Ignorance a Crime?

[Jam930]

Is it a crime to not want to know?

Jamie, knowingly lit a match in a room pumped with flammable fumes, killing hundreds of people.
CRIME

Jamie, unknowingly lit a match in a room pumped with flammable fumes,
killing hundreds of people.
CRIME?
Can we arrest jamie for not paying attention when the guide said, "no flame"? and why wasn't she listening? -tieing her shoe.- Is tieing your shoe a crime? no.

Arrest for ignorance?

Let's pretend i survive...


Any thoughts??

[87x]

yes.. it is still a crime.. its involuntarly but still a crime.. picture this.. driving down the road.. swerve to miss the deer, hit a person.. kill them.. thats still on you.. accident or not.. your neglegence(sp?) in the situation still caused the incident... so ts still your fault.. ignorance is no excuse..

[Ice-Dragon]

If you are the reason for your ignorance and your ignorance harms other people whether it be physically or financially or whatever, then it is still a crime.

In the situation you presented with you lighting a match and blowing up hundreds of people, it is possible for it to not be a crime. Lets say you had a teacher along with you, and you were conducting an experiment. If he told you to light the match, and that seemed like the logical thing to do, then it would not be a crime on your part. But if he told you to not light the match, and you didn't hear him because you weren't paying attention or something, then blew up hundreds of people, it is most definitely a crime.

[talisman]

it's a crime, just a different and less sadistic one. more like involuntary manslaughter as opposed to regular manslaughter.

a better question might me: Should the two be punished evenly or not?

[Specforces]

Your lack of coherence does absolve one from punishment, rather, I do believe that those who do things on purpose should be tortured. Let's say I knowingly burn a building down, killing 6 inhabitants, 4 of them under the age of 5, I should be burned alive for my crimes, after being beaten.

That's my ultraconservative opinion, anyone else?

Specforces

[jazzmosis]

Technically, what you would have done would go down as "Manslaughter" (Accidental killing of a person), while the purposely lighting the match would be "Murder", although you could argue that's it's Manslaughter. Either way, you'd be screwed.

[peregrine]

Your lack of coherence does absolve one from punishment, rather, I do believe that those who do things on purpose should be tortured. Let's say I knowingly burn a building down, killing 6 inhabitants, 4 of them under the age of 5, I should be burned alive for my crimes, after being beaten.

That's my ultraconservative opinion, anyone else?

Specforces

I'd consider myself fairly liberal when it comes to matters, and I wouldn't strongly disagree with you, specforces. I think punishments need to be harsher than they already are, espcially for violent crimes. The only point I'm questioning is at what point do we label crimes as torture-worthy, and at what level of certianty that the person is truly to blame for the crime?

As George Carlin put it (this may not be exactly verbatim) "You start crucifying the bankers who launder drug money and I'll garuntee you'll see the streets of Amerca clear up pretty damn quick."

I'm in no way saying that we should all live in fear of any minor infraction causing us unbearable amounts of pain and torture, just for very heinous and violent crimes there needs to be a heavier punishment to satisfy the definition of "justice."

And on a slightly related note, I'd even say to bring back corporal punishment in schools, not to beat the crap out of the kid, but a stronger way of telling the kid they're doing something wrong than wagging your finger and saying "bad, bad."

[Privateer]

George Carlin is the man.

Man, I'm lucky I don't have to deal with the world.

[IronMonk]

my views on ignorance is that, if its avoidable ignorance, ie if you are just doing stupid things not thinking about what may happen, then yes it is a crime, but if it was true ignorance, you trip and fall but on the way down you manage to trip hit a button that kills hundreds of people, that is a mistake not a crime.

punishment, i say that sociaty moves to an eye for an eye punishment system, if you cut someone in a knife fight, you get cut, if you rape a chick, you get your ass sodomised(sp?) kill a bunch of children, your genitalia is mangled (thus killing ever single child you could have created. ) and then you get tortured to death.

my question is, how much do you pay the guy that has to sodomise all the rapists.

[Anticrombie0909]

There's a word for ignorance that results in crimes: It's called Negligence (do you people know anything about law? Seriously). Negligence is kind of an all-around charge because it can be used from anything to parking tickets to forest fires to murder. If somebody doesn't knowingly commit a crime or doesn't mean to, lots of times you'll see "Negligence" tacked on. It's also an all around charge because it can be suited to the severity of the crime. Remember that huge ass california forest fire a year or two ago? That was started by a woman burning a letter from her boyfriend. She got one huge ass charge of negligence. However that can also be applied to a kid who hits a baseball through his neighbor's window. So yes, it is a crime.

And you guys are sadistic..."Your genitalia is mangeled" seriously, wtf? I don't have enough faith in the legal system to trust my balls to that.

[makaveli121212]

yeah crimes like that are called manslaughter...the so called "accidents"

[Laharl]

I'm pretty sure that if you lit a match unknowingly, you really don't pay attention to what you're doing. :P

[87x]

thanks anti.. i thought i was the only one who knew what Negligence was..

[perfect_fat]

In some countries, tying your shoe is a crime.

Everybody is ignorant about something, so everybody would have to be punished. Stupidity is the real crime. We gotta get those people hovering in the 60-90 IQ Range out of the Gene Pool ASAP. Unless they're mentall handicapped then they're cool.

[Ice-Dragon]

I thought if you are in the 60-90 range you are considered to be mentally retarded already?

Anyways... if ignorance in this context was a crime everyone would not have to be punished... only if their ignorance/stupidity somehow affected others in a criminal like fashion.