Right wing conservatives are evil? Well, I have evidence that they are.

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Then use the money to reduce the budget deficit, or cut taxes, or in education. I agree that having the state do things is "heavy-handed," but I think the "heavy hand" is already there. As far as I know, there's a budget for education, for foreign affairs, for domestic welfare, government funding for research (e.g. NIH). So re-allocating funds doesn't seem like much extra "heavy-handed-ness."

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I didn't have much to say about the alleged "heavy-handedness" of the state - the state is no more heavy-handed than any large, tiered organisation, such as corporations. The point is that especially the US state is unlikely to use any such savings on actual human welfare, so it is a false dichotomy.

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Thus, it's possible to INCORRECTLY release guilty people, becasue due to new information / evidence, those who judge wrongly come to believe that the encarcerated person is innocent.

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That goes without saying - that has always been the case in any formal judicial process. But that is the price you pay for justice, rather than revenge.Please bear in mind that police forces and universal public justice are a new phenomenon; the very first formal police agencies only began to appear in the mid-18th Century. In all history prior to that, justice was either private or in the direct judgement of the highest fora of the state. And since then, it has been concerned about potential excesses of the state, and hence the precuationary principle of only applying judicial sanction where a case is determined 'beyond reasonable doubt' developed.

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The a priori belief that killing of any kind is murder and so bad is not something in contention. You may believe that. I do not. And there is no way of disproving either.

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Except, as you well know, I do not hold that position. Please address the points I raise, not straw men.

Yawn... You really want to nitpick this badly?Okay, the a priori belief that "Simple - its not justified because murder is wrong. Especially, as in this case, avoidable judicial murder." is not in contention. You may believe that. I do not (both that it is murder and that it is not justified). And there is no way of disproving either opinion.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

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Okay, the a priori belief that "Simple - its not justified because murder is wrong. Especially, as in this case, avoidable judicial murder." is not in contention. You may believe that. I do not (both that it is murder and that it is not justified). And there is no way of disproving either opinion.

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Whoop do doo, more sophistry. You asked for a reason, you got one, not an essay. Furthermore, I can point to the fact that murder is illogical in a social organism, is dangerous in principle to a social organism, and is inherently traumatic and psychologically disturbing in humans.Make your case or don't; assumptions do not help your argument.

It wasn't sophistry. Much less more sophistry. Yes and as I have just suggested it is a valid one. Unfortunately it is not objectively valid, only subjectively internally valid. That's why neither of us are wrong. Murder is illogical? Do you mean the first one to kill, or the one defending himself? I see quite a bit of logic in killing in defense or to protect onesself from a credible threat.I find all of this contradictory given your support for people killing others in Israel and the US. You have said that their actions are logical and necessary.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

It was and remains sophistry.

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Murder is illogical? Do you mean the first one to kill, or the one defending himself? I see quite a bit of logic in killing in defense or to protect onesself from a credible threat.

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Irrelevant. Its still not logical to do so - your breeding opportunities and the variation of the species is thereby constrained.It is illogical in principle for a social organism to legitimise the killing of its members within its own society, certainly for a cooperative species such as ours.And of course, killing is observably psychologically traumatic, indicating that it is a learned behaviour and one in which we generally do not indulge by choice.

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I find all of this contradictory given your support for people killing others in Israel and the US. You have said that their actions are logical and necessary.

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Thats because you purposefully blur the specific and the general case.

I'm trying to figure out what planet you are from. Your response to my posting is to say the least, bizarre! For instance this from your post: What the heck does this mean? People won't rape and kill if they don't have property rights?!!!! And this: Where did this come from? I mentioned only murder cases, which are a far cry from a misdemeanor jaywalking. I've heard slippery slope arguements before but this is just ludicrous!

What is the difference between killing those that have killed, so have already shown they are willing and able and have diminished breeding opportunities as well as variation, and allowing people that have proven they will so to continue living?The answer is that in the former one reduces the threat to breeding opportunities and variation, while the other allows the threat to continue. Wholesale? Yes. Restricted to proven killers? No.You are trying to ride a slippery slope. I do not believe this is true at all, but can agree for sake of argument. What difference does it make when you have killers killing? That is when you are forced to take action, just like when you have a wild animal which has killed and is likely to kill again. By all means clear my vision. How do you get from condemning the ordered killing of those who have killed members of your population (in general), to lauding the killing of those who are related to those who have killed members of your population (in specific)?

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

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What is the difference between killing those that have killed, so have already shown they are willing and able and have diminished breeding opportunities as well as variation, and allowing people that have proven they will so to continue living?

