[QUOTE=Jackmannii]
*In about five minutes then walked a man,
holding the verdict in his right hand
The verdict read in the first degree,
I shouted Lordy Lordy please have mercy on me
The judge he smiled when he picked up his pen,
Ninety-nine years in the San Quentin pen.
Ninety-nine years underneath that ground*
“Cocaine Blues” - George Thorogood
[/QUOTE]
George Thorogood??? Look, give credit to Johnny Cash for popularizing it, if you don’t know who wrote it, but Lonesome George is way down the list of cover credits for that one. “Cocaine Blues” was written by TJ Arnall and originally recorded by Roy Hogsed.
Yes, and your excited glee at the prospect is frankly revolting. However disgusting and brutal a particular crime or criminal may be, having presumably sane and responsible members of society acting out this kind of sadistic fantasy on their bodies would be worse.
Imaginatively vicious physical punishments are not the sort of thing that earn a society respect from the civilized world. Everybody’s opposed to the crime of theft, for example, but when we read about the Taliban cutting off the hands of convicted thieves, do we say “Good for them! They’re providing catharsis and using the thieves to make a point”?
Or do we say instead “Ewwww, what disgusting savage barbarity”?
Having previously ensured that they are, to quote your own words, “frenzied and starving”, and expecting them to “panic […] and plug up the pipe” so they can’t get out. Gee, your kindness to animals is equalled only by your compassionate respect for humanity. :rolleyes:
Well, I suppose it could be worse: you might be a veterinarian.
[QUOTE=OtakuLoki]
That may have been what you meant - but what you said was
Which is a very different thing than you’re saying, now.
[/QUOTE]
Uh, in that same post I also said:
[QUOTE=magellan01]
I mean, after the trial (and assuming a guilty verdict), what form will “justice” take?
[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=OtakuLoki]
Stepping outside the justice system, at all, is IMNSHO vigilantism.
Either get the punishments you want approved by the electorate, and the legislatures, and signed by the executive, at which point they’ve become incorporated into the normal justice system - or accept that you’re advocating vigilantism.
[/QUOTE]
You’d be right, if I were. But I’m not, so you’re not.
[QUOTE=OtakuLoki]
But we do have this line about “cruel and unusual” punishments to consider. So, no, I will never advocate any kind of death by torture. I don’t give a rat’s incisor what the crime might have been. The worst that the state should ever do to a convict is either life in prison, or as close to a painless death as can be managed.
[/QUOTE]
But why not put their life to some good for society? To serve as a memorable example? I think that the best argument against that is that we lower the bar as far as perception goes, as to what level of crime can be rationalized by society. But their are two sides to the equation. They both have merits and demerits.
[QUOTE=Zambini57]
While those of us living in the West generally consider punishments meted out in the Middle East to be barbaric (public beheading, flogging), sometimes it doesn’t seem like such a bad idea.
I bet you never heard of any 17 year old living in Iran raping a 99 year old woman.
[/QUOTE]
Er, you might not want to bring Iran into this—they have a rather “unenlightened” (read: misogynist throwback) view of sex crimes over there. They’d probably execute the 99 year old for having intercourse, but not being able to produce enough witnesses to prove rape.
A few other nations, however, do authorize the death penalty for rape, or other non-murder crimes (the U.S. basically overruled this with with Coker v. Georgia, though apparently a few states are testing this—Louisiana has someone on death row for the aggravated rape of his 8-year old daughter).
[QUOTE=Blalron]
There’s no need to “give in” to outrage. Revenge is never usefull. Ever. The fruits of revenge only serve to bring more suffering into this world. To classify another human being as unworthy of life is the same action that our loathsome killer has engaged in.
[/QUOTE]
Revenge, might not be wise, but it can be useful. If it let’s me sleep better at night knowing that there is one less threat ready to visit horror upon my family, friends and others, that is useful. If it quells the outrage someone feels when a great injusticve is done to him or someone he cares about, it is useful. So revenge can very well be useful.
And choosing to legally take a life—by rules that society has agreed upon—is NOT the same as someone taking a life on his own, in direct opposition to what rules and mores society has.
[QUOTE=Zambini57]
While those of us living in the West generally consider punishments meted out in the Middle East to be barbaric (public beheading, flogging), sometimes it doesn’t seem like such a bad idea.
I bet you never heard of any 17 year old living in Iran raping a 99 year old woman.
They still exercise corporal punishment in some schools here in the US. Incorporating a little corporal punishment into our justice system might do some good.
We’re too civilized for that, I guess.
[/QUOTE]
You make an excellent point. That there is a cost to us not taking a harder line. We might be in the right place, but there is a cost. A few months ago there were a few elderly women (80s) beaten and robbed. And this isn’t the first time an elderly woman has been raped. Or little kids. The fact is that by NOT being more forceful in their prosecution and punishment, we are all a little complicit in the next crime of that type. Like I said, we may have struck the right balance, but maybe not.
[QUOTE=Der Trihs]
Probably, to a degree. But it’s not just killing you are advocating.
