Capital Punishment

Juiposa said:

Thats basically what condoning an action is... :S

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Get a dictionary. You may find that intelligent people may give this thread a pass if you really think what you have posted above.

Juiposa said:

To all of you:
I know what condone means, sorry, just pick that if you disagree with it.
I didn't previously know exactly what it meant. Sorry for any inconvenience.

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Nah. This thread has no credibility. You want me to pick the option that I condone capital punishment when I think it's a barbaric piece of savagery that is only supported by people because they have psychosexual hangups which get them to foam vengeance and hatred at people they don't know on behalf of other people they have never met and usually about hypothetical situations that never existed?

I don't really want to go through the tedium of being asked to imagine by daughters being raped and murdered and induced to fantasize about what I would like to do the mythical perpetrator by someone who cannot even formulate the question properly and then doesn't care enough about the meaning of words and ideas to reformulate it properly.

George Bush made the best ever case for capital punishment when he executed Tim McVeigh. It was a brilliant argument. And still wrong. But far superior to the testosterone fuelled rantings of most capital punishment supporters.

Plato said:

I am sure this has already been said.

How can you have an intelligent debate on a subject when the person framing the question cannot even be bothered to include "oppose it" as an option and so we have to vote "other" as if opposing it is some obscure position?

So you have "support" and "condone", but no "oppose" or "disagree".

Pathetic.

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You can have an intelligent conversation regarding the topic. Nobody said you had to vote in the poll in order to do so.

If you think the poll is skewed (and I would agree, even though I'm one of those horrible death penalty supporters) then don't vote in it and argue your point. Many who have posted in this thread have done just that.

Viktyr Korimir said:

I don't hold to any particular notions of justice. The world's unfair all over.

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And it should stay that way forever, right ??

TheGirlNextDoor said:

You can have an intelligent conversation regarding the topic. Nobody said you had to vote in the poll in order to do so.

If you think the poll is skewed (and I would agree, even though I'm one of those horrible death penalty supporters) then don't vote in it and argue your point. Many who have posted in this thread have done just that.

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There are two groups of death penalty supporters. Nice ones and horrible ones. Of course TGND you are in the former camp. The argument put forward by GWB was that we should grieve the loss of Tim McVeigh's life along with those he killed. He was put to death solemnly as a mark of how much the USA valued life. It was an argument entirely devoid of petty vengeance and retribution, entirely appropriate for a head of state. It is a wrong argument because the death penalty is neither an attempt to rehabilitate nor is it necessary to protect the community. It is only a punishment. From a Christian point of view we do not have the right to punish. Vengeance is for God. From a liberal point of view the State also should have no right to exact retribution. The state can act to deter crime, protect the public or rehabilitate a criminal. Capital punishment does none of these. It is a solemn act of barbarism, at best, ritually sacrificing human beings for some irrational reason. Is it supposed to make us all feel better? It dies nothing of the sort to civilized and cultured people. Tim McVeigh's death means absolutely nothing. It was a compliance with McVeigh's own world if ritual violence. The alternative (the one prescribed by Christ) that we desist from vengeance and meet evil with love, would have led to a McVeigh neutered of his hatred, impotently languishing in prison, with his hated and paranoia muted by the contrast between the civilized way the community would treat him and the filthy squalid evil of his actions. Instead he is a legend, an anti-hero, who got the martyrdom he craved and died triumphantly. Jesus was smart.

Andalublue said:

Apart from refraining from employing drastic measures whose consequences are irreparable if it later transpires we've made a mistake.

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I don't think the DP is drastic at all, nor can we fix things in any case if we make a mistake, death penalty, imprisonment, fine, etc. So it's really irrelevant.

Cephus said:

I don't think the DP is drastic at all, nor can we fix things in any case if we make a mistake, death penalty, imprisonment, fine, etc. So it's really irrelevant.

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I think this position is fairly tortuous sophistry. Drastic = strong, harsh, extravagant. I'll stick with that definition. Clearly one can make amends to someone who has been wrongly imprisoned, perhaps not perfectly, but to some extent. There's nothing you can do for someone you have slaughtered.

earthworm said:

And it should stay that way forever, right ??

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You think you can change it? Go right ahead.

Murder's unfair, too. The death penalty reduces murder. Even with the occasional mistake, it is better to have the death penalty than to not have the death penalty.

Viktyr Korimir said:

You think you can change it? Go right ahead.

Murder's unfair, too. The death penalty reduces murder. Even with the occasional mistake, it is better to have the death penalty than to not have the death penalty.

