Let's rethink "cruel and unusual" punishment

[Backcountry_Medic]

There are only 2 kinds of people who are “pro-torture”:

1. People who don’t really know anything about torture aside from watching a few episodes of ‘24’, having some ill-conceived idea about “justified torture” and thinking the ends always justify the means. These people would be sickened and mentally scarred if they were forced to torture someone to death.

or

2. Sick, sadistic ************* who have no respect for human life. These are the kind of people we’re trying to get prevent from developing.

Asking someone [like #1] to torture someone else as part of some twisted judicial system is akin to torturing them emotionally, even though they aren’t guilty of anything. And I don’t want the judicial system to be filled with #2’s.
The idea the all deaths are equal not only serves to undermine the entire idea of torturing people for their crimes, but it is patently false as well. The idea of a detached, swift and merciful death as equal to prolonged torture is as ridiculous as the idea that hospice and comfort care is equal to having a nurse beat grandma to death with an IV pump. I mean, dead is dead in the end right?

Some people may stray so far from socially accepted values that our only hope is to permanently remove them from society, but by showing the mercy they failed to show their victims, we prove ourselves better than they were. This has always been the governing idea behind capital punishment. Why change it to- “We’re every bit as ruthless as the scum of our society, possibly even more so”?

Finally, I too would like to hear the limits of what could be done, vague assumptions and half answers notwithstanding. If you were torturing someone via electrical shocks and stopped their heart, would it be permissible to defibrillate them and continue the torture? Why not fly those moron parents to a hospital after 5 days, rehydrate them and send them back into the desert next week? Won’t that make an ever stronger point? Even Thunderdome had some limits.

[Bryan_Ekers]

@Omg_a_Black_Conservative

Doubtful. Do we, as a society, currently give people consecutive life sentences holding up a convenience store for $50?

Yes, actually, as I understand “Three Strikes” laws and the resulting problems. I don’t want to quibble over the difference between a life sentence and consecutive life sentences (although consecutive sentencing was a factor in the Andrade case), but there are indeed examples of people being sent away for decades-to-life for crimes less serious than holding up convenience stores for $50, if they had earlier, unrelated convictions which, in California, didn’t even have to be felony convictions.

So “as a society” (American society, I presume), no. As individual states, sometimes.

I don’t consider it, as I usually don’t consider the hypotheticals you bring up, because it’s irrelevant to the thread. Because someone might abuse something, which can be said of anything, is no reason not to do that thing.

Thing is, you’re not advancing a sufficiently compelling “pro” argument to over-ride a valid “con” argument, preferring instead to pretend the “con” just doesn’t exist. I’d be willing to tolerate (and in fact routinely tolerate) abuses for a greater good, i.e. for the handicapped to get the benefit of preferred parking, I accept that some people will get handicapped placards on dubious grounds. I don’t like it, but the cost of tougher enforcement is prohibitive for the limited gain (and possible harm) that will likely result.

In your mind, maybe. In practice, no, we wouldn’t.

Your confidence is little comfort - within living memory are lynchings where a bloodlust-driven mob decided that courts of law could not mete out sufficiently “just” punishments. Those faded away in large part because as the society became more civilized, lynching became less acceptable. Now you’re proposing what is essentially a government-sponsored lynching, bloodlust written into law. The possible abuses have honestly not occured to you, or have been dismissed by you as not worth considering?

If anything, the Saudi system might actually be better than what you propose - at least the sharia punishments are written out in what I assume is some detail, while the kind of creative sentencing you describe is left, I assume, to the imagination of the sentencing judge.

Given my responses in this thread, I’ll let you take a guess.

If past experience is any guide, I’m confident any guess I can make will be met with another of your vapid accusations of ‘strawman’.

[pbbth]

As best as I can tell from reading your posts in this thread and others you seem to approach life from an earned/deserved point of view.

You don’t think women should have breast pumps covered as part of their health insurance because if they didn’t earn the money to buy one themselves then they don’t deserve it.

You think that someone who violently and cruelly tortures another person should be violently and cruelly tortured because they deserve to be treated exactly the same way they treated others.

You don’t think it is unreasonable to require drug tests for welfare recipients because welfare recipients are receiving money they didn’t earn and therefore should be required to prove they wouldn’t spend it on drugs.

This is not necessarily an incorrect point of view (though I personally don’t agree with it) however it doesn’t jibe with American laws and the constitution. Our laws and constitution were set up the way they are because there is an understanding that it is better for society as a whole when some things are given or avoided whether or not they are deserved. We as a society believe that you should not be exposed to unreasonable search and seizure so having someone from the government examine your bodily fluids is generally illegal except in the most extreme circumstances. We as a society believe that everyone benefits from mothers being able to provide breast milk to their children, not only because many studies show it is healthier for the baby but also because it is cheaper to spend a couple hundred dollars on a breast pump than it is to provide formula for that infant. We as a society believe that torture is wrong and we don’t want to inflict it on others, no matter how deserving, in part because no amount of torture will turn back the clock and undo the previous crime and we have set standards of punishment in place that must be adhered to as much as possible to create consistency in our judicial and prison systems.

It looks like you want someone to give you an answer from your point of view and explain why these criminals don’t deserve to be tortured in punishment and the short answer is that, assuming the criminal is absolutely guilty, they do deserve it. You aren’t wrong about that. What you aren’t seeing is that for the rest of us we don’t care what that person earned or deserves based on the heinousness of their crime. We believe that a civil, well functioning society doesn’t torture people for any reason and though they should be punished torture shouldn’t be an option, just like we believe a civil, well functioning society provides for the weakest of us and grants everyone a basic set of rights just by virtue of belonging to our society. It isn’t about what is earned by the individual, it is about what is best for society as a whole.

