Your thoughts on the Death penalty?

[Evil Natured Robot]

Slave_Master is on to something good when he talks about killing anyone who commits a crime. Modifying it with California's "three strikes and you're out" idea might just be what we need. We'll restructure the legal system as follows:

There is one law - "Play Nice." A crime is committed when someone chooses not to play nice.

Committing a violent crime is punishable by death
Committing three non-violent crimes is punishable by death.

Proving guilt and innocence gets tricky, as it's all of a sudden much more important. While outside our current technological capability, the best way to determine this would be to place a massive surveillance system in lieu of judge and jury. The facts and that's it. Automatic justice.

Maybe the system of punishment can be automated, too.

[Slave_Master]

If you have three or so telepaths in the courtroom, suddenly the whole system gets a lot easier.

[axltrauts]

well, that's an interesting idea. And about innocent people sent to do labor for life, it's worst than dying. but if it leads to some chance of beeing free, well... i don't kno.
I agree with the death penalty.

anyways, kids must be taught to survive, but the razor-on-the-candy will sure get old.

[SuperH]

See, the problem with working them to death in the fields is that they're waaaay waaaay too stringy to eat at that point. Sure, if they're stringy already shove 'em out there, they're not doing anyone any good. But if they're not, then kill them right away for fooding. That goes for any crime, as far as I'm concerned. Nothing I'm ever convicted of though, cause I hardly benefit from being eaten.

Anyway, yeah, go the death penalty. Of course some people need it, because throwing them in prison is a waste of money - certain people will never get out anyway, and no matter what anyone says, it cannot be cheaper to keep a person in jail for life than it is to kill them flat out. Not to mention prison overcrowding... if more people were killed, that would be dealt with quite conveniently.

[avenger69ie]

bloody typical of you lot to say yes its an agreeable form of punishment, no person has any right to take another's life, fuck just causes, any cause which ends up taking a life is an unjust cause.

regardless of the criminals actual crime, no matter how bad it was, he wont learn any lessons, and if the crime was committed in a state or country which has teh eath penalty then nobody else with the same level of mentality will learn anything either, imo, its a bad idea to have a death penalty.

[Megatron]

so what do you suggest? Put a guy who raped a bunch of kids, killed them and ate them to work in a field?

yar that is justice 8)

I think anyone dumb enough to get caught doing something very bad deserves to die and stuff. I also think they need to totally revise all the current laws, espeacially self-defense in the UK and shit.

[SuperH]

"doing something very bad" is completely relative, you know. I challenge you to think of one thing that everyone thinks is completely bad, or one thing that everyone thinks is completely good, for that matter.

All joking aside now, any system of laws is just the imposition of one group's beliefs on another. The amount you're punished for not thinking the same doesn't really matter, it's all bad, killing someone may be worse in some people's books than in others, but obviously, it's not bad at all in some, or it wouldn't happen.

[EvoG]

I see a lot of idealism, semi intellectual posts and lots of humor. The core of law and justice is based around the freedoms afforded the people. WE all agree to those freedoms. When someone goes to lengths that ROBS that freedom from someone else, they've committed a crime. Its silly to place the concept of 'beliefs' and 'laws' in such a microcosm, that they are only the beliefs of the majority...as if the majority isn't essentially MOST of us. The right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. This is held by everyone on the earth, being a central part of being human, the freedom to live life. The crimes that ultimately lead to the death penatly are heinous on a GLOBAL level. NO ONE thinks killing another human is less severe than another. On a fundamental and human level, it is utterly deplorable and unconscionable. You all fail to place yourself in the shoes of someone who lost a loved one to a murder. Imagine, those of you with girlfriends, that she was lost to a murder, and not just a shooting, but a horrible rape and brutalization. NO ONE can tell me that that primal urge to enact vengence would not surface. Utter bullshit.

I challenge you guys to really think about this topic. It could've proven to be real thought provking topic instead of resorting to nonsensical attempts at 't3h funn33'.

Cheers

[SuperH]

NO ONE thinks killing another human is less severe than another.

Untrue. What about the one doing the killing? Accidental killings aside, commiters of murder generally do not have such a high regard for life other than their own, killing another to them is a less severe killing.

Also, who cares about dying homeless? They die all the time living out in the cold, sure, it's bothersome to some people, but most of us just plain don't care. We care because some handicapped guy got hit by a car driven by some girl wacked out on at least 3 different drugs. That's news, it's important, so it matters.

Anyway, I'm straying here. Laws are the beliefs of the majority, and that's all. If they weren't, if they were universal truths, nobody would ever break the law, ever. Obviously that doesn't happen, there's no such thing as a universal truth. Sure, killing people is wrong to some of us, but it's not wrong to the killer, it's not bad to the supporters of the death penalty, and to some extent to pro-choicers.