[/QUOTE]
Okay. So what we really have are two points of disagreement. The death penalty and the method. Let’s assume for the sake of argument that you’re okay with the death penalty. The question then is if we are to take this life, is the more moral thing to take it quitely, or to take it with great visibility. To take it behind closed doors whre it may otr may not get a mention in the paper the next day, or to take it with great spectacle? I’ll argue that the taking of life is indeed so extreme a measure, that we should hold it up to be a spectacle, so as the most good can be derived from the act.
[QUOTE=Miller]
This was pretty much the reasoning used when the sort of punishments you described were routinely metted out by the courts. One of the reasons we don’t do that anymore is that, after a few centuries of the practice, it became pretty clear that they weren’t doing a lot of good as a deterrent.
[/QUOTE]
Yes, but it could be that the routine—and no doubt unfair—nature of such justice didn’t allow a direct, distinct line to be drawn from the act to the the punishment. The fact that it has not been SOP for centuries would make people stand up and take notice. I think there are some acts so despicable that the needle in the arm or a life sentence do not rise to the level of “justice”.
[QUOTE=magellan01]
I propose a nice old-fashioned stoning. I’ll throw the first rock. And bring extras. Any other ideas. I kinda like what Leon Uris had in The Haj, I think it was. Bend the guy over a table, stick a fat pipe up his ass into his bowels, then send up some frenzied, starving rats, which will panic and attempt to eat their way out, and plug up the pipe. Maybe send in a fine tube with oxygen so the little instruments of justice can do their work. And I wold telivise his face the entire time. With a gallery of people—me, freinds of the victim—laughing at him the whole time.
[/QUOTE]
Just out of curiosity, are you volunteering for the same punishment should the person be innocent?
[QUOTE=Revenant Threshold]
I am confused what you mean by stepping outside the normal justice system, then. If you meant you’d just like to open up the death penalty to more crimes, that’d just be a change in the system, a change in the law. Stepping outside of the law implies (or implied to me) that you think there should be a “special” level of justice for some kinds of cases; I apologise for badly reading you, but what did you mean by "step outside the normal “justice sytem from time to time”?
[/QUOTE]
What I menat, Revenant, was in regards to the punishment phase. Opening that to more “just” punishments. Those more commensurate with the heinousness of the crime.
[QUOTE=Revenant Threshold]
“Delicate anti-death-penalty sensibitlies”? Fetch my fainting couch, sir, I feel a touch of the vapours even discussing this issue! That sounds good. So what’s the wording of the law? By what standard is “no question whatsoever of guilt” judged against? Is it a judge’s discretion? Would you set up some kind of tribunal that judges could nominate cases to to look at? Do we leave it up to juries? Do state governors get to give the thumbs up/down?
[/QUOTE]
Maybe after someone is convicted and sentenced to death it goes to another judge to assess degree of certainty of the verdict. If it’s not of the highest order. no death penalty. Granted, the people doing the assessing need not be against the death penalty across the board.
[QUOTE=jsgoddess]
Just out of curiosity, are you volunteering for the same punishment should the person be innocent?
[/QUOTE]
Why should I? That’s not the way our llegal system works. If you were on a jury and sent someone away for a year, and he later turned out to be innocent, would you go to jail for a year. Of course not. That’s rock stupid. You would never have any jury convict someone of a crime for fear that they might be wrong and would have to serve the time or pay the restitution.
[QUOTE=magellan01]
Why should I? That’s not the way our llegal system works.
[/QUOTE]
You want to change the way our system works. I’m just suggesting a nice little improvement. Those who want to enact their vicious revenges get the same things enacted on them if they are wrong. How about it? You’ve already decided that he’s guilty guilty guilty, so what’s the risk?
[QUOTE=jsgoddess]
You want to change the way our system works. I’m just suggesting a nice little improvement. Those who want to enact their vicious revenges get the same things enacted on them if they are wrong. How about it? You’ve already decided that he’s guilty guilty guilty, so what’s the risk?
[/QUOTE]
I guessed you missed this, which appears TWICE:
[QUOTE=magellan01]
I mean, after the trial (and assuming a guilty verdict), what form will “justice” take?
[/QUOTE]
I’ve already addressed your idea: rock stupid. And supplied reasons why.
If you’d like to offer counter arguments, go to it.
[nitpick]As I understand the passage in question, magellan is correct. The person Jesus saved from being stoned was accused of adultery, and what Jesus was getting at was the idea that everyone in the crowd had at some point wanted to fuck someone they weren’t married to. Even if they hadn’t gone through with it, it didn’t mean that they were better than the accused, because they desired the same thing. And most people don’t desire in their heart of hearts to rape and murder 99 year old women.
But I’m no Biblical scholar (or believer, for that matter) so I might be wrong about that.[/nitpick]
[QUOTE=magellan01]
I guessed you missed this, which appears TWICE:
[/QUOTE]
It’s only because my baseball team is being hammered that I’d even try to explain this to you, but you are trying to change the way our legal system works and then you complain if someone offers a different suggestion that changes the way our legal system works.
You can’t complain that I’m trying to change the way the system works if you, yourself, on your little ole lonesome, are trying to do just that. You see? Of course you don’t, but at least the massacre on this thread is more satisfying that the one on TV.
