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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
Juiposa

Juiposa

is totally not a robot.
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Do you support it, condone it, or don't care about it?

I fully and wholly support the idea.
 
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I support it. Some people are of no further use to society, and it is counter-productive to house them with people we might have a chance of salvaging.
 
I support capital punishment because I believe the punishment should be proportional to the crime committed. Some people in this world just need to be ****ed up. A person who intentionally murders someone should be killed; that's justice. Plus keeping them alive would just be a drain on the state's resources. If they deserve to die, they should die. I see this issue in pretty clear black-and-white terms, I really don't understand what all the fuss is about.
 
StillBallin75 said:
. I see this issue in pretty clear black-and-white terms, I really don't understand what all the fuss is about.
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Niether do I. I want to see if this thread can settle why people don't like the idea.
 
I believe that it is wrong to kill. Full stop. Period.

I notice that in the poll you don't offer anyone the option of flat out disagreeing with CapPun. Why's that?
 
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I don't hold to any particular notions of justice. The world's unfair all over.
 
Andalublue said:
I notice that in the poll you don't offer anyone the option of flat out disagreeing with CapPun. Why's that?
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Thats basically what condoning an action is... :S
 
How many serial killers are there, really? Not enough to justify making policy decisions on their behalf. Most of them aren't ever sentenced to death anyway, because they are ill.
 
Viktyr Korimir said:
How many serial killers are there, really? Not enough to justify making policy decisions on their behalf. Most of them aren't ever sentenced to death anyway, because they are ill.
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It was an example and I didn't mean for that to be basis of what Capital Punishment is to be built on.
 
Juiposa said:
Thats basically what condoning an action is... :S
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Ah, I see, but no, that is NOT what condone means. Condone means to agree with or accept something...

From the OED:

Condone -
accept (behaviour that is considered morally wrong or offensive):the college cannot condone any behaviour that involves illicit drugs
 
StillBallin75 said:
"Condoning" means accepting, not rejecting or disagreeing. Just FYI.
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Dictionary says it is to disregard something. I'll put a note in my original post.
 
Juiposa said:
Wrong to kill? Even if it returning the favour to serial killers?
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Society does not administer justice by "returning the favour to serial killers". That kind of turns society into the equivalent of a serial killer, no?
 
Andalublue said:
Society does not administer justice by "returning the favour to serial killers". That kind of turns society into the equivalent of a serial killer, no?
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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.
 
Society does not administer justice by "returning the favour to serial killers".
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I think that's one way of administering justice. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.

That kind of turns society into the equivalent of a serial killer, no?
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From a certain perspective, yes. Yet the behavior is sanctioned by the state, the same way warfare is legitimized killing. In either case the state doesn't choose its victims at random the way serial killers do; the people who are executed deserved, in my opinion, to die, unless something went wrong during the trial process.
 
Andalublue said:
Society does not administer justice by "returning the favour to serial killers". That kind of turns society into the equivalent of a serial killer, no?
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Not at all. It turns society into a killer, to be certain, but we all have blood on our hands. There is a difference between killing for just cause and killing for profit or pleasure.
 
Juiposa said:
Thats basically what condoning an action is... :S
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No, to condone is to accept an action even though you may find it morally wrong. I do not support nor condone the use of the death penalty. I do not believe it is necessary or proper anymore at this stage in our society.
 
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.
 
The main point is that if you believe killing to be wrong, there's no mitigating the activity. Either killing is right or it is wrong. I believe it to be wrong. Sure, not all behaviours are black-and-white like this and I can perfectly concede that others may believe that the issue of killing is seen differently by others, but my belief is clear. I'm encouraged that the move towards dispensing with capital punishment as a policy of state has been in decline for some time. I think it says quite a lot of a society to reject ideas of revenge and biblical retribution in the operation of their system of jurisprudence. But that's just my perspective.
 
I'm not interested in revenge, and the State would have no right to seek revenge unless it was the wronged party. I want people to be dead because they are too dangerous alive. I want them dead because as long as they are alive, they will continue hurting people.

Tell me, do you know how to stop them from hurting people?
 
StillBallin75 said:
Plus keeping them alive would just be a drain on the state's resources.
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Incorrect. Putting someone to death costs far, far more than keeping them in prison for the rest of their lives...mostly due to the legal costs associated with all the appeals. And the only way to change that would be to deny someone their due process, which we aren't about to do. So capital punishment is a drain on the state's resources, much moreso than keeping them in prison is.

StillBallin75 said:
If they deserve to die, they should die. I see this issue in pretty clear black-and-white terms, I really don't understand what all the fuss is about.
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Aside from the cost, there's the fact that a significant percentage of death row inmates have been exonerated...and those are just the ones we know about. Furthermore, there's the human rights aspect of it...why should we behave like murderers simply because others do?
 
Kandahar said:
Incorrect. Putting someone to death costs far, far more than keeping them in prison for the rest of their lives...mostly due to the legal costs associated with all the appeals. And the only way to change that would be to deny someone their due process, which we aren't about to do. So capital punishment is a drain on the state's resources, much moreso than keeping them in prison is.
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Only because we allow appeals to drag on for ten or more years. Give them a fair trial with first class legal representation. Give the convicted people a reasonably speedy appeal with a first class legal team provided at tax payer expense where ALL issues of appeal must be brought up.

Zangara was tried, sliced and diced in five weeks from the time he tried to kill FDR in 1933 and did kill Anton Cermak. I doubt if we can match that timeline, but its something to aim for.
 
Incorrect. Putting someone to death costs far, far more than keeping them in prison for the rest of their lives...mostly due to the legal costs associated with all the appeals. And the only way to change that would be to deny someone their due process, which we aren't about to do. So capital punishment is a drain on the state's resources, much moreso than keeping them in prison is.
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I stand corrected. But are you talking about legal costs on the part of the state in order to uphold the appeals process, or legal costs incurred on the part of the defendant?

Aside from the cost, there's the fact that a significant percentage of death row inmates have been exonerated...and those are just the ones we know about.
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That's why I added the caveat that justice system must produce the correct outcome in previous post. This is an indictment of the justice system and its results, not an indictment of capital punishment specifically.

Furthermore, there's the human rights aspect of it...why should we behave like murderers simply because others do?
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People who murder have lost their human rights, because imo they have ceased to be human. When the state kills it kills for (what I believe to be) a worthy cause (the administration of proper justice), and thus I don't believe capital punishment is equivalent to murderous behavior.
 
haymarket said:
Only because we allow appeals to drag on for ten or more years. Give them a fair trial with first class legal representation. Give the convicted people a reasonably speedy appeal with a first class legal team provided at tax payer expense where ALL issues of appeal must be brought up.
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Why? What happens if other issues come to light after the fact? Or what if the appeal itself has issues that need to be appealed? Under what constitutional provision does our government have the power to deny people their due process under the law, just because they're on trial for their life? If anything, such serious cases should be entitled to MORE legal protection.

haymarket said:
Zangara was tried, sliced and diced in five weeks from the time he tried to kill FDR in 1933 and did kill Anton Cermak. I doubt if we can match that timeline, but its something to aim for.
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He also openly confessed to the crime and did not avail himself of any appeals.
 
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