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Author Topic:   Connecticut abolishes the Death penalty
onifre
Member (Idle past 3199 days)
Posts: 4854
From: Dark Side of the Moon
Joined: 02-20-2008


Message 166 of 205 (661107)
05-02-2012 7:56 AM
Reply to: Message 161 by Tangle
05-02-2012 3:57 AM


First, I was having fun with Dr. A given that a cupcake appeared on this thread and was, hopefully, some ligh-hearted humor.
But if you want to be shitty about it...
I don't think that you can realistically argue errors won't be made, so you need to say what you think of those mistakes. Does it affect your opinion that the death penalty is ok?
No, it doesn't.
- Oni

This message is a reply to:
 Message 161 by Tangle, posted 05-02-2012 3:57 AM Tangle has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 169 by Tangle, posted 05-02-2012 6:08 PM onifre has replied

  
Straggler
Member (Idle past 314 days)
Posts: 10333
From: London England
Joined: 09-30-2006


(1)
Message 167 of 205 (661114)
05-02-2012 9:56 AM
Reply to: Message 165 by onifre
05-02-2012 7:54 AM


Re: Self Defense
Oni writes:
In the defense of OTHERS is what I'm talking about.
Then we are talking about the same thing and your are being inconsistent.
You are happy to let prisoners who are more dangerous to other inmates live whilst you want to kill off prisoners who are less dangerous to other inmates anyway on the basis that they have committed crimes you feel justify the death penalty.
Thus we can eliminate protecting other prisoners as a criteria for imposing the death penalty because you are not applying this in a logically consistent manner.
So let us move on to the next criteria.
Oni writes:
My main one has always been (A) justice for the victim and their family..
If the family and/or victim feel that justice can only be served by locking the perpetrator up in a dungeon and torturing them for the rest of their life are we happy to apply this as justice?
I don't think we can or should base the law or legal punishments on such retributional thinking. The law has to take a rational approach to morality rather than emotive otherwise it cannot be applied consistently. The law has to have a reasoned basis beyond pandering to who shouts the loudest or who is the most upset. It may seem cold. But it has to be rational otherwise it is chaotic and inconsistent.
So once again we are left asking what criteria there are for deciding whether or not someone can be killed?
My criteria is and remains self defense or the defense of others. Your stated primary criteria of "Justice for the victim and family" doesn't seem like something that can possibly be applied dispassionately and objectively by a court of law.
Explain to me how it can be.
Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 165 by onifre, posted 05-02-2012 7:54 AM onifre has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 175 by onifre, posted 05-05-2012 4:04 PM Straggler has replied

  
New Cat's Eye
Inactive Member


Message 168 of 205 (661120)
05-02-2012 11:38 AM
Reply to: Message 152 by onifre
05-01-2012 5:18 PM


I just don't mean punishment in the sense that the worst is the best. I feel execution is enough. There is, in my opinion, no need to torture for example just to get more justice from the punishment.
Okay, why is death "just the rigt amount"? You wrote:
quote:
I'm pro-death penalty. But not because it's a deterrent. It just seems like the right amount of justice in certain circumstances.
What I was getting at, was when the criminal would prefer the ease of death over life imprisonment, wouldn't death no longer be the right amount of justice? That is, it'd be the easy way out for them.
And most are not executed for that. But look at the video I posted for Strag, what do you do, what are those OTHER options when a guy has killed, been punished, killed again, was punished again, and is threatening to eventually kill again? I'm not saying kill him for making the threat, but lets say he goes through with it. He kills a third time. Now what? What are the options left?
Lock him up in a room by himself.
For many, death is the ultimate suffering. Too, sitting on Death Row has gotta be torturous. I could see it either way.
Well they have to sit on death row,
I get that, the point was that sitting there waiting to die could be considered tourous. If you didn't have the death penalty, then you'd eliminate that. Remember that you were saying that you'd rather get rid of them than torture them.
Do you mean sedate them?
Yeah! If they're gonna act like a wild animal, the shoot 'em with a tranqiuilizer gun like one

This message is a reply to:
 Message 152 by onifre, posted 05-01-2012 5:18 PM onifre has not replied

  
Tangle
Member
Posts: 9580
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 7.0


(2)
Message 169 of 205 (661168)
05-02-2012 6:08 PM
Reply to: Message 166 by onifre
05-02-2012 7:56 AM


onifre writes:
No, it doesn't
Fair enough, you want capotal punishment as vengence and you don't care that it will inevitably execute innocent people.
That's pretty clear, thanks.