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There is no evidence that the DP reduces murder. The USA has high levels of murder and the DP. It is universally accepted that getting caught is a deterrent, not the punishment. If you look to China where various persons have been executed fir corruption, this has had little effect in transforming China into a nation of transparent government and ethical business practice.

there is no evidence that the DP as it is currently practiced reduces murder. you go on trial, retrial, spend years appealing, spend years on death row (maybe) at the end of which perhaps you do or do not actually get executed..... the crime isn't fully tied in the mind to the punishment.

NOW, if we had an automatic appeal system; where the first time you went on trial and they proved you guilty, and the second time you went on trial and they approved killing you, and you went straight from the second trial to the chopping block (which should be public; preferably in your old neighborhood).

THAT would effectively reduce murder rates.

cpwill said:

there is no evidence that the DP as it is currently practiced reduces murder. you go on trial, retrial, spend years appealing, spend years on death row (maybe) at the end of which perhaps you do or do not actually get executed..... the crime isn't fully tied in the mind to the punishment.

NOW, if we had an automatic appeal system; where the first time you went on trial and they proved you guilty, and the second time you went on trial and they approved killing you, and you went straight from the second trial to the chopping block (which should be public; preferably in your old neighborhood).

THAT would effectively reduce murder rates.

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I don't think even that would be a deterrent. Why? Because people who commit crimes, think they will never be caught. If they thought they'd be caught.. then they may or may not commit the crime.

I've never believed that the death penalty was a deterrent - but I DO see it as a fitting punishment for certain heinous crimes. To hell with deterrent... if a murderer is released from prison, we have a chance that he will be rearrested. It may be for a petty crime - it may be for murder. The likelihood that a murderer will reenter the penal system is extremely high and given the nature of the crime that landed them in prison to begin with, most likely that crime committed to gain reentry will be violent in nature. No thank you.

Some people deserve to die when they commit horrible, heinous crimes.

People can say what they want... a man tortures and murders a toddler? He deserves to die. A woman bludgeons an elderly lady to death for her purse? She deserves to die. A college student open fires on a library full of people and kills 14 of them - they also, deserve to die.

IMHO, revenge =/= justice. You can't bring a murder victim back from the dead so justice is impossible in the case of murder.

mpg said:

IMHO, revenge =/= justice. You can't bring a murder victim back from the dead so justice is impossible in the case of murder.

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Of course you can't bring a murder victim back from the dead - but what is appropriate punishment for a person who chooses to take another's life. Something is seriously flawed in our court system when we have murderers, rapists and child molesters serving shorter sentences than drug addicts or petty thieves.

TheGirlNextDoor said:

Of course you can't bring a murder victim back from the dead - but what is appropriate punishment for a person who chooses to take another's life. Something is seriously flawed in our court system when we have murderers, rapists and child molesters serving shorter sentences than drug addicts or petty thieves.

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I totally agree with this part of your post, our justice system does need a revamp IMO, drug offender should be sentenced to rehab, not prison, and for nonviolent offenders I think prison should be a mandatory education program that gives prisoners useful marketable skills so when they get out they can get a job, and get out of their life of crime, and make themselves into productive citizens. When someone gets out of prison today, usually they are just a better criminal.

Now as for the death penalty I am against it, because just like you can't bring back a murder victim, you can't bring back an executed man who is innocent. But you can always release an innocent man. I am not against the death penalty because I don't want to execute scumbags, I am against it because our justice system isn't perfect, it will never be, and that I don't want to take the risk of murdering an innocent man, because we think he committed a horrible act.

Catz Part Deux said:

Some people need killing.

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Indeed, but is state sanctioned killing really a good idea?

Dutch said:

Indeed, but is state sanctioned killing really a good idea?

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It's not state sanctioned, it's society sanctioned.

It's more than 'we think' he's committed a horrible crime. That's why there is an appeals process in place, hence the exhoribant cost of the death penalty sentence as compared to life imprisonment. A person must be proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. There's more to it than just thinking.

Whether a person is sentenced to life in prison or is sentenced to death - the big difference is the appeals process. And if a person spends twenty years in the pen serving a life sentence or spends that twenty years on death row... I don't really see a difference.

I could understand being against the death penalty for certain heinous crimes if the person sentenced was taken out back immediately following the sentencing and shot without the chance to try to appeal the decision. In the cases of being sentenced to death, it's not immediate and there is the right to appeal.

Kandahar said:

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.

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All the more reason to keep and encourage swift execution. Since we can now use technology, biology and testing to verify guilt at an astronomical level - the days of waiting on death row for 20 years should cease - which incurs all of the costs. A quicker, more meaningful and expedited version of appeals needs to be created. Within 5-7 years, all that can be done should be done, and executions should be carried out. Where there is no overwhelming scientific proof of guilt, I would be fine keeping them in jail for life only if, lifers provide some benefit to society. This isn't chain gangs per se but they'll have to be put to work somehow.

