Marcuse wrote:I suppose it's not controversial to say that I think infecting anyone knowingly with any kind of harmful disease should be some kind of crime. I don't know if I'd support gradations based on whether the disease in question is fatal or not, but I think it'd be reasonable to distinguish them in that way.
My thinking is that we distinguish simple assault from aggravated assault and distinguish both from manslaughter and murder for that precise reason--the degree of injury is relevant when prosecuting a crime. If your actions lead to someone's death (or could easily have done so), that's a more serious offense against them than an action that leads to a more minor injury--or illness, in this case.
aviel wrote:Crimson847 wrote:"We" as in those of us here, or "we" as in the California government?
"We" as in the people of California, which I recognize was a bit unclear in context.
I never suggested that we take California's current policy as "gospel", or anything similar. But if people here are so firm in their belief that a misdemeanor classification is unreasonable, and that Weiner's argument in favor of it is unfounded, then it seems like they should have evidence to support that stance.
Nobody has to present evidence to support skepticism of a claim that is unproven, especially when the claim is prima facie implausible. Rather, the claimant is the one with the burden of proof, a burden that nobody's even tried to meet as far as I can see.
Can you prove that reducing murder to a misdemeanor charge when it's committed by an elderly person would
not diminish stigma against the elderly? If you can't prove that, does that mean it's sensible to give it a shot and see what happens? I wouldn't think so, because most elderly people don't commit murder and allowing them to do so with fewer consequences has no logical negative relationship with society's view of the elderly. If anything, we would expect the relationship would be positive--i.e. allowing elderly people to get away with murder would
increase society's ill will toward them, not decrease it.
The same applies here. How the hell is allowing people who intentionally transmit HIV to get off easier supposed to make society
more compassionate toward people with HIV? What is the psychological mechanism by which this would occur? I can give you a psychological mechanism to explain why this could increase stigma: the
availability heuristic, combined with media coverage of people like
this guy that NoodleFox mentioned getting off with a mere misdemeanor conviction. Do you have a counteracting mechanism you'd care to mention?
"If it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them; but the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?"
- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn