More death penalty debate fun. yay.
Offline Moved from here: http://www.rationalresponders.com/forum/29826
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Offline ..reads very much like an appeal to multiple authorities, and an appeal to a larger crowd. You're saying that "never shown to be correct" is somehow a demonstration of how this is no longer a practiced tradition? The logical connection seems to be missing. As for the locations in question, how can you be sure he wasn't referring to just the US, with "Spoken as if we just started killing murderers in this century.", since "it is no longer the case" in many of the other "civilized" places in question? Maybe Rob was referring to some isolated example besides the US where capital punishment is still allowed, like Japan, we Rob101 said "we".
Or perhaps you forgot to add some additional supporting arguments.
If by "we" he meant Americans then he should have said that because we are not all Americans. I'm saying "deemed wrong by the majority" means no longer a tradition of the majority and undermines an appeal to tradition which is a fallacy anyway and it is not an appeal to authority or majority opinion by me to point out that it even fails as such.
Now explain if I'm appealing to popular opinion to support my case then why do I say that they have deemed it wrong for a different reason than I have put forth myself?
You're going to have be a little more specific than "parts of your response" if you want to make sense yourself.
All you have is a list of accusations sans explanation so I won't bother showing that it's all wrong because it's unnecessary.
You claim it's a fallacy of irrelevant conclusion to say that victims oppose at least their own killing I assume because even if true it has no bearing on whether the death penalty is wrong.
The problem is that you take things out of context. This is in response to his suggestion he has sympathy for the victims that I lack and as such directly addresses the issue of whose feelings he understands and was not even an argument for the death penalty being wrong in the first place.
There are twists of time and space, of vision and reality, which only a dreamer can divine
H.P. Lovecraft
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Offline The death penalty would be clearly inappropriate for one of current "worst possible crimes", namely suicide bombing... executing a failed suicide bomber seems a bit pointless as a deterrent.
It can also mean that once someone has actually committed a murder, and realizes it would be hard to avoid conviction, any restraint against them committing further crimes of any sort has largely evaporated.
Theodore Bundy made multiple attempts at escape, before and after conviction (two sawblades were found in his cell, and a complete incision on the top and and a partial one bottom on a length of one of his prison bars. At his 78 trial, he represented himself and repeatedly asked witnesses to recount details of his crimes, so that he might continue to relish it behind bars. After his first conviction, Bundy blamed everything from pornography, to abusive (grand)father, to his real mother (posing as his sister) concealing his true parentage, the lack of presence of his biological father, violence on TV, and society in general. He also exhausted his appeals. With regards to Bundy's mind, it could be successfully argued that the possibility of him dying with an IV in his arm did not occur to him until after his conviction -to which his reaction was explosive, for lack of a better term.
As for...
any restraint against them committing further crimes of any sort has largely evaporated.
Did they have such a restraint present within them to begin with? If so, how many of them lose said restraint when conviction becomes apparent? How many of capital criminals are aware of their eligibility for the death penalty, and from there, how many change their personal level of restraint in response to the likelihood of death penalty?
If these questions can be answered at all (the first and third can be either deduced or discovered), it won't be through speculation alone.
It also makes prosecution and trial much more expensive in countries with some semblance of a 'proper' judicial system, because of the need to establish guilt to a much higher standard of certainty.
And for some people, life-long loss of liberty would be a more severe punishment anyway.
No need for a "would be"... I can think of at least one convicted Florida hitman who has repeatedly asked for his guards to uncuff him and to shoot him down while he pretends to escape, a la "suicide by cop". :Suicide by cop" is prevalent enough that many fugitives will at least attempt it before going to prison.
“A meritocratic society is one in which inequalities of wealth and social position solely reflect the unequal distribution of merit or skills amongst human beings, or are based upon factors beyond human control, for example luck or chance. Such a society is socially just because individuals are judged not by their gender, the colour of their skin or their religion, but according to their talents and willingness to work, or on what Martin Luther King called 'the content of their character'. By extension, social equality is unjust because it treats unequal individuals equally.” "Political Ideologies" by Andrew Heywood (2003)
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Offline I'd be willing to reply in a much less annoying way to someone who wasn't lobbing such obvious and intentional exaggeration at me. I'll assume your fallacy laden responses and personal attacks are a result of your grief and not take any of it personally. If you want an alternative to killing how about not killing.
It was not a personal attack unless you decide to take it that way, it was an attack on the way you prefer to point out "fallacies" over the way someone argues rather than the argument. I'm only reciprocating. You attack my style and I retaliate, simple. There is no "grief" in the way you put it, only great annoyance. I get annoyed when people care more about the path rather than the destination.
You still have not come up with a better more rational alternative, you only seem to want to not justify "killing" a killer. I can see that and I'm sure everyone else can see it as well but where does common sense kick in to let you know that it's just the way it is. There is no perfect utopia and letting murderers walk around among us is certainly not the path towards any, just ask the victims.
Your concern for the people who commit crimes is misplaced and not exactly for the wrong reasons but you didn't decide to strangle that 5 year old and rape her dead body, your "heart" is in the right place but your head is not.
Were it up to me personally and I could wave a magic wand I would fix the prison system, what the super liberals have accomplished for criminals and their "rights" I would undo and I believe it would eliminate much of the crime in society today. No more cable tv, no more internet, no more running gangs from a cellphone etc etc etc. Have those fuckers out working on the roads in chain gangs again, see how many want to go to prison. It's common sense and it's a way that they can make some reparations by forced contribution. 
