are you in for or against the death penalty

[russtafa]

no matter if crime is so evil are you against the death penalty no matter what? are you for the death penalty with reservations ?

[hippifried]

Some people just need killing.
I have reservations anout its gratuitous use. That can get out of hand in a hurry, & the state really needs to be sure about who they're killing & why. But my biggest reservation is the method of execution. I'm a proponant of death by dissection. I see no reason to destroy the transplantable body parts by poisoning or cooking in place with electricity. Hanging or beheading would work better, but it would still be a big hurry-up at the harvest. Not personally giving a shit about anybody else's "eeewwww" factor, I say just strap 'em down on a table & start cutting. Non-vitals first, including stuff like corneas, skin, etc... When you get to the heart, lungs, liver, & whatnot, then get in a hurry.

[trish]

Good point; I think I can be persuaded to endorse death by dissection. Utility and "just desserts" are supporting reasons that come to mind.

My main issue with the death penalty is with what counts in law as standards of sufficient proof. Chief Wiggam said, "I'd rather a dozen guilty men go free than get up and chase them." Well that doesn't exactly express my concern, but you get the idea. Way too many people who have been locked up for years are now being released based on modern DNA forensics. Judges and juries, even those with the best intentions, all too often have not seen reasonable doubt in cases where doubt should have existed. By and large the general populace is poorly educated in the standards of proof. Just look at what passes for proof in the arguments of some who post on these boards. Do you want dozen russtafas making life and death decisions? I don't.

Whereas I have nothing per se against the death penalty and I agree with Hippiefried that there are some people who need killing, I also think it's extremely difficult to decide who needs killing.

Here's a side issue for crimes less serious than treason or murder. In the fairly recent past, a century or two in U.S. military history, flogging was an acceptable penalty for breaching orders. It seems to me far preferable to a long duration in the clink. What exactly is the source of our modern abhorrence with this and similar practices? Anyone? If freedom is the thing we value the most, why are we so quick to take it away for the most minor infractions (like three strikes on marijuana possession)?

[Stavros]

If freedom is the thing we value the most, why are we so quick to take it away for the most minor infractions

Does that mean you value freedom over life? You condemn the murder of one person by another person, but support murder if it is being done by your state. If killing people is wrong, it is always wrong, because killing is irreversible and not comparable to robbery, deception or other crimes.

And if it was a simple matter, you would not hesitate to send all convicted murderers to their death. However, when you have a case where a woman, say, murders her husband after years of abuse you decide to grade murder in the way you grade football or basketball teams, and say -well for this murder we give life imprisonment rather than death, even though the act ended another life. Some people argue peadophiles who murder their victims should go; others that murdering a police officer should mean death, and so on -why, as soon as they can, do people start amending the punishment? To suit their moral anxiety?

Judicial reasoning used to argue that capital punishment was a deterrent; that it was a just punishment to fit the crime. Unfortunately, when families of the victims are allowed to speak, in some cases they do not want justice, but revenge.

When six men were arrested in Birmingham in 1975 following the bombing of two pubs in which 21 people died and 162 were injured, it was, in effect, revenge on the city's Irish community -the men, all of whom were Irish and found guilty and sentenced to life, were innocent -would all six have been executed in the mood of the UK at that time? Probably, even though the police force knew they were innocent. That is not justice, that is revenge.

The UK is officially a Christian state, and it is a fundamendal tenet of the faith that Jesus died on the Cross to expiate the sins of humankind -with the message: let this death be the last violent act of one man against another; and this, in part, has been fundamental to the belief that capital punishment is inhumane as a form of punishment. The judgement of a murder, after all, is not about the victim or the perpetrator, but you, as a person, as that part of society being called upon to choose between life and death. Faced with the reality of death, choose life.

[russtafa]

maybe exile to an island is the answer then there is no blood on the hands

[trish]

If killing people is wrong, it is always wrong.

True enough, if in the premise the phrase "killing people is wrong" is interpreted as meaning "killing people is always wrong." But that interpretation just reduces the claim to a tautology. I can't disagree with a tautology. But, "if killing some people sometimes is right, then it's not always wrong to kill people," is also a tautology and it would be silly not to agree with it. Consequently we depart at the premise. Of course the theological argument doesn't really work because there are no gods. The twist that judgements of others are self judgments and therefore we all need to choose life over death needs to be fleshed out more before I buy into it. It's pretty unclear. But our disagreement is theoretical. In practice I don't believe human standards of proof are up to what would be required of the death penalty; the finality of the "proof" doesn't equate with the finality of the penalty. Perhaps only in pure, non-applied mathematics (and certainly therefore not in jurisprudence) is proof of such finality possible.

[zocco]

the death penalty should never be used anywhere
it is just state sanctioned murder
to many have been executed or on death row only to be found to be innocent

[russtafa]

IN Australia it cost a lot of money to keep some one in prison and these prisons keep filling up,so there have to be more prisons built

[trish]

What's the point of building prisons in a penal colony?




Just joking

[zocco]

well for one i am prepared to keep paying
maybe we need to be looking at why so many are needing to be locked up not just long term but short term as well