[EvoG]

Huh? You know exactly what I'm saying. OF COURSE the person doing the killing doesn't have regard for the life he's taking. We're talking about the judgment on those that do the killing by the MAJORITY of us that find killing a 'NOT GOOD THING'. I don't give a fuck about the opinion of someone who thinks killing is 'okay'. What kind of tard concept is that?

As for the seemingly ancillary deaths of the homeless, what does this have to do with the topic? We're talking about the death penatly here, not if everyone has emapthy or not for every innocent death that occurs.

As for your last statement, you can't paint the concept of universal law, black and white. What is this? Any living thing on earth sees 'dying' as a bad thing and strive to survive. The universal truth behind the concept of an organism is to procreate and survive. LIVING is a universal truth. No other human has the right to arbitrarily take the life of another. The DEATH PENATLY is the result of said arbitrary action. Its not bad to supporters because the person they are killing DID A BAD THING...the selfish act of taking a life.

You can't simply blanket a concept with one generic abstract. Everything has grey areas that I'd hoped a lot of us here would explore.

Cheers

[axltrauts]

Justice is not about the good or bad deeds, it's just justice.

if somebody kills somebody, either willing it or because he's crazy or demented, he must be punished, executing him or not.
If a person kills a loved one, and u kill him just for vengeance (not for self defense) u must be punished, u r not the law.

about the homeless, if somebody kills them, again the killer must be punished, using the same penalty.

Now, what i'm talking about is for at least the killer must be executed when he did something horrible, like a rape, genocide or similar. But if this death penalty extends for all the killers (that wanted to kill) and similar acts, i'm also ok.

and, yes, unfortunately, law applies in the majority to the ones that can defend properly. so, sometimes it's the will of the majority.

about what avenger69ie said, no, i don't expect the killer learn something, cause he's gonna die. And if the death of somebody is not a good incentive for the other not to commit the crime, then what worst can be?

Oh, by the way, a good book that talks about punishment and all is Starship Troopers, Believe me, the movie sucked, the book is entirely a different matter.

[SuperH]

As for your last statement, you can't paint the concept of universal law, black and white. What is this? Any living thing on earth sees 'dying' as a bad thing and strive to survive. The universal truth behind the concept of an organism is to procreate and survive. LIVING is a universal truth. No other human has the right to arbitrarily take the life of another. The DEATH PENATLY is the result of said arbitrary action. Its not bad to supporters because the person they are killing DID A BAD THING...the selfish act of taking a life.

Wrong, again. Many people choose not to have children, so they don't feel the need to procreate. There are also thousands of suicides every year, dying is not a bad thing to them, it's better than living. There's still no such thing as a universal truth.

As far as I see it, no human being has the right to take any action whatsoever against another human being, command or otherwise. We should all be free to live our lives in complete frictionless peace, lacking any contact with others, commanding that someone should die is just another form of said action against another human being.

However, some people do believe in the ability to command others, and in the "rightness" of enforcing their belief system, their laws, on others. They see killing as an ultimate evil, so they decide to kill them. It's only archaic hypocrisy, what's the big deal? They think they're doing right. You think they're doing wrong.

The way I see it, punishment is infringement on people's rights. It's hypocritical to say that it's alright to infringe on another's rights because, in your words, they infringed on the rights of another in commiting a crime. Ideally all 'crimes' should be unpunished - that's fair. No hypocrisy there. You, or someone else, will point out that will lead to rampant criminalism. What kind of universally held belief, though, would it be, if without the threat of puinishment people ignored the belief?

And, as an addition, since when does becoming the majority make something right? That's herd mentality, and is complete bull.

[EvoG]

Wrong again? *sigh* When was I wrong before? Procreation is indeed the goal of all organisms, for survival of the species...this isn't debatable. The minor argument that a couple chooses not to have a baby simply does not supersede the laws of nature. Hardly, "wrong again".

You confuse the concept of 'herd mentality' and 'majority truth', two completely different concepts. Simple : If everyone says the sky is red, the sky is red. Its the majority conception of truth, as truth is flexible enough to be interpretive. Herd Mentality is the idea that everyone follows everyone else without objectivity or thought, such as a herd of cattle fleeing from danger...they follow the leader. Our society is based upon the majority truth, a democracy, which makes your last statment contradictory. How can we be 'herded' if we are all, in fact, a part of the majority deciding truth? Think about it.

Well regardless, I support the death penalty and you don't, which was the point of the topic.

Cheers.

