Bush sure as hell doesn’t represent me. I didn’t vote for him, and I won’t vote for him this time either.
Some cretins like Rush Limbaugh talk as if Abu Ghraib isn’t a big deal. To me personally it definitely is. Prisoners of war are not supposed to be treated that way. They are enemy combatants yes, but they are not criminals. This is an important distinction. Our function is supposed to be simple - keep them from escaping to rejoin their own forces. Period. There is perhaps a myth or ideal that the humane treatment of POWs is a sort of professional courtesy that soldiers and armies should extend to one another. If nothing else, simple decency demands it. Anyone who breaks that “code” should be court martialled.
Begging the Question is a term used to describe an assumption that a person states as fact and which falsely proves a point. It isn’t used to describe a string of questions.
And that was really clever with the typo in response to mine. Simply ingenious.
Sorry, I will try to use logical fallacies more appropriately in the future. After all, we all know, without a doubt that %100 of the people executed in the united states are murderers. Therefore, stating that
should not be considered “Begging the Question”. My bad :wally
The distinct purpose of the death penalty in this country is to put murderers to death. My question never implied that innocent people are never executed. My question implied that murderers as opposed to sexually active teenagers are the target of the death penalty in this country.
But hey, when you don’t have a rational point to make, you resort to semantics. It’s a common ploy. And I like to think that most people can see right through it.
I didn’t say that we can’t fool ourselves into thinking we have the moral high ground over those whose legal theory is set up to punish sexual activity (even if that is not the case here.)
In fact, a good many people truly believe that only the guilty are executed. These people do have a moral high ground over those who willfully execute for minor sharia offenses. However, they are ignorant.
Claiming that “we execute murderers means the death penalty is A-OK” is begging the question is SEMANTICS? :eek:
Your original objection to the question and why you considered it “begging the question” was
For the purposes of my rhetorical question, it was (in my opinion) obvious that actual murderers were meant, not the falsely convicted. I am having trouble seeing how my question was a prime example of “Begging the Question”. And I sure as hell don’t know where you get:
from my question.
But at this point, I feel like we are just playing word games. You believe that the execution of an actual murderer and the execution of a girl, whose crime it was to have sex and back talk a judge, are morally equivalent. Have fun with that stance.
Where did I say that? IF, per your rhetorical question, is WERE known without any doubt that a murderer was a murderer, than yes, there is a huge moral difference between that and executing someone not guilty of murder (or other crimes that would be capital in a perfect knowledge world.)
However, I HAVE MADE CLEAR MANY TIMES ON THIS BOARD THAT I WOULD APPROVAL OF CAPITAL PUNISHMENT GIVEN PERFECT KNOWLEDGE. Probably even in this thread.
Therefore, I felt no need to interpret your rhetorical question as being rhetorical, since you never posed it that way. It felt like you were comparing the current US justice system with the sentence carried out on the Iranian girl.
After all, that was what the thread and the hijack were about: it’s easy to see why I could have drawn the conclusion that you were talking about real life rather than some theoretical techno-utopia of perfect knowledge.
No, you didnt say “IF they were truly murderers, would you still feel the same way?” Can you point to me where you made this clear?
This I think made it perfectly clear that I think the death penalty is only appropriate when it is absolutely certain that an actual murderer is being executed.
You followed, what I believed to be a reasonable post, with this:
By this, I thought you meant that there is no negligible difference between an “actual murderer” being executed and a “16 year old girl guilty of having premarital sex” being executed.
The whole point of what I was saying is, in my mind, there is a huge difference between a system that condemns women to death for screwing and a system that, ideally, strives only to execute those who have actually murdered.
When I saw this:
I followed it with my rhetorical question:
To me it sounded like you were saying that an Iranian system that allows for women being executed for having premarital sex is the same as the American system which strives to execute only the guilty, but which, on occassion, has certainly taken a few innocent lives.
This might have been purely a misunderstanding. But it sounds to me like you are backpeddling now. I’m not sure if English is your first language. And I certainly don’t mean that as a slam. But if it isn’t, it would really help to explain why you had such difficulty understanding where I was coming from.
I don’t really think you did. That’s where the misunderstanding came in:
To me, it seems like you were trying to have it both ways: saying you have no problem with people being against the death penalty in this country in the first paragraph, and then not wanting people to compare the two court systems.
I apologize for not reviewing all of your posts to this thread before posting my last post, but still, I think a reasonable person can indeed compare the two systems of justice if they think a fair number of people are executed unjustly under both systems, which you seem to disagree with.
