One-Upmanship

Surly you all know the story of Ariel Castro by now. He kidnapped 3 women and held them as prisoners for a decade. He also raped, starved, and beat them. Then they recently escaped and now it's a big media frenzy.

I love reading the comments under articles. Under articles about Ariel Castro, many people wish ill-will unto him. When they do the math, they think that torturing 3 women for 10 years equals a punishment of 30 years of torture for Castro to endure to make things even. In order to pay for his crimes, apparently he must go through similar or worse torture than he inflicted upon his victims.

Did I not get the memo about ordinary humans having control of the universe's karma?

I posted my own comment under the name Ribbon about how everyone seemed to have really unrealistic expectations for Castro's future and I got some backlash. I guess my comment was misunderstood because people said some weird stuff that didn't really make sense or pertain to my post.

So there you have it.
I am rational and reasonable so therefore I am just as sick and twisted as Ariel Castro is! Could you imagine if we tried to avenge others on top of seeking out our own revenge on those who have seemingly done us wrong for every day life? The amount of road-rage, broken bones, murder, and tears would be seemingly endless.

Imagine someone bumped into you, so you bumped him back, but you bumped too hard and he fell. So then he pushed you over to even things out and you broke your wrist. So now you have to even that out and you grab a hammer and smash this stranger's wrist so it breaks and you're even. Or someone could bump into you and apologize and you could forgive him instead of letting the situation escalate into a serious one-upmanship contest.

In reference to Castro, a simple 'I'm sorry' just isn't going to cut it for those poor women, but trying to punish him by inflicting the same pain on him as he did to others isn't going to solve anything, it isn't going to make the world a better place, and it makes us stoop to his level.

Just because he violated the rights of 3 women doesn't mean he deserves to have his rights violated also. It's a very hard concept for some people to wrap their heads around, but reading the idiotic comments under that article makes me feel as though I've been cut from the cloth of superior intellect.