The Death Penalty

[moonmaster]

I don't believe in the death penalty.

It's been proved that it doesn't deter crime and it otherwise serves no practical purpose except reducing the prison population (Which could be done more humanely by changing some of our ridiculous drug laws) and revenge. (Which I've never personally seen the point of and which I don't think the government should be given the authority to carry out.)

The problem with our prison system and the prison systems of almost every country is that we've never been able to move past the time-honored belief that you can solve problems by killing them or locking them in cages. I think almost every criminal could be rehabilitated if anyone in America actually cared about fixing problems and if the government didn't feel the need to waste trillions on wars and "defense". And that's never going to change.

I firmly believe that no person is wholly responsible for their actions. People complain when criminals blame their childhood or society, but the fact is that those things probably have contributed greatly to their fate. Successful people are successful because their parents raised them well and they came from a nice middle class family and went to a well-funded school and had lots of mentors, but if you do something wrong, it's your fault and your fault alone you disgusting mongrel piece of ****.

I just don't understand why people see things the way they do.

Also yes some killed maybe innocent but lets say 10% are innocent (this is hypothetical) and 10 , 000 ,000 have been executed. then sure 1 000 000 were innocent but it's worth it to kill 9 000 000 guilty people.

Thats one of the reasons when it came to Afghanistan with the terrorist groups in it we (england and america) should have just nuked it. Sure we kill a hell of a lot of innocent people but the end justifies the means and as long as the scales are in our favour who cares?

But how do you know that the "bad" people in Afghanistan outweigh the "good" people? Because the news tells you? Or your government? Because believe it or not, they're not very reliable sources for factual information.

And if the good people outnumber the bad people, then maybe some other country will say "England and America just killed millions of innocent people. We should stop them before they do it again. Lots of people will die, but the ends will justify the means."

Do you see what I'm talking about? Morality is far more gray than we'd like to think.

As long as we're on the subject, I think the age in which you can be actually charged with murder should plummet. There was this case in the UK that's been brought up on the board before, where two kids, I think they were 9-year-olds, kidnapped a 5 year old and gruesomely tortured him to death.

I would absolutely say that's a crime worthy of execution or at least life imprisonment, but since "OMG they're only 9 and thus not actually people but robots that can be accidentally programmed by an ambiguous society to not know that torturing someone to death is wrong", I believe they were to go to Juvi and receive counselling until they were 25. The whole "minors" thing is one of the most glaring problems with modern legal systems, IMO.

But a nine-year-old can't be expected to make sound judgements. It's a fact.

Those kids are obviously disturbed, and they need intense psychological treatment rather than a needle full of lethal chemicals in the arm. Even if you don't believe in rehabilitation for adults, you can't say that it's too late to help a nine-year-old who obviously has something pretty awful going on in their head right now.

 

[Ice]

The Death Penalty is idiotic and utterly pointless, just like any other 'legal murder'.


Also, what Moony said.

 

[Planet-man]

I don't believe in the death penalty.

It's been proved that it doesn't deter crime and it otherwise serves no practical purpose except reducing the prison population (Which could be done more humanely by changing some of our ridiculous drug laws) and revenge. (Which I've never personally seen the point of and which I don't think the government should be given the authority to carry out.)

The problem with our prison system and the prison systems of almost every country is that we've never been able to move past the time-honored belief that you can solve problems by killing them or locking them in cages. I think almost every criminal could be rehabilitated if anyone in America actually cared about fixing problems and if the government didn't feel the need to waste trillions on wars and "defense". And that's never going to change.

This is half of the reason I'm against it in all but maybe the most horrifically extreme situations, like the ones Twi described.

The other half is like I said, simply to set a good example and use it as a symbol of moving forward as a peaceful civilization. After all, if we're still executing people, what chance do the rest of the animals have?

I firmly believe that no person is wholly responsible for their actions. People complain when criminals blame their childhood or society, but the fact is that those things probably have contributed greatly to their fate. Successful people are successful because their parents raised them well and they came from a nice middle class family and went to a well-funded school and had lots of mentors, but if you do something wrong, it's your fault and your fault alone you disgusting mongrel piece of ****.

I just don't understand why people see things the way they do.

Although there's no sense saying everybody is 100% responsible for their actions, I think they're responsible enough to be held... responsible... for them. Bad parenting can cause a kid to grow up to be a bad person, but if they still want to call themselves a person and be treated like one, they have to take a certain degree of the responsibility... I'm thinking about 90% of it.

But a nine-year-old can't be expected to make sound judgements. It's a fact.

