Nobel Prize vs Proof that the Death Penalty MUST kill innocents

It applied to that statement. Edited to make it clear.This message has been edited by jar, 01-16-2006 02:27 PM

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Then we get back to my original questions. No matter if somebody dies because of your intent, or they die because of an accident, it's not reversible. If the big issue is reversibility--that you don't want people to die who might possibly not "deserve to die"--then isn't that important IN ALL SITUTATIONS? Why is the death penalty such a 'special case'?In my book, dead is dead. Dead due to a mistake is dead due to a mistake. I don't see how anything else matters.I know I'm going in circles. I'm struggling to understand. Do you understand where I'm coming from? Any ideas?

Because it is a special case. The sole point of the Death Penalty is to kill someone as retribution for some crime. True. What does that have to do with it?The big issue is reversibility. With the death penalty we have an unique act, one that has as its sole purpose killing someone because we believe they committed a crime.IMHO it is currently and for the foreseeable future it will be impossible to know conclusively if the person is guilty.We have many other options available.Since execution is not reversible, and there are other options, I do not believe the death penalty is justifiable.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

That doesn't explain why. Why is the intent of the action important? Why does it matter whether the intent of the action is to kill a person who deserves to die, or to drive drunk? If innocent people die while you're doing something, then we shouldn't be doing it. Why is it that the intent of the action makes it not OK to you in one case, and OK in the other? Why do you say that the one type of action is not OK, and the other is, when they both lead to exactly the same kind of error: killing an innocent person. Because to me, if you think the mere possibility of innocent people being killed is grounds to not implement a policy in one case, it seems obvious that you'd use that same criterion for all cases. Because, after all, innocent people dying are just innocent people dying.

And I simply do not see your problem. Not at all. First, if you read what I wrote I do not agree that we can establish that the person deserved to die. I have said that although we may be able to find proof that we consider conclusive given our current knowledge and technology, I cannot be sure that future knowledge will not prove us wrong.The reason that the two things you describe are different is that with the death penalty we have an intent to kill, we have other options available, we cannot be sure it is justified and our actions are not reversible.Really, Ben, I'm not trying to convince you. I am simply trying my best to explain my position. If you are still unable to understand my position, I see hope for success.Sorry.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

The statement was a conclusion based on the the three arguments I placed against yours. You cannot fail to reply to the arguments, and then say "yes it is" as a rebuttal to a conclusion.What's worse is this is the second time you've pulled this garbage and it is supposed to be against forum rules to do so.If you don't have an argument, concede or fade away, don't keep playing the disappearing reasserter trick.

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

He is merely asserting a position and is not addressing either of our arguments. This is the same thing I went through with him earlier in this thread.Look at post 208 and 211 now. Essentially he just answered my argument with "Is so", and he answers this post of yours with a "says you".I do not understand how he is able to get away with this activity. This is obviously no different than what randman and faith have done and been censured for. When confronted with arguments they just assert they are right and others are wrong and it is obvious (or should be obvious to us)... then they disappear, only to reappear somewhere else to reassert as if there had been no challenge.Not only that but he just tried to play dumb that a challenge had been brought earlier, by acting as if his point had been made and so my statement (challenge) was not true.Am I offbase in feeling this is not proper?