In theory, yes. In results: no difference in flavor, only degree.
Taken as a whole, a system such as the US wherein say, %95 of those executed are guilty of a crime that should be capital versus Iran, where I would take a SWAG that still, at least %50 of those executed are still guilty of a crime under which death would be an appropriate punishment under perfect knowledge (such as grand larceny, murder, rape, armed robbery, corporate theft, serial spammers*) must both do some soul-searching to account for the waste of life they have generated. However, I don’t have a cite as to what percentage of people are executed in Iran for American-style felonies, versus victimless crimes. I am interested in that information, however, if anyone does know.
Which is not to say that Americans cannot be proud that we have one of the better justice systems in the world, but then again, we have one of the better basketball teams in the world, and we still can’t shut out other countries 100-0, which would be a truly qualitative difference. In the end, humans provide the justice in the world, and humans are pretty much the same around the world. For instance, certainly judge’s indignation played a part in the death sentences given to Mumia and the Rosenbergs: this is not to comment on their respective guilt or innocence, but to show that judge’s emotions have an effect on sentences in America as well.
Really, no matter what I said, there was some neat comeback you had arranged, since you gave with one hand and took back with the other in your original post. You can be against the death penalty in the US due to wrongful deaths but it isn’t reasonable to compare the two systems? :dubious:
The only similarity I can see between a woman being executed for having premarital sex and sassing a judge, and a person being executed for murdering someone, is that they both end up dead.
I know tomndebb brought up that the judge lied about the girl’s age and that allowed him to get permission to strangle her slowly. But Jesus, the Iranian system allowed a judge to slowly torture someone to death for the crime of premarital sex.
In my world, intentions mean something. One system intends to only execute those who have taken a life. The other system intends to execute, or severely punish, women who have sex.
You can say that innocent people have been killed under both systems. But I think that is where the similarity ends. And if the comparison is taken any further than that, I personally think it’s a stretch.
It’s not just a stretch. Ludovic doesn’t have a leg to stand on here. You’ve done a fine job of pointing that out, so it probably does make sense to end it here.
If Munster couldn’t help you figure out that there’s a clear moral difference between societies which kill people for killing other people, and societies which kill people for being sexually active, what the fuck is there to say to you? I’m not sure we have enough in common to communicate effectively with one another.
The “slowly torture” aspect is a legitimate charge against the mullahs. They have been using cranes for public executions for several years and I have condemned them for that.
The “crime of premarital sex” is not proven. The judge was so obviously corrupt in his efforts to extract vengeance against a girl who defied him that we cannot know (at least based on the original reports) the exact crime for which the mullahs approved the execution.
It is entirely possible that the High Court approved the death sentence for the only slightly less frivolous cause of contempt for the courts. I’m perfectly willing to condemn them in that action.
Given the evidence that the judge stepped outside the law, outside the facts, and outside tradition in order to secure the death penalty, I do not see where we can conclude anything about the decision of the High Court (or Iranian society) regarding what is criminal or what punishments are meted out in Iran.
There are plenty of things for which the mullahs can be indicted, but I just do not think that we have the evidence to do that here.
As I have said before, there is only a moral difference in degree between a society that doesn’t care if a few dozen innocent people are executed versus, let’s say, a society which executed several hundred.
Ironically, posters on the opposite side of the argument from me are engaging in exactly the kind of touchy-feely justification that many accuse liberals of having. “Ohhhh, yeah we accidentally killed a few innocent people, but we still have the moral high ground, because we meant well.” Sorry, no dice.
Now, with regards to what makes a qualitative difference: if you think that there IS a qualitative difference between someone who doesnt care if they accidentally forget to put things on the checkout counter at a shop, then when they get back to their car, say “oooh! free stuff!” and keep it, versus someone who lifts fur coats from a boutique, then we can agree to disagree. I think they are on the same plane, merely separated by degrees.
And by the way, from my perspective, I am the one who is making a killing in the debate. But let’s not start another debate over that
Translation: I, too, am one of those ignorant or evil people who does not really care how much injustice there is in America, as long as other countries have it worse. I may, however, claim to care simply to score points in a debate, then take it back with my next sentence.
Deal with what? I’ve already made my point. (For that matter, in the only statment attributed to the judge, he claimed that her punishment was not for the sexual activity.)
In the end, humans provide the justice in the world, and humans are pretty much the same around the world. For instance, certainly judge’s indignation played a part in the death sentences given to Mumia and the Rosenbergs: this is not to comment on their respective guilt or innocence, but to show that judge’s emotions have an effect on sentences in America as well.