The reason for a death penalty

[Lonewulf]

Tricky, would you mind responding to my post?

Like I said, ignore Claus. He doesn't matter.

 

[Darat]

Lonewolf - be careful if he takes a dislike to you...

 

[Lonewulf]

Lonewolf - be careful if he takes a dislike to you...

If I see a man on death row on an airplane, I'll so zap the ****er with a tazer, bro.






There, three JREF memes in one sentence!

 

[Tricky]

Tricky, would you mind responding to my post?

Like I said, ignore Claus. He doesn't matter.

Which one? #274? That was a good post and stated your position well. You want me to give a point-by-point and compare it to my position? Or was it a different post you had in mind?

 

[Lonewulf]

Which one? #274? That was a good post and stated your position well. You want me to give a point-by-point and compare it to my position? Or was it a different post you had in mind?

Well, do you disagree with anything in particular?

 

[Tricky]

Well, do you disagree with anything in particular?

A few things, yes, but some might even be called semantic. I'll work on it though and have something for you shortly.

 

[Lonewulf]

A few things, yes, but some might even be called semantic. I'll work on it though and have something for you shortly.

'Kay, no prob.

I'll respond to it later, probably tomorrow or the day after. I'm reeeeally tired right now, and the siren call of bed calls me. G'night!

 

[Tricky]

'Kay, no prob.

I'll respond to it later, probably tomorrow or the day after. I'm reeeeally tired right now, and the siren call of bed calls me. G'night!

Good night Weslone. Good work. Sleep well. I'll most likely execute you in the morning.

(reference to The Princess Bride in case it's not a part of German pop culture.)

 

[E.J.Armstrong]

Those points have all been addressed. Perhaps you don't agree with the reasoning that was employed in addressing them, as is your right, but to continue to use pejoratives in describing those who have well considered opinions that differ from yours is a sure way to find your opinions disregarded by all except those who are equally absolutist in their opinions.

You speak of truth as if it were something that you understand and I don't. Well I don't claim to know "truth". I have considered opinions. Sometimes I'm wrong, but to say I have "blood lust" is about as wrong as anything can be. I hate killing. I don't hunt or even own a gun. One of my favorite hobbies is nature photography.

My opinions on the death penalty are based on what I feel is best for the benefit of all humans, not just the ones on death row. I'm not sure where you acquired the belief that the preservation of any single human life is more important than the well-being of humanity in general, but I disagree with that position. Respectfully. Without pejoratives.

Respectfully - I used the style of your own post when responding to you and, as indicated above, I was not demonising you - nor was I addressing you when I originally used the term 'blood lust'. You - however suggested that I had a 'subliminal love of the concept of 'blood lust'. I therefore don't feel that your footlocker is completely clean of pejoratives either.

Perhaps you have considered why people keep bringing up the term? In this thread especially when others describe prison inmates as 'garbage' left to 'rot' in a 'human landfill' and claim that it would be a mercy to murder them rather than merely clean up the jails? Such a casual attitude to human life.

I have justified my use of the term 'blood lust' using specific quotes from this thread and accept that you don't like it and are sensitive about it but I believe that it is specifically applicable to Big Reds comments and thus it was to him it was addressed in the style which he uses to others.

I have no doubt that you have reached your position based on what you feel is right. I too have also considered carefully all the different options and believe that society is severely damaged by the casual contempt for human life that the death penalty breeds in practice, as demonstrated by some of the reasons provided for supporting it given in the thread above. Also, if I would not accept my own judicial and innocent murder at the hands of an incompetent or corrupt judicial process than I could not acquiese in perpetrating the same on others.

Respectfully yours.

 

[Tricky]

Respectfully - I used the style of your own post when responding to you and, as indicated above, I was not demonising you - nor was I addressing you when I originally used the term 'blood lust'. You - however suggested that I had a 'subliminal love of the concept of 'blood lust'. I therefore don't feel that your footlocker is completely clean of pejoratives either.