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

What it means is that I have no intention of playing dueling definitions with you. You quibble that Schaivo wasn't dead, she was only brain dead, I believe she was dead.See, Holmes, I don't have a problem with you disagreeing with me. That's called life. But here, we are in the coffee house discussing the Death Penalty and everyone is expressing what they believe. That's all, their beliefs related to the death penalty.That's what I've done. I've outlined my position. I've tried my best to explain why I hold that position. You and others seem to disagree.Okay. I don't have any problems with that. But that does not mean that my position and reasoning is not laid out for all to see. But when you resort to attempts to play dueling definitions, it's time to simply dismiss you and either step away or to continue with others where there is a greater prospect of productive discourse.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Not with the position, with your expressed reason for holding your position. You keep stating that it hinges on irreversibility, but that is clearly not the case. There are other factors.This is not just differing definitions and to state this is being disingenuous (or not paying close enough attention to what is being said to you). Remember you discussed that people can make mistakes and since certainty must be absolute (beyond absolute) when dealing with something that will result in death, specifically when the procedure is irreversible, such decisions should not be enforced.They did not rule that she was dead, because Jar said so. Neither are you the arbiter of what dead is. I find it odd that you would consider her dead given the evidence that her body was taking in nutrients, but lets put that aside.How did you come to your decision of what she was? Through evidence. The same kind of evidence brought to a trial about whether someone is guilty or not. Evidence that people were mistaken in her condition was being advanced at trial, and indeed could have been made available afterward to the shock of doctors claiming she was brain dead and could never recover.That is just the same as the defendant who might be exonerated later, unless you are now going to institute different rules for evidence between the cases. If so, based on what, other than an arbitrary decision that death penalty is different than death induction cases?Thus the issue is not what one defines as death, it is the evidence used to determine that someone fills such a definition (whatever it is) such that we can pull a plug. I mean I assume you agree that if you were wrong and the plug was pulled then she would actually be killed, right?The same goes for what her wishes were. Its the same evidentiary system, unless you have a reason to hold something different.This message has been edited by holmes, 01-17-2006 11:30 AM

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

There is simply no comparision or connection between the two cases IMHO.In the case of Schavio, the courts were acting after the fact. She was already dead. The fact you can artificially maintain a system where stuff goes in and stuff comes out is, IMHO irrelevant. Terry Schavio was simply no longer there, what remained was but an artificially maintained factory. Terry Schavio is simply irrelevant to the discussion.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Are you telling me this was not part of the court trial itself? That there was not an issue of what state she was in?From what I understand they provided people who argued that her state was not persistant and there was a possibility of recovery.Whether their argument/evidence was flawed or not is irrelevant. It is not "after the fact" when the question of what she is is on the table in the court case. Unless you are God, can you tell me how you came to that conclusion? If it was based on evidence could it not have been flawed? If it could have been flawed than could the decision not have ended in her being killed?I will point out that this is not even to get into definitions of death.How you came to the conclusion that she was dead is relevant to the discussion since it is the same method as whether someone was guilty of a crime.

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

Holmes, absolutely NOTHING in your post is material to the discussion.The Schavio case was the equivalent of a doctor looking at a body and pronouncing it daid.Now I've told you several times that you are welcome to your opinion. One more time, you are welcome to your opinion.The lurkers can read the thread.Bye.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Trying very hard to humbly not pick sides on this one I just have one major question which I think gets to the root of why holmes is pushing at you.Why does tentativity apply in the case of a conviction but not in the case of a medical diagnosis?You may have a very good reason to apply that standard differently which is why I am curious but it seems very clear that the standard of tentativity IS being applied differently.

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No smoking signs by gas stations. No religion in the public square. The government should keep us from being engulfed in flames on earth, and that is pretty much it. -- Jon Stewart, The Daily Show

I am going to "let this go" if you have nothing else to add. But it will not change the fact that what I have said is material and you are simply reasserting your position. Which is different from expert witnesses making any other declaration? IIRC there were also doctors which came in with a different diagnosis and prognosis. Apparently others understand the relevance and are now asking for the same answers. Maybe you will understand them?

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

I don't think there's realy a conflict.IMHO there really are two entirely different situations here.In the Schavio case the question was after the fact. It was one of trying to determine if she was already dead, what was the will of the subject. In that case the answers were that the will of the subject was not to be maintained in a vegetative state and that she really was dead already.She was already dead. There were only a few options. We could store her in the hope that at some time we would have the technology to restore her to life. While that is certainly possible, it's also unlikely that anytime in the next few decades we will have that capability.The death penalty is another situation entirely. There we have many options. The examination of evidence to convict someone of a crime is not what is being questioned. The issue is what actions we will take after that determination.The issues I see in the death penalty situation is:

• we have a history of making incorrect judgements in criminal cases.
• we are making remarkable advances in forensic sciences.
• we have the capability of simply segregating a person.
• if we choose to implement the death penalty as a sanction, there is currently no reversibility and no likelyhood that there will be a likelyhood of reversibility within the next few decades.
• IMHO it simply makes good sense to choose the options that give us the greatest future flexibility.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion