Tories to re-introduce Death-penalty?

[Vermillion]

Originally Posted by JonnyBGood

Right, because recent studies have revealed that it's possible for us to go back in time and give the recently proved innocent man the last 10 years of his life back? Just admit you're drawing a line which you feel emotionally comfortable with so i can go back to bed.

I am drawing the line? Dont be silly.


A bad advertisment on TV takes away 30 seconds of my life! I want it back!

If you are dead its over, no wrong can me remade. If you are alive, the rest of your lie can be returned to you and some compensation can be attempted. I say the line is not a subtle line I have fabricated, its the grand freakin canyon of incredibly obvious lines. Dead vs alive.

I am not drawing the line, you are ignoring it. Or do you really maintain that being dead is just as bad as spending 10 years in prison, then freed and given some form of restitution?

[Tactitus]

Originally Posted by MrL_JaKiri

Surely this hypocracy is restricted to governmental agents, as I personally can do very little for incarcerated prisoners.

If you can advocate that the state abolish the death penalty, then you can also advocate that the state find and correct miscarriages of justice (and if your reason for advocating the former is because you believe it precludes the later, then it would seem a logical necessity for you to do so).

[MrL_JaKiri]

Originally Posted by Tactitus

If you can advocate that the state abolish the death penalty, then you can also advocate that the state find and correct miscarriages of justice (and if your reason for advocating the former is because you believe it precludes the later, then it would seem a logical necessity for you to do so).

How is this not implied in the argument? Your earlier statement implied a more active role.

[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by Vermillion

I am drawing the line? Dont be silly.


A bad advertisment on TV takes away 30 seconds of my life! I want it back!

I hear that recently scientists have discovered that sitting in front of the tv is similar to prison due to the fact that the thought police hold you in your chair while beating you with sticks preventing you from getting up and not watching the ad and hold your eyelids open with little pointy sticks which they prised from the hands of dying orphans.

If you are dead its over, no wrong can me remade. If you are alive, the rest of your lie can be returned to you and some compensation can be attempted. I say the line is not a subtle line I have fabricated, its the grand freakin canyon of incredibly obvious lines. Dead vs alive.

ITT I marvel as verm proves that two wrongs really can make a right! It's an emotionally determined line, just because it's held by many people to be the line doesn't mean it really has any existence outside that which you give it.

I am not drawing the line, you are ignoring it. Or do you really maintain that being dead is just as bad as spending 10 years in prison, then freed and given some form of restitution?

I'm not the one claiming to be aware of what every single other person on the planet thinks. And yeah I can imagine some cases where i'd prefer to be dead than spending 10 years in prison, I dare say you can as well.



PS How come nobody's asked me what situations I'd apply the death penalty to? Has it been assumed that in all cases where a verdict of guilty is returned I'd support the death penalty?

[Vermillion]

Originally Posted by acropolis

"According to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, blacks committed 51.5% of murders between 1976 and 1999, while whites committed 46.5%.

Stop and think about that for a second. How did the US department of Statisctics come up with the percentage of murders committed by blacks vs whites? By looking at conviction rates. However since the whole premise here is that the justice ystem is racist, those conviction rates tell us nothing about the actual number of murders committed by race.

Obviously the conviction rates mirror the prison population stats.

So the question is, are black people simply 8x more likely to murder someone, or is there perhaps something skewed about the system?

Why is it, for example, that whites are about 50% of the victims of homocides, but for murderers on death row, 80% have murdered white people? Why is the killer of a whiterperson far more likely to be on death row than the killer of a black person?

Look, I am not saying that the justice system in the US is utterly racist here. I am saying that considering the racism that exists in the US, and presented with some of these stats, we have to ask some serious questions. Given that significant doubt about the fairness of the system exists, why are people still being executed?

[Vermillion]

Originally Posted by JonnyBGood

I hear that recently scientists have discovered that sitting in front of the tv is similar to prison due to the fact that the thought police hold you in your chair while beating you with sticks preventing you from getting up and not watching the ad and hold your eyelids open with little pointy sticks which they prised from the hands of dying orphans.

Excellent use of sarcasm. However, the fact is you seem to be maintaining that imprisonment, for any amount of time, is an unrecoverable harm equal to being killed.

That is what you are claiming is it not? That I am creating a line which does not exists by separating killing an innocent man and imprisoning an innocent man? That in reality being imprisoned for 10 years, or 5 years, or 1 year, or 3 months (where do YOU draw the line?) is as irrecoverable a harm to an individual as execution?