A nine-year-old can be expected to make the sound judgement that walking into a store, kidnapping a boy you don't know, and TORTURING HIM TO DEATH is completely wrong. Absolutely. No question.

Those kids are obviously disturbed, and they need intense psychological treatment rather than a needle full of lethal chemicals in the arm.

Yes.... but why should they be released at 25 when an adult who does the same and receives the same psychological treatment would still be in the clank for the rest of their lives?

What it comes down to is that age shouldn't be anywhere near as big of a factor as it is because it varies so much for different people. I know kids in their preteens who have a far more complex and developed moral compass than some other 25-year-olds I know, and vice-versa. I'm surprised someone like you doesn't agree with this.... shouldn't a 9-year-old from a great and educational background be held more responsible than a 20-year-old who's been verbally abused their whole lives? The legal system says no.... and that doesn't bother you?

Even if you don't believe in rehabilitation for adults, you can't say that it's too late to help a nine-year-old who obviously has something pretty awful going on in their head right now.

Actually, I'd say it's the other way around. An adult has a lifetime of experiences and moral complexities to draw on, while a 9-year-old who does that seems like they're rotten from the start.

 

[Random]

I completely agree with Moony, about focusing on rehabilitation, though I feel there are prisoners who need to go. The show 30 Days (if you never seen it's based off supersize me where people change their lives for 30 days and see how their views change) had an episode where the host spent 30 days in jail. A good deal of the inimates have been in prison before. Over crowding is only a problem because former cons cant stay out of jail. If you want to reduce prison population you help the inmates prepare for life outside jail and how to be law abiding citizens.

The major talking points for the death penalty, overcrowding and money are bunk. It's only the most severe punishment for the worst of the worst.

 

[SSJmole]

But how do you know that the "bad" people in Afghanistan outweigh the "good" people? Because the news tells you? Or your government? Because believe it or not, they're not very reliable sources for factual information.

And if the good people outnumber the bad people, then maybe some other country will say "England and America just killed millions of innocent people. We should stop them before they do it again. Lots of people will die, but the ends will justify the means."

Yes but the bad people there killed hundreds with 9/11 and more with other attacks.

So each one of them will kill again and again and again. So stopping them my way saves more lives than hurts so it is worth every bit of it.

 

[moonmaster]

Although there's no sense saying everybody is 100% responsible for their actions, I think they're responsible enough to be held... responsible... for them. Bad parenting can cause a kid to grow up to be a bad person, but if they still want to call themselves a person and be treated like one, they have to take a certain degree of the responsibility... I'm thinking about 90% of it.

Oh I'm not saying that people aren't responsible for their own actions. I'm just saying that in a purely scientific way, every decision we make is based on our biology and our past. I don't think it can really be said that there's any aspect of the personality that doesn't come from some "external" factor. Killing someone may seem horrible to you, but someone with a severe psychological disorder or even a barely noticeable injury to the pre-frontal lobe of the brain may feel they have a perfectly rational reason to do it. How can you not do something if everything in your brain is screaming at you that you must?

A nine-year-old can be expected to make the sound judgement that walking into a store, kidnapping a boy you don't know, and TORTURING HIM TO DEATH is completely wrong. Absolutely. No question.

They've done studies that have found that most people can't make anything close to a sound judgment until about 17 or 18. Basically, being a kid is like being in a perpetual state of inebriation. As a teenager, it might seem ridiculous but look at the people you go to school with. Look at yourself. I'm fully willing to admit that I've done some dumb stuff that I doubt I would do again ten years from now. Remember, human beings take longer to mentally develop than just about any animal on the planet.

So let's say you have a child who's maybe born with some mental defects that no one really notices, and maybe they're abused or mistreated or neglected. And then they decide that they want to hurt somebody else. As an adult, there's a chance that they could have at least developed enough of a sense of judgment not to do what their brain might be telling them to do, but as a child none of that stuff is installed yet. A child can't comprehend the weight of another life. I can tell you from playing with my little cousin's friends: Even an eight-year-old who isn't highly disturbed seems to have a hard time understanding that other human beings are alive and can feel things just like they can. (I've taken enough punches to the balls to prove it.) I suppose it all comes down to empathy.

I think strong treatment is just what those kids need. They'd probably have a far easier time being rehabilitated than a lot of adults who've done the same thing.

Yes.... but why should they be released at 25 when an adult who does the same and receives the same psychological treatment would still be in the clank for the rest of their lives?

That's what's messed up. I doubt that either would need to be in jail for the rest of their lives. Like I said, I think rehabilitation could work on practically anybody, with enough resources and patience.

