Oh really? So I suppose all those third-world nations and the refugee camps frequently associated with them choose to be poor?



I sincerely doubt that a bullet to the base of the skull, from a gun of reasonable caliber, will ever fail to kill. For all intents and purposes, instantly.

While I'm all for the death penalty myself, you just hit the problem right on the head. How do we make 100% certain that we're applying it to the truly guilty parties? The appeals system is part of that. Personally, I don't see the death sentence making a large comeback until after we develop a foolproof lie detector of some kind.

I would NOT like to see that person dead. The reason is that death for someone who has comited such a crime, is in fact an not a punishment but an ESCAPE!
Been locked up for the duration of a limetime in prison is MUCH MUCH worse.

Another problem is that the death penalty cannot be reversed. It´s a permament solutions witch might turn out to be horribly incorrect.
- The guilty who is sentenced with a death penalty might have been innocent in the first place! and it happens regulary that innocent people are sentenced to death for crimes they never comited.
If they would be locked up in jail - truth might in time emerge and save them.
If they are killed, then there is no way of reversing the death penalty.

For this reasons, I oppose the death penalty.

I think they should get half xp for about 1 level and have to graveyard run back to their corpse.

Yes. If it's ethical to remove organs from registered doners who haven't committed a crime, it's ethical to remove organs from scum and give them to someone who needs them more.

The problem with that is that doners gave their consent to have thier organs used, where as the prisoner probably didn't.

That is a very valid ethical concern.

That said, I do like the idea.

I personally don't support the death penalty, even in the case of mass-murderers. I don't feel it is the right of another human to take someone's life- even if said person has taken another. Why move them into the afterlife, in whatever form it may take, when you can instead make them dwell on the matter for 50, 60 or 70 years, every day? I also feel we VASTLY confuse our lengths of prison sentences- you can commit a terrible act of violence against someone with a gun and serve 5 years in prison, but if you have sex with a 17 year old you can serve 10 or 20 years? That's laughably insane.

The real problem is prison is SUPPOSED to be about rehabilitation, and it doesn't do that whatsoever. It also is supposed to be a severe penalty, and with television and outdoor time and social interaction, it is for some in our society a "comfortable" place to be.

Prison should be solitary, always- no outdoor access, no "things to do"- no letters, no writing, no reading, period. It should be you, an empty room and nothing to do but THINK. Combine that with constant visits by qualified professionals in mental health, and you might actually be able to fix the mental defects within some of those who commit these violent crimes.

All other crimes- white or societally meaningless (shoplifting, fist fighting, etc.) should never have severe chunks of their lives taken away- if you're serving more than a year for the worst of those offenses, it's wrong. Society is taking away too much of your short life. Yes, you did something wrong and should be punished, but 3 months and a stiff fine is acceptable for stealing. 5 years? That's criminal in itself.

All of this is meaningless however if people weren't so inherently capable of crimes. I've never gotten into a fight in my life, I've never stolen, and I've never even committed a driving infraction. Why? I have a respect for authority most others seem to have lost somewhere. It's just not in my blood to do something outside the bounds of the law- no matter how tempting it may be to do so. The problem is the people out there who think doing so is fun, because authority figures "need" to have someone challenge them. THAT is who we need to focus on in our society- before they commit the crimes.

What's not an assumption is: Execution reduces recidivism.

Main beef with the death penalty seems to be an error rate.

Why are we allowed to drive cars? Taking baths kills innocent people too, we should ban the filling of tubs. I fail to see how a cause of death so low can be such a sticking point.

There are things that are reasonable standards though. Circumstantial evidence for instance should never make a death penalty case, it probably shouldn't be allowed to make any case period. I'd go so far as to say unsupported eye witnesses shouldn't make one either. If your perp leaves his dna all over his victim, fry the fucker. Hard evidence doesn't lie, it takes corrupt officials to put the wrong guy in jail with real evidence present. In the exceedingly rare event of a perfect frame job by a third party, an injustice will be done, but what's the big deal? Millions of people die in accidents every year, it's just another accident, an arguably more horrible one than most, but it's not some monstrous thing beyond the pale.

Now, on to my evil right winger ways. Compassion without reason is worse than contempt.

"Oh, really? So we should cut of all aid to the 1.3 million poeple in Burma who just suffered a typhoon? And we should also endorse the Israelli blockade of the Gaza strip until everyone there starves to death? And should we also allow the World Bank to continue to line its pockets by demanding 1.3 billion dollars a month from Haiti where over a million people now face starvation because their government has to confiscate food production and lower trade barrier to pay off its debt that was run up by the western endorsed dictator in exile?"

