Another dangerous idea from Richard Dawkins

Let's stop beating Basil's car
Basil Fawlty, television's hotelier from hell, was at the end of his tether when his car broke down. He seized a branch and set about thrashing the car within an inch of its life. Of course we laugh at his irrationality. Instead of beating the car, we would investigate the problem. Is the carburettor flooded? Has it run out of petrol?
Why do we not react in the same way to a defective man: a murderer, say, or a rapist? Why don't we laugh at a judge who punishes a criminal, just as heartily as we laugh at Fawlty?
Isn't the murderer just a machine with a defective component? Or a defective upbringing? Defective genes? Why do we vent hatred on murderers when we should regard them as faulty units that need fixing or replacing? We shall grow out of this and learn to laugh at it, just as we laugh at Fawlty.
Richard Dawkins, Evolutionary biologist, Oxford University

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/01/03/wedge03.xml&DCMP=EMC-new_03012006

(Didn't I read something like this in B F Skinner and in Samuel Butler before him? Maybe people will soon start to see this man for what he is.)

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