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The Forum > Article Comments > Breaking the chain of life in Bali > Comments

Breaking the chain of life in Bali : Comments

By Suresh Wijeyeratne, published 5/2/2015

Why am I affected by the impending death sentences for the Bali nine members Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan?

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Here we have it then...the life of Brian less Monty Python!
Posted by diver dan, Thursday, 5 February 2015 7:00:47 AM
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Suresh Wijeyeratne asks " Why am I affected by the impending death sentences for the Bali nine members Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan?"

I'll tell you why Suresh.

You consider yourself a member of the educated and morally correct class who think they know everything, and you have been programmed by your peers to advocate certain "progressive" causes without ever thinking about them. It is no surprise that you can think of no rational reason why you do not support the death penalty. You can only explain it in terms of an amorphous philosophical waffle which you hope will make you sound both brilliant and incredibly humane.

The rule of thumb in heroin deaths is that it is 1 Kg of heroin per life lost through overdoses, one through murder, and several families torn apart through having family members addicted. At 8.4 kilos of heroin, Chan and Sukhamaron were major players in this trade, they could not care less who died, or who's families were destroyed, all they wanted was the money. They knew the risks, they considered the profits and the consequences, and they got caught. They were the worst kinds of criminals who could not care less if your own loved ones got addicted, robbed, murdered, or overdosed, so stop blubbering over them.

40 to 50 Indonesians die every day from drug overdoses and the President of Indonesia is doing exactly the right thing by executing hard drug dealers who were warned, and warned, about what would happen if they were caught. The Indonesians have been very humane by not executing all nine of the Bali nine members, only the two kingpins. Indonesia has also done Australia a good turn by doing what our own wimpy government is too pansified to do. Only last week, government authorities were wringing their hands about the consequences to society of Australia's new "ice" epidemic and saying that they do not know how to combat it. It is this attitude of helplessness in the face of a clear and present danger which enrages a public which demands action
Posted by LEGO, Thursday, 5 February 2015 8:19:32 AM
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I couldn't agree more - there is no black and white when we are talking about the life of a thinking, breathing, feeling sentient being. Most of life exists within the grey area you mentioned and the human construct of justice is proven fallible. There is no doubt that a crime was committed. There is also no doubt that hope and humanity should combine to create a world in which individuals are allowed to change, grow, improve themselves and heal whatever it was that led them to criminal acts. As a Counsellor and a loving person, I cannot believe that anyone is truly beyond redemption. No one deserves to be given up on in such an extreme way as to actually extinguish their life. There is no clearer way of impressing on someone that they are worth less than nothing. The death penalty tells them that they are not even allowed to exist anymore. No one should be allowed to choose the death of another. Violence begets violence.
Posted by TamaraA, Thursday, 5 February 2015 8:24:12 AM
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LEGO
There's a lot of heart attacks from butter too isn't there, so presumably people trafficking in butter should be shot for the same reasons? Plus a lot of people die from cars too don't they? We could even do a mathematical calculation linking cars trafficked per death, just like you've done. So presumably car dealers should be put up against the wall and shot too?
Posted by Jardine K. Jardine, Thursday, 5 February 2015 8:44:34 AM
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What a load of unadulterated tosh. All those words, not a lick of sense.

>>I struggle to see us as a human unit when witnessing the lack of humanity in passing death penalties.<<

This "human unit"? Is it the same one that allows millions to starve in Ethiopia?

http://www.wfp.org/stories/10-things-everyone-should-know-about-hunger-ethiopia

Is it the perhaps same one that sees entire countries emptied by a pointless civil war?

http://syrianrefugees.eu/

Does your "human unit" perhaps incorporate the activities of ultra-religious murderers?

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-13809501

Meanwhile, you are whining about two individuals who, through their own actions, the consequences of which they were fully aware, are now facing those consequences?

You're weird.
Posted by Pericles, Thursday, 5 February 2015 8:50:43 AM
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These two men have run drugs to Australia before and are not the young innocents they are depicted as. Hopefully their death will be a deterrent to future drug importers. The Indonesian government has enough courage to carry out the execution while in Australia our slippery lawyers have them returned to the street and back in their BMW’s with little more than a suspended sentence. It would be nice to send a plane full of Ibrahams, Bandidos, and Hell’s Angels etc. for a holiday to Bali each with a bag of meth or cocaine.
Posted by SILLER, Thursday, 5 February 2015 9:20:23 AM
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I'm not going to take any joy out of their deaths but I do take the view that they had a choice unlike so many others.

If concern for unnecessary loss of life is really the driving issue there are far more concerning issues than two drug smugglers who went to a country with a known death penalty for their actions.

Estimates vary widely but a couple of issues where relatively small donations from concerned westerners can save more than two lives

"When burned in traditional cooking stoves, the toxic emissions result in 1.6 million premature deaths each year, according to World Health Organization estimates. Children younger than five account for half of the fatalities." http://www.worldwatch.org/node/6328

"WHO 1996. “Every year more than five million human beings die from illnesses linked to unsafe drinking water, unclean domestic environments and improper excreta disposal.”" http://www.pacinst.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/water_related_deaths_report3.pdf

On a local note the suicide rates in Australia are not trivial and I'm left with the impression that for a notable proportion of those suicides there are tipping points which are controllable. As an example people being pushed to bankruptcy by a tax system that takes no account of a persons actual financial situation.