Well, I like the first couple. The IMF is another example of why helping people that wont help themselves is fucking stupid. The Burmese are in the shitter because the Burmese wont kill the guys that took their country over. Sending them aid is largely irrelevant since they wont get rid of those assholes. If Burma weren't a slum in the first place, a little problem like a typhoon wouldn't leave them starving. Odds are, if their dictators let us in to help, they wont get any better either, and the next minor weather event will completely wipe them out again. It's just amazing how people can live on an Island for thousands of years before discovering weather.

If I must defend the IMF though, I'm prepared for such idiocy as well. Did you know the western backed dictator didn't turn Haiti into a shithole? Personally I'd have shot the fucking communist on the spot and sent them his corpse. Clinton, unfortunately, was a fucking idiot. Alas, we can't blame Clinton for Haiti, when Aristide got there, it was already a disaster filled with starving people. They've been cooking dirt for 20 years, he hasn't been there that long. The doc they had during the 60's was a real nice chap of course, but you can't blame him on us. They elected him, let him build his own private army, and then take them from a country that exported food to a country that starved. So, while the IMF and the World Bank should never have been created, Haiti is a product of it's own making, and their starvation has absolutely nothing to do with it. Besides, if Aristide wants to, he has plenty of money to pay back the loans he kept for his own personal use. The Haitians need to kill their military off if they want to get anywhere though, that's the real problem they have, a lack of balls.

"Oh really? So I suppose all those third-world nations and the refugee camps frequently associated with them choose to be poor?"

Why yes Ron, they do! If you let a military despot take over your country, steal all your land, and put you in a hovel with nothing to eat, it's your own fucking fault. If you reproduce while living in a hovel with nothing to eat, I wish you dead for your sins against your children.

Do you know what would have happened to all the starving people in Africa if we'd fucked off and let them starve? A lot of them would have died. Problem solved. The people that survived would be able to live off the land they had available, or they would have killed the stupid bastards that put them into that position. What has feeding them gotten us? More starving Africans. It's just so humane to make them dependent on our grain shipments, wasting their entire lives on the verge of death in a disease infested refugee camp. Sick, hungry, devoid of any hope for the future, completely worthless in every way. We kill millions every year that never would have been born into poverty to start with. All because asshats like the red bishop can't think beyond today.

When France was where places like Haiti are today because a corrupt and decadent aristocracy was more interested in trying to outwit each other than the survival of their own subjects, the French rose up. Feeling bad for them means you're a bleeding heart liberal, not a particularly bad trait, illogical, but excellent for saving puppies and giving hugs to strangers. Perpetuating their misery on the other hand is a simple lack of courage.

Grow a pair and let them die, the instinct for survival will kick in and they will help themselves.

Why not break out the iron maidens, racks, and thumbscrews while your at it? Solitary confinement is one of the cruelest punishments in existence (specifically when its prolonged). Don't forget, humans are -- at base -- social creatures; denying someone human contact for a prolonged period of time has severe mental consequences. As for the rest, your being cruel but not necessarily excessively so. I'd probably give them something to do, but your right about not making it all that much "fun" to be in there. Some things -- physical exercise, for example -- should absolutely still be allowed, others -- like reading -- should be controlled.



Agreed, the system is FUBARed in some respects. Still, they've worked to improve it as best they could (it used to be that if an 18 year old had sex with his 17 year old girlfriend, he's get tossed in jail... even if three days earlier it was perfectly legal because he was still 17!) and are working to improve it further. Part of the problem is that to some people, some crimes are "worse" than others. E. G. rape Vs. Murder -- which is worse? (Lets be specific and call it premeditated rape Vs. "heat of the moment" murder to even it up a little). In your specific example, a lot of people (for some insane reason) just feel that 15-16 year are "taken advantage of" when they have sex with someone much older. Personally, I think thats insane -- but I understand why the system is set up the way it is. Do note that the age varies -- in the US it ranges from 16 low to 18 high (in some states its further divided up by nature and gender of the sex act -- according to the chart I just looked up in one state a 16 year old girl is of age for male/female while a guy has to be 18; and for gay sex you have to be 18 period...)



You need to be more clear on your definition -- sure, basic theft probably doesn't deserve that much time, but what about the guy who embezzled away the companies retirement fund, leaving thousands without their retirement?



You've never committed a driving infraction, or you never did one deliberately? Its pretty hard to avoid running a red light or missing a stop sign at least once or twice while learning to drive!



Your oversimplifying. There are plenty of people who know its wrong -- but decide its worth the risks of getting caught to get rich quick. Or decide that its worth the punishment to go crack that guys skull. Or, in the heat of the moment, just smash that idiots face in (an important category...). Or, heck, screw up and commit a crime by accident (I've "shoplifted" once or twice before by accident -- I forgot I'd picked a thing of nail clippers one time, and another time I was reading a book I'd actually just picked up out of the book aisle while shopping for groceries, and forgot to get it rung up).

