> more _your_ sense of justice than a general rule of human nature.

It's interesting -- I'm a very forgiving person. And I truly believe that hate consumes and destroys the hater not the hated. But something I believe we all should do individually, that is forgive, is not something I believe we should do collectively. Maybe it's irrational, maybe it's that doing it collectively requires some to forgive, quite possibly against their will.

Just wait until someone you love gets murdered or maimed.

Emotional responses shouldn't trump your sense of justice and fairness to human life. I have someone that was close to me murdered and I don't think that a harsher punishment only for my enjoyment is the answer to "what is justice?".

A desire for punishments generally isn't for 'enjoyment', but motivated by someone's sense of justice. "Being punished for bad deeds" is a very common notion of 'fairness'.

If your notion of justice doesn't include retribution, that's completely legitimate, but to insinuate that your sense of justice is somehow less of a emotional response than someone else's is ridiculous.

It probably starts with corporal punishment of children. That gives society a baseline predisposition towards violence and doled our suffering in order to enforce conduct. Adults who were beaten as children or felt that they suffered for their transgressions may feel that it’s unfair for someone to avoid suffering for transgressions, when they had to suffer in the past for theirs.

It probably doesn't.

hypothetically, if you could see into the future and ascertain that the perpetrator feels regret and would never commit another crime, should they still serve time?

I would think that there should still be some period of incarceration as a putative measure.

Incarceration is a great punishment by itself, depriving someone of their freedom of movement is already quite a lot. What I meant is there is no need for a vengeful justice beyond that.

If an individual is dangerous for society they shouldn't be in it, this doesn't mean forever if there is a possibility of rehabilitation. There are many monsters locked up that probably should never be released, in that sense the justice systems of Norway, Germany, Sweden and others work well: you are locked up to 20 years, after that your case is reviewed and if you are still deemed a danger to society you get it prolonged, a few times this goes on for life.

This is illustrative of how having a bias pointed out can be perceived as a threat, and responded to in kind.

I doubt that was intended as a threat (though I can see how you might read it that way). Instead, I believe I was an attempt to point out to you that an accusation of bias can go both ways, and that your view of what was typical/normal would change if your circumstances did.

If you were taking some position about money management and the response was "Yeah, just wait until you when the lottery" you wouldn't see this as a threat. Try reading it in that sense.

That wasn't pointing a bias out, that was just an unsubstantiated statement. The rest in your comment is just your perception and projection of your perception.