tuna
NES Member
Yeah, that's not how the law works. I mean, let's go back to Mosaic and Hammurabi codes. Eye for an Eye wasn't to ensure justice. It was to ensure that the aggrieved didn't extract MORE for the offense. Watch two young siblings interact. One will accidentally whack the other. The whack-ee then wallops the whack-er. Now wallop-ee gets a bat against wallop-er. It just escalates.
The penalty must be just. You want to shoot someone over a penny? A PENNY??? Now you're just being dramatic or selfish. LOL
Or, to put it in the 2000 language (and I always found this funny. . . )
LOL
Yes, I'm being a bit over dramatic. However, the question was "What's the property value that equals a human life?" And for most scumbag thieves, it ain't much more than a penny. How much injury would these bastards be willing to cause to relieve someone of their property? I'm not going out on a limb to call these lives priceless. Maybe not a penny, but definitely in the realm of walking around money, I'd say $75 if I had to put an absolute value on their lives. (maybe $50)
I would love to go back to Mosaic law when we're talking an eye for an eye. You're correct that it set a limit on punishment, so that one couldn't extract more for an offense, but it also establishes a minimum penalty, too. You don't get a slap on the wrist for killing someone, you get dead.
A particular verse I love is regarding false witnesses in Deut 19: 15-21.
15 One witness is not enough to convict anyone accused of any crime or offense they may have committed. A matter must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.
16 If a malicious witness takes the stand to accuse someone of a crime,
17 the two people involved in the dispute must stand in the presence of the LORD before the priests and the judges who are in office at the time.
18 The judges must make a thorough investigation, and if the witness proves to be a liar, giving false testimony against a fellow Israelite,
19 then do to the false witness as that witness intended to do to the other party. You must purge the evil from among you.
20 The rest of the people will hear of this and be afraid, and never again will such an evil thing be done among you.
21 Show no pity: life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.