Tories to re-introduce Death-penalty?

[wu_trax]

Originally Posted by Nodrog

Someone on another forum I post at has the idea that violent criminals (ie ones pro-death penalty people normally support killing) should be given some anaesthetic that renders them unconscious indefinitely, and left in a warehouse until they die from old age or whatever. Obviously if they are proven innocent they can be revived at a later date, and you can avoid all the problems caused by imprisonment.

set people on drugs and store them in a warehouse? thats not exactly efficent if you try to rehablitate them. obviously there are some cases where its not possible to bring criminals back into society, but its quite hard to find out which cases this are (once again i messed up the grammar, but i hope you get the idea).
simple revenge doesnt change anything.

[Gayle29uk]

Originally Posted by wu_trax

simple revenge doesnt change anything.

It makes the person dishing it out feel better

[Marilyn Manson]

Originally Posted by Gayle29uk

The law no longer requires that death occur within a year and a day though.

I know. Some bint got clobbered round the head and then she died after a year and two days, and there was a bit of an uproar then, wasn't there? I honestly can't remember what the case was heh.

[MrL_JaKiri]

Originally Posted by Gayle29uk

The law no longer requires that death occur within a year and a day though.

Such esteemed posters on this forum.

[Gayle29uk]

Originally Posted by MrL_JaKiri

Such esteemed posters on this forum.

I SHOLD HAVE BEEN A LAWYER!*





* My GCSE in law probably doesn't qualify me for this.

[MrL_JaKiri]

Not you!

[Gayle29uk]

Originally Posted by MrL_JaKiri

Not you!

Well you should have quoted Sir Ed then :P

[MrL_JaKiri]

Originally Posted by Gayle29uk

Well you should have quoted Sir Ed then :P

That would involve either copy pasting the text then writing the [quote] bit, or going into edit your post and quoting the section directly.

Both involved more effort!

[Marilyn Manson]

Originally Posted by Gayle29uk

Well you should have quoted Sir Ed then :P

Chief Justice Coke was never a forum bitch so he is clearly inferior.

[W]

Originally Posted by Gayle29uk

You would if it was wrongly used to sentence YOU!

Of course I would, in that specific instance (even if I was inocently sentenced to death I don't think I'd really think the death penalty in itself was bad (even if I'd probably so claim)), just like I oppose the sentencing to death of anyone I'm convinced is inocent.

What I said was that I have nothing against the existance of the death sentence in itself.

[acropolis]

my biggest problem with it at present is that it sets a horrible example globally.

third world dictators use it to get rid of dissidents, and it's far more difficult to say that's wrong when your government is killing people off too (but when we do it it's okay!). also, how do you tell someone that torture is wrong but killing is okay?

[Marilyn Manson]

Originally Posted by acropolis

third world dictators use it to get rid of dissidents, and it's far more difficult to say that's wrong when your government is killing people off too (but when we do it it's okay!).

I would imagine that people would differentiate between being murdered for a political reason and for a method of punishment/retribution/whatever, and the fact that many of these said Third World nations, the rule of law doesn't apply.

[acropolis]

Originally Posted by Toccata & Fugue

Soldiers don't have to necessarily kill people in cold blood.

only if they'd rather not die

[W]

Originally Posted by Toccata & Fugue

Soldiers don't have to necessarily kill people in cold blood, it is given that wars are state versus state and thus the soldier is devorced from the responsibility for the killing, also in a combat situation someone is killed in self defence. However clearly soldiers do murder people and you don't have a problem with that, that says alot about you, rather than the justification of capital punishment.

See previous post about murder vs killing.

And whatever morality you subscribe to, the most disturbing part of it is the one that says a soldier is divorced from the responsibility of killing. You have a very scary view of what a state is. A view that is more likely to create war, than stopping it.

Originally Posted by acropolis

my biggest problem with it at present is that it sets a horrible example globally.

third world dictators use it to get rid of dissidents, and it's far more difficult to say that's wrong when your government is killing people off too (but when we do it it's okay!). also, how do you tell someone that torture is wrong but killing is okay?

Same goes for jail too, really. Do you REALLY support abolishing punishment alltogether, because if we use it, countries that don't have anywhere near the level of justice will use it too?

[Ste]

Are people saying that
(a) the death-penalty is a good idea if the justice system is perfect.
(b) the death-penalty is a good idea no matter what.
(c) the death-penalty is a bad idea no matter what.

It's just too hard to trawl through the pedantry sometimes.

[W]

Originally Posted by Ste

Are people saying that
(a) the death-penalty is a good idea if the justice system is perfect.
(b) the death-penalty is a good idea no matter what.
(c) the death-penalty is a bad idea no matter what.

It's just too hard to trawl through the pedantry sometimes.