Look at the growth of the prison system, between it becoming cushy and between running it as a business where people can actually profit there is a huge problem. The amount and percent of criminals in the prison "system" over the last 80 years has exploded and more so in the last 20. It's obvious that people are not afraid of it any more let alone the legal system.
I have been accused of arguing from emotion before but it's not me this time.
edit: and we as in america yes I assumed that's what we were talking about. It's the place with the most contention considering as you point out many other places have already put a stop to it. Yep, I assumed. We is still correct on a global scale as well considering someone still does it. We don't have a death penalty would be fine considering some of us do not. I didn't say "all" or everyone blah blah. Pointless point anyway.
Faith is the word but next to that snugged up closely "lie's" the want.
"By simple common sense I don't believe in god, in none."-Charlie Chaplin
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Offline I absolutely love the national guard ad I'm seeing at the top of the page "You are armed with the greatest weapon ..Faith" wow
Faith is the word but next to that snugged up closely "lie's" the want.
"By simple common sense I don't believe in god, in none."-Charlie Chaplin
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Offline I fail to see how murdering an innocent person will save other innocent people.
And if you are trying to say the murdering the guilty people will save people, I'm not real sure about that.
Cars are not a great analogy. After all, I voluntarily ride in and drive cars. Taking my changes with all the other people on the road. I wouldn't voluntarily put myself on death row.
Why do you voluntarily ride in and drive cars, knowing it may kill you, but you do not voluntarily put yourself on death row, knowing it may kill you? I suspect you gain some benefit from using cars that outweighs the risk, and which is of course absent from putting one's self on death row. What if using the death penalty is capable of providing huge benefits through cost-reduction? Isn't it possible for the system to pose some risk of innocent death, and yet make up for it with substantial benefits much as our transportation system does?
robj: Sorry to hear about the rat. I always liked that picture.
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Offline Cars allow us to get to somewhere we want or need to get to, ie they are useful. What is useful about sitting in death row???
I don't see the analogy...
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
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Offline redneF is clearly incapable of arguing with anything other than emotion and fallacy. His whole response was laughable and didn't address a single fact.
Yes Butter, anyone who advocates killing members of their own society is too mentally unstable to allow on the streets.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
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Offline @BobSpence
Cj was saying that she would only be for the death penalty if there was a zero chance of innocent death. I'm asking about a hypothetical scenario in which using the death penalty saves enough resources to allow us to save more innocent lives that are lost. It's not the sitting in jail that gives us the gain to offset the risk, it's the saved resources.
Again, this is just a hypothetical scenario. IF we could save enough resources. Not saying we actually are saving resources.
Questions for Theists:
http://silverskeptic.blogspot.com/2011/03/consistent-standards.html
I'm a bit of a lurker. Every now and then I will come out of my cave with a flurry of activity. Then the Ph.D. program calls and I must fall back to the shadows.
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Offline @BobSpence
Cj was saying that she would only be for the death penalty if there was a zero chance of innocent death. I'm asking about a hypothetical scenario in which using the death penalty saves enough resources to allow us to save more innocent lives that are lost. It's not the sitting in jail that gives us the gain to offset the risk, it's the saved resources.
Again, this is just a hypothetical scenario. IF we could save enough resources. Not saying we actually are saving resources.
That sort of discussion reminds of many uncomfortable scenarios posed to test our moral sense. Such as if sacrificing one healthy individual to donate organs to give a whole bunch of other people a massive total extension of life...
Or those rail-track settings where you are asked would you push the fat guy off the bridge to stop a train hitting a whole bunch of people on the track.
Or throw the switch so the train is diverted so it only kills one guy instead of a whole bunch...
==========
The marginal resources specifically expended in keeping the relatively small number of lifers in a prison mostly devoted to drug-dealers and lower-level violent offenders is likely to be insignificant.
Also, capital punishment by the State endorses the idea of extreme response to offense. Not that I fully agree with it under all conditions, but there is something to be said for the old saying "two wrongs don't make a right". There is at least some psychological evidence that having an official death penalty devalues life overall in that society, which reduces the threshhold at which crimes of passion and desperation lead to killing.
How much correlation each way is involved in the examples of societies without the death penalty having lower levels of murder?
How do assign a value to the damage to society's 'health' by the execution of an innocent by the state? Let alone the 'cost' to the unfortunate individual and his family?
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
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Offline If by "we" he meant Americans then he should have said that because we are not all Americans. I'm saying "deemed wrong by the majority" means no longer a tradition of the majority and undermines an appeal to tradition which is a fallacy anyway and it is not an appeal to authority or majority opinion by me to point out that it even fails as such.
Except that the post I initially responded to says A;
The old way was never shown to be correct and has in fact been deemed wrong by the majority of the civilized world,
and every post thereafter says B, where you claim you were arguing merely that much of the "Civilized World" has abandoned the tradition of capital punishment. Now either your grasp of English is piss poor (I haven't seen any evidence of that) and you aren't aware that deeming something wrong and pointing out that a certain practice was never shown to be correct is NOT the same thing as abandoning said practice, or you simply weren't arguing tradition to begin with in that sentence. Semantics it is, but still relevant.