Part of that post was unfair. While Clinton is a fucking idiot, it's really not fair to blame him for Aristide. The Haitians did elect him to start with, he just had a bit of trouble with a military coup before we sent him back...

Thats easy for you or me to say. I am perfectly capable (mentally speaking -- I'd probably loose, but I'd take some of them with me!) of taking on a (small) group of armed men armed with nothing more than my wits, my somewhat out of shape body, and anything I can pick up from the area around me (which probably doesn't include any "real" weapons). Most people don't have the mentality that allows them to kill another human being (shocking, I know!). And most people sure as hell don't have the mentality that it doesn't matter, win or loose, so long as you did your best.



Monster.

Yes, I'm calling you a monster. Not because of the adults; because of the children. The adults may have screwed up and worked their own way into the situation, the children didn't.



Different social matrix involved, you can't compare a group of city dwellers who could (and did) capture weapons to equal their foes to scattered groups of rural denizens (well, relatively rural), armed with nothing more than rocks and shovels facing down well-fed, well-armed groups of "militia". Modern weaponry makes a much larger difference than the basic musketry available during the French revolution (which, IMO, is one of the strongest arguments against gun control... except the NRA doesn't want any gun control, as opposed to reasonable gun control) and, again, most people simply don't have the mindset to take on those kinds of odds.



Did you just call me a liberal? Oh, how funny. Perhaps in some ways I am -- equal rights for gay couples with regards to marriage, adoption, etc etc! Genuine mental illness should reduce the punishment for crimes! Healthcare is a right!

In other ways... lets just say I'm so un-liberal its not even funny. Personally, I'd have no objection with the US throwing its military weight around a lot more with regards to NBC facilities, secret or otherwise, so long as it was honest about it. My only complaint with the Iraq War is that we didn't go in "honestly" to (finally) take that thrice-damned idiot out, but instead our president played around about NBC facilities that were never found. Some shit-head third world nation doesn't feel like letting our inspectors go where they want, when they want, as they want (without any advance notice!)? Bomb them to heck! They decide to dick around with said inspectors? Send in the SpecOps, get the inspectors out, then bomb the country back to the stone age. Yeah, some innocents die -- and its a tragedy, deserving of far more than the old saw about eggs and omelette's -- but, as you yourself pointed out, life is hard, and people die, generally more and quicker than if you don't go in and clean out the trouble spots.

Save your insults; use reason instead.

And the Children are there because? Think, don't just feel. Feeling bad for them isn't helpful. There are several million people starving in Haiti, they have been starving for over 40 years. Which generation of children would you like me to think about?

Ignoring the reasons a catastrophe becomes a catastrophe is what gets us into these messes. Our feeding the starving masses has got us more starving masses. When the Haitians started starving, they had enough land to feed themselves, they might have enough farmland even today, they're not even using all of it.



Irrelevant. When their options are die of starvation or fight, the complacency that is destroying their civilization will end, or they will die. It's suicide at that point for the military to resist a full scale revolt anyway. You need peasants to get your food. Historically speaking, the bulk of the military follows the people in an armed revolt, not the government. In the case of Haiti, there are eight million people there, most of them hungry, and they don't even have a military taking their lands anymore. It exists entirely on paper, completely gone. They still wont take their lives into their own hands, get off their asses, and go work arable land that sits unused. Instead, they cook dirt in the slums. Our generosity has destroyed them, broken a self sufficient island in a single generation.



I called you a bleeding heart liberal, you've identified yourself as such repeatedly, you feel bad for the children, you feed the children. Textbook bleeding heart liberal. Aside from being true, and thus not an insult, I fail to see how it's taken as such unless you think liberal is a derogatory word.

You on the other hand call me a monster for disliking a death toll in the millions year after year. We've been breeding the walking dead for decades now, all so we don't have to live with not interfering.

The rest... FDR was a died in the wool communist, he was still strong on national defense and proactive in implementation. One can be liberal in one area and conservative in another just fine.

Cripple and/or mutilate them, but in such a way they can live, painfully.


Then throw their ass in a cell.

yeah, I think so, because why would anyone get upset that their organs are saving lives? The only people that would care is the family, and the would have to complete pricks to deny a vital organ to someone in need just to keep their phycopath son's dignity. (he wouldn't have much left anyway)

I probably would, but it would not be my privilige or choice, it would be the privilige and choice of the state.

There is no justification for allowing the state to take the lives of it's citizens.

The DP is not a deterrent for crime and in many cases it is preferred by criminals to life w/o parole. I believe there are crimes so hideous that the offender loses his right to any redemption but we should not kill them. State sanctioned execution is barbaric and wrong.