Yet you had used the term before I addressed your post. I do not think you can identify a single person arguing for the death penalty on this thread that has what could reasonably be called "blood lust". Suddenly (who is anti-death penalty) explained this. People who support the death penalty (at least those who have posted here) simply think it is the best solution. Nobody is lusting for anybody will die.

Perhaps you have considered why people keep bringing up the term? In this thread especially when others describe prison inmates as 'garbage' left to 'rot' in a 'human landfill' and claim that it would be a mercy to murder them rather than merely clean up the jails? Such a casual attitude to human life.

I've argued that it would be more merciful to kill them than to keep them behind bars forever. This is not based on the quality of the accommodations (though I am sure they are not ideal) but on the fact that it seems like torture to remove a person's freedom for the rest of their life. I am more against torture than the death penalty. As I have asked earlier, if you have no plans to rehabilitate them, why are you keeping them?

I have justified my use of the term 'blood lust' using specific quotes from this thread and accept that you don't like it and are sensitive about it but I believe that it is specifically applicable to Big Reds comments and thus it was to him it was addressed in the style which he uses to others.

While I can't speak for Big Red, I reiterate that I have not seen anyone commenting here that has shown "blood lust". It is true that there are some people in the world who do have blood lust, in that they get their jollies from watching something die, but I'm not seeing that here. Perhaps you just have a different definition of it which includes acceptance of the position that some things should die. To me, that is not the same thing as lust. To me, lust is a craving. I do not have a craving. I don't enjoy it. I don't see anyone posting here who does.

I have no doubt that you have reached your position based on what you feel is right. I too have also considered carefully all the different options and believe that society is severely damaged by the casual contempt for human life that the death penalty breeds in practice, as demonstrated by some of the reasons provided for supporting it given in the thread above.

I understand your position, and I disagree. I do not think that rational supporters of the death penalty have a casual contempt of human life. I think if anything, they show a high social conscience by wanting what is best for society, even though it involves some unpleasant things. It would be great if we could free the world of unpleasant choices. Sadly, we can't.

Also, if I would not accept my own judicial and innocent murder at the hands of an incompetent or corrupt judicial process than I could not acquiesce in perpetrating the same on others.

I think we should strive to make the judicial process ans competent and uncorrupted as possible, recognizing that perfection is impossible. We should also do the best we can to protect society in general even if it means the loss of a life, irretrievably broken.

Respectfully, but not blood lustfully,
Tricky

 

[Tricky]

Personally, I'm torn. I can see the arguments both for and against the death penalty. Personally, I think there are times when it is acceptable to kill another human being; in self defense, for one. At the same time, the death penalty is not the same as self defense. Self defense is done at the time of the crime, to prevent the crime from taking place... the death penalty is punishment for a previous crime, and cannot be applied until the original crime took place.

Here we differ slightly. I think that punishment should be used for rehabilitation, and judiciously then because it seems to be true that some will respond only to the stick and not the carrot. Good parents use punishment only to raise their children to be upright and moral. They do not use it for revenge. Thus, in my scenario, the death penalty is not exactly punishment. It is surgery, and it should be used only when the patient's (society's) well-being is at risk. As my example with Ira Einhorn earlier demonstrates, I may intensely dislike someone, yet not lust for revenge.

The point that some make about the death penalty as punishment is that it is not so much to punish the offenders, as to scare others into not becoming offenders. The jury is very much out on the effectiveness of the death penalty as a deterrent. It certainly won't affect the sickest members of society, but it might affect some in the gray area.

While it might be to prevent further murders, the fact is that the death penalty is not applied to murderers or killers before they kill, or if they threaten to kill, but instead if they kill... so it's not necessarily to prevent the murderer's action. If it was to prevent further action, then you'd have to explain why life in prison, or even 20 years in prison, are less likely to prevent the crime than death.