I say thats absurd. People who have been imprisoned for whatever lenth of time can be freed rom their inprisonment. Dead people cannot be freed from death. people once freed can be recompensed in some manner, likely through money. Dead people can be purchased an extra nice tombstone. The separation is dead obvious (sorry), and is not a fictional line.

I'm not the one claiming to be aware of what every single other person on the planet thinks. And yeah I can imagine some cases where i'd prefer to be dead than spending 10 years in prison, I dare say you can as well.

Now where exactly have I done that?

And you know what? Right now you are right, I can imagine it being worse to be in prison for 10 years. But 10 years later, when I am freed by the system, apologised to and given some form of recompense, will I then be thinking how much nicer it would be if I was dead?

The death penalty is irrevocable. Other forms of punishment are not. If we aknowledge that the system is imperfect and prone to false convictions, we MUST stop executing people until the system can be fixed, and if it cannot, then permenantly. There is a clear, obvious line here, and ignoring i does not make it go away.

[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by Vermillion

Excellent use of sarcasm. However, the fact is you seem to be maintaining that imprisonment, for any amount of time, is an unrecoverable harm equal to being killed.

I'm arguing that it depends totally on your perspective.

That is what you are claiming is it not? That I am creating a line which does not exists by separating killing an innocent man and imprisoning an innocent man? That in reality being imprisoned for 10 years, or 5 years, or 1 year, or 3 months (where do YOU draw the line?) is as irrecoverable a harm to an individual as execution?

I'm saying they're all harms and it depends on how the victim views them as to the extent. For example I'm sure you'd say that being imprisoned for 10 years is worse than being imprisoned for 3 months. That'd depend on what happened during those 3 months though wouldn't it?

I say thats absurd. People who have been imprisoned for whatever lenth of time can be freed rom their inprisonment. Dead people cannot be freed from death. people once freed can be recompensed in some manner, likely through money. Dead people can be purchased an extra nice tombstone. The separation is dead obvious (sorry), and is not a fictional line.

I'm not saying it's a fictional line (actually I think i almost did so my bad there) I'm saying it's an emotional line than you draw.

Now where exactly have I done that?

And you know what? Right now you are right, I can imagine it being worse to be in prison for 10 years. But 10 years later, when I am freed by the system, apologised to and given some form of recompense, will I then be thinking how much nicer it would be if I was dead?

Could you not also imagine a set of circumstances, or at least allow that others might might have such beliefs and undergo such experiences leading to a situation, where you would prefer to be dead than have experienced what you did in prison and no matter what recompense was given you you don't want to live? There are things worse than death as they say.

The death penalty is irrevocable. Other forms of punishment are not. If we aknowledge that the system is imperfect and prone to false convictions, we MUST stop executing people until the system can be fixed, and if it cannot, then permenantly. There is a clear, obvious line here, and ignoring i does not make it go away.

I think there's a lot of confusion on this issue. You can't change the fact that the punishment occured. You're just drawing a line where you find the punishment too extreme to be used. I never argued that the system is perfect or executing people in the USA is a great idea. I argued that it's right to use it in some situations (you ignored my ps )

[W]

Originally Posted by Vermillion

Excellent use of sarcasm. However, the fact is you seem to be maintaining that imprisonment, for any amount of time, is an unrecoverable harm equal to being killed.

Not equal. Compareable. If a court kills me, they take away 100% of my life. If they sentence me to life in prison, that is X% of my life removed (depending on what you value in your life. Sometimes it's 100%, as shown by people committing suicide in prison). And it's equal in that you cannot give back the part of the life that you took away.

Originally Posted by Vermillion

I say thats absurd. People who have been imprisoned for whatever lenth of time can be freed rom their inprisonment. Dead people cannot be freed from death. people once freed can be recompensed in some manner, likely through money. Dead people can be purchased an extra nice tombstone.

So you're saying that I will get the money amount that those 10 years of lack of freedom was worth to me? I doubt the state has that much money. And the same applies to death. It is possible to compensate someone for their death, as shown by people dying for a cause. But again, the cost for the state is too high.

Yes, the death penalty is a harsher punishment than incarceration, but also equally finite and uncompensateable. If you kill someone you have the added benefit of knowing that they will never ever do anything contrary to your society ever again, no matter the circumstances and accidents and other peoples actions.