Now explain if I'm appealing to popular opinion to support my case then why do I say that they have deemed it wrong for a different reason than I have put forth myself?
Sorry, I don't read minds, only words. Maybe you should ask John Edwards... only, he doesn't read minds either, he merely pretends to.
All you have is a list of accusations sans explanation so I won't bother showing that it's all wrong because it's unnecessary.You claim it's a fallacy of irrelevant conclusion to say that victims oppose at least their own killing I assume because even if true it has no bearing on whether the death penalty is wrong.
The problem is that you take things out of context. This is in response to his suggestion he has sympathy for the victims that I lack and as such directly addresses the issue of whose feelings he understands and was not even an argument for the death penalty being wrong in the first place.
I'll cede that. My apologies.
“A meritocratic society is one in which inequalities of wealth and social position solely reflect the unequal distribution of merit or skills amongst human beings, or are based upon factors beyond human control, for example luck or chance. Such a society is socially just because individuals are judged not by their gender, the colour of their skin or their religion, but according to their talents and willingness to work, or on what Martin Luther King called 'the content of their character'. By extension, social equality is unjust because it treats unequal individuals equally.” "Political Ideologies" by Andrew Heywood (2003)
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Offline If you're going to nitpick my statement then at least take it in its entirety. I mean it is boring but I guess for your sake it has to be done.
That's argumentum ad antiquitatem . . .
That's argumentum ad antiquitatem. The old way was never shown to be correct . . .
That's argumentum ad antiquitatem. The old way was never shown to be correct and has in fact been deemed wrong by the majority of the civilized world, . . .
That's argumentum ad antiquitatem. The old way was never shown to be correct and has in fact been deemed wrong by the majority of the civilized world, though not necessarily because it brutalizes society in a fundamental way. . . .
That's argumentum ad antiquitatem. The old way was never shown to be correct and has in fact been deemed wrong by the majority of the civilized world, though not necessarily because it brutalizes society in a fundamental way. For a full discussion of that see: "Surveiller et punir" by Michel Foucault.
There are twists of time and space, of vision and reality, which only a dreamer can divine
H.P. Lovecraft
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Offline Zaq wrote:@BobSpence
Cj was saying that she would only be for the death penalty if there was a zero chance of innocent death. I'm asking about a hypothetical scenario in which using the death penalty saves enough resources to allow us to save more innocent lives that are lost. It's not the sitting in jail that gives us the gain to offset the risk, it's the saved resources.
Again, this is just a hypothetical scenario. IF we could save enough resources. Not saying we actually are saving resources.
That sort of discussion reminds of many uncomfortable scenarios posed to test our moral sense. Such as if sacrificing one healthy individual to donate organs to give a whole bunch of other people a massive total extension of life...
Or those rail-track settings where you are asked would you push the fat guy off the bridge to stop a train hitting a whole bunch of people on the track.
Or throw the switch so the train is diverted so it only kills one guy instead of a whole bunch...
==========
The marginal resources specifically expended in keeping the relatively small number of lifers in a prison mostly devoted to drug-dealers and lower-level violent offenders is likely to be insignificant.
Also, capital punishment by the State endorses the idea of extreme response to offense. Not that I fully agree with it under all conditions, but there is something to be said for the old saying "two wrongs don't make a right". There is at least some psychological evidence that having an official death penalty devalues life overall in that society, which reduces the threshhold at which crimes of passion and desperation lead to killing.
How much correlation each way is involved in the examples of societies without the death penalty having lower levels of murder?
How do assign a value to the damage to society's 'health' by the execution of an innocent by the state? Let alone the 'cost' to the unfortunate individual and his family?
All I was trying to construct is an argument against the idea that we should never accept a death penalty scenario in which there is a nonzero chance of putting an innocent to death. I don't think the costs/benefits actually play out in the way my scenario constructs. We don't really have to assign values too much, as we can look category by category. How much psychological trauma is caused to the family of the executed person in comparison to the psychological trauma saved (if any) for the victims and families of the victims? (You can quantify this in terms of the cost required for whatever medical means are employed or recommended to deal with the trauma.) How many innocent deaths does use of capital punishment lead to (through innocents convicted and/or through the potential effect you describe) compared to how many innocent lives the saved resources (if any) can be used to save? This is just a count, so it's easy to quantify. We don't have to compare innocent lives with psychological trauma. We can do a tier-by-tier comparison to avoid putting a "value on life" or whatever. I suspect the death penalty will come out behind or at least not clearly ahead in every tier, which is why I'm tentatively against it.
Questions for Theists:
http://silverskeptic.blogspot.com/2011/03/consistent-standards.html
I'm a bit of a lurker. Every now and then I will come out of my cave with a flurry of activity. Then the Ph.D. program calls and I must fall back to the shadows.
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Offline Butter, anyone who advocates killing members of their own society is too mentally unstable to allow on the streets.
Uh.......wow........okay. I won't say any more.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare
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Offline Butter, anyone who advocates killing members of their own society is too mentally unstable to allow on the streets.
Just out of curiosity, does the same apply to people advocating killing members of a different society? Also, what are your thoughts on killing in self-defense?
Questions for Theists:
http://silverskeptic.blogspot.com/2011/03/consistent-standards.html
I'm a bit of a lurker. Every now and then I will come out of my cave with a flurry of activity. Then the Ph.D. program calls and I must fall back to the shadows.
