I’m against the death penalty, but if someone rapes and murders, and one of their victims’ families kills 'em, I don’t lose sleep. I’m not in favor of vigilanteism, but I’m hardly going to be upset when someone is deservedly killed. And in fact, when the revenge-seeker is brought to justice, I’d favor substantial leniency.
Am I a hypocrite for that? Why, exactly?
No, but while Bricker and I disagree on, well, absolutely everything, I generally find his opinions interesting and well-informed. Which makes it doubly irritating when he decides to play rhetorical games like this one rather than actually offering up a substantive take on the issue in question.
Good guess, but that’s only part of it. As has been pointed out, it’s unclear if these guys participated in the rape. But I would hope you’d feel bad about anybody being killing in a war-- unless, perhaps, he was actively evading being brought to justice and died in a firefight. The fact that the guy might have been a rapist doesn’t make him any more deserving of death, if one argues against the death penalty.
If people can be deservedly killed, why are you agains the death penalty? The only excpetion I can think of is the cavaet I pointed out in my last reply to DtC.
I’m not Diogenes, but one of the classic arguments against vigilantism and executions is the certainty of innocent people getting killed. That’s especially true of vigilantes, of course.
That’s the most important reason I oppose the death penalty and vigilantism, at least. A real world Batman or Spider Man would no doubt end up beating up a lot of perfectly innocent people by mistake.
I already admitted I made a mistake in thinking these guys were part of the group that alledley committed the crimes
Why? You can hope that if you want, I suppose, but I don’t see what it has to do with me being a hypocrite.
Sure it does. My opposition to death penalty has nothing to do with whether I think anyone deserves. I think lots of people deserve it. I’m against the DP for two reasons, one, because there is no way to eliminate the possibility of error and two, because I think it’s too easy for the ones who are guilty. To quote Clint eastwood in Unforgiven, “Deserve’s got nothing to do with it, boy.”
I gave my reasons for opposing the DP, but I’d also like to point out that I wasn’t advocating vigilantism, I was just saying I wouldn’t have been verry sorry if a couple of rapist/murderers had been killed. I also said “If these allegations are true,” so that would qualify my statement as excluding the possibility of mistake.
Thing is though, John, it really does depend on what you mean by “deserved” here.
It is possible to be against the death penalty for a variety of principled reasons, yet at the same time have little or no sympathy for people who are executed.
There have been some cases over the past couple of years where, despite my opposition to the death penalty, i’ve had no sympathy at all for particular individuals who have been put to death. In some of those cases, their crimes were so heinous that i felt they did, in a certain sense, deserve their fate.
But i also believe that the death penalty, in general, says more about the humanity of the people who administer it than it does about the deservedness of the people who receive it. We claim to be a civilized society, and punishing barbarism with barbarism just doesn’t sit very well with me.
I’m not saying you have to agree with me; i’m only pointing out my reasoning in an attempt to convince you that opposing the death penalty is not necessarily inconsistent with feeling that some criminals do, on a certain level, deserve to die.
And, of course, the position i’ve outlined here is one merely of general philosophical objections. Some of my most immediate and strenuous objections to the death penalty center on the possibility of killing the wrong person.
To me, when someone says that somebody was “deservedly killed,” that first someone is in favor of the death penalty. And if the “deserved killing” was administered not by court order but by a member of the public, than that is vigilantism.
So, John Mace, are we sufficiently derailed yet? Have you been successful at distracting attention from the fact that five of our soldiers apparently raped a woman and then killed her and her entire family, or do we need to talk about how hypocritical libruls are some more?
I agree. And I don’t approve of vigilanteism. I think vigilantes should be arrested, tried, and punished for their crimes. That doesn’t mean I necessarily feel any sympathy whatsoever for the people they killed.
I have to say I find this quite surprising from John Mace; he’s generally one of my favorite posters on the boards, and in no small part because he rarely seems to engage in that all-to-common tack of trying to prove that whoever disagrees with him is inherently a hypocrite for doing so. That’s something I expect from quite a number of the stupider people around here, but not from him. I’m really quite puzzled by this, especially given that he didn’t stop to ask why Diogenes held a view that seemed contradictory to him but immediately leapt to accuse him of hypocrisy.
Pfft. None of these posts is preventing anyone from dumping on the soldiers. Don’t blame me if the other topic generates more interest.
But I do agree with the general idea of this thread-- these soldieres do, if they are guilty, deserve our worst scorn-- and for exactly the reason **DtC **says in his thread title. Acts like this endanger these guys’ fellow soldiers and marines in a time of active hostilities-- unforgivable! Still, that’s the easy part. Everyone is going to agree with that. If you’d prefer to read a thread full of “me, too” posts, that’s your perogative. Not many people do, though.
Hey, the OP invited that type of criticism. I just obliged him. And I’m only trying to “prove” my position because you asked me to. And, apparently, I’m not the only one who has that opinion. You’re welcome to rebut my response, or completely ignore it if you want. From your persepctive, I just asked you a simple question: If someone “deserves” to die for a certain crime, isn’t that tacit agreement with the pro-death penalty crowd? Did you really mean to say “deserves”?
Because it shows that someone is in favor of death as a penalty. Thus: death penalty. Also known as Capital Punishment.
I don’t think anyone should be subjected to illegal actions. I also think that vigilantes should have the courts weigh the fact of their vigilante action against them when deciding on their sentence. Why? Because a vigilante has shown that he or she considers himself or herself to be above the law.
The important thing is that by the time a story like this makes it into the public eye, the evidence, gathered in the most adverse circumstances, must be overwhelming and proof of widespread, if not systemic conduct by US services people.
That is by the time joe public hears about rape in Iraq, US servicemen have been at it en masse and helter skelter for years on end.
It’s his way of coping with the cognitive dissonance caused by the ‘conservative’ Republican culture he identifies with destroying the country he loves: playing gotcha, attacking ancillary arguments, and laborious legal sidetracks that are irellevant to the meat of the thread allow him to ignore his incorrect beliefs by focusing his intellectual energy on the liberal enemy.
I agree incidents such as this are a major issue, heck, ONE incident such as this is a major issue. It does happen and should be investigated and prosecuted vigorously. But to say that the half dozen or less such reported incidents indicates a “Systemic” problem is a wild leap in logic. Of all the soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen over there, only a very few have been implicated. I would think to qualify as “systemic” it takes a much higher percentage, like that equalling the percentage of legislators under indictment or investigation for corruption. I am not saying it is not a bigger problem than reported, and it must be investigated with transparency. It may well turn out to be systematic, (but I don’t think so), but to jump from a few incidents to systematic while by passing the data collection and get the facts phase is a bit reckless.
Doubtless you’ve caught me in hyperbole and are correct.
That said, the history is that the response to such events has been to cover-up, conceal, whitewash, deny. Until that becomes impossible. So I hope you’ll forgive my hyperbole. Because you know, the history has been that if I adopt the most cynical view of news reports regarding the Iraq war, then I seem to come out closest to the true story.