Ohio Screws up Another Execution
- Thread starter Yuwipi Woman
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TomUS
racial discrimination, whether true or not, is irrelevant in the DP debate. All that is relevant is 'does defendant x deserve to die for their crime.'
Originally Posted by TomUS
racial discrimination, whether true or not, is irrelevant in the DP debate. All that is relevant is 'does defendant x deserve to die for their crime.'
I'm simply saying that unfair application of any penalty is not an argument against the penalty. It's an argument against it's application. I'd be glad to see more rich whites executed, but the fact that it doesn't happen shouldn't be a reason for not using the penalty. As was said earlier, this idea would mean just about all penalties for violent crime shouldn't be used. Most violent criminals victimize their own race. Not imposing penalties on minorities would hurt minorities, not be kind. That's why most stats I've seen show the majority of blacks for example support the DP.
Azrael
circling Airstrip One
Exactly. Like you say, this argument could be used to end any penalty found to be discriminatory. In fact, if it's proponents are consistent, it should be so used.
What happens after a state governor/legislature grants a moratorium on execution? The antis immediately press for abolition. No pretense about making the penalty fair then.
The unfair application argument is incompatible with a general anti-execution stance. If you're opposed to execution on moral grounds, unfair application is irrelevant to your argument, since you'd oppose any system. It's introduced to muddy the waters, and get pro-execution people on-side for ulterior reasons. It can also be used to imply pro-execution people are racial bigots.
Which makes me think that the arguments against execution per se aren't nearly as strong as the likes of Amnesty claim.
Wow!!
frogwoman
Let them eat newts
I don't give a fuck about a rapist but captial punishment is wrong IMO, gives the state the right to decide life and death, and will lead to huge numbers of innocent people dying. It is totally barbaric, "he killed someone so let's kill him" ffs. If that principle was actually applied then sooner or later there'd be no people left in the US.
Azrael
circling Airstrip One
Which only makes sense if the entire US population are found guilty of murder! (Is the executioner going to inject himself when he's done?)
I agree that the state can't be the arbiter of life and death, which is why my support for execution is dependent on a jury convicting the murderer by a unanimous vote. Anything less and I'm a staunch anti.
frogwoman
Let them eat newts
they'd have to execute the executioners.
frogwoman
Let them eat newts
Also what about other crimes, should rapists be raped, should burglars have their houses broken into, should people who glass a random stranger in the pub be glassed themselves? I doubt many people apart from utter psychopaths would want to do these things for a living, it's pretty disturbing that people are actually being employed by the state to kill people ffs.
Azrael
circling Airstrip One
This isn't eye for an eye. It isn't about mirroring a crime, but delivering a proportionate punishment that's still humane. Execution isn't the equivalent of murder, for all kinds of reasons (not unilateral, not painful, convict given time to prepare etc). An imperfect art, but we're imperfect creatures.
If we don't execute murderers, we haven't compromised proportionality, we've abandoned it.
As for the state employing people to kill, that's what police officers and soldiers do. I imagine hanging a series of generally nasty and brutal men after due process is no more traumatic than making a snap decision to gun down an enemy soldier, or a suspect, neither of whom benefit from due process, jury trial, or appeal before they die.
That's why the vicious bastard deserves to die. He decided the child he raped deserved to die.
But the state deciding who spends the rest of their life in prison is OK?
YES
Sean Hodgson spent 27 years in prison for the murder of Teresa De Simone.
DNA evidence eventually proved he was not guilty.
Exhumation evidence proved David Lace was guilty of the crime.
David Lace killed himself in 1988.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/sep/17/teresa-de-simone-killer-identified
This is this weeks news in the UK
If we still used the death penalty he (Sean Hodgson) would be long dead, along with Timothy Evans and no doubt others.
DNA evidence eventually proved he was not guilty.
Exhumation evidence proved David Lace was guilty of the crime.
David Lace killed himself in 1988.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/sep/17/teresa-de-simone-killer-identified
This is this weeks news in the UK
If we still used the death penalty he (Sean Hodgson) would be long dead, along with Timothy Evans and no doubt others.
newharper
Manxome Tove
In certain occasions, but you are demonstrating, naturally enough, your North American bias. Justice, according to us Euros, should not just be about punishment, but education and rehabilitation. You have demonstrated a logical view, but not a humane one.
People should be able to learn, and hopefully repay their debt to society. I note that a nominally Xian society such as yours does not seem to conform with some of the minimal requirements of its faith.
Azrael
circling Airstrip One
I'm not a North American, and I certainly don't believe punishment should be replaced by education and rehabilitation. (Although I do believe in education alongside punishment, and reform as a result of both.) You don't speak for "us Euros", and certainly not British people.
As for Christianity's attitude to execution, I direct your attention to Article XXXVII of the Church of England's Thirty-Nine Articles.
Balbi
Hey, Dean Yager!
A man serving life without parole can be released.
The last guy to get the death sentance and then carry on living has caused an awful lot a shit, the beardy twat
Azrael
circling Airstrip One
Your views on the author and finisher of Christianity aside, as I've already noted, when it comes to killing innocents, no other area of policy takes the absolute line applied to capital punishment. We allow private car ownership despite it leading to around 3,000 innocent deaths a year. We allow police to gun down suspects. And we allow the army to wage wars; some anti-execution people even support "liberal intervention".
