Speach is a weapon, this guy used a club, Assange used a sword. Bush used a sniper rifle, though he had the lens cap on at the time. In my opinion it's important to distinguish not just about the effect, but more about the intentions. It could be suggested (and I'm not) that there is in those three, a soldier a murderer and a thug. It's obvious who I might suggest was who, but the point is that they all used the weapon.

"Loose lips sink ships" was a popular phrase that identified the value and destructive power of words. So I would suggest that the argument is not so much about free speech, so much as about a freedom to shoot someone with it.

Silly fools, tis was I!

Sad, that guy is quite the cunt.

:) Sorry I had to...

(i wont get into it any more, I did in fact write a reply, but it's 5 pages... soo... rather then be TL NR...i'll leave well enough alone :) )

Appreciate it. As much as I enjoy it, being part of meaningful international discussion is demanding on my dwindling english skills (dict.cc has become a true friend).
I know that it isn't so black / white for anyone involved on-site and that I'm speeching from a safe haven. Wish you well.

I say moreso a neurologists pet specimen than a prisoner.

Prisons should only be for those whom are intelligent and sane enough to know better than crimes performed but performed crimes for some logical selfish benefit to themselves.

Neither this persons actions or picture suggests that he is either sane or intelligent.

In the instance of faulty brain wiring a few simple turns of the screw have turned some aggressively angry sociapaths into saints.

You'll often hear stories about dementia patients, whom when they came to were the sweetest most harmless people you could ever meet.

Prison isn't going to get this run-amuck cadaver anywhere but more hostile. He needs someone to flip open that hidden panel on the back of his head and go at him with a screwdriver.

No problem :) all of these issues are complicated, and emotions can run high. I respect people's rights to their opinion and often times forget to take a step back before getting rantish and can see where you are coming from.

Heh, sorry i should have went to sleep hours ago... and now am gonna have to overdose on caffinee to get through Saturday :)

But yeah the guy in the thing needs a hospital, not a prison.

If he didn't target the families, but kept his comments to the facebook groups and the like then no, he should have been jailed. Maybe some kind of slap on the wrist...

To me, it seems like worse crimes almost go unpunished on the first offence. So why was this an offence that warranted prison time when a warning would have most likely been enough to scare some sense into the malicious little idiot?

Ridiculous. Internet communication is not under any legal jurisdiction, and you cannot prove that it was the person in question that made the statements anyway. In addition, comments made while signed in as an avatar are roleplaying/fantasizing, so there is no mens rhea.

Don't get me wrong - from a legal standpoint, there's hardly any occasion to jail him. Personally, I'd have busted him for commiting and conceding necrophilia. ;)

I see this as a slap on his wrist as much as statuing an example to make a point. A point where jurisdiction tries to say, that's it, here's a line one shouldn't cross. As far as punishment goes, we could argue for years (and usually, we do - in any country). What's appropriate for taking someone's life? Are the few years one get's for rape enough, considering the effect it has on the entire life of his victim?
Condemning him to the same amount of days doing public work, would have probably been more in line with official crime / punishment catalogue. But it wouldn't have gotten the media buzz, which obviously was the real target here.

Personally I'd be more concerned with the likelihood of reoffending. Which with rapists seems to be pretty high. Very high in the case of child rapists.

Ultimately, as much as I like the idea of rehabilitation playing a role in the sentence, there's also the need to protect the public from those that cannot be rehabilitated.
Which would require that the guy be intelligent enough to deny the charges indefinitely. I highly doubt that's the case here. Especially considering the very telling evidence he posted using those accounts. He's a bit of a moron, basically.