(ab) the death-penalty is a good idea when a society is above a certain level of civility and justice, and a matter of pure self-preservation when the situation is volatile enough.

You smell of straws.

Originally Posted by Toccata & Fugue

Hence the phrase "cold blood" genius, if one is a combat situation, shooting someone is hardly premeditated is it.

Erm yes it is?

I will suggest that you don't speak of things you are this ignorant of.

[acropolis]

Originally Posted by W

Same goes for jail too, really. Do you REALLY support abolishing punishment alltogether, because if we use it, countries that don't have anywhere near the level of justice will use it too?

no, i'm only against punishments that other countries can use as cover for committing human rights violations. dissidents getting put in jail isn't really that bad a thing, it doesn't seem to discourage them and often makes their case stronger.

once you have the death penalty, pointing out other countries' human rights violations looks hypocritical.

Originally Posted by Toccata & Fugue

Hence the phrase "cold blood" genius, if one is a combat situation, shooting someone is hardly premeditated is it.

the time to kill is when the enemy is asleep, or eating, or on the shitter. basically, the time to kill is whenever it's clearly in 'cold blood.'

once combat starts, somebody has clearly already screwed up.

[W]

Originally Posted by Toccata & Fugue

This is just the way wars are fought.

No. I will simply argue from authority on this. You are wrong, and do not know enough to see it.

You sound like an idiot when you hide your weak arguments behind the fact that you are a soldier.

Mentioning that I am a soldier is a way to show that my opinions on this is honest, that I am not trolling. Nothing more. Too many people refuse to listen or argue against me because they fear they'll be "beaten" in an argument when I'm just arguing for play. But on you, it's also to convince you how wrong you are. You're arguing about how war is fought, without any education or training at all on the subject.

My training, our specialty so to speak, is action behind enemy lines. Ambushes, harrasment of enemy supplies and troops, hit and run and in general guerillia tactics. I do not understand how on earth you can claim that all fighting in war is unpremeditated. If we wait for a caravan to run into our minefield, while mining up their retreat, and then open fire with the intent to kill everyone before they can significantly return fire, how is that done without previous forethought?

[CrashTester]

I am in favour of the death penalty in some circumstances but isnt it a bit pointless having it just for serial killers. Here in the UK we dont have that many serial killers, thankfully.

[Radical Edward]

Originally Posted by Nodrog

you can avoid all the problems caused by imprisonment.

apart from cost. it would be a tad expensive if you stored people like that. also if they turned out to be innocent, then you have literally stolen n years of their life, where is they are kept in a cell they can do stuff.

[Radical Edward]

Originally Posted by wu_trax

thats not exactly efficent if you try to rehablitate them.

how many innocent people need rehabilitating?

[W]

Originally Posted by Toccata & Fugue

...

I can only repeat that this is the attitude that creates agressive wars. If you had your way, there'd be no war criminals beyond the head of state.

[Dante Hicks]

The idea that "cold calculating killing" always being wrong (although I'd still want a proper definition of this) also makes it difficult to justify revolutionary violence against tyranny.

[JonnyBGood]

