"Chemical Ali" to hang

[Just thinking]

The death penalty has been demonstrated to achieve nothing except satisfying bloodlust. Locking dangerous people up for life is cheaper and serves exactly the same preventative purpose. Ergo, those who support capital punishment are ignorant, bloodthirsty or both.

It seems you are confusing simple retribution with judicial retribution. (You may have noticed that I went back to edit my original comment, in that perhaps I wasn't clear enough in choosing my words.) To me (and others) there is a HUGE difference --- judicial retribution is achieved by using the rules of established law. Not everyone that murders gets the death penalty, nor is it reserved only for those who murder. Without getting too heavy into all the reasons for the distinctions of is use, the penalty of losing one's life for certain crimes can be a very just punishment --- and in no way defaults to an eye-for-an-eye mentality, nor a bloodthirsty desire for revenge. The mere fact that these situations exist is clear that it has advanced to much more than mere barbarism and has quantifyably progressed to a much more civilized status. People like those involved with the Oklahoma bombing, the attacks on 9-11, Chemical Ali, etc. can never get the punishment in return to that which they inflicted --- the degree is far too great. And life in prison in no way comes close to equal even one person's loss of their loved one, a pain they will endure all of their life. So in a way, a balance of sorts is struck with the death penalty --- it's far too little with reference to an eye-for-an-eye, yet greater than suffering one's remaining days compared to all those who will grieve the same for their loss.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

It seems you are confusing simple retribution with judicial retribution. (You may have noticed that I went back to edit my original comment, in that perhaps I wasn't clear enough in choosing my words.) To me (and others) there is a HUGE difference

You're assuming you are saying anything new or interesting about the death penalty debate. The death penalty achieves nothing useful except satiating the bloodlust of people like yourselves, whether you dress it up with the adjective "judicial" or not.

Retribution is pointless, backward and barbaric. Prevention, rehabilitation and arguably deterrence have a point, but the death penalty is no better at those than prison.

The rest of your post is just a stump speech about how you like retribution. You liking it isn't grounds for killing people unnecessarily.

 

[Skeptic]

You're assuming you are saying anything new or interesting about the death penalty debate.

As opposed to the oh-so-original "you death penalty supporters are primitive idiots" view?

The death penalty achieves nothing useful except satiating the bloodlust of people like yourselves, whether you dress it up with the adjective "judicial" or not.

You know, repeating something over and over again still doesn't make it true.

Retribution is pointless, backward and barbaric.

I suppose you think, then, that the judges in Nuremberg -- who sentenced many Nazi war criminals to death -- were "backward and barbaric", and, in effect, no better than the likes of Goering or Hoess?

After all, you keep claiming that the death penalty "lowers us to the level of the killers". So you consider Francis Biddle, for example, as bad a monster as, say, Hans Frank, whom he sentenced to death?

Prevention, rehabilitation and arguably deterrence have a point, but the death penalty is no better at those than prison.

Well, it is rather obvious that, by the time he was caught, Hoess, the commandant of Auschwitz, could no longer have been prevented from masterminding the killing of millions, as he already had done just that. And it is rather unlikely that such a man could have been rehabilitated in any way. And certainly, if his hanging seems to have had no deterrent effect (alas) on other people's desire to commit mass murder, a term of years would not have, either.

So, on your view, the only reason to punish him at all -- even with a one-mark symbolic fine or a suspension of his driving license -- is revenge, merely an attempt to make him suffer in retribution to the unimaginable suffering he caused so many others. But mere retribution is, in your view, always wrong.

So, he should have been acquitted.

 

[boyntonstu]

I'd stick him in a cell for life, with pink walls and fluffly kittens.

I'd stick him in a cell for life, with pink walls pigs and fluffy kittens.

 

[boyntonstu]

You don't want these kind of people to be violently punished?

How about a life sentence of solitary confinement inside a welded closed cell?

 

[Thunder]

hey is a dirty Goy, why let him live?

 

[WildCat]

So are we going to have to torture Rummy as well?

Sure, Jacques Chirac also. But twice as much, because he met Saddam twice!

1974

1976

 

[MikeMangum]

I heard he served Mountain Dew at meetings.

