It was a car accident that got me thinking. The driver's Mercedes had been doing 56 Miles per hour in a 30 mph area when he ran into a Nissan coming the other way, a closing speed of about 85 mph when they collided. The man and woman in the front of the Nissan died, the two children in the rear survived, although hurt. In court a clearly remorseful young man was sent to prison for 16 months.
Near Edinburgh a few days a go a court tried a young woman. Whilst drinking she heard her boy on the phone to another lass. She went to the kitchen, took a knife and stabbed him in the chest and he died. Remorseful somewhat the jury decided she was guilty not of murder but of manslaughter and she was jailed for ten years.
I could go on. A driver high on drink or drugs crashes his Mercedes into another killing the driver. he runs away, a serious crime in the UK. He is given six years imprisonment. A car knocks a cyclist of his bike whence the rider dies, the driver is merely banned from driving for several months.
Daily we read such stories in the media, usually emphasised by the tabloids. Life it appears is cheap in this country, death means little. I understand that a judge is limited in his sentencing by the law under which the individual is charged, manslaughter is often preferred by the prosecution as there is more chance of a guilty plea, dangerous driving is harder to prove than reckless and so on. The end result is that life means little in a court and I wonder if the legal people really care?
A family loses a breadwinner, a mother struggling on benefits to provide for her child sees the man who caused her husbands death running around a football field earning several thousand a week, dancing when he scores, and she has not enough to pay the gas bill. A child wonders what life would be like with a parent, another what life would be like with a child. Both suffer from bad drivers or a moments anger. The man who got 16 months may be released on 'good behaviour' in 8 months, meaning a life is worth four months imprisonment. This man will always feel his guilt, but even so. Given six years and returned to football's wealth and glory in three years appears to insult a widow. Too many walk the streets knowing they have killed. Many carry the weight for ever, but does society react correctly to such incidents?
'In wrath remember mercy,' and courts must do this, however they must also remember the victim, I doubt they do. Sentencing appears based on the over crowded prisons, caring for criminals, restoring them to society rather than caring for victims or punishment. Punishment you see has been removed from the legal system. Punishment has been outlawed by the liberal approach. Children are not slapped lovingly when doing wrong, so they do it again. Anyone who demands a child behaves is seen as a criminal today, and this is a clear turning of black into white!
British society appear callous today. During the twentieth century we endured a war that cost 750,000 men and as many more during the following twenty years. A flu pandemic took almost as many again and a second was saw less die here but fifty million or so worldwide. Yet the attitude of the people was less violent than today. War hardens people. P.G. Wodhouse found his type of book less popular after the war, thrillers were what was wanted. Laurel & Hardy found their humour less attractive than Abbott & Castello, the faster moving action packed book and act touched something in the people. Men who returned from war wanted action and sports of all kind found higher attendances at that time than any since. However criminals existed but the level of violence was considerably less than today.
This country has suffered under a liberal outpouring, as I think often occurs when wealth and peace dominate. The need for basic homes and health has been satisfied so we allow ourselves liberalism in other things to fill the day and please our senses. Humanity suffers. In our hospitals the old are pushed aside and left to die by order of the doctors! Unbelievable a few years ago, not so now. Maybe 'degree level' nurses find washing patients beneath them I wonder? It would not have happened in the hospitals I worked in. We have, since 1967, murdered seven million babies under the 'woman's right' to abortion.
No woman has the right to kill her child, no woman!
Half of those of course would be female, maybe that doesn't matter? Child has a 'hair lip,' bump it off. Baby interfering with your career, kill it! Widespread availability of contraception does not justify a holocaust of children. Women suffer we are told, although they were not the one thrown into an incinerator. Of course they suffer, and of course we understand , we also know this is wrong and so do the women.
But society cares little, until something like this happens to them. Then there will be no-one to care, just desolation.
I have just read that a couple who battered a property developer to death have received a life sentence for the murder. She has a 25 year minimum, he 18 years. Surely this is the minimum in such a situation. Both will be in their fifties when released, and very different people I suspect.
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