Personally I'm for the death penalty as it seems a fairly decent continuation of the idea of justice in law in reality. Although a whole bunch of hippies seem to have something against it so I can just lie and say I dislike it and I feel it leads to the perpetuation of a class society and a hierarchy of neo-corruption or some such gibberish and I'd make a great politician because half the time I don't even know what I'm talking about which is pretty good because it means my opponents can't possibly know what my opinions are and how they differ from and contrast with the policies I express support for in the interest of not coming across as some wacko capitalist nutcase who dislikes the very notion of taxes without the express consent of every single member of society which would totally destroy any possibility I'd ever have of getting into the sort of places of power where one can manipulate the system and subtly alter people's minds so that they eventually come to believe fervently, hopefully not too enthuasiastically though due to the fact I don't really like dogmatic teachings of beliefs, in the ideas I feel are most reasonable without me having to undergo the danger of giving voice to my opinions at a time when the potential for what I propose to cause a knee-jerk reaction before I have a chance to argue my case in any way whatsoever which would probably suck because I think I have some really cool and nifty ideas fairly well-grounded in reality and I'd really hate to think that there was in fact a regression away from the type of systems I find most personally agreeable instead of the kind of gradual progression that is predominately associated with peaceful, tolerant societies rather than totalitarian hate-filled states that I'm not really too fond of because let's face it I look out for me first and foremost as we all do however some people can get pretty confused over some issues and they think that merely because you want to help someone over yourself isn't the sort of desire that emanates from within yourself as that is definitely the type of idea I find really silly as if the wish to help others is imposed on you by some sort of outside force like society or god as an absolute instead of originating from an individual sense of right and wrong and what each person wants from life and how they wish to be considered with all the knock-on effects on everyone else and this is probably getting a bit long-winded but I like to explain on occasions what I really think which is really hard to do because mostly people just want you to express some clearly ridiculous opinion they can argue against and feel smart because you end up looking a bit silly and that's totally confusing for you because you thought you knew what you were talking about until this person came along and ridiculed those beliefs you'd imagined to have proved through reasoned argument and detailed consideration which is very irritating for some people as they're totally unsure where they went wrong or if this person simply knows slightly more logical tricks than they do and managed to show they were wrong and they really aren't and it just seems that way because human perceptions of reason really aren't all that great most of the time which leads to a lot of pretty stupid errors like considering all black people inferior or all women emotional or tibet the capital of china or that god created the world in six days and I think most of these mistakes are made when people don't consider their initial premises enough and have big gaping factual holes in their theories which people exploit through having slightly more knowledge but the really hard bit to comprehend is that often they do this and they know it's wrong however they have these deep-rooted irrational beliefs in this type of thing and find it hard to give up their sort of natural but that's a bad word to use here opinions and they seem to argue them reasonably when they aren't and you think they aren't but you're not sure because you don't know whether they're manipulating the system and exploiting the gaps in your knowledge or if they're really correct and have done the necessary research in this area and often you end up trusting people based on nothing but your personal perceptions of their worth and meaning to you as a friend or someone else you trust which leads back to the sort of dogmatic beliefs which I dislike and it all gets a bit confusing at times because you end up thinking you're smarter than you are and work yourself into all these illogical positions and sometimes you even wonder whether anything makes sense and as the world isn't black and white, good and bad, right and wrong at first sight you can end up regressing into this sort of inclosed insulated world from which you despise humanity for reasons of which you're not really sure from a position you find it impossible to prove under conditions of which you're not aware and that's the real problem of objectivty versus subjectivity because it's so ****ing hard to decide and the more you care the more you think and there's probably a line there after which further considerations tends to be counter-productive but you don't know why and this doesn't really make sense in the end but usually if you think about it a bit and listen to other people you end up with a pretty good idea about a fair few things as you took the time to consider the beliefs of others outside of an immediate "they must be incorrect just because" perspective which is in my opinion the true point of a society based on mutual trust, respect and consent but sometimes the road ahead seems too long and hard to continue upon and those are the times when I sit down and wish for a few hours grace from everything around which is where my family and friends come in because they help me pretty much regardless of what i'm doing or believe in because they trust me to do what's best for me and I do the same for them and that's the sort of model I'd like to base my society on and I really hope I can but if it turns out that I can't due to factors that are impossible for me to control I'll be a little bit annoyed but not too pissed off because I'm pretty sure I'm a good person and to be honest that's really all that matters to me and I hope you're happy too in what you believe which unfortunately sounds fairly sentimental and emotionally trite but that's really how I feel and I wonder if this is one of those really rare times when one human being bares their soul to another which it probably isn't because I'm really not that intelligent or smart or important or anything like that but I'd like to be for a little while just to know what it's really like and whether I'm right or wrong which is a sort of unquestioning belief in something which is sort of dogmatic and I dislike that sort of thing during life but I'd like to be able to be absolutely sure after death which is probably why I believe in god even though I'm rationally agnostic or whatever that intelligent sounding combination of words is and that'd confirm for me whether or not I was a good person which I'm probably a little bit worried about and I hope you understood a little about me if you read all his which was probably of waste of your time if you're looking for witty insights and you now probably think this was some sort of cry for internet acknowledgement and maybe it was but I enjoyed writing it so I did and now it's done and I'm slightly better off for it which is pretty ****ing really.

[Ste]