[SuperH]

Wrong again? *sigh* When was I wrong before? Procreation is indeed the goal of all organisms, for survival of the species...this isn't debatable. The minor argument that a couple chooses not to have a baby simply does not supersede the laws of nature. Hardly, "wrong again".

You confuse the concept of 'herd mentality' and 'majority truth', two completely different concepts. Simple : If everyone says the sky is red, the sky is red. Its the majority conception of truth, as truth is flexible enough to be interpretive. Herd Mentality is the idea that everyone follows everyone else without objectivity or thought, such as a herd of cattle fleeing from danger...they follow the leader. Our society is based upon the majority truth, a democracy, which makes your last statment contradictory. How can we be 'herded' if we are all, in fact, a part of the majority deciding truth? Think about it.

Well regardless, I support the death penalty and you don't, which was the point of the topic.

Cheers.

Right, you said that it was a basic human need and drive, sure some people may have it, but not everyone does, or everyone would be having tons of kids all the time. Regardless. You were wrong about there being a universal truth, and about the high regard for life that everyone supposedly has.

Your entire second paragraph contradicts itself many times. Majority Truth is herd mentality. If the majority says the sky is red, that's only because people started believing one another. Not because they looked for themselves. As far as I'm concerned, the sky is blue, if everyone suddenly decided the sky was red, I wouldn't follow along with that. How is our society any different from a herd of cattle? We do not get the chance to influence our laws, or anything about our society. In truth the only freedom given us is to vote, everything else is controlled by the government. And, less than 2% of the population actually turn out to vote. You say that's not herd mentality? What truth have you helped decide? And, if you do go vote to help decide on a truth, if your side loses, what choice do you have, except to follow the herd?

As for supporting the death penalty, I said in principle I don't agree with it, but I do agree with it, because of apathy. As long as I don't end up getting caught in it's web, I'm aok with the idea. Just looking out for myself is all. Might be a little bit hypocritical, but, I could seriously care less.

[EvoG]

God this is exhausting. Please reread what I wrote initially regarding 'universal truth', as queer as that phrase sounds to me now. I said :

"Any living thing on earth sees 'dying' as a bad thing and strive to survive. The universal truth behind the concept of an organism is to procreate and survive."

This is the goddamn case with the laws of nature. The whole point to any stupid organism is to simply survive and pass along its genes. THATS IT. Thats all I said on universal truth...the idea that dying is a bad thing for a living organsim.

My second paragrah isn't even LONG ENOUGH to 'contradict itself many times'. Give me a break. You didn't even point out one contradiction I made, you only rebutted with YOUR definition of what 'herd' and 'truth' are to you. The PHRASE 'herd mentality' is EXACTLY what I wrote above... following one without objectivity or free will or thought or creativity. Also, this sentence you wrote,

"If the majority says the sky is red, that's only because people started believing one another. Not because they looked for themselves."

...is a complete simplification, which is the foundation to your entire argument. The only way the sky is red is because everyone believes some guy who says its red?!! You missed the entire point of my example. The 'concept' of the red sky is a study of truth...not if people are too lazy to look for themselves.

The concept of truth; I'm talking about the abstraction of what it means for something to be accepted as truth, but you're going off on government and laws and voting...what are you talking about? There have been many literary studies on 'what truth is', and you and I are not talking about this concept on the same level.

Lasty, we're this far off topic, on a topic, that you 'could seriously care less' about? Um, okay?

Cheers

[SuperH]

I see a lot of idealism, semi intellectual posts and lots of humor. The core of law and justice is based around the freedoms afforded the people. WE all agree to those freedoms. When someone goes to lengths that ROBS that freedom from someone else, they've committed a crime. Its silly to place the concept of 'beliefs' and 'laws' in such a microcosm, that they are only the beliefs of the majority...as if the majority isn't essentially MOST of us. The right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. This is held by everyone on the earth, being a central part of being human, the freedom to live life. The crimes that ultimately lead to the death penatly are heinous on a GLOBAL level. NO ONE thinks killing another human is less severe than another. On a fundamental and human level, it is utterly deplorable and unconscionable. You all fail to place yourself in the shoes of someone who lost a loved one to a murder. Imagine, those of you with girlfriends, that she was lost to a murder, and not just a shooting, but a horrible rape and brutalization. NO ONE can tell me that that primal urge to enact vengence would not surface. Utter bullshit.

Right there, although you didn't explicity say "universal truths" you made the case that those are universal truths, "Heinous on a global level" is more or less saying universal truth, and I heartily disagree with what you said there, it's incorrect.

"Any living thing on earth sees 'dying' as a bad thing and strive to survive. The universal truth behind the concept of an organism is to procreate and survive."