Life, don't talk to me about life - Marvin the Paranoid Android

This message is a reply to:
 Message 166 by onifre, posted 05-02-2012 7:56 AM onifre has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 178 by onifre, posted 05-05-2012 4:51 PM Tangle has replied

  
crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1715 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 170 of 205 (661193)
05-03-2012 8:05 AM
Reply to: Message 124 by onifre
04-30-2012 11:40 PM


Question is, why do you trust that the government did the proper work to ensure guilt but not feel the same about the courts?
I don't believe that people should be assassinated because they're guilty - I'm not in favor of it as punishment. I believe that they should be assassinated when doing so would save lives.
Well, I take that back. I was entirely in favor of the series of assassinations carried out by Mossad in response to the murder of Israeli athletes during the Munich Olympics. Hard to argue that those weren't punitive.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 124 by onifre, posted 04-30-2012 11:40 PM onifre has not replied

  
ramoss
Member (Idle past 860 days)
Posts: 3228
Joined: 08-11-2004


Message 171 of 205 (661280)
05-03-2012 11:14 PM
Reply to: Message 13 by Heathen
04-27-2012 3:21 AM


Exodus 23:25 would seem to give biblical justification..
"then thou shalt give life for life, 24Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25Burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe. "
Unless of course, you read the Jewish commentary on that. Although it might be rationalizing from a few hundred years later, that passage was taken as early as the 1st century c.e. (and probably earlier) as being 'do not provide an excessive punishisment... no MORE than an eye for an eye, and no more than a tooth for a tooth. Jewish law also provided monetary equivalents for eyes and teeth.... so an eye is not literally put out.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 13 by Heathen, posted 04-27-2012 3:21 AM Heathen has not replied

  
Adminnemooseus
Inactive Administrator


Message 172 of 205 (661281)
05-03-2012 11:41 PM


Previous relevant topic (now closed)
Just for reference and/or alternative reading:
Death Penalty and Stanley Tookie Williams
Adminnemooseus

  
Granny Magda
Member (Idle past 286 days)
Posts: 2462
From: UK
Joined: 11-12-2007


(3)
Message 173 of 205 (661295)
05-04-2012 10:52 AM
Reply to: Message 149 by onifre
05-01-2012 4:51 PM