Originally Posted by JonnyBGood

Personally I'm for the death penalty as it seems a fairly decent continuation of the idea of justice in law in reality. Although a whole bunch of hippies seem to have something against it so I can just lie and say I dislike it and I feel it leads to the perpetuation of a class society and a hierarchy of neo-corruption or some such gibberish and I'd make a great politician because half the time I don't even know what I'm talking about which is pretty good because it means my opponents can't possibly know what my opinions are and how they differ from and contrast with the policies I express support for in the interest of not coming across as some wacko capitalist nutcase who dislikes the very notion of taxes without the express consent of every single member of society which would totally destroy any possibility I'd ever have of getting into the sort of places of power where one can manipulate the system and subtly alter people's minds so that they eventually come to believe fervently, hopefully not too enthuasiastically though due to the fact I don't really like dogmatic teachings of beliefs, in the ideas I feel are most reasonable without me having to undergo the danger of giving voice to my opinions at a time when the potential for what I propose to cause a knee-jerk reaction before I have a chance to argue my case in any way whatsoever which would probably suck because I think I have some really cool and nifty ideas fairly well-grounded in reality and I'd really hate to think that there was in fact a regression away from the type of systems I find most personally agreeable instead of the kind of gradual progression that is predominately associated with peaceful, tolerant societies rather than totalitarian hate-filled states that I'm not really too fond of because let's face it I look out for me first and foremost as we all do however some people can get pretty confused over some issues and they think that merely because you want to help someone over yourself isn't the sort of desire that emanates from within yourself as that is definitely the type of idea I find really silly as if the wish to help others is imposed on you by some sort of outside force like society or god as an absolute instead of originating from an individual sense of right and wrong and what each person wants from life and how they wish to be considered with all the knock-on effects on everyone else and this is probably getting a bit long-winded but I like to explain on occasions what I really think which is really hard to do because mostly people just want you to express some clearly ridiculous opinion they can argue against and feel smart because you end up looking a bit silly and that's totally confusing for you because you thought you knew what you were talking about until this person came along and ridiculed those beliefs you'd imagined to have proved through reasoned argument and detailed consideration which is very irritating for some people as they're totally unsure where they went wrong or if this person simply knows slightly more logical tricks than they do and managed to show they were wrong and they really aren't and it just seems that way because human perceptions of reason really aren't all that great most of the time which leads to a lot of pretty stupid errors like considering all black people inferior or all women emotional or tibet the capital of china or that god created the world in six days and I think most of these mistakes are made when people don't consider their initial premises enough and have big gaping factual holes in their theories which people exploit through having slightly more knowledge but the really hard bit to comprehend is that often they do this and they know it's wrong however they have these deep-rooted irrational beliefs in this type of thing and find it hard to give up their sort of natural but that's a bad word to use here opinions and they seem to argue them reasonably when they aren't and you think they aren't but you're not sure because you don't know whether they're manipulating the system and exploiting the gaps in your knowledge or if they're really correct and have done the necessary research in this area and often you end up trusting people based on nothing but your personal perceptions of their worth and meaning to you as a friend or someone else you trust which leads back to the sort of dogmatic beliefs which I dislike and it all gets a bit confusing at times because you end up thinking you're smarter than you are and work yourself into all these illogical positions and sometimes you even wonder whether anything makes sense and as the world isn't black and white, good and bad, right and wrong at first sight you can end up regressing into this sort of inclosed insulated world from which you despise humanity for reasons of which you're not really sure from a position you find it impossible to prove under conditions of which you're not aware and that's the real problem of objectivty versus subjectivity because it's so ****ing hard to decide and the more you care the more you think and there's probably a line there after which further considerations tends to be counter-productive but you don't know why and this doesn't really make sense in the end but usually if you think about it a bit and listen to other people you end up with a pretty good idea about a fair few things as you took the time to consider the beliefs of others outside of an immediate "they must be incorrect just because" perspective which is in my opinion the true point of a society based on mutual trust, respect and consent but sometimes the road ahead seems too long and hard to continue upon and those are the times when I sit down and wish for a few hours grace from everything around which is where my family and friends come in because they help me pretty much regardless of what i'm doing or believe in because they trust me to do what's best for me and I do the same for them and that's the sort of model I'd like to base my society on and I really hope I can but if it turns out that I can't due to factors that are impossible for me to control I'll be a little bit annoyed but not too pissed off because I'm pretty sure I'm a good person and to be honest that's really all that matters to me and I hope you're happy too in what you believe which unfortunately sounds fairly sentimental and emotionally trite but that's really how I feel and I wonder if this is one of those really rare times when one human being bares their soul to another which it probably isn't because I'm really not that intelligent or smart or important or anything like that but I'd like to be for a little while just to know what it's really like and whether I'm right or wrong which is a sort of unquestioning belief in something which is sort of dogmatic and I dislike that sort of thing during life but I'd like to be able to be absolutely sure after death which is probably why I believe in god even though I'm rationally agnostic or whatever that intelligent sounding combination of words is and that'd confirm for me whether or not I was a good person which I'm probably a little bit worried about and I hope you understood a little about me if you read all his which was probably of waste of your time if you're looking for witty insights and you now probably think this was some sort of cry for internet acknowledgement and maybe it was but I enjoyed writing it so I did and now it's done and I'm slightly better off for it which is pretty ****ing really.

Exactly...

[W]

I think you're just about ready...

[queball]

Killing people is not a continuation of locking people up. What does it have to do with retribution, or restoration, or whatever? Prisoners still have rights, and can talk about how they are treated or about the world, or learn Spanish. And the similarity to imprisonment is not an argument for the death penalty, unless there's also some evidence that imprisonment has desirable effect X where the death penalty would also have effect X.

I'd rather go for the option of the status quo with gradual shift towards more constuctive and effective solutions to problems, which seems to be what we're doing in the UK without the death penalty. I don't understand what the argument for the death penalty is. What are we hoping to achieve?

