry and utterly betrayed by these people since over the years whenever the issue of amnesty for death-row inmates and abolishment of the death penalty gets brought up, i've always taken the side of the murderers because i thought the only reason why people wanted them to die was because they wanted to exact vengeance stemming from their long-time hatred of those who so easily take and forsake the lives of others.

Years ago someone tried to correct me on that by telling me how "the killers don't actually feel sorry for what they've done, they just feel glad that they'll get to live." of course i thought he was being biased so i didn't believe him then. but now i'm so, so ashamed of myself for thinking that these people ever deserved a second chance for so long and i deeply regret writing that stupid paper in psychology classes 20 years ago on how i feel that "anyone can be reformed even if they've done wrong because people are inherently good and they have the capacity to change themselves for the better if we help them" good lord, what a pompous naive fool i was. Looking back, I must've been the only student in the class who wrote something like that, i would've been the laughing stock of the entire class if the professor had been less merciful and read it out-loud.

Anyhow, if you want to listen to the programme, it's on BBC WORLD SERVICE (NOT BBC international Sorry!), i must go now and spend the rest of the day thinking about this, then feel angry at myself and everyone for what i think will be the longest time ever.

Killing isn't as big of a deal in this world as people make it out to be. Soldiers murder people all the time in wars they know are unjust because they get paid money to do so. Its not called murder because they have a badge that says "solider". Not only that, in most cases people praise soldiers for what they did despite knowing their acts were unjust. Drone operator bombs 50 children when he is told by his commander to bomb a hospital, he gets a medal. The USA wipes out villages of people as if a hurricane came through, another day another dollar.

I'm not sure whether it's a second chance so much as whether anyone has the right to take anyone's life. If you think no, nobody has the right to take anyone's life, then that includes the state. You mention that they were granted amnesty but also that their sentences were changed to either 25 or life. This sounds like a contradiction to me. I'll have to listen to it myself, did they use the term amnesty or have you introduced that? Anyway, the devil is in the detail, was that an additional 25 years on top of time served? What does "life" mean in India , when in the UK it doesn't necessarily mean locked up until natural death.

As for penitence, asking them their feelings on the matter immediately after their sentence has been changed is one thing, ask them a few years down the line, when they've had time to think about what they've done rather than be preoccupied with their own fate.

Jon said:

As for penitence, asking them their feelings on the matter immediately after their sentence has been changed is one thing, ask them a few years down the line, when they've had time to think about what they've done rather than be preoccupied with their own fate.

I think most people who do the actual killing while knowing its unjust will begin to regret it later in life.

I was hoping this would be a thread about music. I usually am upset at the crap they play.

Jon said:

You mention that they were granted amnesty but also that their sentences were changed to either 25 or life. This sounds like a contradiction to me.

Allow me to clarify this. One death-roll inmate had his death sentence changed to a life sentence, while the other inmate had his changed to a 25 year sentence.

Jon said:

did they use the term amnesty or have you introduced that?

Although i explicitly said in my initial post that "I was listening to BBC Radio just now and there was a programme on about amnesty for murderers in India", i used the term "Amnesty" loosely because i was under the assumption that the india government's decision to change a person's death sentence in the interest of the British commissioner and/or Amnesty international is in itself a form of official "pardoning", hence i saw fit to use the term "Amnesty" in a non-technical and legal-savvy manner, as i had assumed that being pardoned of a crime or a death sentence is tantamount to receiving "Amnesty" itself; which apparently is wrong.

I'm not a human rights lawyer, or even a lawyer in general, so at the moment i'm having a very difficult time explaining myself to everyone here on how, and why i've used the term "Amnesty" incorrectly, as the legal differences between someone being *pardoned* of a death sentence by the government, and someone being *pardoned* of a death sentence by the government but still having to serve time in jail afterwards, is still unknown to me. But it would seem that i have indeed, incorrectly introduced and used the term "Amnesty", seeing that i also cannot recall hearing the word being used during the broadcast.

Jon said:

What does "life" mean in India , when in the UK it doesn't necessarily mean locked up until natural death.

i only heard her say Life imprisonment so i really have no idea.

also the programme was on BBC WORLD service and not BBC international, and i'm still trying to track it down.

Mechazawa said:

The USA wipes out villages of people as if a hurricane came through, another day another dollar.

i supposed what i'm trying to say in all of this is that...i wish those convicts had been more sorry about what they did, and showed more remorse and sorrow when somebody asked them about the people they've killed. But the way they kept trying to distance themselves from their past crimes CLEARLY shows they're not sorry and that they haven't learnt anything at all.

One of the things that i still remember from psychology classes is that until someone admits their mistakes willingly, they won't think that they did anything wrong and so they'd just go on and make those same mistakes again later on.

