Lex Talionis: Eye For an Eye/ Life For A Life.

This must have been authorised cruelty in action from The Bible!

Not so! It was overwhelmingly liberal.

Overkill was almost always the response to horrors and crimes committed against you and your family. A single death could result in the massacring of a neighbouring hamlet, an entire family - or even a complete tribe.

The Lex Talionis brought a desperately needed balance: ie) the punishment must fit the crime.

Tragically, our world has repudiated the LT because apparently 'we are not barbaric' - (???). 

The balance has disappeared to such an extent that people who have committed murder in the UK (manslaughter is a whole different issue) can often be released from a comfortable prison without their sentence ever reaching double digits. Indeed, there are those released in as little as FOUR years for wantonly taking a human life.

But we are barbaric! Removing simple deterrence, we have merely shifted our barbarism so it must now be endured by those multitudes of innocent people who now suffer at the hands of unrepentant: thugs, thieves, burglars, people of violence and even killers as there is no longer any true fear experienced by either criminals or would-be malefactors. 

I'm sorry - but inconveniencing the criminal classes will simply not suffice.

Singapore is 'intolerant' maybe but they do not actually have criminal classes - the consequences for evil-doers are too harsh to contemplate!

Sigh!