If we are going to allow executions the family of the victim should be allowed to slaughter the offender in any way they choose. This would recognize the dp for its only reasonable purpose, revenge. Maybe revenge is okay but if that seems too cruel, extreme, or savage then we should stop the dp entirely and stop the pretense that it is acceptable in a civilized society

The main reason the Haitans are starving was not because we fed them and made them lazy. On the contrary, and ironicly, its organizations that are supposed to be getting rid of poverty(ie. The World Bank) that is causing the mass starvation.

Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man how to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.



Ron, as cold as psychoak is. He is right. Feelings alone help nobody. Giving food to people who are starving is just a short term solution, short term as in it only works for a few weeks. If you do not teach them to take care of themselves, to rise up and resolve the problems themselves, they will never improve.



The same could be said to you Ron. Use Reason, not Feelings.

I never said the basic problem didn't need fixing; only that cutting off aid is not the way to fix it. Because you are -- by definition -- then cutting the aid off to the children involved.

Then my argument applies to the various third world "democracies" wherein it is relevant.

I am from the UK and here the death penalty was outlawed around 30-40 years ago, private ownership of firearms (with the exception of those intended for agricultural purposes) was also banned around 15 years ago. To be honest neither of these measures has had any impact upon crime rates... murder rates did not soar with the abolition of the dp, neither did guncrime drop when firearms were banned (it is in fact at an all time high).

The fundamental issue is that there are people in this world, albeit of a finite number, who have for whatever reason (nature or nurture)have a predaliction towards behaving in a manner contrary to that which is accepted by mainstream society.

Society enmasse has to make a decision as to the best way of dealing with those who transgres against its established norms. Is the death penalty going to act as a genuine detterant, it is easy for us: the law abiding citizens of the world to say "yes... the idea of the gas chamber sure as hell scares me... it scares me enough to prevent me from killing". That would all be fair and well but for the fact that many of the people who have posted in favour of the death penalty (on this forum) seem to take a rather belligerant attitude towards its appllication. This reminds me of the pictures of all those people outside the execution block waving plackards such as 'burn bundy burn'.

Most supporters of the death penaty want it for all the wrong reasons... reasons motivated purely by revenge, to them state sanctioned execution is no more than a vicarious method of taking out their own agression on that person who ha upset their and societies sensibilities.

To those who endorse the dp as a genuine deterrant I would hold up the example of my own country as a counter aruement, the abolition of execution did NOT open up the flood gates.

I for one am against its application... but ho am to judge?

This is NOT a Flame: but most people against the death penalty presume to have some moral high ground. That the state should never "stoop" to the level of the criminal. The truth is all laws are the moral imposition of the state upon its people; don't kill -- it's immoral, don't steal -- it's immoral. Yet when the ultimate penalty is warranted, when the victim's rights are so unjustly taken, the state does not have the moral certitude to dispense with said justice. The victim's "right" to life is now just a priviledge compared to the criminal's right to live. A state which fails to protect the innocents' rights is not moral, and sparing the criminal doesn't make up for that.

A country that has no crime for which the penalty is death has no morality. It presumes upon its people a certainty that there will be some that can ultimately deprive the innocent of their rights without true penalty. It fails in the one true moral function of government: to protect its people.

He did not say liberals were Nazis, he said "the liberalnazis" There are two different groups of thought. I have had to deal with both of them.

I have sometimes been called a liberal, but not a "liberalnazi".

Being overly simplistic about this the difference is this.
Retort from a liberal: I am sorry that you feel that way on this subject, allow me to introduce you to another way of thinking on this and perhaps we could find some common ground to work on, to better both you and society.

Retort from a liberalnazi: You filthy stinking Pig, you chauvinistic cave dwelling knuckle dragging capitalist Neanderthal. You demonstrate all that is wrong with all white middle age heterosexual American males. Die!! Die!! Die!!! You worthless pig!!!!
Granted this is such an 80’s concept, but I really get a bug in my butt from the politically correct crowd myself..

As for the question in the post: I argue that the families should not be allowed to have a say in the level of punishment melded out to someone concerning a crime. The primary reason for this is passion. The wounded parties often want revenge as well as punishment for the wrongs done them. (I include myself in this).
Until the bombing of The Murrow building I was adamantly opposed to the death penalty for any reason. When I read the headlines about the bombing my first reaction was “fry the bastard”.

So until someone actually has to face the situation, I do not think any of us can honestly answer your question. Not because we don’t think we know, but that until faced with such a horror we only know how we think we will respond or hope we will respond.

The French Revolution happened during the Little Ice Age, and the REAL reason is that the French Peasants REFUSED to listen to their King, who told them to eat the same food item he was: Potatoes!!! The crops that the peasants had been growing were not suited to the climatic conditions and routinely FAILED, while the Potato was ideal for the conditions, and, nutritious.

I only pray that should this happen to a loved one of mine I would be strong enough not to kill the SOB. Because I'd rather that person suffer for the rest of their life, if not by the authorities then by my hand.