Those two convicts should've atleast said they were "sorry" or that they were "wrong" when they were being interviewed, but they didn't.
ALL i heard them say was "i don't wanna talk about it alright LOL" and "You can't kill a killer cuz its wrong to kill a person LOL."

i once saw an american documentary about death-row inmates and near the end of the show, one of the inmates apologizes in tears to the victim's mother by saying "i'm sorry i killed your son, i deserve this", then they showed the mother with a mixed expression on her face, she looked like she was enraged but at the same time also pitied the man, if only just a little. To me, i think that's someone who is truly sorry for what he did. (in the end, they still executed him though)

Mechazawa said:

I think most people who do the actual killing while knowing its unjust will begin to regret it later in life.

life has so many caveats. Remorseless and unapologetic people in this world are like a double edged sword that constantly stabs you in the stomach when all you want to do is eat some sushi and swing the stupid sword downwards at your enemies to cut them where they stand. Truly, when you hurt others you hurt yourself even more. Life is a mystery for us all.

PS: if they don't regret it now, it's highly unlikely they ever will unless some eye-opening, life changing event occurs and make them realize they're wrong. Until then, they'll just keep telling themselves that what they did was, and will alway be right and just. People by nature do not like to admit their own failings and mistakes, it's just the way our minds were engineered, but that's why i'm so upset about it, even though i know people don't want to admit they're wrong or feel bad about it, i still very much want them to, but when they don't, it just upsets me even more, even though i myself am no different than they are. (self-projection?)

Kontra Kommando said:

I was hoping this would be a thread about music. I usually am upset at the crap they play.

yes the music they play at mid-night is absolutely dreadful, but would it be so bad if it'd wake you up in the middle of the night to make you want to play Doom 3 in the dark with me since you can't go back to sleep anymore?

-

Of course most murderers don't care about what they did. Otherwise they wouldn't have done it, unless someone is being pressured to take another life, they don't see the big deal. Besides, life isn't worth jack shit to more than just murderers.

Look up the interview with Richard Kuklinski on YT sometime. I found that man and many like him fascinating years ago, and his case was especially interesting because he essentially lived a double life and kept it going for many many years. Managing a family and children and murdering people in incredibly gruesome ways and doing mob work, while his family and friends were completely unaware. When asked how he felt about his past murders he simply states he doesn't think about it and it doesn't bother him much.

Calm down, it's not like they are going to be walking the street any time soon. They still have to serve many years in prison before they're allowed to go anywhere.

Look at it from this way. Sure it does seem immoral at the fact that they may not be apologetic for their crimes, but many of them have spent years in prison already and might have to spend the rest of their life behind bars. Saying sorry is for when you are trying to avoid punishment, not for when you're already being punished - it's too late for that.

Being in prison also often means joining a gang to get around comfortably or even survive. If they're heard weeping on their knees at how weak and pathetic they are, that might cost them.

I don't believe in the death penalty at all, don't lose hope with it.

beautifulman2999 said:

Murderer #2: "i feel very lucky that i didn't have to die"
BBC host: "But what about the 2 people you've killed? did you not effectively serve them your own death sentence when you killed them?"
Murderer #2: "No that's different, because when a man kills another man and you sentence him to death, then that's wrong."

What is it with so many people that have a complete lack of self awareness? He could have said something like "I know, and I regret it every day, which is why I'm going to devote myself to saving lives instead of taking lives" and made a real coming around story but, instead, he fails to notice his own hypocrisy and plays the selfish card. At least the first guy seems to have some small hope of changing but the second guy seems to have learned nothing.

I have always been a supporter of this idea.

Send criminals on the Mars mission. Make them the testers.

Like Australia.

Clonehunter said:

Send criminals on the Mars mission. Make them the testers.

Like Australia.

For giving them possibility to take control under shuttle first. Then crashing at Pentagon\Kremlin\Bundestag\whatever else.

It's interesting how we think that using the Hammurabi method of "eye for an eye" is somehow justified with murderers, that the symbolic act of do unto them what they did to others somehow makes the world a better place and that showing them any sort of mercy or humanity is out of the question.

WHY_KDEN.

GoatLord said:

It's interesting how we think that using the Hammurabi method of "eye for an eye" is somehow justified with murderers, that the symbolic act of do unto them what they did to others somehow makes the world a better place and that showing them any sort of mercy or humanity is out of the question.

I agree but I still find it interesting how someone willing to murder 2 innocent people wants to talk about the morality of ending another person's life against their will. Talk about a selfish hypocrite, he values his own life but he couldn't care less about the lives of the ones that will never be brought back thanks to him.

CWolf said:

For giving them possibility to take control under shuttle first. Then crashing at Pentagon\Kremlin\Bundestag\whatever else.

Heh, ok son.

Rig the shuttle to explode if its guidance systems are tampered with in any way. Problem solved.