As cost effective as that might be, I think Norway made the right decision here and handled the whole process in a very classy way. Breivik, despite of his crimes, got what his own fantasy society most likely wouldn't have given to an offender like him: a fair trial and a punishment according to the law, no exceptions made "just because". Such exceptions I would consider more dangerous than anything he may have done, and a first step towards what that muppet wanted to achieve in his daydreams.

I don't disagree with you. I'm not an advocate for the death penalty, although there are some circumstances where even I think it may be more appropriate than to provide for a creep that really does not deserve to live.

I didn't intend my comment to be for or against death penalty, because frankly I'm tired of that question and often being forced to choose sides in a matter that I don't want to take sides in. If Breivik had committed his crimes in a country that has death penalty and he was put to death according to that country's laws and procedures after a fair trial, then good for them.

The point that I repeat whenever this subject comes up is that we, as a society, can't start making exceptions to the law because we feel like it. There either is a death penalty or there isn't. In Norway there is not. No doubt many people there and abroad feel that Breivik should be executed, but such feelings are irrelevant as long as there is no death penalty. There are certainly also those who feel he shouldn't be executed. What makes one feeling better than the other?

If a law is bad, then the society changes it. But whether someone lives or dies shouldn't be solved by a referendum.

I think he does deserve to live, I think he should live to a ripe old age and watch Norway simply carrying on with life, every day without his fantasy race war of the templars happening must really anger him.

Vermin like this should be put out down ASAP

I would agree, but I still have some mixed feelings on the subject of capital punishment. Here in Canada the death penalty was eliminated in 1976, but there have been some cases where I would not have disagreed with it, especially the case of Clifford Olson, who murdered eleven teenagers in the early 80's. He was arrested and convicted in 1981 and he died in 2011 at the age of 71. His application for parole under Canada's "faint hope clause", which allowed a parole hearing for convicts who had served at least 15 years, was an insult to the victims families. Under Canadian law, Olson was then entitled to make a case for parole every two years. More salt in the wound.

Still I am glad that we don't have the death penalty in this country.

As other posters have said, the best punishment for Breivik is to have him become a non entity. Denying him his mad dreams and wishes is the best a civilized society can do.

I can understand that. It's not like I didn't in certain local cases have similar feelings as well. But our feelings and opinions are just that: feelings and opinions. People have been lynched in the past based on feelings and opinions, and I'm glad we are not doing that anymore. If they have to be killed because of their crimes, then at least I want the society to have balls to say: "Yes, we have death penalty and we are using it." That hopefully creates enough rational standards to save the death penalty for only the people who have no other options.

Breivik's case along with some others reminds me of a book I read last spring. If I'm not totally mistaken, it was Andrei Sinyavsky's Soviet Civilization: A Cultural History (a good book, by the way). In it the author described the Soviet Gulag system among other things by saying that the people who were sentenced there were afraid for their lives. Not because they were sentenced to forced labor, but because they were sentenced to live with "criminals". They sincerely believed that they themselves were sentenced there by mistake that would soon be corrected, but all the other inmates were dangerous criminals who deserved their punishment.

In short, they basically accepted the existence of such punishment, because it was reserved for "criminals". And I believe this is what is happening always when we (anywhere) are discussing a serious crime and its punishment. We are ready to accept even unusual forms of punishment that are against the current laws, because we also believe we are immune to such punishment ourselves. We are not criminals after all, right? But as the Soviet example shows, "criminal" is a label that can easily be stamped on anyone in the right conditions.

That's why I would keep an extra careful watch for how our society is treating the criminals and on what the sentences are based on. In this sense Norway couldn't have acted better. The public pressure must have been high, but the common sense won in the end.


And here we are in 100 % agreement. :yep:

Agreed. It was handled without hysteria. In the long run I think this will help the victims' families deal with their loss.

As a further comment on the death penalty; I believe the best reason for not having it is the possibility of killing an innocent person. Here in Canada we have a long and shameful list of wrongly convicted people. Some of them probably would have been executed for their alleged crimes. One such case was that of David Milgaard who was convicted of murdering 22-year-old nursing assistant Gail Miller in 1969 in Saskatoon. Milgaard spent 23 years in prison for a crime he did not commit.

But on the other end of the scale is Olsen who led police to all eleven of his victims bodies and confessed to their murders. In this case, well ....

I'm glad I don't have to make that decision.

Mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik gave a Nazi salute on Tuesday as he entered court for a parole hearing that will decide if he should be released after spending more than a decade behind bars.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world...cid=uxbndlbing

About turn and goose step back into that cell for another ten

They cannot actually think of relaesing this Pos at any time in the future ? :hmmm:

Precisely

I certainly hope not