Living in Fear

[The Valkyrie]

With the good lord FSM by my side, I fear nothing.

So, you don't know me?

[Mermaid]

@Mermaid Those are very good reasons to have a heightened fear. Definitely very reasonable. Sorry that happened to you, and I'm glad you're still around. When that fear kicks in do you have flashbacks, is it more of just unknowing reaction? I'm trying to get at is your aversion a bias that is intentional or subconscious?

A bias? I wouldn't call it a bias. I'd call it a reasonable reaction to external circumstances. Reasonable for a person who does not want to die and may not have a whole lot of control over that. 

I have an unknowing reaction. An uncontrollable, visceral fight or flight response.

[Nay_Sayer]

With the good lord FSM by my side, I fear nothing.

So, you don't know me?

Hiding behind pillow fort*  ....no

[paulpablo]

Well I was going to answer the question generally, I've feared for my life because of paranoia about medical situations, near misses with traffic accidents, threatened by various people, had weapons pulled out on me.
One person in particular turned up at my work but I wasn't there at the time and threatened to break into my house and stab me while I sleep but that issue got resolved.  For while I walked around charged with adrenaline from that.
Getting lost out in the middle of nowhere hiking, that was pretty scary.  I was with a woman not as experienced as me at walking and she had twisted her ankle and I would never have left her but that mean't I couldn't leap over rivers, climb over fences and get to where I needed to be to get out of the place we were in. 

In relation to demographics I'm white and I lived in a Pakistani area and sort of still live around the same place.  Apart from vague threats like being told to move out, being called a white bastard once in a while I never felt any serious threat to my life.
If I would have got on the wrong side of the local Pakistani gangs my family would have been fucked.  I don't come from a violent, criminally connected family so any sort of local dispute wouldn't have gone our way at all. I've witnessed kidnappings, gang beatings with all different races, black, white, bengali, pakistani, romanian. In my specific area Pakistanis have the numbers and the upperhand by far I'd say.
I think that's the same for anyone living near other people anyway, the police won't really give you much protection from whoever the local power is. 

In relation to the police there's been no fear for my life, I've been stopped for ridiculous reasons but that's about it.  Probably because of how I was dressed or the area I was in.

The only other thing to say, this isn't really demographics but I used to be what's known as a Mosher, something similar to being like a goth.  In my teenage years me and my friends got in some altercations over how we dressed and since two goths got killed by some people a while ago I think this is actually classed as a hate crime now.
My and my friends have been chased, threatened and all sorts but again I never took it that seriously.
It used to be a really common thing, chavs vs moshers.

[tackattack]

Thanks for all of the insightful responses. So follow up question what part should mercy or sympathy play in justice?

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Thanks for all of the insightful responses. So follow up question what part should mercy or sympathy play in justice?

The question is nonsensical. Mercy is the antithesis of justice.

I'm curious as to why you think that qualifies as a 'follow up' question.

Boru

[tackattack]

That’s a fair point. Then allow me to rephrase. To what degree should sympathy affect the law? For me the law is almost binary; you did it or you didn’t do it. I understand the why a person does something might affect sentencing, but I’m trying to get my head around the justifiableness of a crime.

[The Grand Nudger]

Alot more than it currently does, I'd reckon. I'll use arizona as an example because I just posted about it claiming that it couldn't provide services absent prison labor. That's just the tip of the shitberg. They're also -already- having trouble providing those services with prison labor. They have the fifth highest incarceration rate in the country and they can't fill their for profit prisons (which they must, and to overpop....btw, due to contracts with the operators).

Not a whole lot of room for mercy or sympathy when your actual job in the courtroom is to source labor at ten cents an hour. Low level offenders get maximum sentences, upcharging is routine, early release is low, and recidivism is high. In arizona, "justice" is just the front office for a vast plantation, and the administrators of that plantation will say so publicly and without a hint of self awareness. They're not pulling the fire alarm for reform..they're wondering how to find more bodies. How to make more crimes. That's their only option, as they see it, or insist upon it.

[Belacqua]

That’s a fair point. Then allow me to rephrase. To what degree should sympathy affect the law?  For me the law is almost binary; you did it or you didn’t do it. I understand the why a person does something might affect sentencing, but I’m trying to get my head around the justifiableness of a crime.

I don't think it's correct to say that justice and mercy are opposites. 

Wikipedia starts the entry on "justice" with this:

Justice, in its broadest sense, is the principle that people receive that which they deserve

So if a person deserves mercy, then mercy is just. 

Maybe it makes sense to separate the guilty/not guilty binary of the verdict from the wisdom of the sentence. A person guilty of a crime, in some circumstances, might not deserve to be punished. In an ideal world the judge would give the criminal exactly what he ought to get, and I think that in some cases, if the criminal was in bad condition at the time of the crime, it might include getting him rehab or a job or a place to live. Or maybe everyone is so mean-spirited that they think Jean Valjean had it coming.

This is an important theme in the New Testament. Because we all know that perfect justice is impossible in the real world, the Bible shows Jesus wisely splitting exactly the right hairs to give what ought to be given -- in the case of the woman taken in adultery, for example.

[Angrboda]

That’s a fair point. Then allow me to rephrase. To what degree should sympathy affect the law?  For me the law is almost binary; you did it or you didn’t do it. I understand the why a person does something might affect sentencing, but I’m trying to get my head around the justifiableness of a crime.

I don't think it's correct to say that justice and mercy are opposites. 

Wikipedia starts the entry on "justice" with this:

Justice, in its broadest sense, is the principle that people receive that which they deserve

So if a person deserves mercy, then mercy is just. 

Maybe it makes sense to separate the guilty/not guilty binary of the verdict from the wisdom of the sentence. A person guilty of a crime, in some circumstances, might not deserve to be punished. In an ideal world the judge would give the criminal exactly what he ought to get, and I think that in some cases, if the criminal was in bad condition at the time of the crime, it might include getting him rehab or a job or a place to live. Or maybe everyone is so mean-spirited that they think Jean Valjean had it coming.

This is an important theme in the New Testament. Because we all know that perfect justice is impossible in the real world, the Bible shows Jesus wisely splitting exactly the right hairs to give what ought to be given -- in the case of the woman taken in adultery, for example.

Mercy is compassion or forgiveness for a person within your power to help or hurt. Compassion without forgiveness is inert. Forgiveness omits the acts of justice.