What it comes down to is that age shouldn't be anywhere near as big of a factor as it is because it varies so much for different people. I know kids in their preteens who have a far more complex and developed moral compass than some other 25-year-olds I know, and vice-versa. I'm surprised someone like you doesn't agree with this.... shouldn't a 9-year-old from a great and educational background be held more responsible than a 20-year-old who's been verbally abused their whole lives? The legal system says no.... and that doesn't bother you?

Again, I think both of them would deserve help. Put them away for as long as it takes to fix them, so to speak.

Actually, I'd say it's the other way around. An adult has a lifetime of experiences and moral complexities to draw on, while a 9-year-old who does that seems like they're rotten from the start.

By this logic, we should just start executing toddlers based on whether or not they pull their sibling's hair. While a child is less capable of controlling violent feelings, again, it isn't something they really have a choice in. If we started acting like children were somehow more responsible for their actions than adults, we'd have kids getting arrested for all kinds of crimes. (Which is already happening actually. There have been a lot of cases lately of preschoolers being arrested for "sexual harassment", "assault", and all kinds of things, basically for poking and temper tantrums and whatnot.)

I completely agree with Moony, about focusing on rehabilitation, though I feel there are prisoners who need to go. The show 30 Days (if you never seen it's based off supersize me where people change their lives for 30 days and see how their views change) had an episode where the host spent 30 days in jail. A good deal of the inimates have been in prison before. Over crowding is only a problem because former cons cant stay out of jail. If you want to reduce prison population you help the inmates prepare for life outside jail and how to be law abiding citizens.

Exactly. If someone sold drugs to make ends meet before they went to prison, why wouldn't they go back to it right after? Most street crime is obviously motivated more by socioeconomic factors. The best way to lower crime rates is to give money to schools in bad neighborhoods, help out inner-city communities.

Yes but the bad people there killed hundreds with 9/11 and more with other attacks.

So each one of them will kill again and again and again. So stopping them my way saves more lives than hurts so it is worth every bit of it.

......You're just not making any sense. We thought that Osama bin Laden might, maybe, possibly, might have been in Afghanistan. You're saying that we should kill over 30 Million people in order to get one guy?

No offense Mole, but this is absolutely horrifying and inhuman logic.

We know that there are terrorist cells existing in America and Britain. Why don't we just nuke ourselves? It would be worth it, wouldn't it, to get the "bad guys". Oh, but we're white and "civilized" so we don't deserve to wiped off of the face of the Earth like those Muslim, A-Rab dirtbags.

 

[Jaggyd]

Yes but the bad people there killed hundreds with 9/11 and more with other attacks.

So each one of them will kill again and again and again. So stopping them my way saves more lives than hurts so it is worth every bit of it.

Actually, none of the 9/11 hijackers even had a speck on their driving records, were better than average students.


It's hard not to hear the call to fanaticism when you're faced with soul crushing poverty on a daily basis, and these **** hole organizations go "okay, you sacrifice yourself to Allah, your family will never suffer again", how hard would it be to really say yes to them.


Secondly, this eye for an eye bull**** doesn't work, it never has. Look at the american west in the 19th century, people were publicly executed, people shot each other in blatant acts of revenge.

The death penalty doesn't work, and never will, education and aid is what helps.

 

[Hibiki]

Actually, none of the 9/11 hijackers even had a speck on their driving records, were better than average students.


It's hard not to hear the call to fanaticism when you're faced with soul crushing poverty on a daily basis, and these **** hole organizations go "okay, you sacrifice yourself to Allah, your family will never suffer again", how hard would it be to really say yes to them.


Secondly, this eye for an eye bull**** doesn't work, it never has. Look at the american west in the 19th century, people were publicly executed, people shot each other in blatant acts of revenge.

The death penalty doesn't work, and never will, education and aid is what helps.

and yet, they take budget cuts every year. it's bs.

 

[moonmaster]

Not to mention the fact that the hijackers themselves and the vast majority of insurgents in Iraq right now are from Saudi Arabia.

Hmm, I wonder why we don't ever do anything about that country? What a perplexing question...

 

[Random]

......You're just not making any sense. We thought that Osama bin Laden might, maybe, possibly, might have been in Afghanistan. You're saying that we should kill over 30 Million people in order to get one guy?

No offense Mole, but this is absolutely horrifying and inhuman logic.

We know that there are terrorist cells existing in America and Britain. Why don't we just nuke ourselves? It would be worth it, wouldn't it, to get the "bad guys". Oh, but we're white and "civilized" so we don't deserve to wiped off of the face of the Earth like those Muslim, A-Rab dirtbags.