This is the goddamn case with the laws of nature. The whole point to any stupid organism is to simply survive and pass along its genes. THATS IT. Thats all I said on universal truth...the idea that dying is a bad thing for a living organsim.

I also gave examples as to why none of that was true, the point to living may be to just pass along genes, but what does that have to do with anything? You accuse me of being blatantly off topic, but this doesn't even have anything to do with what we've mentioned at all, not to mention the fact that it still can't be a universal truth for any living organism for it's not applicable to every organism that ever lived.

Our society is based upon the majority truth, a democracy, which makes your last statment contradictory. How can we be 'herded' if we are all, in fact, a part of the majority deciding truth? Think about it.

We aren't deciding the truth though, I used voting as an example as to why democracy is just herd mentality, that is, blind following. I thought it illustrated quite accuratey, my voting argument, but maybe you missed that.

Did I say I seriously care less about the death penalty in general? I said I could care less about the hypocrisy involved in apathy. I don't have any problem debating the principles though. You're the one who wanted a serious intelligent discussion here but you simply ignore my points and get upset when they don't agree with your world view. That's no way to debate.

On the death penalty again, here's the way I see it in principle, restating generally what I said above :
It's wrong. No human has the right to impose anything on another human. Laws are simply beliefs, and punishment for breaking laws is retribution against somebody for not conforming to your beliefs. Ideally nobody should try to impose their beliefs on others through force, which is what the threat of punishment is. It's not universally heinous to commit murder though, because, as I mentioned, people still do it without any qualms. That's just because they have a different belief system than yours, and saying that it's alright to kill them because they kill another is arrogance, the belief that your belief system is better than theirs. This isn't off topic at all, but if you saw it that way before, and if you're ignoring this now because you still think it is, read closer. All the death penalty is is the imposition of your belief system over theirs - for you, killing is only justified in retribution, for them, killing is justified in any situation where they don't die. Both are valid belief systems, seeing as they're both widely held beliefs. Neither are universal, or "global", because all across the globe people of every different belief type exist. You get what I'm saying here? The death penalty isn't right because it's not right to impose beliefs on others.
However, I did say, that through apathy I approve of the death penalty. What does it matter to me if someone dies? They're dead, it's not like it matters to them. You used the example of a girlfriend being raped and killed, what about the family of the man given the death penalty because of that? Don't they, ideally, get the right to retribution too? Blah I digress back to my original point. Whatever, you should see what I'm saying if you read closely this time, in principle the death penalty is heartily wrong.

[Kashluk]

You guys speak like you were professionals on the subject... But let me ask you: how many of you have actually BEEN in jail? Yup, that's what I thought. I know very few (let's just say that you can count them with one hand fingers) people who've been to prison, and most of them were small-time anyhow, but most of them couldn't stand the way their freedom was taken from them. To them the punishment was hard enough to remind not to start doing the same stuff after they got out. The system worked.

[Franz Schubert]

NO ONE thinks killing another human is less severe than another.

Untrue. What about the one doing the killing? Accidental killings aside, commiters of murder generally do not have such a high regard for life other than their own, killing another to them is a less severe killing.

SuperH, what matters is that it is against the law to kill someone, and whether or not the committer of the murder knows that doesn't matter.

Having said that, the death penalty is an idiotic system of justice.

Interesting note: The U.S. is the last civilized country that STILL uses the death penalty.

One last thing: Hammer, you're a real patriot... [/sarcasm]

[EvoG]

...people who've been to prison, and most of them were small-time anyhow, but most of them couldn't stand the way their freedom was taken from them. To them the punishment was hard enough to remind not to start doing the same stuff after they got out. The system worked.

Which is why a lot of them are repeat offenders, in and out of prison their whole lives.

Why a recently released sex offender went right back to committing the same crime he was placed in jail for in the first place.

[axltrauts]

i will sound very crude here, but, as Hammurabi did on his code: 'an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth'

well, that's an idea of a punishment, if u murder, u get killed. if u steal money, they take money from you.

No human has the right to impose anything on another human. Laws are simply beliefs, and punishment for breaking laws is retribution against somebody for not conforming to your beliefs.

u say it's not right to impose beliefs on somebody, that's true, and because of this, nobody has the right to put me im prison because i steal, or because i kill. to put somebody in prison is as an imposing belief as giving him the death penalty. I don't really believe this is the right way, but, as i said, laws and justice are neither good nor bad, they are just things that makes the society going with order.

That's because, through the times, laws and justice have always changed.

well, anyways, about the death penalty, i think the thread won't finish, it's like talking about religion, or football (soccer).[/b]