[NGTM-1R]

Okay let me put this in the simplest terms possible.

Jail makes people worse. It is literally impossible to improve someone solely by sending them to jail, and the opposite is highly likely. This is why sending people to jail for an issue like this does not and cannot work. You will merely harden them in their errors.

[deathfun]

Or *****slap them like their mother would

[Thaeris]

Nothing inspires civil obedience like a good, stiff caning.

[Dragon]

Jail makes people worse. It is literally impossible to improve someone solely by sending them to jail, and the opposite is highly likely. This is why sending people to jail for an issue like this does not and cannot work. You will merely harden them in their errors.

Of course, I'd prefer him to be forced to pay a very large sum to those he harassed (not to the government), leading to a severe decrease in the quality of his life (it has to be harsh, so he won't be able to just brush it off), as well as limiting the rights he tried to abuse. If one does not know how to use the rights he's given, they should be taken away from him, in a simple cause-and-effect way. In fact, I find this system to be (in theory) quite just and effective. You steal, you have some of your belongings taken away (in proportion to value of what you stolen), you troll, you have your freedom of speech limited, you destroy public property, you're forced to do some work for public, you imprison somebody, you end up in jail. You murder somebody, you are condemned to death as well (ideally, in the same way the victim was killed). There are a few places where I can see this failing, like sexual offenses, because simple eye-for-eye method becomes seriously disturbing, relatively minor things like breaching noise regulations or driving offenses (though for these, measures we have now should be enough) and complicated cases in which it's difficult to point out a single crime (like cases of large gangs). Though in the latter case, people involved in such complicated crime are usually not simple, dumb bandits, who can understand a more complicated method of issuing a punishment. But for simple and dumb people, punishment needs to be simple and straightforward.

[JCDNWarrior]

I think it's more about the lack or loss of morals, rules, as sometimes bad behavior is even taught to children through some children TV series and movies (sometimes games) and/or lack of education because both parents work, etc, rather than the internet itself. Still, in my opinion, you have to defend the freedom of speech of even the worst douchebag or idiot, because if you limit or remove his free speech, yours will be too. Preferrably educate the persons (teaching discipline does a lot) in question rather than jailing them.

[Mongoose]

If one does not know how to use the rights he's given, they should be taken away from him, in a simple cause-and-effect way.

Apparently the concept of "unalienable rights" didn't catch on everywhere.

[Wobble73]

Am I the only one who noticed that this man had Aspergers Syndrome. That is somewhere on the Autistic Spectrum. I'm not condoning what he posted, but he is disabled.....

As the article quotes

"Lance Whiteford, mitigating, said Duffy had been diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome at an early age and one of the characteristics was an inability to judge the reaction of others."


I think the jail sentence was a bit harsh, community service and some work with a mental health/counselling team would have sufficed.

[headdie]

I must admit that I had missed that one Wobble, thanks for pointing it out.  In that case with luck his sentence will be carried out in a secure hospital as I don't think a prison will be able to cope with his needs and a secure hospital will be better able to help him understand what he did and why he cant do it.  I also hope there is a review for his care provision as a result of this because for this to happen I suspect there is a deficiency somewhere along the line for this to happen.

[Dragon]

If one does not know how to use the rights he's given, they should be taken away from him, in a simple cause-and-effect way.

Apparently the concept of "unalienable rights" didn't catch on everywhere.

Don't you think that if one denies any of these "unalienable rights" to other people (by violating them, for instance), then he does not deserve these rights to be applied to himself? That's pure hypocrisy, to deny certain rights to another person (regardless of what they are), then hide behind the same rights. The only truly unalienable right should be, IMHO, the right to be judged objectively and justly, according to clear law and easily understood rules.

[Flipside]

Am I the only one who noticed that this man had Aspergers Syndrome. That is somewhere on the Autistic Spectrum. I'm not condoning what he posted, but he is disabled.....

As the article quotes

"Lance Whiteford, mitigating, said Duffy had been diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome at an early age and one of the characteristics was an inability to judge the reaction of others."


I think the jail sentence was a bit harsh, community service and some work with a mental health/counselling team would have sufficed.

My only concern about that is that (though I agree the jail sentence is harsh and the ban is probably unenforcable) he did manage to know how to judge the feelings of others when it came to making comments that were designed to hurt their feelings. In other words, if he is capable of creating comments that are designed to hurt somebody, then he must be able to judge that this is what these comments will do.

[karajorma]

Yep, he was able to craft posts designed to upset people. Pretty hard to then claim he didn't understand they'd upset people.

[headdie]

Am I the only one who noticed that this man had Aspergers Syndrome. That is somewhere on the Autistic Spectrum. I'm not condoning what he posted, but he is disabled.....

As the article quotes

"Lance Whiteford, mitigating, said Duffy had been diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome at an early age and one of the characteristics was an inability to judge the reaction of others."


I think the jail sentence was a bit harsh, community service and some work with a mental health/counselling team would have sufficed.

My only concern about that is that (though I agree the jail sentence is harsh and the ban is probably unenforcable) he did manage to know how to judge the feelings of others when it came to making comments that were designed to hurt their feelings. In other words, if he is capable of creating comments that are designed to hurt somebody, then he must be able to judge that this is what these comments will do.

difficult to prove that the comments were designed to hurt.  One of the defining characteristics of all portions of the Autistic spectrum is the persons inability to perceive other peoples emotions, you can explain emotion to them and the best you get is them understanding their own emotions, its like a person with a stroke not being able to use one side of their body, at best logically they know it's there but they just cant rap their heads around the idea.

If the Autistic person is used to the idea of trolling being a thing they can do (rightly or wrongly), they can't separate calling someone a slut across a chat room and calling someone a slut on their memorial page it is all the same to them there is no emotional boundary because emotion does not equate into their lives.

[Dragon]

But why a person without understanding of emotions would troll at all? While I don't understand emotions too well and I'm a rather cold, restrained person, my actions are driven by logic and reason. Doing something that serves only to alienate people is illogical, as it brings no benefits and makes people less likely to be helpful later. While I have little empathy, living well with other people is a very good idea. Scratching somebody's back costs nothing and that person could also scratch my back when need it, perhaps when my arms will be occupied. I live by rules created by logical thinking, and it works. I see no reason (besides emotions and stupidity) why every person isn't doing the same. World would be so much better if everybody stopped to think. Unfortunately, it seems that simple, plain stupidity is the answer to why this guy did this, but it is also the answer why we have so many incompetent leaders and why freakin' countries start to bankrupt. Troll the wrong person and you end up in jail. Troll the right one and you end up in charge of the Ministry of Justice. In fact, the longer I live on this world, the more certain I am that all problems are fundamentally caused by human stupidity, and the fact there are more stupid people than intelligent ones. Unfortunately, no jail (perhaps except lifetime sentence, without a chance to get out) could eliminate stupidity.

[NGTM-1R]

Don't you think that if one denies any of these "unalienable rights" to other people (by violating them, for instance), then he does not deserve these rights to be applied to himself?

No. That's what inalienable means. You cannot make something correct by doing further wrongs.

But why a person without understanding of emotions would troll at all? While I don't understand emotions too well and I'm a rather cold, restrained person, my actions are driven by logic and reason.

You lost your credibility right here. However we are speaking of someone who is having difficulty with conventional logic, hence why he's diagnosed the way he is. Any indictment of him on those grounds is worthless.

[karajorma]

Let's assume that the courts took his autism into account when sentencing him. He might only be a mild sufferer from Aspergers after all.

Right now I'm seeing too much of the "He's blind, he can't have deliberately shot him" about a man who might only be partially sighted for all we know. Why is it that some people take any excuse to assume there has been a miscarriage of justice?

[Mongoose]

In this case, I think it's because many of us are uncomfortable with the very concept of someone being jailed just because of something they said.  Add in the possible autism, and it gets even worse.

[NGTM-1R]

Right now I'm seeing too much of the "He's blind, he can't have deliberately shot him" about a man who might only be partially sighted for all we know.

It doesn't matter if he's partially sighted or not (though I pointed out he was long before and nobody seemed to notice). Throwing someone in jail for what amounts to schoolyard insults (made to adults and by an adult, lest we forget) is a simply bizarre act. The fact he's only partially sighted however moves it from "okay this is overreacting at best" to "wtf are you people on".

[karajorma]

Again, why are you insisting that this doesn't qualify as harassment.

[Flipside]

I suppose it's a difficult aspect of Freedom of Speech and its interpretation.

Y'See, I've always felt that Freedom of Speech means that you can say what you feel, even if it offends someone. What I struggle to define as Freedom of Speech is comment intended to offend someone. It's sort of like the difference between (IMPORTANT - Purely hypothetical comments which are in no way a statement of opinion) "I think Homosexuality is wrong" and "All gays are evil and should be destroyed".

Someone might take offence at the first comment but that is really down to the listener, there's no implicitive insult, merely an opinion, whether you concur or not. The second comment, however, is deliberately designed to offend. The problem is, it's very hard to prove the difference decisively in a court of law, and in order to deal with the second type there's a risk of collateral damage to the first (The classic conundrum being something like the 'Modest Proposal', which was offensive in order to draw attention to a serious situation).

[Dragon]

Don't you think that if one denies any of these "unalienable rights" to other people (by violating them, for instance), then he does not deserve these rights to be applied to himself?

No. That's what inalienable means. You cannot make something correct by doing further wrongs.

I'm not trying to make anything morally right nor "correct". I'm aiming to make the person violating the rights of another human suffer exactly same fate and, hopefully make him regret what he had done, or failing that, make him not do this again, because he'll know he'll suffer as a result of his own actions. I also intended to make the system as simple as possible, so even a monkey would understand what's going on and what it's suffering for. Of course, I'm aware that for an average person it's very harsh and maybe also immoral (at least considering Christian morality), but I was mostly concerned about efficiency when writing that.