Bet this won't be on Fox, Limbaugh or Glen Beck... Illegal Border Crossers Saves 9yo Boy Who's Mother Died in Crash. He could have left the boy to his fate, to wander in the desert, and then continued into the US and not been caught...but he waited with the kid, probably knowing it would get him arrested and deported. Of course, he probably should still be shot, just as an example...
Well, change the crime he's guilty of to something else...murder, say...and have the same situation. Is a pardon in order?
Murder = to illegal immigration!? Wow. I guess then all law breaking would = murder then. Pot smoking = to murder. Tax evasion = to murder. Parking ticket =to murder. Why not cut the guy a break here, for doing the right thing? Sending him back kinda says "Thanks, but you should have left the kid to die, dumb ass."
I dunno, what's the difference between a felony and a misdemeanor? Should there be one? All crimes are an infraction of the law.
Yeah, we don't want your kind here! The kind of person who would put another person's life - a child's life - above their own personal gain! Why that's...that's almost communism!!!
No it doesn't. Why should some random act taken that is totally unassociated with some previous criminal act somehow exonerate the latter? So he's a criminal and a hero.
And should be punishable and unforgivable. All law breaking should be punishable equally. Ignoring a "Keep of the Grass" sign? Loitering? Going 35 on a 30mph zone? Illegally downloading Battlestar Galactica!? It's all just as bad a murder.
Exactly. He should have just kept on going, he'd have been better off. But hey, the law's the law, zero tolerance. No mercy.
Not that I don't enjoy the histrionics, but you're arguing against something I never said. I never said they were as bad. I said should they be pardoned? In short, should a heroic act exonerate some previously committed, entirely unrelated crime?
If he's a hero and a criminal, then reward the heroism. But don't forget to punish the crime too. It's still there.
You said: But he didn't commit murder. He crossed a border illegally. So I don't think you anyone say "Well, just substitute murder for illegal immigration and ask yourself the same question." Because I don't think you can compare the two...I think murder is a different level on crime all together than illegal border crossing. And he saved a life, he didn't take one. If we are gonna charge criminals who commit crimes for deaths caused - even accidentally - during the commission of a crime, how should we treat lives accidentally saved during the commission of a crime? When judges make rulings in criminal cases, they often take extenuating circumstances into account when passing sentence. Millions of people sneak illegally into this country every year. Many of them likely NOT good people. So I don't see why ewe can't let this one good person slide.
Are you surprised by his decency? Most folk wouldn't leave a nine year old child wandering in the desert. Crossing the border is easy. Living with letting a child die? Not so much.
Not so. I said change the crime to murder. I never said it was a lateral change, only a change. I'm still waiting for a reason why an entirely unrelated act should have any effect on crime and punishment.
Because we already "reward" good behavior with early release, for one thing. To pardon someone of a misdemeanor because they saved someone's life is a logical extension of that thought process. For another, it encourages good will and charity amongst the population as a whole.
What's funny is that Marathon thinks this is such a foreign idea in a country with presidential pardons, mayoral pardons, plea bargains, paroles, and early releases for good behavior
Because we are not a people of pure law. Else we would've hanged Washington, Adams, and Jefferson all those years ago.
I'm not assuming that. In fact, I assumed the opposite, that you actually would be opposed to such things, for you could either be opposed or be a hypocrite. However, the fact remains that there is precedent for such a thing, and precedent is a strong argument in a court of law. You wanted a reason why a heroic deed should wipe certain crimes clean, and I have given it to you. And it still stands even if you believe that the precedent is wrongly enacted.