Are people who believe in the Death Penalty by definition Evil?

[Agathon]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
Wouldn't happen if some people didn't just choose to make themselves some ripe candidates.

And you commies have put plenty of people against the wall as "enemies of the revolution" not to mention the less direct, but no less lethal, process of working them to death in the Gulags, etc.

Of course I am an unreconstructed Stalinist...

If the death penalty in modern states wasn't so obviously a political show, it would be different.

But I just don't care enough, the facts regarding its inadequacy speak for themselves.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat


I thought you liked them medium-rare.

[Sandman]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
Wouldn't happen if some people didn't just choose to make themselves some ripe candidates.

Some of those ripe candidates being completely innocent, of course.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

Originally posted by Sava

if you disagree with the DP, that's fine... I can respect that... you think killing people is bad... that's a good thing...

however, when it comes to killing BAD PEOPLE, this is a basic survival trait... there is a reason humans have a basic desire for justice. It's so that bad people don't continue to victimize society... prey on the weak... and there is nothing wrong with that desire for justice... to see the guilty punished. The people that support the DP aren't evil... they are functioning properly.

Honestly though... I don't understand the mentality of anti-DP people. What possible reason would there to be for keeping murderers locked up for their natural lives?

what I bolded, I agree with you, however

the last part - what possible reasons would there be? - the reason is that state justice is not really always justice, thus innocents will always be killed along with the guilty ----> therefore no DP. State has no right to kill innocent people, even if this is just "collateral damage" while killing the "evil" people.

Additionally there is a workable alternative to that which is called life in prison. I think I would only allow DP if the convicted person wants it as an option, but I guess if you leave this door open it will be abused by the authorities so no DP from my POV.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by MrFun


You found what -- three or four lefties who posted callous disregard for Cheney on the first page of the Cheney thread, and then you blow it up by changing the few posts to "a larger number of them."

From the breadth and depth of the leftie whining on that thread he must have hit a nerve.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Sava
hypocrisy

Also applies to those who are anti-abortion but pro-DP.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Sava
As for the death penalty... the only argument I will accept from people is that they oppose it on moral grounds... that is the only argument against it that is legitimate.

But on what grounds can you support the capital punishment? I can see none.

[Patroklos]

Not all here but some, arguing against the DP seem to have to positions that don't correspond well.

1.) life in prison is a greater punishment than death.

2.) life in prison gives opprtunity for innocently convicted person to appeal/at least they are not killed.

So if someone sits on Death Row for a decade and goes through all the appeals he is going to get, the positions don't match, in your mind keeping such a person alive is worse than killing them.

[Dinner]

The death penalty is all about making the punishment fit the crime.

[Patroklos]

Also applies to those who are anti-abortion but pro-DP.

Not at all, there is a difference between Pro-Life and Pro-DP and Anti-Abortion.

Pro-Life means you are against killing period. War. Abortion. DP. Anything. This is so abused by the Pro-Abortion crowd that the other side uses it. Both are retarded for it.

Anti-Abortion just means what it says. There is no hypocricy there unless you equate killing inocent children with killing guilty adults (guilty through their free will actions).

Sociology 101, you are smarter than that

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Sandman


Some of those ripe candidates being completely innocent, of course.

Innocent ones are obviously not "ripe candidates" - to me, it doesn't much matter whether an innocent party is sentenced to death, or spends 5 or 10 or 20 years in prison before being vindicated. There is absolutely no excuse for inadequate judicial protections and procedures, regardless of the result or penalty.

There are a lot of death row inmates (the majority, in fact) for which there is absolutely no reasonable question of guilt - overwhelming forensic evidence including DNA, adequate trial procedures, adequate defense counsel, and often eyewitness testimony as well (which is by far the least reliable on its own, but adds a solid level of corroboration to forensics)

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Oerdin
The death penalty is all about making the punishment fit the crime.

Except that this is a wholly irrational notion.

The only reasonable standard for a punishment to fit a crime is that it is what is required to prevent the criminal from doing it again and sufficient to deter others from doing the same.

Retributivism is a wholly discredited notion - it has no rational justification. Sure people feel like killing murderers, but the way people simply feel is not a sufficient basis for public policy.

[Dis]

Originally posted by Arrian
Don't feed the MOBIUS.

-Arrian

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Agathon
Retributivism is a wholly discredited notion - it has no rational justification. Sure people feel like killing murderers, but the way people simply feel is not a sufficient basis for public policy.

Handwringingwimpitivism is a wholly discredited notion - it has no rational justification. Sure people feel like coddling and subsidizing the life of the most heinous murderers, but the way people simply feel is not a sufficient basis for public policy.

[child of Thor]

The thing i dont like about Capital punishment is that its pretty cold hearted.

I'd like to see the victims(surviving ones obviously, family off etc) get a chance to enact their revenge themselves.

They have a cool system in papua new guinea for this, but the name escapes me at the momment.

basically the way they have worked it out without our kind of sophiscated(and overcomplex?) legal systems, is to have this basic law that they generally all understand.

If you do something bad to someone else, you have opened up your whole tribe to a simular retribution action. Bad ranges from things like killing another tribes pigs to killing/rapeing of people.

The important thing about this system is that they have a notion of 'shaming' in png culture. To bring shame on yourself and your tribe can have pretty severe consequences(which at the far end can lead to your banishment from the tribe).

So with that in place - pretty much everyone knows that the bad actions they may take against another will have repucusions for not just themselves, thereby bringing the whole 'shaming' thing into the equation - as they could be responible for another innocent persons death in the retribution that will take place if they commit a bad crime.

For how we in our sophisticated modern worlds, might tend to look at a recently stoneage culture like the papuans, and see them as 'savage'; i think (and saw it working), that their system is better somehow.

It also allows the agrieved family a chance to exact revenge,which is an important way in which i feel our system can let us down if bad stuff happens to us.

From my point of view if say a peadophile raped a child of mine, i would go outside the law and make that guy pay as he should.