And I'm quite sure that the criminal exist that would risk the crime if the harshest punishment he could recieve was jailtime, while he wouldn't risk it if it was death.

[MrL_JaKiri]

Originally Posted by W

Not equal. Compareable. If a court kills me, they take away 100% of my life. If they sentence me to life in prison, that is X% of my life removed (depending on what you value in your life. Sometimes it's 100%, as shown by people committing suicide in prison). And it's equal in that you cannot give back the part of the life that you took away.

I prefer to look at it as removal of potential. Death is complete removal, where imprisonment is nothing of the kind.

[Dante Hicks]

Originally Posted by Vermillion

And you know what? Right now you are right, I can imagine it being worse to be in prison for 10 years. But 10 years later, when I am freed by the system, apologised to and given some form of recompense

Recompense? How much is 10 years of your life worth? How much is the experience of being assaulted and/or raped in prison worth? How much is being infecteded by HIV in prison after rape worth? How much is the experience of dying in prison worth? Etc.

As W says, no-one is saying that a 50 Year prison sentence is equal to exeuction (that wouldn't make any sense) we're arguing it's comparable.

[queball]

Originally Posted by Bunga

Well no, since taxation isn't extortion. Its paying for the goods the government supplies for us.

Hardly. If I give money to charity, I don't get any good, I don't get a physical object delivered to me. As an economist perhaps you can appreciate that a good is something someone chooses; the important thing is purchasing power. If Saddam feeds his people they might be happy but it's certainly nothing like purchasing goods. And whether tax is legal, or moral, or good, is irrelevant to the analogy: the argument is that tax as a means is extortion, which it trivially is.

Ok, there's still some room for argument. You're using this high-level abstraction of "paying" as a justification applied to the low-level abstraction of "extortion". Extortion can be defined just like you defined murder - how about "the act or practice of wresting anything from a person by force". Usually legality would be involved, but we're trying to avoid that.

If you want to use an, erm, post-natural (?) morality to say that tax "is" payment, that that money actually belongs to the state, or whatever, it is equally valid by analogy to say that the death penalty is not murder. The parallel argument would go that it was in fact the criminal who had the intent to kill himself and the law was merely the means by which to do that. The serial killer was free to live in any country he liked after all.

The kind of word games and social contracts you have to invent to categorise tax as payment for goods make words like "murder" meaningless.

[I am Idler]

Originally Posted by Toccata & Fugue

Pretty weak arguments here. A dangerous murderer would clearly need some more attention then other prisoners, are you denying someones right to life because it would be a bit more expensive?

why does someone who murdered a person in cold blood deserve to live?

[W]

Can we please stop assuming we're talking about the United States of America for just one second please?

[I am Idler]

I diserve to live because I was born.

I didnt choose to end someone's life tho

[I am Idler]

Originally Posted by Toccata & Fugue

Has the death of any one individual made society better?

Stalin?

[I am Idler]

the end of the russian genocide ?

I could very well be wrong on that statement, so excuse me if I am, heh.

[Ste]

I would like to repeat:

Originally Posted by Ste

Are people saying that
(a) the death-penalty is a good idea if the justice system is perfect.
(b) the death-penalty is a good idea no matter what.
(c) the death-penalty is a bad idea no matter what.

It's just too hard to trawl through the pedantry sometimes.

[Dante Hicks]

Originally Posted by Toccata & Fugue

The enquiry of any jsutcie system would why would someone be preppared to risk death in order to kill someone else.

Oh, of course, we always need to look at the reasons why a crime has been committed. If for instance, my father was killed my immediate response might be retaliation. If however, on consideration he turned out to be a child molestor, killed by the parents of his victim I would consider his death just.
Justice is not determined by how long the deliberation takes. If I immediately respond to something then I may make a mistake, or I may not. If however I do not make a mistake my actions do not become any less JUST simply because I didn't meditate, Hamlet style on my actions. They may less sensible, of course.

Once again, I oppose the death penalty as a practical measure, but not an ethical measure. As for forgiveness I would (to be honest) quite forgiving if someone killed a member of my family - I'm easy like that. But that is my decision to make. If your family is killed it would be outrageous of me to force my reasonableness onto others in a quasi-totalitarian manner.

If someone commits suicide then it may be a tragedy (i.e. the misery they were in to cause such an act), but I generally won't cry about the act of suicide. If you don't want to die, don't take a fatal overdose or stick your fingers in the plug socket. If someone walks into Harlem wearing a board saying "I hate ******s" and is then killed, then I won't cry about it. If someone purposely kills someone, and is aware of the consequences (i.e. capital punishment), then their death is similarly nothing that'll cause me to cry. The tragedy is the social conditions that exist to cause crime in the first place.