The thought of people being taken out and machine gunned to death is ugly. The thought of the pain for their families through this process is ugly however I'm left with the impression that much of the hand wringing over the likely fate of these two has far more to do with ideology than genuine concern for premature loss of life.

R0bert
Posted by R0bert, Thursday, 5 February 2015 9:45:33 AM
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The killers of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balibo_Five
will probably perform the murder of these 2 Australian citizens.

5 x 30 rounds of 5.56mm ammo from US M16s.

The boys love a righteous execution.

How bout burnings next?
Posted by plantagenet, Thursday, 5 February 2015 10:04:37 AM
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Plantagenet,

"The killers of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balibo_Five
will probably perform the murder of these 2 Australian citizens".

Hardly, they'd probably be retired after 40 years; besides which a lawful execution is a judicial killing and is not murder.

If you want an emotive word or two, try 'justified' and 'fair'
Posted by Is Mise, Thursday, 5 February 2015 10:27:36 AM
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I'm certain these guys knew all the risks inherent with running dope through a foreign country, which still has a death penalty for running drugs.

I was raised to consider the consequences of any action before taking that action, i.e., squandering the rent money on an outside chance?

And having considered all the possible consequences, if prepared to wear them, then go ahead.
Always providing I didn't expect anyone else or the fairy godmother to come and bail me out.

These guys it seems, were criminal masterminds?

And if they'd had any intelligence, would have sort honest work.

And given they applied themselves, would have could have been rich today, and all legal and above board.

However they were caught out, and must now pay the piper.

I have plenty of sympathy for the grieving relatives and friends, but none for these pretenders. The pastor and the painter!?

Who would no doubt be back at it again if somehow reprieved this time?

Do the crime do the time, or wear the consequences!

Who knows how many lives these young crims have already snuffed out, with their peddled poisons?

And who do as every drug dealer in the country does, get school kids hooked, to create their future clientele.

All of who pay with their dignity, their freedom or their very lives!

Sorry, but the sooner this sad saga is over, the better!
Rhrosty.
Posted by Rhrosty, Thursday, 5 February 2015 11:15:08 AM
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This has got to be a spoof, no sane adult human being could produce such waffle in a serious piece.

Yes much of the inner city of our larger cities are populated by kooks, but if this is not a spoof, we need a whole bunch of hospitals, with high walls around them to protect us from infection, & them from themselves.

An engineer? I know our fairy floss disciplines keep trying to make themselves sound rational & scientific. Could the Psychiatric departments have come up with a new subject HUMAN ENGINEERING, to try to give themselves some credibility? This piece would suggest they may have.

As for the subjects, would Indonesia please get it over with. It is painful watching theoretically adult TV commentators & presenters cry about a couple of dropkicks. My channel changing finger is starting to suffer repetitive strain injury from getting rid of them.
Posted by Hasbeen, Thursday, 5 February 2015 12:03:16 PM
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'Our instincts evolutionarily exist to prolong our lives'

Sorry Suresh if you believed this you would be campaigning against those murdering the unborn. We have no evolutionarily instincts. You have been conned to believe that garbage.
Posted by runner, Thursday, 5 February 2015 12:17:35 PM
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If "christians" genuinely opposed killing the already born as much as runner pretends concern for the unborn, the last centuries wars would have stopped dead outside the recruiting office and on the roads to every miltary installation. Instead, good "catholics", lutherans et all took up arms willingly.
Rusty.
Posted by Rusty Catheter, Thursday, 5 February 2015 2:07:13 PM
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A bit of maundering. vicarious philosophising. A needy participation and identification. A shudder at a defined and measured time left for a life and the looming inevitable end.

You live and die by your decisions in life. Thats all there is to it. As for us, we only have the gift of an uncertain timing allowing us to think we will always have the time to make it all right. Maybe it's the defined end point which allowed or, forced them to get their thing together in preparation.
Posted by Williejay, Thursday, 5 February 2015 3:10:21 PM
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To Jardine Jardine (you would have had a miserable time of it at my high school with a name like that).

Your lame attempt to equate heroin king pins with people who sell cars or dairy products is more worthy of hilarity than serious consideration. Incidentally, the tobacco industry argued against government restrictions on selling their lethal products using your same argument about dairy products. Nobody bought that one either.

I am disappointed in you, Jardine. I know that you have a brain. But you must have it switched onto "low power" to come up with that one.

Significantly, you did not present a reasoned argument supporting your opposition to the death penalty. You simply tossed a loaded and preposterous question at me in order to make me do all the work. That is indicative of someone who does not wish to stick his neck out justifying a premise which he finds difficult to defend using reasoned logic
Posted by LEGO, Friday, 6 February 2015 5:19:16 AM
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