[evil one]

Originally Posted by JonnyBGood

Personally I'm for the death penalty as it seems a fairly decent continuation of the idea of justice in law in reality. Although a whole bunch of hippies seem to have something against it so I can just lie and say I dislike it and I feel it leads to the perpetuation of a class society and a hierarchy of neo-corruption or some such gibberish and I'd make a great politician because half the time I don't even know what I'm talking about which is pretty good because it means my opponents can't possibly know what my opinions are and how they differ from and contrast with the policies I express support for in the interest of not coming across as some wacko capitalist nutcase who dislikes the very notion of taxes without the express consent of every single member of society which would totally destroy any possibility I'd ever have of getting into the sort of places of power where one can manipulate the system and subtly alter people's minds so that they eventually come to believe fervently, hopefully not too enthuasiastically though due to the fact I don't really like dogmatic teachings of beliefs, in the ideas I feel are most reasonable without me having to undergo the danger of giving voice to my opinions at a time when the potential for what I propose to cause a knee-jerk reaction before I have a chance to argue my case in any way whatsoever which would probably suck because I think I have some really cool and nifty ideas fairly well-grounded in reality and I'd really hate to think that there was in fact a regression away from the type of systems I find most personally agreeable instead of the kind of gradual progression that is predominately associated with peaceful, tolerant societies rather than totalitarian hate-filled states that I'm not really too fond of because let's face it I look out for me first and foremost as we all do however some people can get pretty confused over some issues and they think that merely because you want to help someone over yourself isn't the sort of desire that emanates from within yourself as that is definitely the type of idea I find really silly as if the wish to help others is imposed on you by some sort of outside force like society or god as an absolute instead of originating from an individual sense of right and wrong and what each person wants from life and how they wish to be considered with all the knock-on effects on everyone else and this is probably getting a bit long-winded but I like to explain on occasions what I really think which is really hard to do because mostly people just want you to express some clearly ridiculous opinion they can argue against and feel smart because you end up looking a bit silly and that's totally confusing for you because you thought you knew what you were talking about until this person came along and ridiculed those beliefs you'd imagined to have proved through reasoned argument and detailed consideration which is very irritating for some people as they're totally unsure where they went wrong or if this person simply knows slightly more logical tricks than they do and managed to show they were wrong and they really aren't and it just seems that way because human perceptions of reason really aren't all that great most of the time which leads to a lot of pretty stupid errors like considering all black people inferior or all women emotional or tibet the capital of china or that god created the world in six days and I think most of these mistakes are made when people don't consider their initial premises enough and have big gaping factual holes in their theories which people exploit through having slightly more knowledge but the really hard bit to comprehend is that often they do this and they know it's wrong however they have these deep-rooted irrational beliefs in this type of thing and find it hard to give up their sort of natural but that's a bad word to use here opinions and they seem to argue them reasonably when they aren't and you think they aren't but you're not sure because you don't know whether they're manipulating the system and exploiting the gaps in your knowledge or if they're really correct and have done the necessary research in this area and often you end up trusting people based on nothing but your personal perceptions of their worth and meaning to you as a friend or someone else you trust which leads back to the sort of dogmatic beliefs which I dislike and it all gets a bit confusing at times because you end up thinking you're smarter than you are and work yourself into all these illogical positions and sometimes you even wonder whether anything makes sense and as the world isn't black and white, good and bad, right and wrong at first sight you can end up regressing into this sort of inclosed insulated world from which you despise humanity for reasons of which you're not really sure from a position you find it impossible to prove under conditions of which you're not aware and that's the real problem of objectivty versus subjectivity because it's so ****ing hard to decide and the more you care the more you think and there's probably a line there after which further considerations tends to be counter-productive but you don't know why and this doesn't really make sense in the end but usually if you think about it a bit and listen to other people you end up with a pretty good idea about a fair few things as you took the time to consider the beliefs of others outside of an immediate "they must be incorrect just because" perspective which is in my opinion the true point of a society based on mutual trust, respect and consent but sometimes the road ahead seems too long and hard to continue upon and those are the times when I sit down and wish for a few hours grace from everything around which is where my family and friends come in because they help me pretty much regardless of what i'm doing or believe in because they trust me to do what's best for me and I do the same for them and that's the sort of model I'd like to base my society on and I really hope I can but if it turns out that I can't due to factors that are impossible for me to control I'll be a little bit annoyed but not too pissed off because I'm pretty sure I'm a good person and to be honest that's really all that matters to me and I hope you're happy too in what you believe which unfortunately sounds fairly sentimental and emotionally trite but that's really how I feel and I wonder if this is one of those really rare times when one human being bares their soul to another which it probably isn't because I'm really not that intelligent or smart or important or anything like that but I'd like to be for a little while just to know what it's really like and whether I'm right or wrong which is a sort of unquestioning belief in something which is sort of dogmatic and I dislike that sort of thing during life but I'd like to be able to be absolutely sure after death which is probably why I believe in god even though I'm rationally agnostic or whatever that intelligent sounding combination of words is and that'd confirm for me whether or not I was a good person which I'm probably a little bit worried about and I hope you understood a little about me if you read all his which was probably of waste of your time if you're looking for witty insights and you now probably think this was some sort of cry for internet acknowledgement and maybe it was but I enjoyed writing it so I did and now it's done and I'm slightly better off for it which is pretty ****ing really.

