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Capital Punishment

What do you think of Capital Punishment?

  • Support it

    Votes: 35 45.5%
  • Condone it

    Votes: 16 20.8%
  • Neutral

    Votes: 1 1.3%
  • other (explain)

    Votes: 25 32.5%

  • Total voters
    77
I support it. It is costly and mistakes happen, but overall I think most criminals cannot be rehabilitated.
 
I support it. It is costly and mistakes happen, but overall I think most criminals cannot be rehabilitated.

Mistakes with the death penalty mean that people innocent of the charged crime die.
 
Tell me, do you know how to stop them from hurting people?

There's a kind of logical misfire here, isn't there? You'd stop people from hurting others by hurting them? If you don't believe in retribution, i.e. you don't kill them because they have killed others, then you demonstrate a certain morality. But if you then kill them because they are dangerous and don't wish them to hurt others, then you showing yourself - and indeed all of society - to be equally lethal.
 
Principally against capital punishment.

The lawmaker can't afford mistakes when it comes to life and death. There should always be an incentive for a criminal to turn himself in.
 
There's a kind of logical misfire here, isn't there? You'd stop people from hurting others by hurting them? If you don't believe in retribution, i.e. you don't kill them because they have killed others, then you demonstrate a certain morality. But if you then kill them because they are dangerous and don't wish them to hurt others, then you showing yourself - and indeed all of society - to be equally lethal.

I'm not opposed to killing. I never have been. I am opposed to disorder. People who kill indiscriminately, people who kill outside the boundaries of the law, create disorder. Killing criminals, within the framework of the legal system, restores order.
 
I'm not opposed to killing. I never have been. I am opposed to disorder. People who kill indiscriminately, people who kill outside the boundaries of the law, create disorder. Killing criminals, within the framework of the legal system, restores order.

That's basically the rational behind anime supervillians.
 
Do any of the developed/advanced/civilized nations use capital punishment ?
This poll is rigged somewhat.
It should read "do you support capital punishment or do you condemn it ?
I condemn it, imprisoning the murderer is punishment enough - a lifetime of slave labor - some may beg for death.
I was , at one time in favor of the death penalty....by hanging yet....
 
I'm not opposed to killing. I never have been. I am opposed to disorder. People who kill indiscriminately, people who kill outside the boundaries of the law, create disorder. Killing criminals, within the framework of the legal system, restores order.

Except order for order's sake is neither desirable nor rational. Many, many repressive regimes maintain order, but to what end? Merely maintaining order benefits only the ruling class. A certain amount of disorder is inevitable in a society that can and does change. That disorder and change may be for the better or for the worse, but change without a degree of disorder probably isn't really change.

So, if your only interest is in maintaining order, then using violent means probably makes a degree of sense. For me other objectives beyond the simple maintenance of the staus quo take precedence over the imposition of order at any cost.
 
No, it's more like a cleansing of society of scum like, murders, multiple rapists, serial killers, and other people that do unthinkable things. People like that are twisted and do not contribute whatsoever to society by committing these atrocities. It can be defined more as a genocidal thing, but genocide that benefits society, if that made any sense.

While you were cleansing society, you forgot about cleansing society of the innocent that were railroaded onto death row by over zealous police and prosecuting attorneys.
 
Do any of the developed/advanced/civilized nations use capital punishment ?

The US and the East Asian countries do. It's banned almost everywhere in Europe, and all of the Anglosphere save the US.
 
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While you were cleansing society, you forgot about cleansing society of the innocent that were railroaded onto death row by over zealous police and prosecuting attorneys.

I always wondered what the ratio is between innocents that have died because of the DP vs the actual criminals that have died due to the DP. If the ratio is (shooting from the hip here) 1 billion to 1 then I'm not going to worry about it. We are only human after all and mistakes happen. But making mistakes does not mean that you stop trying.

IMO CP is a needed part of society UNTIL we get to the point technologically that we can basically correct them by "brain washing" them or some such. I'd have no problem with that. That way CP would no longer be needed and the bad guys would never commit the crime they got caught for again.
 
Do you support it, condone it, or don't care about it?

I fully and wholly support the idea.
I believe that Capital Punishment is a just punishment in some cases. I don't think it's a deterrent but I do believe it's just in the most heinous of crimes... and in those few cases, I support it.
 
Absolutely support it, we don't use it nearly enough.
 
I always wondered what the ratio is between innocents that have died because of the DP vs the actual criminals that have died due to the DP. If the ratio is (shooting from the hip here) 1 billion to 1 then I'm not going to worry about it. We are only human after all and mistakes happen.

138 people on death row have been exonerated and released since 1976. 9 people have actually been executed despite serious doubts as to their guilt (most states do not allow posthumous exoneration). 1,237 people have been executed in total since 1976.