Prisoners do occasionally kill while in prison. Or they escape. I know it is rare. However, that is not the only reason I support the death penalty. I also believe it is more humanitarian. I wouldn't keep a dog locked in a small room for the rest of its life. Why would I do it to a human?

Then there's the prevention of the actions of other murderers. Essentially, fear of the death chamber is supposed to inspire fear in other potential murderers. Though this tends to assume that the person isn't murdering out of passion (where the person is usually not in control of all of their faculties), and somewhat dubious when it comes to compulsion... I'd like to see if there's any actual evidence that life in prison is less of a deterrent than the death penalty. In fact, states which have the death penalty also tend to have the highest murder rates... usually because politicians want to do something about the murder rate as opposed to the death penalty causing murder. However, I just don't see any link between the death penalty lessening actual crimes committed. I'm willing to change my mind on this, though, with provided evidence.

It may not have a significant effect on murders. Indeed if it is used injudiciously, it may cause revenge murders. So it is important that it be used very judiciously. As I say, the times when it should be used are very very rare, but not nonexistent. I am just as horrified as you about the way it has sometimes been used in the past. I want us to fix that.

But I'm not up to a Googlefest right now. I suggest we confine this discussion to more philosophical bounds. Besides, you know what people can do with statistics, especially those found on "The Internet of a Billion Lies".

Then there's the risks with sentencing people to death. Put 'em in jail for life, and you're more likely to find out that they're innocent and be able to free them after, say, 10 years of injustice. You can't take back killing someone (yet). And even though we have modern ways to convict criminals that are more effective, such as DNA testing, I've read that even they are unreliable. DNA is not as exact as people like to say, and partial matches are more accepted than they should be... and DNA testing can be rushed for high profile cases where the prosecution wants a quick conviction. There's just as much room for corruption and mistakes as there ever were, even with DNA. We're developing even more advanced methods of testing, but in the end, I just don't think we'll come up with a perfect system.

In most cases, you're correct. But there are some which are so clear cut as to not even need DNA evidence. Not every murder is done in the dark of night with few witnesses. Indeed, the ones most likely to satisfy my definition of requiring the death penalty are likely to be indisputable, gruesome and occasionally public. As I say, they are rare. Can you really cure a Timothy McVeigh? Is it worth taking the chance?

Now, that's all in support against the death penalty. However, I claimed to see both sides. So, what about supporting the death penalty? Well, the biggest argument I would use personally is, quite simply, jail space. There's just not enough... prisons are filling, even overfilling. And, if you ask me, I don't like how prisons are run in general. Even people that are innocent can come out much more hardened and more knowledgeable about how to commit crimes than they were going in. I've heard personal accounts of how prisons are run... the guards tend to try to divide the prisoners, spawn off one group to hate another, spawn off things like racism to keep the prisoners from banding together. I really don't think that inspiring hate is a good way to run things... period. I think that it makes things worse, never better. But whether or not jails are run well, has little to do with the death penalty IMO... that's more an argument for revamping how prisons are handled.

Prisons and jails are certainly horrible places. Next to hospitals, I expect that more people die there than anywhere else. And yes guard are brutal and sadistic (who else would take the job?) and yes gangs are ubiquitous. Lets face it, prisoners, for the most part, are not nice people. Shoving them together into overcrowded prisons with a bunch of other not-nice people is like packing ten pounds of dynamite into a five pound bag.

I feel strongly that we could aid this problem by decriminalizing and indeed legalizing drugs. It would be difficult and imperfect (like everything) but better than what we have now. This is for another thread though.

But I disagree that this has anything to do with the death penalty. If you put a person in a place where their sociopathic tendencies are reinforced, then, to reuse a metaphor, you are just putting a bunch of stinging insects in a jar and shaking the jar. How can that be called humane? What does it say about a society that would do such a thing?

