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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
Hardly. My step father once lined us up against the wall and with gun in hand, threaten to kill us all there and then. He was extrememly violent. His bother was shot to death by the police over a $35 robbery. I even once put a man in the hospital for a month trying to remember who he was with my bare hands. I understand violence as much as anyone.

damn. that's horrible.
 
Hardly. My step father once lined us up against the wall and with gun in hand, threaten to kill us all there and then. He was extrememly violent. His bother was shot to death by the police over a $35 robbery. I even once put a man in the hospital for a month trying to remember who he was with my bare hands. I understand violence as much as anyone.

The bolded sentence makes no sense. Nonetheless, this seems like an appropriate time to point out the fact that yoru hands should be registered as deadly weapons.
 
The bolded sentence makes no sense. Nonetheless, this seems like an appropriate time to point out the fact that yoru hands should be registered as deadly weapons.

I beat him unconsious.
 
For the record, in spite of how damned attractive you are, your arguments are much wronger than my own.

And for the record, most death penalty proponents (and none in this thread) don't believe the death penalty has a crime prevention (deterrent) effect. When a guy is looking to stab his wife to death because she pissed him off, the death penalty/prison sentence is the last thing he's thinking about. Prison, in general, does not serve as a deterrent to crime, other than for those who are incarcerated. Keeping the right people incarcerated can DEFINITELY have a quelling effect on overall crime.

That won't keep death penalty opponents from beating this dead horse repeatedly, though.

Despite your irresistible sex bomb status, your cogent argument is somewhat spoiled by one of your very own colleagues right here, Mr Badmutha, who argues that very point. Post 137:
Deterrents are only as effective as the punishment is harsh........

.....the penalty of death for taking innocent life is both appropriate and necessary.
So, it's not the antis who are flogging this particular dead horse. You'll notice that none of us here have raised it, merely responded when a pro-DP poster used it.
 
Despite your irresistible sex bomb status, your cogent argument is somewhat spoiled by one of your very own colleagues right here, Mr Badmutha, who argues that very point. Post 137:So, it's not the antis who are flogging this particular dead horse. You'll notice that none of us here have raised it, merely responded when a pro-DP poster used it.

Well, that's a ridiculously stupid argument. FWIW, Mr. Badmutha is no friend of mine.
 
Despite your irresistible sex bomb status, your cogent argument is somewhat spoiled by one of your very own colleagues right here, Mr Badmutha, who argues that very point. Post 137:So, it's not the antis who are flogging this particular dead horse. You'll notice that none of us here have raised it, merely responded when a pro-DP poster used it.

Odd. Punishments are not a deterent? Why have them, then?
 
Odd. Punishments are not a deterent? Why have them, then?

Earlier in the thread we discussed the various different functions that punishment can fulfil. These include education, retribution, deterrence, incapacitation, restoration etc. Not all punishments can or are intended to fulfill all of these functions. It is up to society to decide how to balance out these aims in the type of punishments it uses for those who transgress. Deterrence is only one consideration - and one that the DP fails to deliver IMHO.
 
Why, exactly?

I was sixteen in Georgia. He was 24, a weightlifter. He was trouble. I told my sister to stay away from him. She didn't, and he hurt her. I was expected to do something about. I was scared and angery, a bad combination. He was arrogant. Told him I wasn't there to talk, and to come out and let us be done with it. He pranced out and threw his hands up saying, "fat boy I'm going . . . " I hit him. Then I hit him again and again. When they pulled me off of him, he was bent over a car, bleeding quite a bit. He slide to the ground. They wisked me off, and no one told the police who did it. He was not in positin to say.

I talked to his uncle later. Turns out I worked for him. No charges where ever filled, but his uncle told me he spent a week in the hospital. Couldn't remember what happened.
 
Do I really need to spell it out? Let's just say your sympathies lie in a different place than mine do.

Like I said, unlikely that you get it.
 
Is punishment and it's varying degrees not a deterent?

If not, then why have punishments?

What leads a person to kill is different than what leads a person to steal. However, deterents of all kinds only work with those who care. You lock a door not for criminals, but for honest people who might see an opportunity and be tempted. Criminals expect a locked door, and plan accordingly.

The point is, however, the reasons a person kills overrides any thougth of a deterent.
 
To me that doesn't make sense. I know people who would steal but don't because of the laws. Is it not plausible to think the some people decide not to do the crime, because they don't want to be punished? I would think that some people secretly wish to do crimes but don't because of their fears.
 
Like I said, unlikely that you get it.
You can keep saying that, but I do get it, better than before. Some of us are outraged by what the system does to criminals, others of us are more outraged by what criminals do to their victims. It's all a matter of perspective.
 
You can keep saying that, but I do get it, better than before. Some of us are outraged by what the system does to criminals, others of us are more outraged by what criminals do to their victims. It's all a matter of perspective.

You miss the point. I ahve not argued that criminals are msitreated in any way. I've argued that I wouldn't accept killing one INNOCENT person being killed by mistake. What you write shows you really don't get it.
 
To me that doesn't make sense. I know people who would steal but don't because of the laws. Is it not plausible to think the some people decide not to do the crime, because they don't want to be punished? I would think that some people secretly wish to do crimes but don't because of their fears.

Some kill because of their fears as well. But, most people don't steal, and they don't for all kinds of reasons. Punsihment is but one. But even with punishments, people steal. However, murder comes from a different place. Less greed, and more primal.
 
Apparently there is no such thing as a deterrent to murder.......regardless if the punishment is a death sentence or a $5.00 fine......

.......so we should stop punishing murderers all together.....since according to the anti-capital punishment crowd......deterrents have no effect what so ever and have never prevented one murder.

My only hope.....is said crowd is not reproducing......
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Apparently there is no such thing as a deterrent to murder.......regardless if the punishment is a death sentence or a $5.00 fine......

.......so we should stop punishing murderers all together.....since according to the anti-capital punishment crowd......deterrents have no effect what so ever and have never prevented one murder.

My only hope.....is said crowd is not reproducing......
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I have given you the opportunity to present evidence that it deters. I don't believe there is any such evidence. Perhaps you should take another track?
 
You miss the point. I ahve not argued that criminals are msitreated in any way. I've argued that I wouldn't accept killing one INNOCENT person being killed by mistake. What you write shows you really don't get it.
This is a red herring, in my opinion. If the DP is imposed only when we know for certain who the guilty party is, as in Loughner's case, would you support it then?
 
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Some kill because of their fears as well. But, most people don't steal, and they don't for all kinds of reasons. Punsihment is but one. But even with punishments, people steal. However, murder comes from a different place. Less greed, and more primal.

So what do you aim to accomplish? Because it seems that punishment is not much if any deterent, should it be removed or not?
 
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