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Torture is a war crime rule
(lemmy.dbzer0.com)
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this post was submitted on 04 Sep 2023
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would you rather they kill the villains than send them to prison?
So these are the only two options?
US prisons are nightmare fuel. And law enforcement officers routinely kill suspects who are neither armed nor resisting.
It does raise questions of why villains exist, except as something that heroes can punch without thinking about it.
for spiderman and most super heroes yes that is the only option they can't exactly afford to run their own private secret prison focused on rehabilitation so the only other option is let them go blow up more hospitals cause oh well us prison bad yeah but so is dangling a bus of school kids off a bridge
That is a seriously dark position, but I get it. Very much the way that the only solution we have for people considering suicide is to lock them up in an institution where they have a 30%+ chance of being abused by the staff (orderlies like to get handsy and nurses like to get everyone on tranquilizers so they're not too much trouble). So do we leave our despairing friends on their own to kill themselves, or send them to a facility that could actually be living Hell.
Actually, seeing Spidey confront such matters would be a real treat, and might drive him to look towards underground reform and start a mutual aid program. But that's not as fun as seeing him punch Vulture in the face, is it?
In the meantime, we don't have many hospitals getting blown up, or school busses dangling off bridges, IRL. They have to make that stuff up to justify that someone needs punching. It's like the ticking time bomb scenario (would you torture someone who knew how to defuse a city-busting bomb?) And those scenarios (which appeared in 24 Hours ) were used to justify torture during the War on Terror. And the US still tortures to this day.
This is propaganda in action, especially if it's convincing you the monsters out there are ones that blow up schools rather than the ones that just make sure they will have no choice but to join the army the day they age out of high-school.
The supervillains yes. It's why I don't like most superheroes.
Like Batman for instance. Batman has the blood of every single innocent person the joker killed on his hands because he refuses to solve the problem.
"iF yOu KiLl A kIlLeR tHe AmOuNt Of KiLleRs ReMaInS tHe SaMe!!!11!1!1"
Not if you kill all of them.
And especially not if said killers have killed hundreds/thousands.
Why hasn't the Gotham justice system executed him then? Why not put the onus of them? Or any GCPD cop turning off his bodycam to shoot someone who deserves it for once?
Batman generally doesn't kill because, in all the interesting comics, he realizes that he is mentally unwell and, if he starts down that route, he won't know where he ends up. That's why there are so many stories of plans Batman made to stop himself (generally be suborned by someone else and putting him and others in immediate danger). He's a nutcase with a lot of money who's afraid of himself but trying to do the right thing.
Your stance only holds any water when the villains are literally unable to be physically managed by anyone except one of these demigods.
That's my whole fuckin point.
These are exactly the people that should be straight up killed.
They can't be contained. They can't be reasoned with. They can't be controlled.
They just kill and kill and kill and kill and kill.
The only way to stop them is to kill them. It's that simple.
You need to read Batman White Knight. That deals with the whole concept of whether the Joker can be redeemed or not really well.
Imo it doesn't matter whether or not he can be redeemed. He's killed so many people that his life is forfeit
That'd be like saying Hitler or Stalin were worth keeping around because their multiverse counterpart was able to do good.
I mean, I don't believe in caltial punishment so I'd disagree with the "life being forefit" idea in any sense.
The book deals with the idea that the persona was a mental illness and with treatment he becomes a useful member of society again actually entering politics and improving the city.
The Joker is physically a normal human being. He gets out of prison due to manipulation, not because he punches through steel and concrete. So again, it's not Batman's position, right, or responsibility to execute him.
And you believe they exist in significant numbers.
The Jeffrey Dahmers and John Wayne Gacies of the world are extremely rare.
Far more common are the gypsy cops police officers who kill, are covered by internal affairs until evidence goes public and then lose their job... until they're hired in a new precinct. Derek Chauvin was the exception because we had nationwide protests to which the federal government reacted badly. Meanwhile our ICE troopers are acting like fucking Sicherheitsdienst (and I hope some decade nazi hunters go after them for their crimes against humanity.)
But the real damage comes from the Gates and Bezoses and Musks in the world. The Koch brothers may have singlehandedly killed us all by instilling doubt in a climate problem we've known about since WWI, and deferring global response so that we're still not doing enough a century later, when the world is literally on fire. All the serial killers and gang lords and street purse snatchers and whatever else is represented by Frank Miller's mutant overlord do anything compared to Purdue Pharmacy and the Sacklers. Or DuPont chemical poisoning the global water supply with PFOA.
And yes, they kill and kill and kill but they also control the entities that control the justice system. Kinda like ~~Jeff Bezos~~ Lex Luthor.