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Offline Vastet wrote:Butter, anyone who advocates killing members of their own society is too mentally unstable to allow on the streets.Just out of curiosity, does the same apply to people advocating killing members of a different society? Also, what are your thoughts on killing in self-defense?
My 2 cents. If you are absolutely certain lethal self-defense is justified, then it is okay. Mind - I believe it is perfectly possible to defend yourself without killing (murdering) someone. But since I am perfectly comfortable with situational ethics, I have no problem with saying murder is okay when you are truly concerned for your own life or your family's.
I realize it is all too easy to arm chair quarterback this position - "He didn't have to kill that guy, he could have ....." "He shouldn't have bothered to try to reason with the nut job. He should have just blown the guy away....." I can't make the decision for anyone else in their situation.
Members of a foreign society. My position on national defense is similar to self defense. If you are certain that the only way to defend your country is to deliberately murder combatants, noncombatants, children, infants, old people - fine. If you think "smart bombs" will not kill the innocent then you are very naive. Only start wars where you are certain at least some genocide is defensible. Realize there are people on both sides who are going to cross the ethical line every opportunity they get. There will be war atrocities. If you can live with this, fine, otherwise, don't start.
Or, as my mother used to say - "Kick them when they are down. If it isn't worth the effort to do so, it isn't worth the effort to knock them down in the first place."
Most of the time, I find it isn't worth the effort to kick them after they are down. So I don't bother to knock them down.
-- I feel so much better since I stopped trying to believe.
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Offline Vastet wrote:Butter, anyone who advocates killing members of their own society is too mentally unstable to allow on the streets.Uh.......wow........okay. I won't say any more.
I would agree with his statement. A murderer is someone who has made the decision to not be a part of said society.
Faith is the word but next to that snugged up closely "lie's" the want.
"By simple common sense I don't believe in god, in none."-Charlie Chaplin
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Offline Vastet wrote:Butter, anyone who advocates killing members of their own society is too mentally unstable to allow on the streets.
Just out of curiosity, does the same apply to people advocating killing members of a different society? Also, what are your thoughts on killing in self-defense?
War is the natural state of the universe. Killing is a part of life. Everyone is and should be free to kill if they should so choose. Killing that which tries to kill you is how you survive.
But state sponsored killing is unjustifiable and scares the shit out of any rational person who's aware that at LEAST 1/3 of all executions were done to innocent people. Despite all the technological advances across the board.
It has the potential to allow another Stalin or Hitler. There's no way to prevent it from continuing to kill innocent people, and it's far too easy to use against the population in general.
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Offline Butter, I'm not against rehabilitation, which is practically the only part of the justice system proven to work, so if a person realised how dangerous it was to advocate government murder changed their tune I'd have no problem releasing them back into society.
If families of victims of murder are unsatisfied with justice system, let them take it and the responsibility for it into their own hands the same way the original killer did. Then they'll have their revenge and be serving the time for it. There's no reason for the government to be killing its own people.
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Offline butterbattle wrote:Vastet wrote:Butter, anyone who advocates killing members of their own society is too mentally unstable to allow on the streets.Uh.......wow........okay. I won't say any more.
I would agree with his statement. A murderer is someone who has made the decision to not be a part of said society.
Rob, he is referring to people that support the death penalty. He is advocating imprisoning people for thoughtcrime.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare
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Offline Butter, I'm not against rehabilitation, which is practically the only part of the justice system proven to work, so if a person realised how dangerous it was to advocate government murder changed their tune I'd have no problem releasing them back into society.
Originally, I was not going to debate, but I guess I will now honor you with at least one response.
What you're proposing is equivalent to punishing citizens for thoughtcrime. I agree that pro-capital punishment is an unjustified position and the practice often condemns innocent people but supporting bad policy should not make them criminals. That they will undergo rehabilitation is not really relevant as they should not be punished to such an extent in the first place.
One could use your rationale on at least a couple other hotly debated topics, such as euthanasia or abortion. The situations are completely different, but my criticism is not really on this specific topic, but on the manner in which you would run a society. Using your line of reasoning, a pro-lifer or a anti-euthanasia person could advocate severe punishments for someone that was pro-choice or pro-euthanasia. Of course, you could argue that the "killing" is justified in those scenarios, but that is precisely the problem. The policy that you're proposing discriminates based on the content of expression rather than the type of expression, so what is acceptable would be dependent on the elected members of your government. For the rights of the people, long term, the law must be categorically opposed to thoughtcrime, rather than picking and choosing.
You also say that you would have no problem releasing them back into society if they "changed their tune." This implies that you would hold them indefinitely if they did not. Besides the fact that all those people thrown in jail + rehabilitation would be prohibitively expensive, do you not agree that there should be harsher punishments for worse crimes? If there is no capital punishment and the punishment for thoughtcrime is an indefinite sentence, what is your punishment for robbery, rape, murder, etc.?
Btw, if someone was sent to prison for this, why don't they just immediately profess to be against the death penalty so they can be released?
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare
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Offline so if a person realised how dangerous it was to advocate government murder changed their tune I'd have no problem releasing them back into society.
One problem there: Under that system, you would have to lock up quite a lot of people. For the past several years, the numbers have been running to about 2/3 of American being in favor of capital punishment. I just don't see how you could hope to end the matter like that.
Conversely, if the number of supporters was low enough that you could feasibly lock someone up for having an opinion that others disagree with, then support for the death penalty would be so low that any law providing for it would be effectively meaningless.