While I wouldn't term Mountain Dew as a chemical weapon, we all know that Mountain Dew is a gateway drug, and since we are engaged in a "War on Drugs", we could theoretically hold Rummy as an enemy combatant.

It's not like as if we grant full constitutional rights to "enemies" in the war on drugs anyway.

 

[MikeMangum]

Retribution is pointless, backward and barbaric. Prevention, rehabilitation and arguably deterrence have a point, but the death penalty is no better at those than prison.

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=691447&rec=1&srcabs=259538

Is Capital Punishment Morally Required? The Relevance of Life-Life Tradeoffs

Cass R. Sunstein
Harvard University - Harvard Law School

Adrian Vermeule
Harvard University - Harvard Law School


Abstract:

Recent evidence suggests that capital punishment may have a significant deterrent effect, preventing as many eighteen or more murders for each execution. This evidence greatly unsettles moral objections to the death penalty, because it suggests that a refusal to impose that penalty condemns numerous innocent people to death. Capital punishment thus presents a life-life tradeoff, and a serious commitment to the sanctity of human life may well compel, rather than forbid, that form of punishment. Moral objections to the death penalty frequently depend on a distinction between acts and omissions, but that distinction is misleading in this context, because government is a special kind of moral agent. The familiar problems with capital punishment - potential error, irreversibility, arbitrariness, and racial skew - do not argue in favor of abolition, because the world of homicide suffers from those same problems in even more acute form. The widespread failure to appreciate the life-life tradeoffs involved in capital punishment may depend on cognitive processes that fail to treat "statistical lives" with the seriousness that they deserve.

 

[Skeptic]

If the death penalty does not deter and we execute murderers, a bunch of murderers dies. If the death penalty does deter and we executed murderers, a bunch of murderers dies and in addition a bunch of innocents are saved. A win-win situation for the death penalty in terms of deterrence. The real problem is different: the risk of executing innocents or using it unfairly.

 

[MikeMangum]

The real problem is different: the risk of executing innocents or using it unfairly.

That is my big problem with the death penalty; that we mistakenly put innocent people to death.

That situation does not apply in this case.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Recent evidence suggests that capital punishment may [May?] have a significant deterrent effect, preventing as many eighteen or more murders for each execution [CITATION NEEDED]

What's the bet these people found one outlying study where the reintroduction of the death penalty coincided with a drop in murder rates, and ignored the overwhelming weight of evidence showing no deterrent effect?

 

[Ziggurat]

Sure, Jacques Chirac also. But twice as much, because he met Saddam twice!

1974
[qimg]http://home.mindspring.com/~a.lo/ChiracSaddam1974AP.jpg[/qimg]

1976
[qimg]http://home.mindspring.com/~a.lo/1976-Jacques-Chirac-Saddam.jpg[/qimg]

Don't forget 1975.

 

[Just thinking]

The death penalty achieves nothing useful except satiating the bloodlust of people like yourselves, whether you dress it up with the adjective "judicial" or not.

From my original post ... Not everyone that murders gets the death penalty, nor is it reserved only for those who murder.

Since it is obvious you are not even reading what I am saying, perhaps you can understand this simple reply ... welcome to IGNORE.

 

[Skeptic]

What's the bet these people found one outlying study where the reintroduction of the death penalty coincided with a drop in murder rates, and ignored the overwhelming weight of evidence showing no deterrent effect?

For the zillionth time: deterrent isn't the main point. It's, at most, an additional reason for it. I note you didn't answer my explanation of this fact giving the Nuremberg trials as an example.

 

[JihadJane]

For the zillionth time: deterrent isn't the main point. It's, at most, an additional reason for it. I note you didn't answer my explanation of this fact giving the Nuremberg trials as an example.

So when are we going to hang Bush et al?

 

[NWO Sentryman]

So when are we going to hang Bush et al?

Have Bush et al ever been indicted by any criminal court with jurisdiction over the United states?

 

[JihadJane]

Have Bush et al ever been indicted by any criminal court with jurisdiction over the United states?

Are you dreaming? They are above the law.

 

[Pardalis]

Got anything to say about Chemical Ali?

 

[NWO Sentryman]

Are you dreaming? They are above the law.

So you advocate Mob Rule, where based upon internet hearsay a man can be lynched?

They have not been indicted by any court for whatever happened in iraq, let alone convicted, so they can't be executed.