So this means that at least 12% of death row inmates were most likely innocent...and those are just the ones that we're pretty sure about. There may be far more than that who were/are actually innocent, who can't prove it. In any case, that seems like a pretty big error rate for such a serious matter.
 
138 people on death row have been exonerated and released since 1976. 9 people have actually been executed despite serious doubts as to their guilt (most states do not allow posthumous exoneration). 1,237 people have been executed in total since 1976.

So this means that at least 12% of death row inmates were most likely innocent...and those are just the ones that we're pretty sure about. There may be far more than that who were/are actually innocent, who can't prove it. In any case, that seems like a pretty big error rate for such a serious matter.

Thanks for those statistics. When you look closely at the death penalty, one story that emerges in far too many cases is the really poor level of legal representation many of these people got in court. And many had no resources to do the kind of investigative work to try and clear them. As a result, they are convicted and it is often as due to those factors as anythign else.

I support the death penalty as long as anyone charged under an offense punishable by death gets a really first class legal team to defend them. And they should get the same type of investigative resouces as the state gets. At their trial, a first rate appeals specialist should be right there from start to finish. After a convinction, all issues of appeal should be brought up for revue withing areasonable amount of time.
 
I support it for certain crimes.
 
Do you support it, condone it, or don't care about it?

I fully and wholly support the idea.

I oppose capital punishment for a number of reasons. BTW just why isn't there a no way in hell option? Ya' wanna' be fair donja'?
 
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Should a serial murderer be spared his life?

What is the minimum crime that demands capital punishment.
 
keep on killing to show killing is wrong. doesn't make much sense to me. state-sanctioned murder is murder too. how any country can murder their own citizens and still claim to be civilized is beyond me. most democracies in the world have abandoned the death penalty.

why is the life of the person that killed someone I love, considered an equal trade for my loved one? how can some total stranger assume that by sentencing the offender to death, things will automatically be squared up? it's not and it never will be. revenge murder serves no good purpose whatsoever.

so many people who support the death penalty are blind to their own logical inconsistencies. they have no problem whining and moaning about the government having control in other matters, but when government tries to assume the greatest power that that any government can claim to have, the power to murder its own citizens, they are blinded, and can't see the inconsistency of supporting the death penalty and how that contradicts their otherwise freedom principles.

no government acting genuinely as a servant of the people should ever be allowed to have that kind of power.
 
keep on killing to show killing is wrong. doesn't make much sense to me. state-sanctioned murder is murder too. how any country can murder their own citizens and still claim to be civilized is beyond me. most democracies in the world have abandoned the death penalty.

There's so much wrong there, I don't know where to begin. First off, killing isn't wrong. Killing not sanctioned by law is wrong, that's why we call it murder. It seems you have no idea what murder is or you wouldn't use absurd terms like "state-sanctioned murder". By definition, if the state sanctions it, it cannot be murder. Of course, you're just using the word as an emotional tool because it evokes an emotional response, but that's a horrible debate tactic and a dishonest one to boot.
 
There's so much wrong there, I don't know where to begin. First off, killing isn't wrong. Killing not sanctioned by law is wrong, that's why we call it murder. It seems you have no idea what murder is or you wouldn't use absurd terms like "state-sanctioned murder". By definition, if the state sanctions it, it cannot be murder. Of course, you're just using the word as an emotional tool because it evokes an emotional response, but that's a horrible debate tactic and a dishonest one to boot.

Well state sanctioned killing then. We still probably shouldn't use it. Having a method by which the government can knock off its own people is perhaps something we should now restrict since the death penalty is no longer necessary.
 
Well state sanctioned killing then. We still probably shouldn't use it. Having a method by which the government can knock off its own people is perhaps something we should now restrict since the death penalty is no longer necessary.

Who says it's no longer necessary? Why wouldn't it be? The whole point is that some people have committed some crimes so heinous that they've lost the right to breathe the same air as decent society. There's no reason whatsoever to keep them alive. Thus, the death penalty. I'd say it's plenty necessary and not practiced nearly enough.
 
Who says it's no longer necessary? Why wouldn't it be? The whole point is that some people have committed some crimes so heinous that they've lost the right to breathe the same air as decent society. There's no reason whatsoever to keep them alive. Thus, the death penalty. I'd say it's plenty necessary and not practiced nearly enough.

Because we have jails. And they've gotten pretty dang good. Not a whole lot of escapes these day. The problem with the death penalty is the penalty of failure. The failure of the death penalty is that people innocent of the charged crime are killed. And the more you use it, the more innocents you'll get caught up to it. Because the penalty of failure is so large with the death penalty, and because our jail systems have become very good that once a person is behind bars they effectively pose no threat to society, there is no longer a need to execute people. There's no rational reasoning behind it anymore.
 
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