The Right to be Different

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/lancashire/7370637.stm

Boys sentenced over Goth murder

I blogged earlier about this case and promised to return to it when sentencing had been handed down. Today the main teenage perpetrators of this heinous murder were given prison terms of 18 and 16 years. For a pointless and savage crime this is, in my humble opinion, barely the minimum acceptable tariff for these lowlifes. But Judge Russell should be commended for at least trying to fit the punishment to the crime, and for explaining (as best as is possible to young men of such low intellect) the error of their ways.

I fear that there is little that explanation will have achieved, however. I grow increasingly convinced that logic and a sense of what is right, what is wrong, is devoid in certain sections of our youth. That the only way to deal with this element is to remove them from society. That's a sad conclusion but a considered one.

There is a small but dangerous part of our (mostly male) young population that has no comprehension of morals, no empathy, respect or tolerance for others, no desire to be persuaded of the wrongness of their hatred, no vision of what it is to live and let live. They have no intention of spoiling the notion that they themselves are all that matters, their right to fun transcends all others' rights. They measure themselves by the gains they can make at the expense of others.

I don't care if it takes a 100 more prisons to keep these worthless individuals off our streets. Build them now and make no apologies.