I'm not trying to change the subject, it's just part of my overall point that morality and being for or against risking the loss of innocent life is selective.
Except that you insist upon ignoring the context for that selection; avoidability and clear social benefit. Executions are 100% avoidable and provide no social benefit that you have ever pointed out. That's why these comparisons to police shootings or military killings are a pointless waste of time.
I would prefer a trial based-death penalty rather than a cop on the beat judging a situation based death penalty
And since the former option is not available in life or death policing situations, what you would prefer is yet another pointless waste of pixels.
I actually do support an armed police force, even though those assholes have killed innocent people. And not just innocent mistakes because they missed judge. No. Actual mistakes based on racism, bigotry and stereotyping. But I feel there is a greater good done to a community to have cops armed, because here our citizens are armed too.
Likewise, it is my opinion, there is a greater good served with the death penalty
Do you plan on ever telling us what form it might take?
So far you have told us that it will make you feel better and that the executee will be killed for crimes s/he has not yet committed. Pardon me if I find these alleged benefits less than compelling.
Granny writes:
Had the death penalty been on the statutes, {the Birmingham Six} might never have been freed.
Onifre writes:
So because of that one situation the entire death penalty should be abolished? I simply don't agree. I still feel some crimes warrent the death penalty.
Except that it's not a single situation, as you well know.
Guildford Four and Maguire Seven - Wikipedia
To pretend that the Birmingham Six are the only example of a deliberate miscarriage is justice is asinine.
Well then let me respond. I don't feel someone like Gacy is a "helpless victim."
You think he could resist? Force them not to execute him? No? Then he is helpless. Clearly he is the victim of a homicide. The fact that he is an evil man who has committed multiple homicides does not change this. That the death row inmate is a helpless victim is simply a fact, one that you are trying to obscure with cheap appeals to emotion.
They are far from even being considered human.
I understand that dehumanising someone is a vital first step toward killing them, but I have always considered this attitude to be a gross mistake.
Gacy was not some kind of ogre, living in the hills. He was all too human, an otherwise ordinary Homo sapiens, who just so happened to like killing people. To mislabel such individuals as other than human is nothing but a sop to our unwillingness to acknowledge that violence is an unfortunate part of human nature. I'm not trying to excuse someone like Gacy; nothing could excuse those actions. But to call him inhuman is simply childish nonsense and, in my opinion, dangerous nonsense. If we are ever to understand what makes a man like Gacy into a killer (and hopefully reduce the chances of it happening with other people) then acknowledging his humanity is a vital first step. To do otherwise is to sweep an uncomfortable truth under the carpet.
And to think, you chide us with old Bill Hicks routines, telling us to stay asleep, whilst engaging in such a silly fantasy. Remove the log from your own eye.
Lets take a look at a few of these "helpless victims."
Did you really imagine that shock tactics were going to work on me? I know what these people do. It changes nothing. I don't dispute that they are evil or that they deserve to die. I just don't think that turning yet another person into a killer makes the situation any better.
granny writes:
You are in favour of execution, but seem unwilling to be executed.
Onifre writes:
Yeah, go figure!
See, there's the hypocrisy. You are happy for innocent people to die so that you can enjoy a nice cathartic homicide, but only so long as it is someone else who pays that price. If I were wrongfully imprisoned, I would be livid about it, but I would not be calling for the abolition of prisons as a result. If, on the other hand, you were on death row, would you really say "Well, I may be innocent, but my death is a price I am willing to pay for the sake of the wonderful benefits that state-sanctioned homicide brings our society."? No you would not. You're happy for innocent people to die 100% avoidable deaths, but only so long as it's not you or yours. Forgive me if I find that attitude both reprehensible and short-sighted.
Perhaps we could introduce a rule whereby only proponents of the death penalty can be executed.
Mutate and Survive
Edited by Granny Magda, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 149 by onifre, posted 05-01-2012 4:51 PM onifre has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 177 by onifre, posted 05-05-2012 4:43 PM Granny Magda has replied

  
onifre
Member (Idle past 3199 days)
Posts: 4854
From: Dark Side of the Moon
Joined: 02-20-2008


Message 174 of 205 (661442)
05-05-2012 3:39 PM


The Solution!
I found it you guys! Forget death row, the SHU, Supermax, solitary, and any other form of cruel punishment that makes everyone sad.
What to do with serial killers and murderes? Turn them gay, of course:
- Oni

  
onifre
Member (Idle past 3199 days)
Posts: 4854
From: Dark Side of the Moon
Joined: 02-20-2008


Message 175 of 205 (661443)
05-05-2012 4:04 PM
Reply to: Message 167 by Straggler
05-02-2012 9:56 AM


