Amy Winehouse dead

Cam wrote:I prefer the Zutons version of Valerie.

ResurrectionRooney wrote:

menalawyerguy wrote:

ResurrectionRooney wrote:

menalawyerguy wrote:

ResurrectionRooney wrote:

It's ad hominem irrespective of accuracy, and my 'superiority complex' (I'd argue it's not a complex if it's accurate) is not relevant to the points I was making..

I rest my case. I've been a lawyer for only a few years but I can guarantee nobody I will come up against will give me better evidence against them then you just did. It is apparent that you're decently smart: definitely above average IQ. But you're not nearly as smart as you think you are. The reason I know this is because people who are genuinely exceptionally smart do not go around bragging about it like you do. They do not feel the need to constantly broadcast the fact that they are exceptionally smart like you do. They let their intelligence speak for itself. That's obviously not good enough for you. You do feel the need to constantly remind us how smart you [think you] are. It demonstrates a sort of insecurity that truly exceptionally smart people do not usually have.

Right, thanks Sigmund, hopefully you are done talking about me now.

Why does he go to jail? In the United Kingdom, if somebody is threatening to kill my family, and they blackmail me, saying I must mug someone, I am considered to have been coerced in the matter, and so I am not liable for my actions, despite there being a victim - you claim that a person has no choice whatsoever in acquiring drugs, surely that would be seen as even more coercive than a threat? To say someone has no choice in their own complex actions is simply incorrect, and pretending it's true does no-one any good, it just provides an excuse. It needs to be impressed upon addicts that they do have a choice in their behaviour, and that they are responsible for it.

He goes to jail because he's a threat to society. But like I wrote, in my opinion, he shouldn't go to jail. We cannot let him stay on the loose in society because he poses a threat. We still have to protect society from people like that. And I would not say that he has no choice whatsoever. It's not that simple. He has a magnificent urge that subverts his will. And it's not something that normal people like us can understand. We think it's weakness but in truth, it takes an almost superhuman display of internal strength for drug addicts to refrain from doing drugs when the price to obtain them (not just in terms of dollars) is within their ability to pay.

Well no, he's actually found guilty of committing the crime either wilfully or recklessly. There are alternative means to protect society from a person without resorting to that, such as sectioning, where a person doesn't go to jail, they go to a secure hospital. I understand that he has a big urge to do something, that's what I've been trying to tell you, it's like the fat fucks you see in McDonalds who eat McDonalds every day because they love it, they have these urges as well and they subvert their will, but I don't hear of any sympathy for them, or calling that a disease. You talk to them logically and say 'Do you think this is good for you' they'll say no, but their urges take over.

There's no major difference between loving McDonalds and loving heroin, it's just a sliding scale of how much people want it.

There's a big difference between loving something and having a clinical addiction to something. Food addiction is slowly but surely making its way towards being a recognized clinical addiction but it's just a question of how to identify it. Just because you love something doesn't mean you are addicted to it. Addiction is not currently recognized as a defense to crime in America, but it is in some jurisdictions. We cannot let people who commit crimes in the furtherance of their addiction remain in society. They are bound to harm people. But we should send them for treatment, not to the slammer.

I cannot agree that people should be excused from committing crimes because they really want to commit the crime. I don't think this conversation is going anywhere.