An absolute position on the taking of innocent life allows no exceptions. People who oppose capital punishment but support some of the other things I list are morally inconsistent. Absolute pacifists are morally consistent, but since their stance would lead to hundreds of thousands of deaths at the hands of the first strongman to come along, it's self-contradictory and self-defeating.
An absolute position on the taking of innocent life allows no exceptions. People who oppose capital punishment but support some of the other things I list are morally inconsistent. Absolute pacifists are morally consistent, but since their stance would lead to hundreds of thousands of deaths at the hands of the first strongman to come along, it's self-contradictory and self-defeating.
newharper
Manxome Tove
I'm not a North American, and I certainly don't believe punishment should be replaced by education and rehabilitation. (Although I do believe in education alongside punishment, and reform as a result of both.) You don't speak for "us Euros", and certainly not British people.
Original sin standeth not in the following of Adam, (as the Pelagians do vainly talk
Original sin standeth not in the following of Adam, (as the Pelagians do vainly talk
As for Christianity's attitude to execution, I direct your attention to Article XXXVII of the Church of England's Thirty-Nine Articles.
Natuarally I speak for no-one but myself, however I may make claims to the general viewpoint, as may you.
Could you tell me which one of those articles you were referring to?
The Anglicans are I believe a minor sect in worldwide Xianity.
This however I found on your link,
Original sin standeth not in the following of Adam, (as the Pelagians do vainly talk
ibid.
The concept that children are born into this world as corrupt is so sick that it brings the whole religion into disrepute.
Balbi
Hey, Dean Yager!
But essentially all viewpoints fall when they come into contact with a sufficient number of people. It's turning a blind eye to the inconsistencies which allows us to all muddle along in the way that we do It ain't perfect, but it's doing alright until now.
I'd rather someone spend the rest of their life inside a small room for 23 hours a day, having experienced the outside world and all of it's wonders and then committed a heinous crime, than I would that person have their existence terminated. It's a fuck lot more cruel in a way, and accords to punishment more than death would.
I mean, if it turns out there's a paradise and we're all invited - well, there'll be a lot of red faces all round
It ain't perfect, but it's doing alright until now.I'd rather someone spend the rest of their life inside a small room for 23 hours a day, having experienced the outside world and all of it's wonders and then committed a heinous crime, than I would that person have their existence terminated. It's a fuck lot more cruel in a way, and accords to punishment more than death would.
I mean, if it turns out there's a paradise and we're all invited - well, there'll be a lot of red faces all round
newharper
Manxome Tove
I mean, if it turns out there's a paradise and we're all invited - well, there'll be a lot of red faces all round
I guess you'd get over it after a few hundred thousand years.
Though if there is time, why?
Azrael
circling Airstrip One
XXXVII. Of the Power of the Civil Magistrates.
[snip]
"The Laws of the Realm may punish Christian men with death, for heinous and grievous offences."
Anglicanism has, I believe, some 77 million members worldwide. Bit more than a minor sect, no?
You're free to make generalisations, but as 49% of British people support hanging in some circumstances, if it is a minority, it's a substantial one.
Your views on original/ancestral sin are beside the point when it comes to the original issue of support for execution being incompatible with Christianity.
The Italian prisoners who asked to be executed would disagree with that. And I don't think they were held in supermax conditions. The food, at least, must have been an improvement.But essentially all viewpoints fall when they come into contact with a sufficient number of people. It's turning a blind eye to the inconsistencies which allows us to all muddle along in the way that we do
I'd rather someone spend the rest of their life inside a small room for 23 hours a day, having experienced the outside world and all of it's wonders and then committed a heinous crime, than I would that person have their existence terminated. It's a fuck lot more cruel in a way, and accords to punishment more than death would.
I mean, if it turns out there's a paradise and we're all invited - well, there'll be a lot of red faces all round
Not all views are inconsistent. They're certainly not self-contradictory like the "innocents may be killed" argument. If you have to turn a blind eye to the inconsistencies of a view it's a big clanging warning that it's in error. I dislike capital punishment a great deal. By instinct I'm strongly anti. But as the reasonable case for it is strong and convincing, I feel obliged to support it.
Balbi
Hey, Dean Yager!
I guess you'd get over it after a few hundred thousand years.
Though if there is time, why?
Let's agree not to get into this one
newharper
Manxome Tove
Let's agree not to get into this one
Okey dokey
It's obvious to me that far more innocents die due to convicted killers not being executed, by killing prison guards or other prisoners, or by killing again after escaping or being paroled.
newharper
Manxome Tove
This may be true for many criminals but IMO not for murderers. The victim & their loved ones get forgotten about in this debate. The murdered person remains dead, no matter how much the murderer learns & repays.
The christian bible is full of instances of death & slaughter to numerous to list here. But a couple of my favorites.....
But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me.- JC speaking in Luke 19:27
Whosoever lieth with a beast shall surely be put to death.-Exodus 22:19
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