Re: Self Defense
You are happy to let prisoners who are more dangerous to other inmates live whilst you want to kill off prisoners who are less dangerous to other inmates anyway on the basis that they have committed crimes you feel justify the death penalty.
How many hypotheticals do you have wrapped up in one example?
Death row is for those convicted to death, by a jury. Not simply because they are dangerous.
It's not crimes I feel justify the death penalty, although I do have my favorites. It's what the law says is punishable by death. You're arguing against my OPINION on what I feel makes the death penalty worth while having.
I stated earlier in this thread that ALL of our reasoning is flawed and inconsistent. You guys kept arguing so I've kept going. But do you really want to keep trying to rationalize my irrational opinions?
Thus we can eliminate protecting other prisoners as a criteria for imposing the death penalty because you are not applying this in a logically consistent manner.
I don't believe it was ever criteria in a court for the death penalty, Straggler. It's just my OPINION on why it is a good thing to have.
If the family and/or victim feel that justice can only be served by locking the perpetrator up in a dungeon and torturing them for the rest of their life are we happy to apply this as justice?
You do get that the death penalty is already an established system, right? You do know that no one consults the victim's family for anything, right?
That criteria is simply my OPINION on why it is a good form of justice.
You get that this whole time, you and the others have been arguing against my absolutely irrational opinion on the death penalty?
My criteria could be, I just like to see motherfuckers die, and it would not effect anything one way or the other?
I don't think we can or should base the law or legal punishments on such retributional thinking. The law has to take a rational approach to morality rather than emotive otherwise it cannot be applied consistently. The law has to have a reasoned basis beyond pandering to who shouts the loudest or who is the most upset. It may seem cold. But it has to be rational otherwise it is chaotic and inconsistent.
Yeah, and all that has already been decided. There are already established forms of punishment. The death penalty has functioned as a form of punishment for a long, long while. In recent years, the ever increasing complaints has caused a re-evaluation of it in some states. Some states have opted to abolish it, replacing it with Supermax's and more and more Special Housing Units. But as I pointed out, there are those who find that for of punishment as being cruel and unusual, and also see it as torture. So eventually, there will come a point where that method too is re-evaluated.
But the question will alwasy be, what do you do with the convicted violent criminals?
- Oni

This message is a reply to:
 Message 167 by Straggler, posted 05-02-2012 9:56 AM Straggler has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 176 by Tangle, posted 05-05-2012 4:28 PM onifre has not replied
 Message 189 by Straggler, posted 05-16-2012 1:09 PM onifre has replied

  
Tangle
Member
Posts: 9580
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 7.0


Message 176 of 205 (661445)
05-05-2012 4:28 PM
Reply to: Message 175 by onifre
05-05-2012 4:04 PM


Re: Self Defense
onifre writes:
My criteria could be, I just like to see motherfuckers die, and it would not effect anything one way or the other?
But that IS your opinion is it not? You've made that perfectly clear.
Personally, I don't believe it for a minute, you're too intelligent to actually hold it, but that's neither here nor there; I suspect the opinion is widely held.

Life, don't talk to me about life - Marvin the Paranoid Android

This message is a reply to:
 Message 175 by onifre, posted 05-05-2012 4:04 PM onifre has not replied

  
onifre
Member (Idle past 3199 days)
Posts: 4854
From: Dark Side of the Moon
Joined: 02-20-2008


Message 177 of 205 (661446)
05-05-2012 4:43 PM
Reply to: Message 173 by Granny Magda
05-04-2012 10:52 AM


