Sentencing

So here's a difficult ethical question posed by this guy who has a life sentence for raping an 11yo girl and will serve a minimum of eight years. (And not just that being jailed for life can now mean just eight years, ffs.)

I am opposed to the death sentence, but if some guy was to rape Zenella, I would hunt him down and kill him. I would do it without hesitation and if you think this is just internet tough talk, well, don't rape my daughter to try that theory out.

But shouldn't I be for the death sentence?

I think possibly not, that my viewpoints are tenable together, but I do think that I should be willing to allow revenge killings as mitigation in murder cases.

And if you do eight years for raping my daughter, you may have "paid your debt to society" but I don't believe you've paid your debt to me, or more importantly to her. Truly, I think that rape should carry a life sentence without parole, and our treatment of it as a relatively minor crime is seriously wrong. He only got life because he's a serial offender. A first-time offence, if it was not overly violent, he might get just the eight years and be out in three. No way is that just.

Have been alone

I have been alone on dark, deep nights when I believed that no one would love me. Have been alone on deep, dark nights when all I knew was that I would cease to be, yet still I was. Have been alone when you held me.

I saw a flash of colour, a multicoloured bird, we stopped and looked, but it was quickly gone. I saw a flash of life in the green trees, we stopped and looked, but it did not wait for us to see it.

I drank and smoked and drank and smoked and drank and smoked.

I know all I want to do is die, all I want to do is meet my end, all I want to do is be no more. What is in it? What is in your dark, deep dream you do not share? What is in your deep, dark dream you do not tell anyone about, lest you should have to say there is nothing in it, just endless tears and trackless routes into nothing worth recalling.

What if you set off tomorrow and did not come back? Would you not just be where you are right now, endlessly spinning on your own axis, failing to be anywhere but where you are?

I am in a rage when you will not kiss me. I am in a rage when you cannot see me. I am in a rage when you are not with me.

Rage is not worth anything. Rage does not resolve anything. It is like a drug that does not get you high. It is like a dream that has no form, an endless roiling nightmare of sea and broken fears.

I have been tender but did not mean it. Have been in love but did not feel it. Have found my love but did not believe it. Have been alone and nowhere near it.

I saw a man who did not recognise me. Walked right be and did not see me. I heard a voice and it said nothing. Heard your voice and then I knew it. You whispered something, I could not hear it. Have been alone and nowhere's in it.

I am afraid of dying, afraid of living, afraid of taking what you're giving. Come on and kiss me, what harm's in it, don't pretend you didn't like it, you are the only thing I'm missing.

Who are you fooling?

I fear judgement because I'm judging. I need love because I'm hurting. I have nothing to give you or anyone.

Sometimes, lonely in a quiet night, a gentle night, an endless night; sometimes, sleepless in a foreign prison, watching the walls dissolve, enprismed; sometimes, I believe this will be the last breath before there isn't, then I hear the birds and it is morning. Have been alone a minute before dawn.

I don't have an answer, you didn't ask a question. You didn't care, who are you fooling? Do you think about me? Have been alone when you didn't know me.

I have been tender but it went to waste. Have been disgraced.

I know it will end in tears.

I have loved you but it meant nothing.