Here is an article from Gallup with the numbers on the matter:
In U.S., 64% Support Death Penalty in Cases of Murder
Half say death penalty not imposed often enough
by Frank NewportPRINCETON, NJ -- Gallup's annual Crime Survey finds that 64% of Americans continue to support the use of the death penalty for persons convicted of murder, while 29% oppose it -- continuing a trend that has shown little change over the last seven years.
Americans' views of the death penalty are particularly significant at this time, with several high-profile cases involving the death penalty in the news, including the imminent sentencing of convicted murderer Steven J. Hayes in Connecticut, a state in which only one person has been executed in the last 50 years.
Opponents of the death penalty continue to point out that DNA tests and other evidence have shown on numerous occasions that individuals sentenced to the death penalty were in fact innocent.
Despite the continuing controversy over the use of the death penalty, the attitudes of the average American on this issue have hardly changed in recent years. The current 64% support level is roughly equal to what Gallup has found through most of this decade.
This question about the death penalty in cases of murder is one of Gallup's oldest trends -- stretching back to 1936, when 59% of Americans supported the death penalty and 38% opposed it. Despite the similarity between today's attitudinal structure and what was found in 1936, there have been significant changes in the decades in between. At one point in 1994, 80% of Americans favored the death penalty, the all-time high on this measure. In 1966, 42% supported it, the all-time low.
Americans Split on Death Penalty vs. Life Imprisonment With No Possibility of Parole
Gallup from time to time asks a separate question on the death penalty that provides respondents with the explicit alternative of "life imprisonment, with absolutely no possibility of parole." Given this choice, the public this year splits roughly evenly, with 49% saying the death penalty is the better penalty for murder, while 46% opt for life imprisonment. This split is roughly the same as in 2006, when this question was last asked. However, prior to 2000, support generally tilted more strongly toward the death penalty option.
Half Say Death Penalty Not Imposed Often Enough
About half (49%) of Americans in this year's update say the death penalty is not imposed often enough and 26% say it is imposed "about the right amount," while 18% say it is imposed too often. These attitudes are little changed since 2002.
Similarly, 58% say the death penalty is applied fairly in this country today, while 36% say it is not, attitudes that have been stable in recent years.
These beliefs persist even though one of the main arguments against the death penalty is that it is applied unfairly -- that members of certain minority groups are more likely to receive the death penalty than others convicted of the same crimes, or that the arbitrary differences in trial procedures, judges, and jurisdictions can make a difference in who receives the death penalty and who doesn't.
Republicans, Men, Whites Express Most Support for Death Penalty
Men, whites, and Republicans are among the most likely to support the death penalty -- similar to previous years, although majorities of women, nonwhites, and Democrats also approve.
Bottom Line
The use of the death penalty has been declining worldwide, with most of the known executions now carried out in five countries -- China, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and the United States. Anti-death penalty groups in the U.S. continue to fight the use of the death penalty, particularly when there are high-profile instances of its use, such as this year's execution in Virginia of Teresa Lewis, the first woman to be executed in that state in almost 100 years. Despite this, Gallup's latest update in October shows no diminution in the strong majority level of support for the death penalty in cases of murder within the U.S.
Support for the death penalty can vary, depending on what the alternatives are, and also in reference to the specific circumstances of individual cases. For example, support drops to about half of the population when Americans are given the opportunity to choose the explicit alternative of life imprisonment with no possibility of parole. On the other hand, previous Gallup research has shown that in specific instances of highly visible, heinous crimes, support can rise to as high as 80%. That was the case when Gallup in 2001 asked Americans about the use of the death penalty for convicted Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, whose actions resulted in the deaths of 168 people.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/144284/Support-Death-Penalty-Cases-Murder.aspx
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Offline It has nothing to do with thought crime. It's not the thought that's dangerous, it's voters giving free licence to murder to their government(s). It SHOULD make them criminals because they are ACCESSORIES to murder. Which is criminal. Thought is irrelevant. You can think whatever you like. But once it goes to action, ie voting and policy, it's not 1984 anymore. It's 1938.
AIG, ever looked at the justice system? The one that so many Americans are far too equated with? Come back when your country hasn't imprisoned a majority of the population and your argument might have some real bite.
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Offline Come back when your country hasn't imprisoned a majority of the population and your argument might have some real bite.
OK, that is an exact claim. Prove it.
Provide a link which cannot be refuted that states that greater than 150,000,000 citizens have been or currently are in jail.
Seriously, pics or it did not happen.
Never ever did I say enything about free, I said "free."
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Offline It has nothing to do with thought crime. It's not the thought that's dangerous, it's voters giving free licence to murder to their government(s). It SHOULD make them criminals because they are ACCESSORIES to murder. Which is criminal. Thought is irrelevant. You can think whatever you like. But once it goes to action, ie voting and policy, it's not 1984 anymore. It's 1938.
I believe you are equivocating different definitions of 'murder.' People who support the death penalty are 'accessories' to '1) murder,' defined as premeditated killing, to the extent that they support the system. However, they can't be punished for accessory to '2) murder,' as in what legally qualifies as a murder. Surely, you could not label all premeditated killing as immoral or you would have to condemn people who kill in self-defense or that give euthanasia.