Except that you insist upon ignoring the context for that selection; avoidability and clear social benefit.
Police shootings by beat cops are avoidable - 100% avoidable. You guys avoid it in the UK by not arming your beat cops.
Civilians shooting the wrong person can be avoided - 100% avoided, by not allowing citizens to carry weapons. Try getting that passed in the US.
And fine, lots may not agree with arming cops in certain situations or having armed citizens, but it doesn't matter what they think. Both are already established systems that function and cause more innocent lives to be lost than the death penalty could even hope to acheive.
Executions are 100% avoidable and provide no social benefit that you have ever pointed out.
What is the social benefit of having a prison system? 85% of those released commit a crime again. In some cases it actually makes the person more likely to be violent. They are least likely to get a job. Usually come out with a drug dependency. What's point of it?
What's the social benefit of arming civilians and beat cops?
And since the former option is not available in life or death policing situations, what you would prefer is yet another pointless waste of pixels.
What was the life and death police situtation in this case: Amadou Diallo
quote:
Amadou Diallo (September 2, 1975 — February 4, 1999) was a 23-year-old Guinean immigrant in New York City who was shot and killed on February 4, 1999 by four New York City Police Department plain-clothed officers: Sean Carroll, Richard Murphy, Edward McMellon and Kenneth Boss. The four officers fired a total of 41 shots.
quote:
The officers claimed that they loudly identified themselves as NYPD officers and that Diallo ran up the outside steps toward his apartment house doorway at their approach, ignoring their orders to stop and "show his hands". The porch lightbulb was out and Diallo was backlit by the inside vestibule light, showing only a silhouette. Diallo then reached into his jacket and withdrew his wallet. Seeing the suspect holding a small square object, Carroll yelled "Gun!" to alert his colleagues. Believing Diallo had aimed a gun at them at close range, the officers opened fire on Diallo. During the shooting, lead officer McMellon tripped backward off the front stairs, causing the other officers to believe he had been shot.
The four officers fired forty-one shots. The post-shooting investigation found no weapons on Diallo's body; the item he had pulled out of his jacket was not a gun, but a rectangular black wallet. The internal NYPD investigation ruled the officers had acted within policy, based on what a reasonable police officer would have done in the same circumstances with the information they had.
These were four trained police officers who were NOT in any danger, but still killed a man in a hail of 41 bullets for not understanding english and pulling out his wallet to show ID.
Except that it's not a single situation, as you well know.
Neither are police shootings of unarmed victims, that out numbers those innocent killed by the death penalty. And they can be avoided by not having armed beat cops like you guys do in the UK. Neither are civilians mistakenly killing people, that can also be avoided.
The reason I keep bringing that up is because the reason given to abolish the death penalty is there is a risk of innocent lives lost. I'm just pointing out how many other functioning systems also do that, in greater numbers and they are still in effect but very avoidable.
That the death row inmate is a helpless victim is simply a fact, one that you are trying to obscure with cheap appeals to emotion.
I just don't see them as human anymore. So if you want to call him a victim by that literal criteria, cool. I don't agree but I see your point.
Gacy was not some kind of ogre, living in the hills. He was all too human, an otherwise ordinary Homo sapiens, who just so happened to like killing people. To mislabel such individuals as other than human is nothing but a sop to our unwillingness to acknowledge that violence is an unfortunate part of human nature. I'm not trying to excuse someone like Gacy; nothing could excuse those actions. But to call him inhuman is simply childish nonsense and, in my opinion, dangerous nonsense. If we are ever to understand what makes a man like Gacy into a killer (and hopefully reduce the chances of it happening with other people) then acknowledging his humanity is a vital first step. To do otherwise is to sweep an uncomfortable truth under the carpet.
Understand him all you want. Just when you're done, make sure to strap him to a table and end his life. You're not doing anything by keeping hiim alive. Throwing him into a cage and forgetting he exists isn't either. It may make you feel better that capital punishment isn't being carried out but you are still torturing this "human" by doing so.
And to think, you chide us with old Bill Hicks routines, telling us to stay asleep, whilst engaging in such a silly fantasy. Remove the log from your own eye.
The Hicks reference was for the outrageous opinion that the US carries out honest to goodness assassinations. That when they say "trust us, he's guilty" we have to believe it.
If the death penalty was abolished tomorrow, I would no more give a shit than if it never was abolished. We would just move the conversation to the moral and ethical qualities of solitary confinement and Special Housing Units. There will always be a problem with ANY form of punishment.
See, there's the hypocrisy. You are happy for innocent people to die so that you can enjoy a nice cathartic homicide, but only so long as it is someone else who pays that price. If I were wrongfully imprisoned, I would be livid about it, but I would not be calling for the abolition of prisons as a result. If, on the other hand, you were on death row, would you really say "Well, I may be innocent, but my death is a price I am willing to pay for the sake of the wonderful benefits that state-sanctioned homicide brings our society."? No you would not. You're happy for innocent people to die 100% avoidable deaths, but only so long as it's not you or yours. Forgive me if I find that attitude both reprehensible and short-sighted.
You are forgiven.
- Oni

