Murder of Akong Rinpoche & Entourage

User avatar
Johnny Dangerous
Global Moderator
Posts: 17089
Joined: Fri Nov 02, 2012 10:58 pm
Location: Olympia WA
Contact:

Re: Murder of Akong Rinpoche & Entourage

Post by Johnny Dangerous »

skittles wrote:The murder rate is a function of many factors. The foremost would definitely be the consequences through law. I'm basing that on the commonality of murder in lawless parts of the world where life necessities are not lacking.


I don't consider the death penalty debate to be about revenge or striking back. It's just a matter of deciding on rules that make society safer.

Just so you know, there are groups trying to abolish solitary confinement.

Again:

Times in (western at least) history where murder rate was quite high, were certainly not times that lacked the death penalty.

The murder rate today is incredibly low most places, including in countries with no death penalty whatsoever.

So, if the death penalty is the kind of deterrent you are implying it is, we would we see more of a one-to-one relationship than we do. That said, totalitarian societies are often obsessed with law and order, and so hey, less murder...other than those in power of course;)
Meditate upon Bodhicitta when afflicted by disease

Meditate upon Bodhicitta when sad

Meditate upon Bodhicitta when suffering occurs

Meditate upon Bodhicitta when you are scared

-Khunu Lama
temp
Posts: 1
Joined: Sun Feb 07, 2016 11:59 am

Re: Murder of Akong Rinpoche & Entourage

Post by temp »

Johnny Dangerous wrote:
skittles wrote:The murder rate is a function of many factors. The foremost would definitely be the consequences through law. I'm basing that on the commonality of murder in lawless parts of the world where life necessities are not lacking.


I don't consider the death penalty debate to be about revenge or striking back. It's just a matter of deciding on rules that make society safer.

Just so you know, there are groups trying to abolish solitary confinement.

Again:

Times in (western at least) history where murder rate was quite high, were certainly not times that lacked the death penalty.

The murder rate today is incredibly low most places, including in countries with no death penalty whatsoever.

So, if the death penalty is the kind of deterrent you are implying it is, we would we see more of a one-to-one relationship than we do. That said, totalitarian societies are often obsessed with law and order, and so hey, less murder...other than those in power of course;)

the arguments for abolition tend to center on the idea that the death penalty increases the criminal pre-disposition to killing. if you're facing the death sentence, you tend to expand your options to killing people who can put you at that risk and the rate of violence during crime increases. there's quite a lot of research and data on this, if you look for it. personally, i think that's partially true, but there are other social dynamics that factor in as well. countries where the death rate lowers after abolition - i'm thinking of the Scandinavian social democracies - tend to be ethnically homogenous as well. that homogeneity was identified as a contributory factor in the ease with which they accepted broad welfare programmes and high levels of redistribution. the theory is that if you find this less offensive in very homogenous communities. i'd imagine that this has an effect on the rate of violent crime too.
User avatar
skittles
Posts: 155
Joined: Thu Dec 31, 2015 8:24 am

Re: Murder of Akong Rinpoche & Entourage

Post by skittles »

Johnny Dangerous wrote:
skittles wrote:The murder rate is a function of many factors. The foremost would definitely be the consequences through law. I'm basing that on the commonality of murder in lawless parts of the world where life necessities are not lacking.


I don't consider the death penalty debate to be about revenge or striking back. It's just a matter of deciding on rules that make society safer.

Just so you know, there are groups trying to abolish solitary confinement.

Again:

Times in (western at least) history where murder rate was quite high, were certainly not times that lacked the death penalty.

The murder rate today is incredibly low most places, including in countries with no death penalty whatsoever.

So, if the death penalty is the kind of deterrent you are implying it is, we would we see more of a one-to-one relationship than we do. That said, totalitarian societies are often obsessed with law and order, and so hey, less murder...other than those in power of course;)
No, you wouldn't necessarily see a direct correlation between murder and law when there are multiple factors, even if the death penalty is present. Consider the range of murder is 100%. Even in times of desperation and lawlessness murder doesn't approach 100%. I said the dead penalty is the most significant factor because even when people are starving to death, if they know they will die immediately after killing they're unlikely to attempt it. Another factor of course is desperation for things like food or water. So imagine you have a graph with Xsub1 being capital punishment and Xsub2 being desperation and Y being murder. Xsub1 supresses murder and is modeled with coefficient 1/Xsub1. Xsub2 increases murder and it is modeled with coefficient root X. The function is Y=Csub1(1/Xsub1)+ Csub2(Xsub2^2). The minimum range is zero. Capital punishment can be very high but you're still going to get an assymptotal minimum murder value established by,.. you know, it's too late to be modelling something. Just think about it. There's more than one factor and you're probably thinking about things like civil wars or prohibition where there is credible doubt that the current government will be able to enforce anything.
"My main teacher Serkong Rinpoche, who was one of the teachers of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, explained that having a protector is like having a very strong and vicious dog. If you are a strong person, you could go sit and guard your own gate every night to make sure that thieves don’t attack, but usually people wouldn’t do that. It’s not that we don’t have the ability, it’s just: why bother? You could post a dog there instead." - Alex Berzin http://www.berzinarchives.com/web/en/ar ... rs_ab.html
newbie
Posts: 185
Joined: Wed Jan 06, 2016 2:11 am

Re: Murder of Akong Rinpoche & Entourage

Post by newbie »

While watching a video for personal issues, I came across this message of encouragement:
Let your minds be at ease, let your minds be relaxed! Continue sustaining the activities of teaching of your teachers and I think this would be enough.
User avatar
Grigoris
Former staff member
Posts: 21938
Joined: Fri May 14, 2010 9:27 pm
Location: Greece

Re: Murder of Akong Rinpoche & Entourage

Post by Grigoris »

C'mon Johnny, everybody knows that the best way to deal with a murderer is to become a murderer yourself. Now stop being a schmuck and pull yourself together young man! None of that bleeding heart liberal nonsense here. Imagine that, feeling boundless love and compassion for a person destined to be spit roasted in hell for a few billion lifetimes, the nerve of some people!

Kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out. That's what the Buddha taught, after all.
"My religion is not deceiving myself."
Jetsun Milarepa 1052-1135 CE

"Butchers, prostitutes, those guilty of the five most heinous crimes, outcasts, the underprivileged: all are utterly the substance of existence and nothing other than total bliss."
The Supreme Source - The Kunjed Gyalpo
The Fundamental Tantra of Dzogchen Semde
Post Reply

Return to “Kagyu”