And yes, it is thoughtcrime. Thoughts can be extremely dangerous, in that thoughts lead to actions; their thoughts can cause them to support very bad policy, which is why you want to punish them for holding that thought.
I'll approach what I've already written another way. What other things would you send people to prison for that are not currently illegal?
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare
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Offline It's not thought crime, else I'd have said anyone who thinks the gov't should kill people should go to jail. Opposed to your suggestion I'm having a problem w the def of murder, you have a problem w the def of thought. Advocating murder and thinking about it are two different things whether you like it or not.
AIG, at the end of 09 more than 1% of the US was in jail. That number doesn't change much year to year these days, but the inmates do. For example, in 97 there were 105k juveniles in lockup. In 07, when all of them would be adults, or at least most of them, there were 87k new juveniles in lockup.
I can't find the study I remember seeing, but if you take all the people in the US and try to find people who've never been convicted of an offence, you find there are about as many as those who have been. You'll have to provide something to be able to convince me that isn't accurate. I should have actually found the study I'm referring to before making the claim, but I did see it years ago.....
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
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Offline ..and I'll stand by it until proven wrong.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
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Offline Advocating murder and thinking about it are two different things whether you like it or not.
I see.
So, advocating, meaning that they show their support? Okay, that's somewhat better.
What would you count as advocating? If someone told a family member or close friend, and then that person reported their support of the death penalty to the police, would that warrant a prison term?
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare
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Offline Eyewitness testimony has been proven unreliable, and dangerous, many times over, so no.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
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Offline Only because the testimony is unreliable?
I'm wondering what would be sufficient reason for a person to go to prison under your policy. "Advocating" is a bit vague. So, if you could know beyond a reasonable doubt when someone tells a friend or family member, then they would go to prison? What if there was a video of the person debating in support of the death penalty?
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare
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I can't find the study I remember seeing, but if you take all the people in the US and try to find people who've never been convicted of an offence, you find there are about as many as those who have been. You'll have to provide something to be able to convince me that isn't accurate. I should have actually found the study I'm referring to before making the claim, but I did see it years ago.....
So your claim is based what exactly?
The challenge is to you to provide proof of your highly suspicious claim. So can you prove that there are around 150,000,000 people in jail at this moment or not?
Also, don't go moving the goal post by changing the term to “people who have been in jail at least once”. That would provide a very different number than your original claim. Come back when you actually have proof.
Never ever did I say enything about free, I said "free."
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Offline For some offenders, particularly those inspired by a hatred of modern society, and especially if hey are into some religion or other, such as a would-be suicide bomber as the obvious example, death would NOT be the worst punishment.
That, and the irreversibility of it, are the strongest arguments against the knee-jerk reaction to 'take out the trash'.
I don't think the economic arguments are a big consideration unless the proportion of capital crimes goes up a lot, whether because of rising levels of violent crime or extension of the DP to more categories of offense.
I have always thought that the best punishment for criminals would be to make them work in customer service.
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Offline Only because the testimony is unreliable?
I'm wondering what would be sufficient reason for a person to go to prison under your policy. "Advocating" is a bit vague. So, if you could know beyond a reasonable doubt when someone tells a friend or family member, then they would go to prison? What if there was a video of the person debating in support of the death penalty?
Actually funding the death penalty or support for it would be the kind of thing I'm looking at. No hearsay would be. I've never and will never support thought crime type legislation. I mentioned in a previous post it had to be actionable. I meant it.
AIG: Strawman. I never made the claim that a majority of Americans were currently incarcerated. Try again.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
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Offline so what you are basically saying is that if you kill someone you avoid all possible problems caused by that person?
true, but the same happens with locking them up, and in horrible corrupt countries like mine and many others, people who are
locked up tend to be inocent. At least without a death penalty they can hope for freedom eventualy when the real culpit is far away
i guess you are mainly correct, you cant count the lunatics in societies reaction and the economical results are clearly better if you just kill them.
It still seams kind of cruel though, but life is cruel and the least you can do is try to make it so for as little people as posible
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Spoken as if we just started killing murderers in this century. Perhaps the question should not be capital punishment or no, but should we stop killing murderers and do something else and if so then what? In my mind a life taken is the worst possible crime against society. I'll be more open to suggestions on alternate methods of punishment for murderers when the victims can be resurrected and are able to carry on with their lives. Until then, remove the cancerous growths so they can't continue to affect society.
A lot of this has to do with detachment.
Faith is the word but next to that snugged up closely "lie's" the want.
"By simple common sense I don't believe in god, in none."-Charlie Chaplin
Yea this thread pretty much sums it up on who people are more concerned with. We discuss the fate of a murderer who has sealed the victims fate already as if there is some happy ending for all parties.
Detachment.
Faith is the word but next to that snugged up closely "lie's" the want.
"By simple common sense I don't believe in god, in none."-Charlie Chaplin
And tell me how the families of people who are innocent of murder but who were executed feel?
I am not "detached" - you guys are. If the victim's family feels better after the execution, fine. But lots of them have said revenge - even a death for a death - actually gives little comfort. Killing the murderer does not bring your loved one back to life, either.
I will repeat, give me some guarantee that only guilty people will be executed and I'm all for it.
These numbers may not be accurate. I think one innocent person executed is too many, let alone 130 on death row found innocent after trial and conviction.
-- I feel so much better since I stopped trying to believe.