TheGirlNextDoor said:

It's more than 'we think' he's committed a horrible crime. That's why there is an appeals process in place, hence the exhoribant cost of the death penalty sentence as compared to life imprisonment. A person must be proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. There's more to it than just thinking.

Whether a person is sentenced to life in prison or is sentenced to death - the big difference is the appeals process. And if a person spends twenty years in the pen serving a life sentence or spends that twenty years on death row... I don't really see a difference.

I could understand being against the death penalty for certain heinous crimes if the person sentenced was taken out back immediately following the sentencing and shot without the chance to try to appeal the decision. In the cases of being sentenced to death, it's not immediate and there is the right to appeal.

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I'm not saying that it is a "oh we think he did it so lets kill him" type of thing. I'm saying that that unless we can have a justice system that is 100% perfect(which is not possible) I'm not comfortable with allowing the death penalty to exist. Life without parole, is good enough for me.

What, then, would be a fitting punishment? Life in prison? Assuredly, wouldn't that as well be inhumane? Wouldn't it be inhumane to keep them locked within cells like animals?

Don't "support" and "condone" basically mean the same thing? How come there isn't an option for "oppose"?

Anyway, I oppose it because I don't trust the criminal justice system to find the guilty party in every case. I am certain that innocent people are executed. Until we can have a perfect criminal justice system (i.e., never) I have to oppose it for that reason.

I do not oppose it for moral reasons however.

TheGirlNextDoor said:

Of course you can't bring a murder victim back from the dead - but what is appropriate punishment for a person who chooses to take another's life. Something is seriously flawed in our court system when we have murderers, rapists and child molesters serving shorter sentences than drug addicts or petty thieves.

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TGND you asked me to contribute and then ignored all my arguments when I did!

Your post here has absoutely nothing to do with anything. Opposing the death penalty does not mean that I support giving rapists short sentences.

I just don't know what gives anyone the right to commit venegeance. I don't know what gives society the right to punish. Certainly as a Christian I know that I do not have that right. Only God can punish. But also as a liberal I am not sure what confers upon me the right to execute someone for reasons of punishment or vengeance.

The only justification for the death penalty for me is one of deterrence. But the USA and China who apply this punishment, have the highest levels of capital crime. It isn't a deterrent. Getting caught and prosecuted is the deterrent.

In my view child killers are sick. I don't think its right to kill people who are not responsible for their actions. Even if some child killers are just evil, how can we tell? No amount of appeals can determine without doubt. Supporters of capital punishment are happy to kill sick people because they judge them by their own morality and state of mind.

On the basis of liberal ideology we only should have the right to impinge on someone's rights to prevent them impinging on someone else's. So prison is to protect society, not to avenge it. The only philosophical argument that I can think of to justify the death penalty is that it is cheaper and we should not tax people to pay for murderers. I counter that argument by appealing to our preference for civilization over barbarity. Churchill stated that a society could measure its civilization by how it treated its worst and most outcast citizens. Progress has gradually reduced those in the world who are executed, from the days when it was fine and dandy to kill children for stealing a handkerchief, or a perpetrators whole family to the present day when it is really only the USA, China and Iran that kill people for vengeance, the real motivation of a public that still has not fully evolved from the caveman who was their ancestor.

I made the argument that Tim McVeigh, someone who I find hard to empathize with in any way whatsoever or to imagine "sick" even, would have been more suitably dealt with by life imprisonment. It would not only be the Christian way to turn the other cheek as Christ commanded, and treat McVeigh in a completely different way to that he treated his victims, but it would also be a thundering statement of justice and taking the moral high ground to show how different the values of civilized people are from his. Killing simply debases society and diminishes us all.

TheGirlNextDoor said:

I don't think even that would be a deterrent. Why? Because people who commit crimes, think they will never be caught.

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quite the contrary; not only is doing some time common, it is often considered a step up. what they don't expect is to be severely punished.

the statistical relationship between gun-ownership and violent crime would bear light here. Where criminals have a higher chance of being blown away by their victim, there are fewer attempts.

I voted "condone it" and it was a mistake. I meant to vote "don't condone it" because I don't any longer. I did when I was younger. Now I'm old enough to know that we have executed the innocent. We sometimes can't be sure. So I'm in favor of a life term of hard labor as an alternative to the death penalty. A life time busting rocks is no vacation cruise.

We're not a bunch of savages, and we don't need to kill to get a point across. No person should be deprived of life for their misdeeds, no matter how criminal, but life in captivity should serve as just punishment for any crime.