He must really love his keyboard

[acropolis]

Originally Posted by queball

I don't understand what the argument for the death penalty is. What are we hoping to achieve?

It's cheaper and it is justice.

It is also a deterrent.

[MrL_JaKiri]

Originally Posted by acropolis

It is also a deterrent.

Is it? I'm pretty sure that America has a higher violent crime rate than the UK, or the EU.

[edit]

And it's been said in this thread that it's more expensive than imprisonment.

And it's status as 'justice' is debateable.

[Marilyn Manson]

Originally Posted by acropolis

and it is justice.

I don't understand how killing a criminal is 'fair.'

Sounds more like the full force of retribution masquerading as justice if you ask me.

[acropolis]

Originally Posted by MrL_JaKiri

Is it? I'm pretty sure that America has a higher violent crime rate than the UK, or the EU.

I think the deterrent argument is bullshit.

But a republican would argue that the problem is that the death penalty is so rarely enforced that criminals don't worry about it. Solution: give out the DP in a higher % of cases. Other problems include 'those pathetic liberals watering down sentencing' and lefties preventing police from using racial profiling.

But you have to note that that's all a dodge, none of it explains why Europe would have lower crime rates than us.

A better explanation would be immigration into the US. Poor folk break a lot of laws, and immigrants are poor. I would hazard that areas in the UK that have lots of immigrants have relatively high rates as well.

Originally Posted by Marilyn Manson

I don't understand how killing a criminal is 'fair.'

Sounds more like the full force of retribution masquerading as justice if you ask me.

a murderer getting murdered sounds fairish to me. and 'the full force of retribution, fitted to the crime' sounds like a decent definition of justice.

[MrL_JaKiri]

Originally Posted by acropolis

A better explanation would be immigration into the US. Poor folk break a lot of laws, and immigrants are poor. I would hazard that areas in the UK that have lots of immigrants have relatively high rates as well.

mmm stereotypical.

[acropolis]

Originally Posted by MrL_JaKiri

mmm stereotypical.

'women have tits' is a stereotype too.

explanations of crime rates will generally answer two questions,
1. who's committing crimes?
and
2. why are they doing so?

both of which require stereotypes for an answer.

[Dante Hicks]

Originally Posted by MrL_JaKiri

Is it? I'm pretty sure that America has a higher violent crime rate than the UK, or the EU.

There's numerous reasons why this is so though, so it's difficult to isolate the death penalty as one factor and say it causes/prevents crimes.

It's also more expensive in the United States because of the way it's administered, and the way maximum security prisons are administered. If prisons were a bit less hellish, it might indeed become more expensive. Also that estimation is based on guesses on how long convicts will live, if they commit any more crimes, etc.

queball : Also the death penalty is in some ways similar to imprisonment - that's why people compare the two. Imprisoning people means taking away fundamental rights from individuals. Saying "Oh, but they can read books" does not negate this. As I said earlier, if I kidnapped a young girl, kept her in my basement, let her read books but ocassionally raped her - I'm sure we'd all agree this was a horrific way to behave. As Proudhon said : Slavery is murder.

[acropolis]

Originally Posted by Dante Hicks

As I said earlier, if I kidnapped a young girl, kept her in my basement, let her read books but ocassionally raped her - I'm sure we'd all agree this was a horrific way to behave. As Proudhon said : Slavery is murder.

i don't see kidnapping and slavery as even similar.

[Dante Hicks]

Originally Posted by acropolis

i don't see kidnapping and slavery as even similar.

I meant slavery in this case as in 'negation of personal freedom'.

[Vermillion]

Originally Posted by Marilyn Manson

I would imagine that people would differentiate between being murdered for a political reason and for a method of punishment/retribution/whatever,

I am not sure Alfred Rosenburg would agree. It is near-impossible to separate politics from capitol punishment as long as the death penalty exists for non-first degree murder crimes.

[Vermillion]

Firstly, nobody, not even ardent pro-CP supporters argues that the death penalty is a deterrent anymore. It is not the death penalty has been instututed, abolished and re-instituted in so many places (and in so many states) that it is fairly easy to exmin and compare crime statistics, and there is no difference at all. The Death penalty is not a deterrent because criminals do not commit crimes with the intention of getting caught.