Of course, there are no easy answers. That's why I tend to shy away from absolutes. Each case is different. To suggest that there is no case where the death penalty is appropriate suggests to me the unwillingness to consider all situations.

In the end, when it comes out, I just don't support the death penalty.

I respect that. My support for it is extremely rare.

And I don't like the arguments for the death penalty that involve "punishment" in the eye-for-an-eye sense or actual hate.

I agree. See my above argument that the death penalty is not, in any normal sense of the word, punishment. Nor should it be.

So you hate the guy. So he did really bad things. So there were Nazis that were executed, and we all hate Nazis. But that's all emotional, it's not rational. It'll never be rational... it's an emotional response to something that shouldn't be based purely on emotion, in my opinion.

I also agree with this. I want to divorce emotion from the equation. I also want to divorce the emotion of "we must never kill" from the equation. That is no more rational than the revenge motive. In reality, we are humans. We can never completely divorce our emotions from our decisions. With effort, we can limit such crass emotions such as revenge or "blood lust" from our decisions, but it is much harder to divorce the "why can't we just all get along?" emotion. It is such a nice emotion, right? Maybe so, but while it may satisfy a conscience, it has nothing to do with making the best decision for the benefit of humanity.

 

[Lonewulf]

Good night Weslone. Good work. Sleep well. I'll most likely execute you in the morning.

(reference to The Princess Bride in case it's not a part of German pop culture.)

I'm seriously not German. I just live in Germany currently. I'm well aware of The Princess Bride, and know very little German media.

The point that some make about the death penalty as punishment is that it is not so much to punish the offenders, as to scare others into not becoming offenders. The jury is very much out on the effectiveness of the death penalty as a deterrent. It certainly won't affect the sickest members of society, but it might affect some in the gray area.

It "won't" affect the sickest members, but it "might" affect some gray areas?

So we're killing people over a "maybe"?

Prisoners do occasionally kill while in prison.

Like I said, I support the prison system changing. I think that prison promotes violence and hatred with how the prisoners set the prisoners against each other.

Or they escape. I know it is rare.

Well, that's rare. That's also a lot more fixable than killing someone.

Someone has a chance of escaping? Buff up security. Someone's dead and you find out he wasn't guilty? Well... uh... woops? I know it's rare, but I'd take a hundred escaped convicts over one innocent person murdered by the system.

However, that is not the only reason I support the death penalty. I also believe it is more humanitarian. I wouldn't keep a dog locked in a small room for the rest of its life. Why would I do it to a human?

Which is more an argument against how the prison system works than the death penalty. If the dichotomy is "awful prison" and "death", instead of embracing the death, can't we embrace making the prisons better? I think that will have a much better, and more long-term effect, on society. I think that killing murderers is treating the symptom, fixing the prisons might just be a step towards a cure.

As for a dog locked in a small room for the rest of it's life; at least a dog has a chance to be set free if it's found a new owner. And at least a human has a chance to be set free if he's found to be innocent... or if society thinks he won't kill again. Death is still permanent.

While we're getting onto the whole prison-bashing thing, I just want to say another thing I loathe about prison, to get it off my chest. You get arrested, you get put in jail, and it goes on your record. Not only do you get the rough treatment of the prison system, but you also get a much lower chance of finding a job in the future because of your history. This is yet another problem with the whole goddamn "drug war"; arrest some 19 year old kid for smoking marijuana, goes on his record as a drug abuser, and then he finds he can't get a job at the local 7/11...

Which makes me thinks that it's more likely to make people do drugs than get off them.

But you know what? You don't support the death penalty because you don't like people being in a small room. Well, here's a proposed solution: Don't have them stuck in a small room. In fact, let's get an island somewhere with plenty of open air and good exercise. Then set up a perimeter around the island.

More expensive, maybe, but you could consider it an investment.

Then, let's put monsters on it.

 

[Tricky]

Well, LW, I can't see that we have a lot to discuss. We're very close on some issues and the others seem to be points that we aren't likely to agree on. I hope my reply answered your questions, so I just have one more question for you.

