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Re: Poland okays forcible castration for pedophiles
I think we've seen quite a few incidents in our history to say that we don't all have basic human rights. In a perfect world we do, and of course we all want that to be the case.
Have you read Jonathan Glover's Humanity, as it addresses the very dilemma you speak of. Glover lists various inhumanities across the 20th century, finally reaching the conclusion that while men are certainly capable of committing atrocities towards each other, equal human rights are indisputable, and trying to go around that is always a crime against humanity itself. If we let our primitive reactions get the best of us in war-time tribunals, we might as well admit we're not one bit better than the people on the other side of the bench.
The greatest crime against humanity is ultimately, in my opinion, hypocrisy in the matter. The hanging of Saddam Hussein and Abu Ghraib are recent examples of how various US military personnel, for example, gave away the very moral principles touted by Bush and his advocates as primus motors in justifying the war effort in Iraq. By committing the same acts you accuse others for, you give away any and all footing in the effort to establish your ethics. I appreciate the fact that there's a whole lot more to the Iraq discussion than this, but you'll probably understand my point.
One of the hardest things anyone's ever been asked to do is to forgive atrocities experienced firsthand. There's no easy answer to that. In my opinion, complete and utter forgiveness may even be too much to ask in the first place. Understanding the reasons for the aggressors' behavior would be good, realizing what goes down into politics and other silly topics. Realizing that maybe, just maybe, the aggressors might've been ordinary people caught up in an uneasy situation themselves. Comprehending that conflicts are both traceable to their fundamental elements and irrational in the sense that we can never fully grasp what happens in the human mind once the safety pin is removed.
Thus, I believe the main responsibility of tribunals and courts of law is to maintain an objective outlook regarding the basic human rights of all concerned, no matter how difficult it may appear to us as individuals. At the end of the day, I believe any one of us could find himself accused for taking a leave of his basic humanity, at which point we'd all like the court to believe there to be a fellow man underneath the disdain we'd emit.
