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I personally have no problem torturing convicted murderers. I could care less what happens to a person who murders another person. I would not oppose it at all. However I do understand why some people do.
Ehhh....I couldn't ever endorse torture as proper government force, particularly against its own people. While I understand the necessity to punish criminals, I do not wish to abdicate my own humanity in the process. Torture is out of the question.
I agree to a certain extent. I dont think we should be taking lives for just any old crime or offense. However if it is known to people that you are forfeiting your life when you choose to take another life, then it is a choice that people are making. More suicide than anything else.
People make similar choices now. They know they’ll go to prison. And prison ain’t no walk in the park. It’s not a fun place to be, not in the least. I would move to avoid it as much as possible in fact. They’ve forfeited their freedom when they made the choice to commit crime, and that’s huge right there. Life without freedom is hardly “life”.
I dont care whether or not the COULD become a productive citizen again. They should never be given the chance. Their victim is not given a chance at a life, why should they?
It’s better for us overall if we can use existing humans. If a criminal can be rehabilitated, we should rehabilitate the criminal. It’s better overall and more efficient to get that person functioning as a proper cog again. Their victim was not given the chance, no; but that doesn’t mean we delve down to their (criminal’s) level when executing punishment.
We are here on Earth. God or any gods are not. This is incredibly flawed logic. We as humans punish our criminals.
We do. But who gets to say who lives or who dies? I think that under circumstances where you do not have to kill, you should avoid killing.
Self defense is not murder.
Nor did I say it was.
They are a huge burden. $40,000+ a year is in the lower end of estimates.
No such thing as a free lunch. Laws and prisons are inventions of society so that society can function better. It’s for our good that we use these dynamics and if we want the results of it, we have to pay for it. You can’t house criminal’s for free. 40 a year…maybe a bit high, I actually don’t have the data in front of me so I don’t know what it really is. But still, perhaps that is cause to not throw so many people into jail in the first place.
This has absolutely nothing to do with our discussion.
It establishes the scale, so yes it does.
Which is what i replied "how else do you address crime" and you immediately went back to the death penalty.
No, crime can be addressed without the death penalty. It’s not like if we get rid of it the cops and jails and courts all disappear somehow. We can deal with crime as well without the death penalty as with it. And considering the pitfalls of the death penalty and the little to no gain it gives, there is little logical reason to keep it.
Yet we do not possess foresight, so you don’t know when that “murder” will take those 12 lives. The government is restricted in its actions against the People. By executing a prisoner you are not saving lives of society at large. Perchance prison population, but that problem can be met without resorting to killing off inmates. Life in prison without parole offers the same safety as the death penalty. Once the criminal is in jail for life, he ain’t coming after all of us. And we don’t have to kill him…just incase it turns out he’s innocent.You mention above that we should not be taking lives. That we should be limiting the number of people who's lives are taken. Why does this only have to include the government? By executing murderers we are protecting lives. A murderer can kill dozens of people. Taking that murderers life takes 1. 1 life that is not innocent vs dozens of innocent lives. That is pretty straight forward I think.
They “deserve” no such thing. Perchance they do not add to “society”, but neither do bums and I’m not saying we should kill those guys either. Society does not possess rights, the individual does. And the murder is still an individual. While it is true that we have massive problems with prison violence, there are many causes and we can address this problem without resorting to killing.Also these murderers sitting in prison are actively murdering other inmates. Taking more lives. And even worse, they corrupt other criminals who may otherwise never resort to becoming murderers. Murderers add nothing to society. They do not give their victims a chance at life and therefore they do not deserve achance at life themselves. They deserve to be quickly executed.