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Iran billionaire Babak Zanjani sentenced to death
- sitkack 11y agoI get this sense that America's war with Iran is over how it treats its billionaires. If only they didn't treat them so badly, we could just both get along?
- ryall 11y agoWon't someone think of the billionaires?!
- booo_URRNNS 11y agoSimple booing, without further context, is one of the things I hate about this site. It'd be nice if someone would add context to the downvotes, by commenting with a matching opinion.
- jakejake 11y agoI think that most wars are are just based on the wealthy and powerful retaining or increasing their wealth and power. Average citizens generally don't have problems with each other. Excepting whatever propaganda we've been fed.
- fhdhxnsh 11y agoI almost wish we'd hold criminal executives in the US accountable to a similar level. Many have destroyed and indirectly ended far more lives through malice than any direct murderer ever will.
- fhdhxnsh 11y agommmm, I love those no-reply disagreement downvotes.
- personomas 11y agoIt's their fear. "When I'm rich, I don't want to be killed for doing terrible things." After all, this is a rich man's site.
- dang 11y agoHN doesn't require replies when downvoting. It does require that commenters not go on about getting downvoted, so please don't do that. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- cryptoz 11y agoThe death penalty does not dissuade future offenders from committing crimes. It does not teach us about why those crimes are committed, either. With the death penalty, you create a society of anger, hatred, revenge, and violence. You improve nothing. Its only purpose is revenge, and that has no place in our legal system. Instead, this criminal should be removed from society so he no longer does harm (jail), and it should be studied why he committed those crimes, and we should attempt to rehabilitate to learn more about how to build a better society.
- personomas 11y agoThe death penalty can have two purposes: 1) First, fear is a motive to not commit those crimes. 2) Second, it's purpose can be to completely get rid of the evil that he or she was. If you kill the person, there's no more of his evil. Wealthy or powerful evil people can have devastating and evil effects on so many people, and so it might not be worth keeping them alive.
- webkike 11y agoIf killing people is evil, which it is, because you can never ever be convinced of a truly righteous killing (there is always doubt), then killing a person does not remove all evil. It may reduce evil, depending on whether the murder of the person is as evil as the actions the person committed, but it never completely removes evil.
- personomas 11y agoI believe in truly righteous killing. Killing hitler is righteous, is it not? Even though it might have been a suicide.
- webkike 11y agofair enough, but killing can never be performed ethically by a state actor. Unless it is in self defense or an act of war, in which case the morality varies with the situation.
- jonesb6 11y agoWhy do people who make a significant amount of money in countries like Russia, Turkey, China, etc, stay in their home countries?
- mdahlstrand 11y agoBecause they are able to make significantly more money if they stay?
- Ao7bei3s 11y agoAlso because they're their home countries. It's what they know and where their friends/family are. And if you're rich enough that you can afford pretty much anything there, why would you move?
- ameen 11y agoHow did you club Turkey in there?
- HillRat 11y agoHis wealth was connected to the patronage of the hardline Iranian government and his willingness and ability to help them evade international sanctions. In that, he's a bit like the Chechen operators who murdered Nemtsov and didn't bother to cover their tracks because they assumed they were protected by the Kremlin.
- joshmn 11y agoIn the US he would have just gotten a fine. Edit: Not sure the downvotes. Wall Street, hello.
- kordless 11y agoOr, optionally, drive his car into a highway divider at a high rate of speed.
- nonuby 11y agoIn this case it is obvious high rank Iranian officials both government and private (in banking network) were complicit for a long time with Babak, perhaps the brown envelopes got a little too small..