"We are entitled to our own opinions. We're not entitled to our own facts"- Al Franken
"If death isn't sweet oblivion, I will be severely disappointed" - Ruth M.
The death penalty is a somewhat difficult subject for me as I am of two minds on the subject, I have read arguments for an against and I feel that I should explain my views.
In Favor:
1) The death penalty might be analagous to a nuclear weapon, in that while we may never want to use it the fact that we have the ability to utilize it provides a form of leverage over criminals. Being able to threaten it means that they might be more willing to confess to a crime or provide information that could bring closure (locations of bodies and the like). Admittedly I realize that it could also be used to spur false confessions.
2) This is more a cold equations argument, there is the argument that given the costs of locking up a dangerous criminal, one that would have no chance of ever getting out or being rehabilitated that this saves a burden on the state, while I feel a bit disgusted with myself for using the argument I feel I should still point it out as it is viable.
3) In cases of certain severe crimes 500 life sentences just seems silly, I'm not sure how to apply it except case by case but I look again to the idea of the death penalty as a kind of special weapon, not meant for all or even most of what we have to deal with but the worst of the worst, the weapon we only use in the most dire of circumstances.
Against:
1) Like it or not the biggest problem is that if we fuck it up we can't hit the undo button, we can't return the person to life. The problem is that we have had dozens of cases where people were freed due to DNA evidence and their confessions were shown to be tortured out of them or in other ways coerced. There are also issues in dealing with the mentally retarded and the insane but that's an entirely different area.
2) It cripples us in many ways internationally, as there are several nations that will refuse to extradite capital punishment cases due to moral objection. What this effectively means is that our justice system can render it impossible for us to properly get justice for our citizens specifically BECAUSE of the death penalty.
3) Plenty of people would rather go out on their own terms, a side effect of this is that we may find ourselves in situations where standoffs are far worse and hostages more likely to die because someone that has already committed a crime that could get them executed may well decide to throw caution to the wind and massacre any remaining hostages and then kill themselves. Or they might cause more pain and suffering for others. I don't pretend to know the best solution in this case but it is one that bothers me.
4) The death penalty is often not a question of justice but vengeance, the idea that we must take a life in vengeance for lives taken. Maybe there is a kind of cold necessity to it, I don't know. But does that mean that instead of prison we let an assault victim beat their attacker, a victim of rape sexually assault a rapist? Yes, I recognize that this is a bit of a non sequiter but I have to know why we wish to kill someone.
A somewhat different way of looking at it if it helps, I have been robbed, mugged, and been the victim of two attacks, that doesn't mean that I want cameras on every street corner even if it would have stopped said crimes against my person. Nor would I favor a removal of the exclusionary principle even if it would have caught the people responsible. Maybe that makes me weak or stupid, but in my mind we have to remember that the scales of justice will occaisionally balance wrongly and we have to have some kind of sense of compassion to temper ourselves or justice becomes vengeance and society itself is damaged.
That's argumentum ad antiquitatem. The old way was never shown to be correct and has in fact been deemed wrong by the majority of the civilized world, though not necessarily because it brutalizes society in a fundamental way. For a full discussion of that see: "Surveiller et punir" by Michel Foucault.
Retributivism being backward looking has really no consideration for the detrimental effects. Since capital punishment isn't operated retributively however it couldn't serve as justification for the death penalty anyway.
Since you approve of killing which you call the worst crime against society you should actually sympathize with the murderers who also approve. The victims probably thought killing was wrong almost certainly when it was happening to them.
There are twists of time and space, of vision and reality, which only a dreamer can divine
H.P. Lovecraft
And most, if not all of that paragraph is an argumentum ad populum as well as two arguments from authority.
Strawman, ipse dixit, association fallacy, and fallacy of irrelevant conclusion. Allow me an ad hominem;
If this is all the opposition pro-DP proponents had to worry about, we wouldn't have to lift a finger to have it allowed in all states. But then again, if all antiDPs had to worry about was Rob's arguments, death penalty would be... well, dead.
“A meritocratic society is one in which inequalities of wealth and social position solely reflect the unequal distribution of merit or skills amongst human beings, or are based upon factors beyond human control, for example luck or chance. Such a society is socially just because individuals are judged not by their gender, the colour of their skin or their religion, but according to their talents and willingness to work, or on what Martin Luther King called 'the content of their character'. By extension, social equality is unjust because it treats unequal individuals equally.” "Political Ideologies" by Andrew Heywood (2003)
There is nowhere in my statements a suggestion that it is wrong because the majority or Foucault have deemed it so. It is only to point out that even if it were tradition - his appeal to authority and majority opinion - and it weren't a fallacy that it is no longer the case anyway.
Even the parts of your response that made sense would be hard to prove.
There are twists of time and space, of vision and reality, which only a dreamer can divine
H.P. Lovecraft
For some offenders, particularly those inspired by a hatred of modern society, and especially if hey are into some religion or other, such as a would-be suicide bomber as the obvious example, death would NOT be the worst punishment.
That, and the irreversibility of it, are the strongest arguments against the knee-jerk reaction to 'take out the trash'.
I don't think the economic arguments are a big consideration unless the proportion of capital crimes goes up a lot, whether because of rising levels of violent crime or extension of the DP to more categories of offense.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
Thanks cj. What I'm basically gathering is that there isn't much hard data on the relative costs. This is the important point for me, as the only good reason I can see for implementing the death penalty is to save resources over a life without parole sentence. If the death penalty doesn't actually save anything, then I am against it. If it does save resources, then my view will depend on the resources saved vs the chance of sentencing error.
