Never said that. Nor have I implied that. In fact I don't believe that teh issues are related. One is about the government killing it's citizens, the other is about the abysmal state of our prison system.
It's a red herring and a non-sequitor argument.
Again, different issue altogether.
If you want to discuss the way to fisx the abysmal state of the prison system, so be it, I'll discuss it with you in another thread, but this is about capital punishment. Your argumnets are sillogical because the risk to other inmates is not caused by teh lack of death penalty, it is caused by a failure of the prison system.
Irrelevant emotional tripe. I never made any arguments about cruelty.
What nonsense, bonnie. You know I never made any such argument about cruelty.
Again, noinsense unrelated to my arguments.
STILL unrelated to my arguments. If yuo want to argue against MY [points on the issue, please do so. Until then, please give up trying to paint my arguemtn into something it most assuredly is not.
You are missing my point entirely, but still making up arguemtns that are totally unrelated to my point. So I am forced one final time make the point that is the ONLY relevant point on the issue.
Logical sequence:
Premise 1: The Governmnt should not have more rights than the Citizens it exists for.
Premise 2: The citizens do not have the right to kill other citizens in a premeditated fashion.
Premise 3: The Death Penalty is killing in a premeditated fashion
Conclusion: The government should NOT be allowed to give out the Death Penalty.
That is the entirety of my argument. If you disagree with my argument, tell me which premise you find to be in error, or that you do not agree with. Show me what premise you would prefer.
Responding with emotion-laden nonsense about cruelty, prison murders, etc, will be construed as failure to have a logical response and a tacit agreement that the deat penalty is illogical, irrational and unjustified.
My argumetn is about teh death penalty, and the government's right to have it. I am not making any emotional pleas.
It is NOT sillylogical. It is reality because there is no even theoretical "fix" of our prison system to protect inmates from murderers that isn't the most extreme form of cruelty.
I think you are inaccurate in your view of citizen's rights. While I can't hunt down someone I think may sometime in the future harm me on impressions, I believe the legal standard is the "reasonableness" of using force and deadly force.
I don't believe your discussion is in terms of reality, but platitudes detached from reality in part because it is premised upon an alternative perfect prison system. Why not, instead, just premise your opposition because you favor a perfect society? Unless you can describe the perfect prison system, there really is no reality behind your reasoning.
Government has vast rights citizens don't have. Government can tax you. Government and regulate your conduct. Government can arrest you, take any possessions and even your children away from you. Send you to war. Gun you down. Premise 1 is just false.
Premise 2
Some of your logic actually doesn't work - I think - for your views. A person is drawing a gun down on me, but I shoot first and kill him. Absolutely, my murder was 'premeditated." Push that back in time. Running towards me with gun-in-hand etc.
However, you can oppose pre-meditated killing. At least circumstantially, that also means you must accept that there are circumstance that I must accept that people must die for your ethic. However, I suppose you can claim the government's hands are clean of innocent victims lives on the theory of no-action, no-fault. I don't believe inaction against evil to others when only you have the authority or power to act is inaction. I believe it is collaberation with the evil.
Premise 3
I agree that the death penalty is pre-meditatively killing someone.
I doubt we'd every agree on the question of "punishment" as a justification - where I see a murderer who killed a family then laughing over cards and having sex with his prison "wife", living a full live in a full counter prison culture in a life of being provided for by a pure welfare system for him as the most fundamental injustice.
So you would not allow putting the word "justly" in front of "pre-meditative."
But I also would put the words "to save the lives of others" at the end of your premise 3.
The only response you have to that is because you also want a perfect (in that regards) prison system. YET YOU DON'T HAVE THAT AS A CONDITIONAL PREMISE!
What's the saying? "If if's and buts were candy and nuts, what a Merry Christmas we'd all have."
I could use your logic to argue that no one should ever be put in prison:
Premise 1: The government should not have a power than the power of its citizens.
Premise 2: Citizens do not have the right to involuntarily imprison another citizen.
Premise 3: Therefore, government does not have the right to involuntarily imprison another citizen.
Declaring "It's that simple."
Of course, I'm not in an fashion supporting allow crimes to happen. If you want to talk about how to ending all crime and failures to do so, we can start another thread on that.
Increasingly in life, I am losing interest in arguing which of various versions of the best absolute standards utopian values are more ethical. Instead, I prefer to look at issues in terms of present reality - calling the cards we have, not the Royal Flush we wish we could draw.
I believe in the most real terms, it comes down to not if someone is "pre-meditatively" killed. That is a factual certainty. Rather, it is who is pre-meditatively killed." In terms of current reality, I believe those killed under your system are generally far more innocent that those killed in my system.
If we both assume the premise - of course we have a way to stop killings in this - then there is no discussion left at all.
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