Killing people because they have offended society is a barbaric, archaic practice. It is revenge, and as nice as it feels to take revenge on those who have committed vicious crimes, it is still simply acting out.

Scandinavia has a low crime rate for a liberal assortment of reasons, but one interesting facts is that they also have an extremely low recidivism rate. Criminals, even violent ones, are treated like humans and put in institutions with a real chance for rehabilitation and development, and it works. In many countries, the US above all, but not alone, society seems to have accepted that the option is either death or throwing them nto a hell-hole of the worst kind for the rest of their lives. This is willfull blindness, nothing less.

Even without that effective third option, killing its own people as a measure of revenge, even people we may think deserve to be killed, is and should not be the role of the state.

Once we have the killing, all we can argue is the reasoning behind the killing as moral defence. As someone else stated, it becomed hypocritical to point at execution in saudi Arabia, and say as if we had somekind of moral high ground: "ah, but WE only kill REALLY bad people. They kill moderatly bad people, therefore their system is evil and ours is just." You have accepted that the state using death as an instrument of justice is fine, so what credibility do you really have to dispute the application of that justice?

[acropolis]

Originally Posted by Vermillion

Firstly, nobody, not even ardent pro-CP supporters argues that the death penalty is a deterrent anymore.

you knew that this wasn't true.

You might contend that 'logical' or 'reasonable' people have all concluded that there is no deterrant effect, but to claim that no one is arguing otherwise is just wrong.

The idea is to always make it seem like their are arguments on both sides, and nothing is conclusive (like the greenhouse effect).

[Vermillion]

Originally Posted by acropolis

you knew that this wasn't true.

You might contend that 'logical' or 'reasonable' people have all concluded that there is no deterrant effect, but to claim that no one is arguing otherwise is just wrong.

You are quite right, I overstated. There is always a lunatic fringe willing to argue anything even if it is in direct opposition to all facts and evidence. yes, there are people who still maintain the death penalty is an efective deterrent. They are, however, quite wrong, and that fact has been widely (though not universally) accepted even by the pro-death penalty camp.

[acropolis]

Originally Posted by Vermillion

You are quite right, I overstated. There is always a lunatic fringe willing to argue anything even if it is in direct opposition to all facts and evidence.

that was pataki's analysis. republicans: 'making the lunatic fringe the moderate position since 1964'

[Bunga]

Originally Posted by Vermillion

Scandinavia has a low crime rate for a liberal assortment of reasons, but one interesting facts is that they also have an extremely low recidivism rate. Criminals, even violent ones, are treated like humans and put in institutions with a real chance for rehabilitation and development, and it works.

I know people who would argue very much with this. But compared to many (most?) other countries, it holds up.

[Gayle29uk]

Originally Posted by Vermillion

You are quite right, I overstated. There is always a lunatic fringe willing to argue anything even if it is in direct opposition to all facts and evidence. yes, there are people who still maintain the death penalty is an efective deterrent. They are, however, quite wrong, and that fact has been widely (though not universally) accepted even by the pro-death penalty camp.

I love it when he joins in the argument

[W]

Originally Posted by Vermillion

...they also have an extremely low recidivism rate. Criminals, even violent ones, are treated like humans and put in institutions with a real chance for rehabilitation and development, and it works.

I do not think this is a valid argument. To see why so many people who commit crimes come out from jail "rehabilitated" you have to look at why they commited the crime in the first place, and in what way jail removed their reason for crime. In a very big majority of cases here, time is all that is needed, whether because of the persons growth, or the external reasons simply going away (drug habit for instance) or being a once off (killing your abusive husband). The jail is simply a place to keep a person while that happens, and the jail itself doesn't "rehabilitate" anyone.

Also, it cannot be argued that the death penalty is never a deterrent. The question is weighing the convicts life up against the few crimes his death might prevent.

The reason the death penalty is so expensive is mainly because of the added justice that these defendants get. While I can understand why you want to be absolutely positive about guilt before you kill someone, I do not understand why the same does not apply to robbing someone of their freedom of movement.

[Dante Hicks]

Originally Posted by Vermillion

it becomed hypocritical to point at execution in saudi Arabia, and say as if we had somekind of moral high ground: "ah, but WE only kill REALLY bad people. They kill moderatly bad people, therefore their system is evil and ours is just." You have accepted that the state using death as an instrument of justice is fine, so what credibility do you really have to dispute the application of that justice?

I think the issue is that it is in question
(a) whether the Saudi Arabia has a suitably impartial judiciary
and
(b) whether Saudi laws are just in the first place.

When we hear of a woman being stoned in Nigeria for adultery, I do not think "What a mad country that would kill someone in some context", I would think the country is mad for killing someone for such a stupid reason (and obviously the means used). Trying to equate all killings as somehow equally bad seems rather silly.