Also take into account the millions upon millions of new enemies you'd create

 

[Planet-man]

I apologize in advance for the bizarre reordering of paragraphs from your post I've quoted here, but it's mainly because some of the stuff I say later covers different parts of it from the beginning and end.

A child can't comprehend the weight of another life.

I know from personal experience that this is untrue and...

They've done studies that have found that most people can't make anything close to a sound judgment until about 17 or 18. Basically, being a kid is like being in a perpetual state of inebriation.

I can tell you from playing with my little cousin's friends: Even an eight-year-old who isn't highly disturbed seems to have a hard time understanding that other human beings are alive and can feel things just like they can. (I've taken enough punches to the balls to prove it.) I suppose it all comes down to empathy.

...I still say this is completely subjective. I know some people my age or older who still have no sense of empathy, and I know some children (cousins in my case too) with very strong senses of it.

I don't think age should be seen as measuring the universal amount of morality someone can have here. I think it should be seen as measuring the universal RATE at which that morality grows, because that actually explains why there are some 14 year olds sensitive enough to be the next dalai lhama and some 30 year olds as unempathethic as is possible.... they both started out with different amounts of empathy in the first place, and have grown at the universal rate, meaning the lower one hasn't caught up to the higher.

Oh I'm not saying that people aren't responsible for their own actions. I'm just saying that in a purely scientific way, every decision we make is based on our biology and our past. I don't think it can really be said that there's any aspect of the personality that doesn't come from some "external" factor. Killing someone may seem horrible to you, but someone with a severe psychological disorder or even a barely noticeable injury to the pre-frontal lobe of the brain may feel they have a perfectly rational reason to do it. How can you not do something if everything in your brain is screaming at you that you must?

That's what's messed up. I doubt that either would need to be in jail for the rest of their lives. Like I said, I think rehabilitation could work on practically anybody, with enough resources and patience. Again, I think both of them would deserve help. Put them away for as long as it takes to fix them, so to speak.

Well, I should clarify something that I said a while ago, because it does kind of put our differences to rest... my main reason for having a gripe about the whole "minors" issue is the whole "maximum sentencing" thing.

Minors are not put away for as long as it takes to be fixed, they can only be put away for so long. This 13-year-old girl who was just convicted with the first-degree murder of her parents and 8-year-old brother can receive a maximum sentence of something like 6 years, rehabilitated or not, and that doesn't make a lick of ****ing sense.

If the primary focus of prison should be rehabilitation, and I agree with you that it should be, the entire issue I have with how the legal system treats minors would disappear, because NO ONE of any age would get out until they were deemed fixed.

With our current legal system, that's not it. It's the punishment of wrong-doers and the protection of society and is dealt out based on culpability, and I don't think, as we currently do things, it makes sense for minors to be treated anywhere near as lightly as they are now when an adult who's suffering from all the same problems as that minor would get a life-long sentence. Holding someone less responsible is one thing, but if they're still a threat or evil in the head, and they're not going to be rehabilitated, then I'd rather see them as imprisoned as any adult would be than on the streets. That's basically where I stand on all this.

Finally, I would like to say that all your opinions are already invalid in my eyes because they're based around the logic that executing an innocent animal for no reason = okay, executing a person who impaled someone's child on their penis = a moral outrage. Just thought I'd throw that in there because none of our debates would be complete without it.

......You're just not making any sense. We thought that Osama bin Laden might, maybe, possibly, might have been in Afghanistan. You're saying that we should kill over 30 Million people in order to get one guy?

No offense Mole, but this is absolutely horrifying and inhuman logic.

Now there's something we can all agree on.

 

[Jaggyd]

Not to mention the fact that the hijackers themselves and the vast majority of insurgents in Iraq right now are from Saudi Arabia.

Hmm, I wonder why we don't ever do anything about that country? What a perplexing question...

Because they're our "friends" and give us cheap oil, and let us have bases on their soil. So we ignore their horrendous history of human rights violations, terrorist training grounds, etc.


I'm still amused by the fact that the Taliban was sanctioned and TRAINED by US military and intelligence operatives under the direct okay of then CIA Director; William Casey, and Secretary of Defense; Caspar Weinberger. So, you do the math.

 

[Hibiki]

Because they're our "friends" and give us cheap oil, and let us have bases on their soil. So we ignore their horrendous history of human rights violations, terrorist training grounds, etc.


I'm still amused by the fact that the Taliban was sanctioned and TRAINED by US military and intelligence operatives under the direct okay of then CIA Director; William Casey, and Secretary of Defense; Caspar Weinberger. So, you do the math.

bin laden was a tactitian for the CIA wasn't he?