This message is a reply to:
 Message 173 by Granny Magda, posted 05-04-2012 10:52 AM Granny Magda has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 182 by Granny Magda, posted 05-05-2012 6:47 PM onifre has replied

  
onifre
Member (Idle past 3199 days)
Posts: 4854
From: Dark Side of the Moon
Joined: 02-20-2008


Message 178 of 205 (661447)
05-05-2012 4:51 PM
Reply to: Message 169 by Tangle
05-02-2012 6:08 PM


Fair enough, you want capotal punishment as vengence and you don't care that it will inevitably execute innocent people.
I don't WANT capital punishment. Capital punishment exists. I happen to agree with that form of justice. It may be irrational but it just is what I "feel."
If it was gone tomorrow, abolished forever, then I would stop having an opinion on it. Then I may have an opinion on whatever new form of punishment was established for the extremely violent. I may find myself supporting the argument that Special Housing Units and Supermax's are a form of torture, I may not. The point is I don't care one way or the other WHAT is done, just that something SHOULD be done.
The debate here was, WHY is capital punishment wrong. It then became a debate on my opinion. I had fun, but do you guys really want to keep going there?
I was told one of the reasons was the loss of innocent life. All I did was point to other functioning systems that ALSO risk innocent life, to a greater degree, and are ALSO 100% avoidable.
I can keep telling you about what my brain thinks though, if that's what you want?
- Oni

This message is a reply to:
 Message 169 by Tangle, posted 05-02-2012 6:08 PM Tangle has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 179 by Tangle, posted 05-05-2012 5:19 PM onifre has replied

  
Tangle
Member
Posts: 9580
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 7.0


(1)
Message 179 of 205 (661450)
05-05-2012 5:19 PM
Reply to: Message 178 by onifre
05-05-2012 4:51 PM


onifre writes:
I don't WANT capital punishment. Capital punishment exists. I happen to agree with that form of justice. It may be irrational but it just is what I "feel."
Sure, that's how we all feel. You'd have to be truly weird for your first thought not to be to want the killers killed - particularly if you were in any way related to those who suffered.
But that's why we handed over justice to a third party - the state - so that vengence didn't cloud independent judgement and so that we took time to think and behave rationally.
Generally, as society progresses, our baser instincts as represented by our institutions are degraded and we become more civilised, more humane. The USA is still a young nation and it seems to us Eurpeans (not all of course - a suspect a majority here would vote for the death penalty) that you're still a pretty brutalised and brutilising nation.
But you are changing.

Life, don't talk to me about life - Marvin the Paranoid Android

This message is a reply to:
 Message 178 by onifre, posted 05-05-2012 4:51 PM onifre has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 180 by onifre, posted 05-05-2012 5:39 PM Tangle has replied

  
onifre
Member (Idle past 3199 days)
Posts: 4854
From: Dark Side of the Moon
Joined: 02-20-2008


Message 180 of 205 (661451)
05-05-2012 5:39 PM
Reply to: Message 179 by Tangle
05-05-2012 5:19 PM


Generally, as society progresses, our baser instincts as represented by our institutions are degraded and we become more civilised, more humane.
Ideally, but some form of aggressive punishment will always be reserved for the worse of the worse. And a debate will always exist as to the moral and ethical quality of such punishment. It exists in your country as well.
Abolishing the death penalty only means you have to replace it with some other form of punishment, that will also have it's share of critics.
In many cases, the death penalty has been more humane than life in prison.
But you are changing.
Yeah, let me know when you're not "subjects" anymore to an incestual monarchy.
- Oni

This message is a reply to:
 Message 179 by Tangle, posted 05-05-2012 5:19 PM Tangle has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 181 by Tangle, posted 05-05-2012 6:10 PM onifre has not replied

  
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