This is why we ignore layman's opinions on the death penaltyFollow

/blushes

I am a child of the '70's after all. Any other old tunes you'd like me to dredge up the lyrics from my addled memory? I can quote Cat Stevens pre-Islam and sing "One Tin Soldier" acapella if you'd like...

Totem

It's fitting that a french man would be against anything "violent". No wonder your country got walked all over.


Back to the OP:

I back execution. I think we need reform in our jails but we've been over that already. I hate care bear societies.

"--Marquis de Lafayette

'I will believe in the death penalty when you will prove to me the infallibility of human beings.'" --Paulsol quoting Lafayette

"--Marquis de Sade
'I will believe in the superiority of the French when you will prove to me that Frogs don't like having their ********* squeezed in a vise.'"








Totem

If not for the sig, I would have thought it was FFXI troll-time again. Joph's Law!

As for the botched execution, it's just a goddamned shame that we can't even get people to administer them that are, at the very least, familiar with the concept of injecting into a vein and not the surrounding muscle tissue. That's just plain sloppy. If you're going to take a man's life, at least do so with some efficiency and pride in your job. Slackers.

Not at all. Anyone's who's met him knows he's the complete opposite. He fairly bubbles over when he's intellectually pwning someone. That said, he's easily distracted by the prospect of a nap.

No more capital punishment, it isn't nice. Keeping people locked up in cages, allowing them to be gang raped and beaten all day is still A OK, so long as it is not happening in guantanamo or in Iraq.

The question I have is: When did "cruel and unusual" become interpreted to mean: "Any pain involved at all..."?

We managed to use hanging and electrocution as execution devices for a quite a long time before lethal injection came along. Funny thing is that the constitution does not ban capital punishment, and the form of the day was hanging. Thus, unless you're arguing that the rate of pain and suffering incurred on average from lethal injection is greater then that from hanging, the whole "The Founding Fathers say it's wrong" argument kinda goes out the window...


They didn't say that lethal injection must be absolutely painless. They didn't even imply it. Others, coming along much later, have re-interpreted that clause in ways in which the original framers did not when it was written. And that's not even fully correct either. The intepretation with regard to capital punishment is that the form of death should be as painless as possible. Well. In the grand scheme of ways to kill people, lethal injection is about as painless as we can possibly get. Sure. Occasionally, something will go wrong and there's a possibility that someone might have felt some pain. But I'm pretty sure that occurs far less often and with far less total pain involved then when a hanging or electrocution goes awry.

There's no violation of constitution here. That's just reaching...

Abadd's post made me laff out loud. RACK you. Between you and Bhodi, you guys are on a roll tonight.

Totem

As for capital punishment itself, I still haven't heard a single argument explaining why it's a good thing.

Or a useful one.

Or anything other than a barbaric and childish desire for State-sponsored vengeance.



Edit: Other than the usual: You're French and got invaded by **** Germany 65 years ago so you shut up!

Edited, Dec 19th 2006 6:01am by RedPhoenixxx

Wait a minute... A choerent, reasonable, thought-out and insightful post from... Totem?! Well spank my *** and call me gbaji...

So the main argument for the death penalty is the principle that we, as a society, are "holding up innocent life as being so valuable that no other response is an acceptable alternative". I assume this is correct since I quoted you.

Hence, it is a "moral" argument. "Acceptable" being the key word, a moral judgment on society's response to the taking of an innocent life. That's the first part of your argument, and I have no problem with it.

What I don't agree is the alternative. That if you don't believe in the death penalty, then no other form of death is acceptable.

I don't look at the death penalty, abortion, war, or euthanasia from a "moral" position. Moral, schmoral.

I look at it as a "role of the State" problem. In my opinion, the role of the state, and its authority/legitimacy, comes from the people. The state is there to serve and protect its people. All of the people inside its borders. When someone takes another life, it is the state's role both to ensure that that person isn't a threat to society, but also to offer him a chance to pay his debt and change his way.

So its a double obligation that the state has. Its first obligation is easily fullfilled by a quadruple-life sentense with no parole. The murderer will never get out, hence he will never be a problem for society. Its second obligation, however, can only be fullfileld by keeping that person alive and offering a chance to redeem themselves. This can be done through education, through therapy, through drug rehab. And sometimes, it cannot be done, and the person will stay in jail until he dies.

Now, you will msot likely say that the "killer" doesn't deserve a "second chance", or the state's help. And, in some cases, you are right. In a lot of other cases, however, I don't agree. Many people are kill not because they are evil, but because they have a myriad of other problems: lack of education, drugs, mental illnesses, lack of moral standards, carelessness, etc...

In those situations, it is the state's duty to give these people an opportunity to change themselves. Even if they end never leaving prison.

The death penalty is too absolute a tool for the state. First of all, because of miscarriages of justice. Second, because the line drawn (between cases that warrant the death penalty and those that warrant life), is too arbitrary. Why should one deserve death and not the other? These are moral standards which are highly controversial and debatable. Finally, because the death penalty doesn't work as a deterrant.

For all these reasons, i think that the life in prison is, on the whole, better than the death penalty for society.

Abortion, war, and euthanasia are very differnt problems. I'm not a "pacifist", and I think some wars are legitimate and useful. And I think some people deserve the death penalty. If my daughter was raped as a child, i would want the rapist to die, preferably from my bare hands. But these feelings don't make good state policy. The whole point of the justice system is that it is not the victim that decides the sentense.

I'm a humanist. I believe humans are the start, the middle, and the end of "society". Everything should be geared towards them. And the death penalty's rating in Humanist theory is very low: It's not useful for society, it's not "retroactive" (as in you cant unmake mistakes), and there are better alternatives. The only thing going for it is the "moral" stance, which in my opinion, doesn't make up for its other faults.

Well, everything is relative...

Fixed. You were almost right.

Want to know how much of a geek I am? When I was eight or nine I thought the Marquis de Lafayette (as we spell it here) was just the coolest revolutionary of them all. It was a toss-up between him and Tom Paine, but I thought Lafayette was better looking, so he won.