 

[Lynx]

I'm against the death penalty. For one simple reason: I don't believe any human has a right to take the life of another human. The only type of killing I understand is that of self-defense and that's just self-preservation (Or preservation of another). And really, only if there's no other choice.

 

[moonmaster]

I know from personal experience that this is untrue and...

...I still say this is completely subjective. I know some people my age or older who still have no sense of empathy, and I know some children (cousins in my case too) with very strong senses of it.

I don't think age should be seen as measuring the universal amount of morality someone can have here. I think it should be seen as measuring the universal RATE at which that morality grows, because that actually explains why there are some 14 year olds sensitive enough to be the next dalai lhama and some 30 year olds as unempathethic as is possible.... they both started out with different amounts of empathy in the first place, and have grown at the universal rate, meaning the lower one hasn't caught up to the higher.

I can agree somewhat with what you're saying but the thing about decision making is just a fact. It may not seem true at times, but that's just the way the human brain develops.

Well, I should clarify something that I said a while ago, because it does kind of put our differences to rest... my main reason for having a gripe about the whole "minors" issue is the whole "maximum sentencing" thing.

Minors are not put away for as long as it takes to be fixed, they can only be put away for so long. This 13-year-old girl who was just convicted with the first-degree murder of her parents and 8-year-old brother can receive a maximum sentence of something like 6 years, rehabilitated or not, and that doesn't make a lick of ****ing sense.

If the primary focus of prison should be rehabilitation, and I agree with you that it should be, the entire issue I have with how the legal system treats minors would disappear, because NO ONE of any age would get out until they were deemed fixed.

And I don't disagree.

Though I feel a little bad about using the word "fixed".

I can't help but think of A Clockwork Orange...

With our current legal system, that's not it. It's the punishment of wrong-doers and the protection of society and is dealt out based on culpability, and I don't think, as we currently do things, it makes sense for minors to be treated anywhere near as lightly as they are now when an adult who's suffering from all the same problems as that minor would get a life-long sentence. Holding someone less responsible is one thing, but if they're still a threat or evil in the head, and they're not going to be rehabilitated, then I'd rather see them as imprisoned as any adult would be than on the streets. That's basically where I stand on all this.

Which is why pushing for a reformed system is the best idea.

Finally, I would like to say that all your opinions are already invalid in my eyes because they're based around the logic that executing an innocent animal for no reason = okay, executing a person who impaled someone's child on their penis = a moral outrage. Just thought I'd throw that in there because none of our debates would be complete without it.

Of course.

Now there's something we can all agree on.

Amen.

Because they're our "friends" and give us cheap oil, and let us have bases on their soil. So we ignore their horrendous history of human rights violations, terrorist training grounds, etc.

Exactly what I was getting at. In fact I heard that they just released 1500 Al Quaeda followers after they "promised" to not wage Jihad anymore. I'm all for rehabilitation, but I doubt that Saudi Arabia has a progressively minded prison system. (Especially awful considering the case right now of the Saudi woman who was raped 14 times and is now to be imprisoned and whipped because she spoke to a man who she didn't know before she was attacked.)

I'm still amused by the fact that the Taliban was sanctioned and TRAINED by US military and intelligence operatives under the direct okay of then CIA Director; William Casey, and Secretary of Defense; Caspar Weinberger. So, you do the math.

Not to mention the fact that we provided money and weapons to Iraq during their war with Iran in the eighties, because of our opposition to Iran's government. And Iraq went on to commit horrific atrocities and use horrible chemical weaponry.

As they say in the documentary "Why We Fight", "The government was sure that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, they had the receipts."

I'm against the death penalty. For one simple reason: I don't believe any human has a right to take the life of another human. The only type of killing I understand is that of self-defense and that's just self-preservation (Or preservation of another). And really, only if there's no other choice.

I generally believe the same thing.

 

[Bass]

I don't really believe in absolutes.

Some people are not working properly, and just kill others. Part of me thinks it's a natural part of nature, but it's terrible.

I think that for heinous crimes, society needs options. One of those options has to be the death penalty. But it should never, ever, be given lightly.

 

[SSJmole]

I see people think my views were a tad extreme so i'll be quiet as I don't want this turn in to a big thing.

 

[Hibiki]

I see people think my views were a tad extreme so i'll be quiet as I don't want this turn in to a big thing.

Moley mole...have you learned nothing from this site. What your saying is near mpossible as someone will always turn it into a "big thing" and that's what she said.

 

[SSJmole]

and that's what she said.

:lol: :lol:

 

[Lynx]

I see people think my views were a tad extreme so i'll be quiet as I don't want this turn in to a big thing.

Mole, your views are always extreme. It's nothing new. People are use to your extremist ways.