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Originally Posted by shinerbock
That is quite the dangerous idea though. There must be a level of personal responsibility in controlling one's actions. One of our primary reasons for punishment is to avoid retribution. In most crimes (and in people's lives in general) something prompts a response. If I hadn't gotten fired, I wouldn't have stolen. If he hadn't said that, I wouldn't have killed him. Hell, if I hadn't gotten paid this afternoon, I wouldn't have bought that crack. The boys at Columbine should have taken the appropriate route regarding being made fun of. Millions of teens are made fun of daily, and few respond violently (at least to this level). Continuing my most constant theme on these boards, our society must adopt and return to the notion of personal responsibility.
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See that's a punative mindset - in that punative action seen as the primary stoppage to inappropriate action. Whereas in Canada the common public ideology is preventative; ie. stopping the situation before it even gets to the point where punative action comes into play... I guess playing into the cause-effect relationship mentioned in the post above... preventative seeks to remove the cause, while punative threatens with effect.