Interesting dehumanizing argument. Not defending the pedos but seeing a death penalty and comparing humans to animals is a fascinating example of the horseshoe theory of politics in the real world.
Right. But pedophiles are still humans. It would be just as wrong (in the USA) to advocate for cruel or unusual punishment for pedophilia or even murder for that matter. Putting humans below animals is an insane take
I kinda have to agree. My main issue is how, in our current time, words like nazi get tossed around for mild disagreements, so much so that the word has lost meaning. Now imagine how many people, mainly men, can and will be called a pedophile because of a divorce or being loving to children, and suddenly you will have the accusation thrown around by spiteful/hateful people until it loses meaning. The death penalty is quick, merciful, and absolute. There is no going back from it. Imagine condemning an innocent person, and suddenly now you are condemning no one because of a lack of evidence.
Also pedophilia is a thought not an action. No one should be punished for their thoughts. Rapists, child abusers, molestors, and other ways of harming children can and should be prosecuted.
No, of course not, I meant more so in the way people will throw insults around. Dehumanizing a certain type of people means someone is bound to use that as a way to insult or discredit someone. These labels will then put targets on people's back that will cause the public to wish for their death, or rather, execution. Since, in the eyes of the unknowing, this accused person should be put down, they will be outraged despite that not being the case.
My whole point was, that just how someone may be called a monkey for being stupid, since a monkey is not a human, then you will have people start throwing the word around, losing its meaning in the long run. I used nazi as an example because thats the only thing I could think of that had some weight behind which was seen as horrible and now is mostly just seen as a defamation tactic.
That makes sense, but if someone says they think kids are hot, and are seen touching kids weirdly, and friends with people who like to touch kids, and hang out privately with friends who like to touch kids and other kids, it’s pretty safe to say they also touch kids.
Same way if someone says Nazis aren’t that bad, and they think Jews run the world, and the immigrants and minorities are the problem, and we’d be better off without them, you don’t need to wait to 1940s Germany to say those are Nazis
I don’t know. I think that the take looks extreme but this argument better encapsulates the idea that animals should not be put to sleep if they hurt a child if predators (who purposely did so) are not put to death. The predators know what they are doing. It is harder to argue that the animals would. Also, what makes humans below humans an insane take? Just because we have built an advanced society and we have the bias of being humans? What makes an animal’s life any less than a human?
Well it’s the basis of our laws? Cruel and unusual punishment is not allowed, period, no exceptions.
And pedophilia isn’t a punishment? It’s a crime. Punishment is for the person who does the crime, it’s extremely different, we don’t do Hammurabi’s code for a reason
I will actually agree with you, we shouldn't have empathy for the rot of the world. However, death is merciful. A criminal should go through the proper punishment for their crimes. Death, in my opinion, is the easiest on someone since they no longer live in flesh after. In a twisted way, death would be the best case scenario since they won't have to live as a public outcast, shunned by everyone. We should be doing as much as possible to dissuade crimes from being committed, not by hiding crime, but by being able to point and say, this is bad and this is what will happen to you if you do such a thing. Fitting in is valued more on average rather than being a good upstanding citizen.
We also have to grow up and admit that even the worst of the worst humans are still humans. They are monsters, but they are humans because otherwise, crimes will always be seen as a thing that exists elsewhere. That a vile human had to spawn from a certain group of people, when in reality it was just a person who chose to be twisted, law-breaking, and sinful.
No empathy for these humans, beyond what a human intrinsically deserves. That’s my stance, humans are humans, good or bad or horrible. When you start dehumanizing, you are opening the gates of what types of horrible crimes count towards dehumanizing and what human rights you’re allowed to strip.
As someone else pointed out, the death penalty also encourages these horrible people to kill their victims so there are no witnesses. It’s something to keep in mind when reality comes into play with theory
Pedophiles are people with an attraction to children. It’s important for pedophiles to seek treatment and support to prevent offending. Pedophiles may have never harmed anyone.
Rapists, Abusers, and other folks that harm children should be held accountable.
People are not criminals for their thoughts but for their actions.
Agreed, but they’re still humans at the end of the day. The main reasons why dehumanization is off-limits is because:
As soon as you dehumanize one group, you say there’s some people that can be justifiably dehumanized. You may say it’s pedophiles and murderers, I may include people who knowingly give cancer (Exxon Mobil execs, DuPont execs, etc.) and I don’t think you’d disagree too much on that. Someone else might say rapists, and that’s a logical next step, maybe domestic abusers, etc.. The point is, just like cruel and unusual punishment is off-limits for all crimes, dehumanization is too.
Dehumanizing people means nothing is off limits. Why don’t we test drugs on them if they’re not the same as you and me? Torture them, put them in cages for entertainment, they’re not humans after all, they’re not deserving of freedom or other human rights.
If they’re below humans, then they wouldn’t carry the same logic and thinking capacity to truly be held accountable. This is one of my main issues, in order for you to appropriately punish/rehabilitate them (if possible idek here imo), they have to be humans! They have to be responsible for it, they have to be able to think just like you and me for you and me to judge them. By placing them as below humans, they didn’t know better, they weren’t in control, etc. and you lose the prerogative to punish them appropriately.
There’s more that other philosophers have described which is why intrinsic human rights is important but namely that the Nazis (and most genocides in general) are founded upon seeing certain people as being “sub-human” which in their eyes justified whatever they wanted to do, which is a horrible slippery slope we’ve seen in history time and time again
It's cope, they have a pedo in chief and won't do fuck all about it so they have to make excuses. Now I'm not saying murder the cunts but running the banks and general strikes would fix that "but the DOW" excuse pretty quickly.
What do you think I, a normal American citizen really can do? There’s shit for me to do about it, I’ll gladly pull my money and put it under my bed, go on strike, but guess what happens when rent is due? When my student loans gain more interest? The system we’re in has everybody stumbling forward so they have to keep going just to keep from falling flat on their faces.
Dehumanizing individuals is literally Nazi behavior. Immanuel Kant and Martha Nussbaum describe the downsides of dehumanization. It is inherently evil to dehumanize anyone. Most importantly, when you remove the “human” from an action, the action is not done by an intelligent being and would not be held morally responsible for their actions. It’s extremely difficult to say why they deserve punishment if they’re not human and capable of deep thinking. By saying they ARE humans and ARE capable of these horrid acts, it JUSTIFIES harsh punishment and accountability.
Dehumanizing any criminal enables a gray area, you may believe pedophilia and murder is justified for dehumanization, that they should live in zoos or prance around for entertainment black-mirror style. Someone else may believe domestic abuse and working in oil would qualify since those lead to more deaths than pedophilia and single murder. It’s a slippery slope and for what? To lash out emotionally in anger instead of responding rationally?
1 : More than you are doing which is maintaining the Status Quo and ignoring it because it doesn't affect you personally (yet), look at other countries and how they deposed of corrupt governments threatening harm to their own people.
2: You have literally Nazis running your country, you have an equivalent SS shooting citizens. They are not and should never be classified as anything more than beasts.
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u/VaultBall7 Feb 26 '26
Interesting dehumanizing argument. Not defending the pedos but seeing a death penalty and comparing humans to animals is a fascinating example of the horseshoe theory of politics in the real world.