Left wing pinkoes control america

[SlowwHand]

Drawn and quartered, keel hauling, stuff like that is pretty cruel and unusual.

[Imran Siddiqui]

What about getting jailed for the common cold?

[Agathon]

There also existed punishments that were generally considered cruel and unusual, such as hanging, drawing, and quartering; burning at the stake; and impalement.

And this, I think, is exactly the sort of thing that the writers had in mind. For example, the guillotine was commonly held to be a mark of progress for the simple reason that hacking someone's head off with an axe often led to appalling outcomes, where people had to swing multiple times to effect decapitation. Similarly, burning someone alive is completely unnecessary. Your constitution is unmistakeably a product of the Enlightenment, and this was a common attitude among Enlightenment intellectuals.

Hanging (in the modern practice) and the guillotine are not of themselves cruel punishments, since they don't inflict unnecessary pain. Hanging in the old style was, since the felon was left to strangle instead of having his neck broken, a process that could take some time. I had not heard of people being burned by the state in the US. The US Constitution was just one part of an international movement to ban these sorts of punishment.

edit: some black guy was burned in 1825, so that point is moot.

A wantonly sadistic punishment is one that is designed to appeal to the prurient interests of society, and the innate desire of many human beings to revel in the misery caused to their fellow beings. People used to attend hangings and burnings as a form of public entertainment. The death penalty as conducted these days is not really like this, since executions are not conducted in public, and do not involve the long drawn out spectacle of pain that was the norm in 18th century Europe.

On the other hand, a good case could be made that the death penalty as currently practiced is largely based on the sadistic impulses of some members of the population.

[Imran Siddiqui]

A wantonly sadistic punishment is one that is designed to appeal to the prurient interests of society, and the innate desire of many human beings to revel in the misery caused to their fellow beings. People used to attend hangings and burnings as a form of public entertainment.

They actually did after the passage of the Constitution as well. Private executions weren't done until the early 1800s (Rhode Island in 1833 was the first) as some states and localities believed the public version was cruel and unusual... but that wasn't something shared by most people in the first years after ratification.

So perhaps what was determined to be wantonly sadistic changed meaning from the 1790s to the 1830s.

[SlowwHand]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
What about getting jailed for the common cold?

Coming to work when one is sick should be. Typhoid Marys running around, spreading their blessings.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui

A wantonly sadistic punishment is one that is designed to appeal to the prurient interests of society, and the innate desire of many human beings to revel in the misery caused to their fellow beings. People used to attend hangings and burnings as a form of public entertainment.

They actually did after the passage of the Constitution as well. Private executions weren't done until the early 1800s (Rhode Island in 1833 was the first) as some states and localities believed the public version was cruel and unusual... but that wasn't something shared by most people in the first years after ratification.

So perhaps what was determined to be wantonly sadistic changed meaning from the 1790s to the 1830s.

Well, I guess it is a more or less useless part of the Constitution. Who doesn't think that the punishment should fit the crime? Other than preventing tarring and feathering and things like that, it seems to serve no purpose.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Agathon
Well, I guess it is a more or less useless part of the Constitution. Who doesn't think that the punishment should fit the crime? Other than preventing tarring and feathering and things like that, it seems to serve no purpose.

I believe the problem is deciding what punishment fits the crime. Sometimes it does seem that legislatures do seem not to care about punishments fitting the crime (seriously, do people really think that the death penalty for rape [forget of a child for the moment] fits the crime?)

[SlowwHand]

I see nothing wrong with 20 to life.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui

I believe the problem is deciding what punishment fits the crime. Sometimes it does seem that legislatures do seem not to care about punishments fitting the crime (seriously, do people really think that the death penalty for rape [forget of a child for the moment] fits the crime?)

Unless you have some metric for deciding this, it will be arbitrary. Consequentialism at least has a metric (preventing further crime). Retributivism doesn't seem to have one that will work. An "eye for an eye" is superficially plausible, but breaks down under further examination.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Agathon
Unless you have some metric for deciding this, it will be arbitrary. Consequentialism at least has a metric (preventing further crime). Retributivism doesn't seem to have one that will work. An "eye for an eye" is superficially plausible, but breaks down under further examination.

Well of course its arbitrary.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui

Well of course its arbitrary.

That's a puzzling comment. Do you accept that punishment is irrational, or do you have some metric in mind?

[Imran Siddiqui]

When dealing with shifting morality, you are going to get arbitrary notions of what is "beyond the pale". Personally, I'd rather trust the deciding of that arbitrary line to those people who have studied the law and feel duty bound to keep within the line that precedent has placed them in, rather than a bunch of politicians playing to the mob.

Punishment isn't necessary irrational... though it can be. Deciding what "shocks the conscience", however, isn't really based on what is rational. After all, if it was shown that going all Vlad the Impaler would lower crime rates because it was an insanely effective deterrent, would we even consider it as punishment?

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
When dealing with shifting morality, you are going to get arbitrary notions of what is "beyond the pale". Personally, I'd rather trust the deciding of that arbitrary line to those people who have studied the law and feel duty bound to keep within the line that precedent has placed them in, rather than a bunch of politicians playing to the mob.

That's like entrusting government to theologians whose only reference is the Bible.

Punishment isn't necessary irrational... though it can be. Deciding what "shocks the conscience", however, isn't really based on what is rational. After all, if it was shown that going all Vlad the Impaler would lower crime rates because it was an insanely effective deterrent, would we even consider it as punishment?

Of course punishment doesn't exist in a vacuum. We could prevent almost all crime by having a totalitarian state, but nobody wants that. The consequences of punishment go further than crime.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Agathon
That's like entrusting government to theologians whose only reference is the Bible.

I have a bit more faith in legal minds. Though, of course, as Nietzsche says, "A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything."

I think it ultimately ends up in whose hands you want to entrust things to. Some want to go to the theologians, some want the lawyers, some want the mob.

And, of course, it is not all that silly to claim that in American legal tradition the Constitution is our Bible (as silly as that may sound to foreigners).

Of course punishment doesn't exist in a vacuum. We could prevent almost all crime by having a totalitarian state, but nobody wants that. The consequences of punishment go further than crime.

That is very true, but it is difficult to adequately measure the other consequences of punishment. In the end, arbitrariness has to come into play.

[SlowwHand]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui


: Though, of course, as Nietzsche says, "A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything."

That doesn't mean anything, either. Just meaningless rambling.