I think your requirement that innocent people never be put to death is too strict. Even if you refuse to classify human life in a comparable value category to any other resources, what if I could show that the money saved by using death sentences (assuming there is money saved) could be used to save far more innocent lives than those lost to the death penalty errors? Would you still be against such a policy?
I can't show that people will never die in a car accident, so will you refuse to use cars?
Questions for Theists:
http://silverskeptic.blogspot.com/2011/03/consistent-standards.html
I'm a bit of a lurker. Every now and then I will come out of my cave with a flurry of activity. Then the Ph.D. program calls and I must fall back to the shadows.
Well said. Those are my thoughts exactly.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare
I fail to see how murdering an innocent person will save other innocent people. That makes no sense. And if you are trying to say the murdering the guilty people will save people, I'm not real sure about that. There was a man arrested for a murder he committed 30 odd years ago - he escaped prison during a power outage. He has been in hiding ever since - and has never murdered anyone else during those 30 years.
I don't know if this guy is the exception or the rule. Haven't looked it up. I do remember reading somewhere about antisocial activities. People most likely to commit antisocial activities are usually under age 25 and male. So after someone is in prison for a number of years, releasing them may not increase the likelihood of their neighbor's being murdered. I may be wrong, I would have to go hunt up the study(ies).
And I would be devastated if one of my family were executed if I suspected - and it were proven after the fact - that they were innocent. I would be really unhappy if it were me on death row for a crime I didn't commit.
Cars are not a great analogy. After all, I voluntarily ride in and drive cars. Taking my changes with all the other people on the road. I wouldn't voluntarily put myself on death row.
-- I feel so much better since I stopped trying to believe.
"We are entitled to our own opinions. We're not entitled to our own facts"- Al Franken
"If death isn't sweet oblivion, I will be severely disappointed" - Ruth M.
Well just let murderers walk then. You certainly have not given a better alternative here. You don't want to admit that "bad things happen and bad things sometimes have to happen".
If one is found guilty of killing another without doubt, kill that motherfucker, fry his or her ass. They made a decision and now we must make one because of their own.
Lay off with the retard ass ad hominem argument from blah blah bullshit btw, it's beyond annoying watching someone pretend to be sofa king intellectual. I really couldn't care less. I'll build a fukin strawman from the moon, it's made of straw and should burn easily. Pointing this stuff out is past redundant. Just burn it.
Faith is the word but next to that snugged up closely "lie's" the want.
"By simple common sense I don't believe in god, in none."-Charlie Chaplin
off topic*
My rat in the avatar pic died a couple days ago btw. He almost made it to 4.
I'd be willing to reply in a much less annoying way to someone who wasn't lobbing such obvious and intentional exaggeration at me. I'll assume your fallacy laden responses and personal attacks are a result of your grief and not take any of it personally. If you want an alternative to killing how about not killing.
There are twists of time and space, of vision and reality, which only a dreamer can divine
H.P. Lovecraft
I did mention that pragmatically it does fail, and only because pragmatism is not devoid of emotion. Allow me to paraphrase, if we were to show that the death penalty decreases serious crime, while the risk of wrongfully killing someone was "drastically" decreased, you would be all for it. And that's my point exactly, the punishment itself is not wrong or right. The system is simply too flawed. If, however, the system was "drastically" improved, the death penalty seems like a good idea.
List of system improvements:
1) Stop fucking punishing innocent people!
2) See number one!
3) End of list.
"Don't seek these laws to understand. Only the mad can comprehend..." -- George Cosbuc
I think that cars are a good analogy. The majority of harm caused by automobile use is probably done culpably because people use cars frivolously.
All activity is potentially dangerous but it crosses the line when it creates unjustifiable risk for others.
If a person is imprisoned then they are no longer a risk, the victims feel better and justice has been served. All the things that people who support capital punishment whine about have already been done but they want more at the expense of brutalizing society and possibly killing innocent people. That's self-indulgentl and culpable.
There are twists of time and space, of vision and reality, which only a dreamer can divine
H.P. Lovecraft
Oh? I'm sorry...
..reads very much like an appeal to multiple authorities, and an appeal to a larger crowd. You're saying that "never shown to be correct" is somehow a demonstration of how this is no longer a practiced tradition? The logical connection seems to be missing. As for the locations in question, how can you be sure he wasn't referring to just the US, with "Spoken as if we just started killing murderers in this century.", since "it is no longer the case" in many of the other "civilized" places in question? Maybe Rob was referring to some isolated example besides the US where capital punishment is still allowed, like Japan, we Robj101 said "we".
Or perhaps you forgot to add some additional supporting arguments.
Even the parts of your response that made sense would be hard to prove.
You're going to have be a little more specific than "parts of your response" if you want to make sense yourself.
“A meritocratic society is one in which inequalities of wealth and social position solely reflect the unequal distribution of merit or skills amongst human beings, or are based upon factors beyond human control, for example luck or chance. Such a society is socially just because individuals are judged not by their gender, the colour of their skin or their religion, but according to their talents and willingness to work, or on what Martin Luther King called 'the content of their character'. By extension, social equality is unjust because it treats unequal individuals equally.” "Political Ideologies" by Andrew Heywood (2003)