I quite agree that we should eliminate the casues of crime (i.e. poverty, inequality, low social cohesion). But I am not suggesting the death penalty as a practical measure to reduce crime - the effect would probably be negligible (excluding reoffending). I am merely saying that by carrying out certain acts (as mentioned) your forefit any substantial rights (similar to losing your rights as a tenant after a possesion order to follow the housing analogy). Whether your victims, or society, or another moral agent in general spare you is merely a matter of luck.

[W]

Originally Posted by Ste

I would like to repeat:

Quit your ****ing strawman, there are more options than this, and it hardly matters who sides with what option, more important is the arguments put forward.

[Dante Hicks]

Originally Posted by Toccata & Fugue

Has the death of any one individual made society better?

Most analysts agree that the assasination of Franco's sucessor by ETA eased the democratic transition and is thus regarded as a "good thing".

[Dante Hicks]

Originally Posted by Toccata & Fugue

Thought you didn't have internet in the day time?

They've enabled it between 12 and 2 so we can have it at lunch, the freedom hating bums.

They've also filtered my e-mail, so Olly's mails got returned as it contained swearing. I've complained to the head of our IT department.

[Dante Hicks]

Originally Posted by Toccata & Fugue

Perhaps I should rephrase in the context of this argument. "Has the execution of one individual by the state evr made society better?"

How would you hope to measure this?

edit : I'd argue the some of the counter-revolutionaries killed by the early Bolshevik state would have made things worse if alive.

[W]

Originally Posted by Toccata & Fugue

Has the death of any one individual made society better?

• Part of the effect of the death penalty is that it exist, not who it kills
• Yes. Most peoples deaths serve society in some form or another. Whenever someone below average dies, the average go up.
• Trick question, as it's impossible to know what would happen in the alternate reality where you let someone live, and thus can only compare to estimates.

[W]

Originally Posted by Toccata & Fugue

Why does the detah penalty exist?

In repsonse to your and Dante's point, I would not propose to measure it but surely the burden of proof is on those who wish to kill people. Similarly, what average, average of what?

Well not a trick question, but if you are saying we should execute people for crimes they haven't yet committed you are on shaky ground.

What someone might do or not do is impossible to predict, but easy to estimate. If someone is a serial murderer, or have killed in prison, you can be pretty sure that killing him/her is a net gain. Yes, you can never know in advance, any reasonable justice system waits until someone commits a crime by their own free will to punish them.

Anyway, to take this one meta up, given that people like you and me disagree on what justice is, is there any objective justice, and how do we discover it?

[Dante Hicks]

Originally Posted by Toccata & Fugue

That is what I meant. Neither Stalin nor Hitler or Thatcher were ever executed, don't know about Franco.

I was talking about Franco's sucessor, not Franco himself. But what does it matter if someone is killed by an impersonal unemotional assasin, or by the state?

I don't see the logical line you're drawing between the state acting, and (say) the Central Committee of a political party deciding to kill someone. One might have more resources than the other, but that's about it.

Well on the subject of justice it is difficult to pin down, but I given that life is so precious it should not be taken from someone unless they threaten the life of others.

If life is sacrosanct then it shouldn't matter if someone is threatening others lives, or not. What if they won't kill someone else, but they're busy raping your partner, and all you can do is shoot them? One would presume you'd kill them (presuming you're not good enough to do some fancy knee-capping or something).

I can respect the Amish style "I won't kill someone even if they are about to kill me or my family" argument because it's at least consistent. What I don't get is the idea that if someone is trying to kill my wife it's "OK" to kill them, but it's unjust if I kill the guy three minutes after he's killed her. It's OK to kill attempted murder but not a murderer? Or are you making some ends-justifies-the-means type point?

[W]

Originally Posted by Toccata & Fugue

Well on the subject of justice it is difficult to pin down, but I given that life is so precious it should not be taken from someone unless they threaten the life of others.

On your pooitn about predicting whetehr a murderer will murder again, well put them in prison and keep them under guard.

Life is so precious to you... I asked for an objective measure.