Quite evidently there is a big difference between killing a murderer and killing a shoplifter.Saying that it's the same is merely fetishising the state.

And I don't think anyone here has argued particularly strongly for the deterrent value of the death penalty.

[Dante Hicks]

Originally Posted by Toccata & Fugue

I can only asusme you are being deliberatley idiotic. We do have a context, capital punishment is a considered process, the state has no notivations, it is the state. As I said if a fatehr is avenging his child or whatever that is the action of a single individual and can be jusdged on thso emerits, however the state atcs deliberatly and dipassionatly and thus it's actions are as cold and calculating as any murder. That is why state killing is wrong and a tragedy, every time.

I think this is why people states are allowed to become all-powerful in the first place. The state is not magic, it does not obey different laws to everyone else. It's basically a bunch of guys, institutions, etc - operating together. If you think the state (or rather, the individuals acting in a case) has 'no motivations' then you start wandering down the road of "Of course you can trust the state".

You can of course argue that the sheer size and nature of such processes allows people to make decisions which individuals would really not (i.e. dispassionately). But there's still the issue of context which Nod has already brought up.

To take a slightly outlandish example : I decide to go to the phone book, pick 50 names at random, and kill the people I select.

In another case, I take 50 people all of whom are evil murderer's (who somehow have escaped punishment) and then kill them. In neither case am I acting under emotional distress yet I think most people would agree one act is different from the other.

Not that I think passion or emotion has anything to do with it. Are we saying hate-crimes aren't really that bad because there's emotion behind them?

For the record I do not support the death peantly simply because the risk of making a mistake is too great (and there's little need for it). However, I would support it being available for those who freely admit to their crimes and opt for it (i.e. voluntary death sentence) - if we've somehow eliminated the possibility of police duress. Having said this, there are really dumb arguments against the death penalty which people are trotting out in this thread.

(sorry for sub-bumping this post, missed it first time round)

[1-X]

People also overlook the fact (which I know I've read recently but can't find online to back this up!) that one of the little mentioned reasons for the abolition of the death penalty in the UK was that people on juries who felt strongly against capital punishment were refusing to convict people knowing they'd be partly responsible for their death.

[Vermillion]

Originally Posted by Dante Hicks

I think the issue is that it is in question
(a) whether the Saudi Arabia has a suitably impartial judiciary
and
(b) whether Saudi laws are just in the first place.

When we hear of a woman being stoned in Nigeria for adultery, I do not think "What a mad country that would kill someone in some context", I would think the country is mad for killing someone for such a stupid reason (and obviously the means used). Trying to equate all killings as somehow equally bad seems rather silly.

Really? I understand it is not an easy parabole to accept, but the fact is if you oppose thieves and drug peddlersadulterers being beheaded in Saudi Arabia, you are not opposing the fact that a criminal was executed, you are opposing the proceedure in place to justify their execution.

In other words, you can disagree with their legal system, but you are (assuming you support the death penalty) a hypocrite if you oppose them using the death penalty as the ultimate expression of their legal system.

So if you are for the death penalty, and a girl accused of adultery is to be executed in Nigeria, you can feel free to (quite justifiably) rail out and vent about how absurd it is that being accused of adultery is a crime in that state. However, you will have difficulty if you speak out simply against them killing her, after all execution is simply a process of their legal system, same as it is in the US. (or a minority thereof) Does this seem like splitting hairs to you? maybe it is, but this is the same hair tht has been being split for ages by Death penalty states when they say that killing is wrong, so wrong in fact that it must result in more killing, but this time in a chair as opposed to with a knife.

Trying to equate all killings as somehow equally bad seems rather silly.

Trying to pretend that some state-sponsored killings are evil and reprehensible, while other state- sponsored killings are perfectly acceptable is exceptionally silly.

[Vermillion]

Originally Posted by W

I do not think this is a valid argument. To see why so many people who commit crimes come out from jail "rehabilitated" you have to look at why they commited the crime in the first place, and in what way jail removed their reason for crime. In a very big majority of cases here, time is all that is needed, whether because of the persons growth, or the external reasons simply going away (drug habit for instance) or being a once off (killing your abusive husband).

Firstly, drug addiction rates in the US penal institutions are higher than in the general non-incarcerated population.

Secondly, if your argument is true, then why do some states, like the US have so much higher a recidivism rate? In Scandinavia, finland in particular, there is a genuine attempt to rehabilitate criminals. Of course it does not always work, but it certainly works, percentage wise, far better then throwing them into a maximum security shit-hole for a while, and hoping that they come out of it somehow better people.

While I can understand why you want to be absolutely positive about guilt before you kill someone, I do not understand why the same does not apply to robbing someone of their freedom of movement.

Because freedom of movement can be returned. Life is somewhat more tricky.