Aerothorn on 10/11/2009 at 21:33
See, NOW we can have another death penalty argument.
But I'm not going to bother trotting out all the supporting facts because that assumes a rational debate, and it seems pretty apparent that gunsmoke/dethtoll are supporting the decisions out of vengeance/hate.
Thief13x on 10/11/2009 at 21:33
Quote Posted by SD
This murder by the state is 100 times more digusting than the original murders.
The way I look at it is if you're going to go out and commit 10 random murders, you have to be dumb as hell/have a death wish to choose a state with capital punishment to do it in.
I might not agree entirely with capital punishment, but this punk deserves little sympathy.
june gloom on 10/11/2009 at 21:56
Quote Posted by Aerothorn
it seems pretty apparent that gunsmoke/dethtoll are supporting the decisions out of vengeance/hate.
Do you have any evidence to back that statement up? Or are you just dismissing a debate out of hand in a fascinating show of oblivious irony?
For what it's worth, I only marginally support the death penalty. I think we execute far too many people, but on the other hand there are some folks who just... need to go. Exactly what qualifies for that is up for debate.
I remember a local law official saying in a story about prison reform that 70% of people in prison should not be there, 25% are hardcases but can be helped with a little work, and 5% need to be either buried in a deep hole or just buried.
demagogue on 10/11/2009 at 22:34
I don't have any sympathy with this case, but I do disagree with the death penalty on a few grounds (if we actually want an argument here):
- The rate of wrongful executions is abhorrent (as well as the undeniable race bias in that), and should be reason alone to stop it. If you can't do it properly in every case, you shouldn't be able to do it.
- It does very little to deter crime (the behavioral economics studies say it's the likelihood of getting caught that most enters into the criminal decision making, not the severity of penalty and a long term has as much deterrence-effect as death. And there are many cases where it encourages worse crimes to avoid getting caught, e.g., killing witnesses.)
- Mostly I don't like it on philosophical libertarian grounds, though. The state has no power over persons that they don't or can't consentually or rationally give to the state. A person can never rationally give the authority over their own life and death to the state, so it never has that authority. And the idea that the state would make a power-grab for it, or worse a populist power-grab for it, is bad on basic liberalism (libertarian) grounds.
- And the strongest argument in favor IMO, the "just desert" argument -- we aren't going to treat this criminal like an animal you can train to behave better but a free human being that should take full responsibility for their actions and commensurate with them -- I sympathize with the idea, but not with the application. A life-time incarceration is depriving them of any recognizable life however you interpret it, and to say we aren't really holding them "responsible" if we don't let the state kill them is missing the point of what "holding responsible" means, IMO. It's about them submitting to a punishment that forces sober recognition of their responsibility, not about us seeing a punishment that makes us feel better.
ZylonBane on 10/11/2009 at 23:16
Quote Posted by SD
You have to fail pretty hard at life to be 40 years old and still need to peddle playground insults
Awww, cute.
june gloom on 11/11/2009 at 00:06
Quote Posted by demagogue
- The rate of wrongful executions is abhorrent (as well as the undeniable race bias in that), and should be reason alone to stop it. If you can't do it properly in
every case, you shouldn't be able to do it.
I second this.
I actually agree with pretty much most of what you said. But like I said before, some people just aren't going to change. In the case of someone like your garden-variety serial rapist, locking them in prison is enough. People like the DC Sniper though?
I dunno. I've been thinking about my views on capital punishment for a while now and I've ultimately come to the conclusion that we can talk about civility/deterrence/etc. until we're blue in the face and feel good about ourselves just like others feel good when some mass murderer gets the needle, but in the end there's always going to be that one person per couple million that just needs to be removed from society entirely, and that includes being fed by taxpayer dollars. Which brings us to the fact that the real debate is twofold: if we don't execute them, then what do we do with these people? They're a danger to
everyone and contrary to whatever we like to tell ourselves, cannot change. The other question is, just who qualifies for the needle, anyway? What's the criteria? Especially if we somehow reform the execution system for only the worst cases, who gets exempted and who stays on death row?
Thief13x on 11/11/2009 at 00:15
demagogue said it best
it shouldn't be the state's decision in the first place
CCCToad on 11/11/2009 at 00:18
Quote Posted by dethtoll
Do you have any evidence to back that statement up? Or are you just dismissing a debate out of hand in a fascinating show of oblivious irony?
To be fair, you ARE a pretty hateful person!:angel:
Gingerbread Man on 11/11/2009 at 01:15
I was just wondering that myself. Although I am also greatly intrigued by the sadness of a leapord.
Far as the death penalty goes, I share a lot of dethtoll's and demagogue's sentiments. But also a bit of SD (mixed with some ZB) and a big dollop of OnionBob.
Basically, I think the death penalty is a good idea as an ultimate punishment. I think the current application and execution (pardon the expression (excuse the pun)) is largely inadequate, but this is mostly due to systemic errors in the legal system from the cops to the legislators and the process of law in general and is therefore impossible to perfect without addressing larger and more pervasive issues. I don't, however, have a better idea. Not a realistic one, anyway.
It's fun to get riled up and cranky on the internet or in general parlance, but when I do ponder both the real and the theoretical problems of the whole thing -- particularly when I try to examine my own opinion of it -- I get a little bummed out by how vast the puzzle is.
I know it's also fun to get all riled up and haughty on the internet or in general parlance, but abolishing the death penalty is not, in my researched and reasoned and thoughtfully arranged opinion, a great plan. So deaf ears on that one usually.
This has brought me no closer to figuring out how tall is creature, nor shed light / tears / cat hair on the sadness of a leapord. Bad luck. :(
