But where I believe you slip up, if you’ll pardon me for saying this, is when you approach this from a purely moral standpoint. I may have read you wrong, and as you will probably understand I am not writing this with hours to spare, but you seemed to say that morally, he should not be punished. Now, were you saying this with reference to the fact that hakol beyad hashem, I would understand you. But you seem to saying that even leaving halacha out of it, it would be wrong to punish them. And on that I disagree. Whilst you make valid points about the impact on the abuser’s family, the reason we do not punish is because we know Hashem will. But from a ‘goyish’ point off view, were there no certain punishment in store, as we know there is, then certainly the abuser deserves to be punished.
Sirvoddmort – Firstly, when I wrote ‘moral’, I was talking from a Jewish point of view. I was simply leaving the Halachic aspect aside, not talking in the hypothetical situation where nobody here was Jewish and therefore all other Jewish principles were also gone.
But even from a goyishe point of view, ‘morally’ <ask PAA if that has any merit to exist>, I hold that punishment purely for the sake of revenge is almost* pointless. There is no reason to punish somebody for past deeds. What have you to gain? What has he to gain? The concept of vengeance, the way I see it from a purely moral standpoint, is baseless.
The only reason I see to punish a committer of crimes is the deterrent to stop other criminals doing similar atrocities. And that, as I explained before <although DY disagrees>, that would enter the entirely different topic of the ‘end justifying the means’. Which we can debate in a different thread, if you want to try that (#KTCRIM)