And when it comes to prison

• Most consider death a milder punishment than lifelong torture, which would be required to guarantee noone could kill within the prison
• Given the limits on a prison budget (considering that prison has to be cheaper than the death sentence for the "it's cheaper" argument not to work) it can never be secure. People can escape, or can be freed by outside forces.
• Keeping someone in prison for the duration of their life hardly gives society any remarkable benefits.

[Proteus]

Many that live deserve death. And some die that deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then be not too eager to deal out death in the name of justice, fearing for your own safety. Even the wise cannot see all ends.

[Dante Hicks]

Originally Posted by Proteus

Many that live deserve death. And some die that deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then be not too eager to deal out death in the name of justice, fearing for your own safety. Even the wise cannot see all ends.

But the good guys in LOTR slaughtered thousands...

[Dante Hicks]

Originally Posted by Toccata & Fugue

I have said that you are correct the state is no different from a group of people hireing an assasin and that is why they have no right to kill someone. I don't draw a difference between the state killing or anyone else killing. I don't see why you are returning to this issue.

So you would never support a politically motivated assasination, or revolutionary violence of any kind which could risk death (of someone)?

The reason why I came back to the point because you rephrased your question to include "has the state killing someone ever improved the world, etc, etc". I was merely saying whether it was the state that killed someone or not was irrelevent to the question - which you now seem to agree with. I supplied an example where someone was assasinated by a political group (which you say is the same thing as execution, and equally unjustifiable). In the example I gave, the world was "objectively" better, we can estimate.

Furthermore, you are settiong up a straw man, the state is not prosecuting on behalf of the vicim, but on behalf of its self, so its vengence is unjustified.

Well, in theory the state should be acting on behalf of public justice. But the point is irrelevent as to whom revenge is "gained" for. As I've said, if a Batman style vigilante went out onto the streets and killed murderers I'd consider this just behaviour (presuming the people who died were deserving of death) irrespective of whether he was related to the criminals victims or not.

Think of it this way. A man's car breaks down outside my house. He comes in to use the phone, and we begin talking. I then realise he is a brutal racist killer from the apartheid regime who has managed to escape all state punishment (through political maneuverings or somesuch). I somehow obtain evidence he is guilty (this is a thougth experiment, so stay with me). I then kill the man. It does not matter that I am obtaining vengenace for people I have never met or whether it is for my mother. (this scenario is stolen from a Polanski film I think, but I can't remember which). I as a moral agent, will always try to create a world with more justice. That is the only justification (no pun intended) I need.

[Tactitus]

Originally Posted by Dante Hicks

But the good guys in LOTR slaughtered thousands...

But not too eagerly...

[Dante Hicks]

Originally Posted by Toccata & Fugue

1. Revolutionary violence is hardly being carried out by the state now is it.

if it were proven that this would save lives directly then sure why not but that again is not an act by the state

The state is different from A person.

Originally Posted by Toccata & Fugue

I don't draw a difference between the state killing or anyone else killing. I don't see why you are returning to this issue.

Consistency--; That's why I'm returning to the issue.

I'll respond later when I've got some time, but in the scenario I outlined I said the person had escaped punishment by the state already...

[Dante Hicks]

Originally Posted by Toccata & Fugue

Thus whilst a person carrying out a killing might have reason to do it. the state except in instances of war has no justification for killing.

I don't draw a difference between the state killing or anyone else killing

Clearly some kind of independent arbritration is needed, since those statements do not seem particularly consistent. Anyone else's view?

[Dante Hicks]

Originally Posted by Toccata & Fugue

4. It's not about who revenge is for, revenge should never be part of the equation. I don't support vigilantism, it is not for an individual to exact justice over others.

Why not? This is what I mean by fetishing the state. Why is the state special in this regard? And of course revenge comes into the equation, that's part of the whole point. Sure, for crimes which can be rectified (property crimes) then it's purely a matter of rehabilitation (or prevention).

But if, for instance, someone murdered 8 or 9 people and then could "prove" they wouldn't do it again (there was some special circumstances which caused the first 8 or 9 murders) I don't think many people would simply allow them to escape "punishment" and walk free.

but is it for you to judge other people? How arrogant is that.

It's for any moral agent to judge anyone else. I would hope that if I came home tommorow with the dead body of a small child which I had brutally killed you might have something to say about it. Even if you phone the police you are making a moral judgement.

Even if you did phone the police, the whole point of the justice system (a component which you've praised I believe) is that you are eventually judged by your peers - i.e. by people like me! So fine, you can call it arrogance, I call it the duty of any moral being. You don't need to be better than someone to judge them.