Who gets to pick the monsters?

 

[Lonewulf]

Well, LW, I can't see that we have a lot to discuss. We're very close on some issues and the others seem to be points that we aren't likely to agree on. I hope my reply answered your questions, so I just have one more question for you.

Who gets to pick the monsters?

Dunno, but if it was me, I'd go with King Kong or some of the other giant ones... I got a thing with giant monsters.

Is it really worth not discussing if it seems like we won't agree?

 

[Tricky]

Dunno, but if it was me, I'd go with King Kong or some of the other giant ones... I got a thing with giant monsters.

I like dinosaurs, like the oversized velociraptors in Jurassic Park.

Is it really worth not discussing if it seems like we won't agree?

If you have points you haven't hit or you think I haven't addressed, by all means. I'm not sure what a rehash would accomplish.

Actually, I go through this whole routine every few months whenever I get the courage to put on my fireproof suit jump into this hot-button issue. The arguments I put forward are similar, though I hadn't actually written any pulp fiction before.

It is my intention to show that there actually is some middle ground in this issue and that it can be discussed reasonably without resorting to invective. (Such is the duty of a radical centrist.) One would think that on a board of skeptics, the position that there may be a wide variety of solutions depending on the case would be uncontroversial. As you can see, that is not always the case.

 

[Lonewulf]

If you have points you haven't hit or you think I haven't addressed, by all means. I'm not sure what a rehash would accomplish.

Do you support changing our prison system, at the least?

Do you think that death is necessarily the best choice in the dichotomy between better prisons and the death penalty? If so, why?

Actually, I go through this whole routine every few months whenever I get the courage to put on my fireproof suit jump into this hot-button issue. The arguments I put forward are similar, though I hadn't actually written any pulp fiction before.

It is my intention to show that there actually is some middle ground in this issue and that it can be discussed reasonably without resorting to invective. (Such is the duty of a radical centrist.) One would think that on a board of skeptics, the position that there may be a wide variety of solutions depending on the case would be uncontroversial. As you can see, that is not always the case.

Well, yeah. So essentially, you're here to laugh at the extremists. No problem.

 

[Tricky]

Do you support changing our prison system, at the least?

Absolutely. More rehab. Less punishment.

Do you think that death is necessarily the best choice in the dichotomy between better prisons and the death penalty? If so, why?

I don't think it is a dichotomy. Even if your prisons were damn near perfect, there would be that rare case which was untreatable.

Well, yeah. So essentially, you're here to laugh at the extremists. No problem.

No, I only laugh at them if they flame me. Otherwise, I try to explain my position. But if they want to flame, well, that's why I wear these asbestos y-fronts.

 

[Lonewulf]

I don't think it is a dichotomy. Even if your prisons were damn near perfect, there would be that rare case which was untreatable.

I thought your problem was less with it being untreatable, and more about someone being locked in a small cell.

If the cell was made bearable, or the guy had plenty of fresh air, would you find that more acceptable? We let animals have fresh air all the time, and it's considered humane to keep them.

 

[Tricky]

I thought your problem was less with it being untreatable, and more about someone being locked in a small cell.

It is both.

If the cell was made bearable, or the guy had plenty of fresh air, would you find that more acceptable? We let animals have fresh air all the time, and it's considered humane to keep them.

I hesitate to bring animals into it because the instant I do, sombody will shout "Humans aren't animals!" (in spite of the fact that they are). But since you bring it up, let me remark that we put down dangerous animals, do we not? It is considered humane, is it not?

 

[Matteo Martini]

In the mean time..

U.N. adopts death penalty moratorium
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationw...dec19,1,7862391.story?coll=la-headlines-world

Interesting to note that:
The U.S. joined China, Iran, Sudan and Syria in opposing the resolution, arguing that it interfered with their sovereign rights.