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One scenario has one more dead body than the other.You are appealing to moralism. You should know by know I don't consider that compelling as an argument. If our population used to be X, and is now X-1, how does it help to go to X-2?

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Wholesale? Yes. Restricted to proven killers? No.
You are trying to ride a slippery slope.

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I don't need to, because your position is an absolute. All I need is a contradiction.What you fail to consider, is that a person who arrogates to themselves the right to kill the proven killers thereby becomes a proven killer.

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I do not believe this is true at all, but can agree for sake of argument. What difference does it make when you have killers killing? That is when you are forced to take action, just like when you have a wild animal which has killed and is likely to kill again.

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Perhaps. But why do I have killers killing? Once again you imply a ridiculous scenario, as if I oppose people fighting in their own defence. That is not at all the same issue as establishing in principle the legitimacy of homicide as a tool of public policy; that must necessarily produce killers.

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By all means clear my vision. How do you get from condemning the ordered killing of those who have killed members of your population (in general), to lauding the killing of those who are related to those who have killed members of your population (in specific)?

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You are falsely transposing answers given in the abstract to local specifics that have their own criterion. I'm not sure what "my population" has to do with anything either. I consider it arrant fantasy to demand passivity from people under oppression. But merely because violence happens does not mean I have to enshrine it in a social order and call it good.This message has been edited by contracycle, 04-12-2005 09:12 AM

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I'm trying to figure out what planet you are from.

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Earth. You?

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What the heck does this mean? People won't rape and kill if they don't have property rights?

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Correct in 3 senses. First, property rights are the alienation of a commodity from common to exclusive ownership and is thus theft. Second, property rights do cause conflicts both directly and indrectly. Third, property rights underly the treatment of people as things, and thus produces rape.For humans to be free, private property must be abolished.

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Where did this come from? I mentioned only murder cases, which are a far cry from a misdemeanor jaywalking. I've heard slippery slope arguements before but this is just ludicrous!

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Nonsense; its a reductio ad absurdam. The identification of guilt is not the deciding factort in the death penalty. Even if Holmes was able to devise a 100% perfect system that never produced a miscarriage of justice, the death penalty would STILL be judicial murder.

From your responses I would have to assume you are from planet Absurbdo or Bizarro! Your argument that that property rights causes rapes and murders is without any merit or evidence. The only people on the planet without property are primitive hunter/gather tribes and not even all of them are without property/possessions. The modern world could not exist without private property. What would be the incentive for people to produce if they could not own anything. You seem to advocate some sort of communism, which has never worked as it goes against human nature.As for the other part of your post. Yes, and as so it is ignored because that is not a valid argument. So I win that point.And as for your point here Not murder by the standard definition, just by yours. I suppose you refer to killing someone in self defense as justifiable murder? Or if someone is killed in an accident its accidental murder? See, I can redefine the word murder too!

You seem to advocate some sort of communism, which has never worked as it goes against human nature.Actually, most of the so-called "primitive" societies are communist. And they all seem to have worked well enough until the imperial powers came in and mucked things up.--

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The modern world could not exist without private property.

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Yes, and Medievel European society could not exist without a strong centralized Church. But European society moved beyond that and is much better for it. Medievel Japanese society could not exist without the warrior samurai class. But modern Japan has moved beyond that and is much better for it.

Yeah most societies could have been thought as communes, right up until societies started domesticating animals and farming. At this point people started owning more things cause you didn't have to carry everything around with you. This move to property happened long before there were any imperial powers. I stand by my statement that communism goes against human nature, because the rewards of your efforts are not visable. In a small hunter/gather tribe, the whole tribe is closely related to you personally, so anything you do to help the tribe helps your relatives and you can easily see this. Small tribes also used to banish people who didn't fit in or contribute enough to the group. In the harse environs of the past, this could easily have amounted to a death penalty. What kind of society do you envision that we could move on to and how could it work if people didn't own things?

it needs its own thread. We have wandered way too far OT.Why not take to a new coffeee house thread. It is clear enough that it would not even need approval and should be interesting.

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I stand by my statement that communism goes against human nature, because the rewards of your efforts are not visable.

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Well, that may very well be true, but I find it an odd thing to simply assert that a social organization that seems to have been a part of the human condition over most of its evolutionary history could be "against human nature". I would expect that humans would evolve so that "human nature" and a near universal method of organizing society would pretty much coincide.No doubt that you can provide some justification for you views. One thing that I learned from my reading and my travels abroad that its pretty common for people to assume that their society is superior to all others.--

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What kind of society do you envision that we could move on to and how could it work if people didn't own things?

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I don't understand your question. We both agree, it seems, that past societies were communist and that they worked pretty well.