[elucidator]

OMG, I don’t believe you.

I think you are but another of a string of tighty rightys who have appointed themselves to the SDMB as the conservative gadfly who exposes the hypocrisy and folly of the left. Their unmarked graves can be found up on Reboot Hill. You guys pop up, you crow and preen, you are gone, another comes along, and so it goes.

Obviously, you haven’t thought this through. Who will we hire to be professional tormentors? What kind of people will we be looking for? The only person I could trust for the job would be the man who refuses to even consider it, the man who is eager to don the robes of justice for this purpose is more likely a monster than a man, and a well-groomed mad dog is no improvement.

You wouldn’t do it. I offer you that summary judgment more in faith than knowledge, I offer you the presumption of humanity, that you would not do it. Have you ever seen anyone afraid of you? I tell you once, I tell you twice, what I tell you three times is truth: I can deal with being afraid of someone, I cannot cope with them being afraid of me.

A man tormented has no past, has no future, he is a creature of a wretched moment. His crimes are not relevant, they don’t even exist in that moment of suffering, there is only the suffering. There is no objective difference between a criminal tormented for justice and an innocent tormented for sheer dark joy. Their humanity is stripped away, they are helpless, they have no choices, no decisions to be better or worse, you have taken all of that away. They are not people, they are victims, and how they got to be victims is irrelevant.

And you only open the one door, the door to the sinister malice in our natures. In some Islamic cultures, the right to impose the penalty is the right of the victim. If a man’s daughter is murdered, her father has the right to kill the murderer, to chop off his head, to shoot him and watch him die.

He also has the right to mercy. He can forgive, and the matter is closed. Thus, as savage and crude as this justice is, it opens both doors, it allows us to rise above our darker selves. You seem uninterested in any of that, judgment is rendered, and we deliver the accused into the hands of men who are eager to do their duty. Who else but a sadist would take such a “duty”? What does it say about us if we would knowingly employ such men?

“Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord” is one of the wisest wordings in Scripture, it reminds us that we a fallible, that our judgment is narrow, that true justice, correct vengeance, requires an understanding we do not possess. Therefore let us be cautious, let us not forget that we cannot know all the facts, and, at best, our justice is a crude approximation. If there is a God, that is His business, if there is not, let us not presume that we can fill the Office. Here be Monsters, and that way lies Madness.

But, I don’t believe you. I don’t believe that if a tormented man cries out to you for mercy, you will simply brush it aside and act in accordance with stern duty. I believe in your humanity as I believe in mine own, it is a choice of faith, and I persist despite massive evidence to the contrary. I insist upon it, as I firmly believe that without it, I am lost, simply another animal, grubbing in darkness to my doom. I will not.

I don’t believe you.

[Bryan_Ekers]

@elucidator

Obviously, you haven’t thought this through.

Ironic, in a thread where he invites us all to “rethink” the issue.

[elucidator]

Well, I did,it just didn’t take very long.

[Qin_Shi_Huangdi]

To note: I’m only skeptical of cruel and unusual punishment because it may be done on innocents. If it works and we could be certain criminals were guilty, I’d support it in a heartbeat

[Lobohan]

@Qin_Shi_Huangdi

To note: I’m only skeptical of cruel and unusual punishment because it may be done on innocents. If it works and we could be certain criminals were guilty, I’d support it in a heartbeat

And you’re a Christian?

[Qin_Shi_Huangdi]

@Lobohan

And you’re a Christian?

No, if it prevents crime I’d support it to prevent the deaths of innocents.

[Fear_Itself]

@Qin_Shi_Huangdi

No, if it prevents crime I’d support it to prevent the deaths of innocents.

That’s really not the issue here. If someone is convicted of torturing another person to death, would you torture them to death using similar means?

[elucidator]

It is, itself, a crime. You would be fucking in the name of chastity.

[Bosstone]

@Qin_Shi_Huangdi

No, if it prevents crime I’d support it to prevent the deaths of innocents.

Well, first, whether or not it prevents crime is up in the air. Usually the people who inflict cruel and unusual pain on innocent victims are sociopaths who don’t believe they will be caught or that the law applies to them, or else aren’t weighing the ramifications of their actions in the heat of the moment. The death penalty is pretty ultimate regardless of how much suffering they would get put through, and that’s still not a perfect remedy.

Second, innocents would absolutely be harmed, though not killed: the people administering the retribution. This has been mentioned a few times, most recently in elucidator’s stump speech. I wouldn’t wish that job on anyone. If a criminal must be put down, let it be quick and clinical to spare the executioner.

[Skald_the_Rhymer]

@Qin_Shi_Huangdi

To note: I’m only skeptical of cruel and unusual punishment because it may be done on innocents. If it works and we could be certain criminals were guilty, I’d support it in a heartbeat

@Lobohan

And you’re a Christian?

@Qin_Shi_Huangdi

No, if it prevents crime I’d support it to prevent the deaths of innocents.

Two things, Qin:

1. You did not answer Lobohan’s question about your Christianity. May I ask why (especially since you have frequently discussed your faith hereabouts)?
2. Christian means *one is is like Christ. *I do not believe that Jesus would support the use of torture; do you? If yes, what makes you think that? If no, is not your support of torture for the purpose of expedience sinful by definition?

[Qin_Shi_Huangdi]

@Bosstone

Well, first, whether or not it prevents crime is up in the air. Usually the people who inflict cruel and unusual pain on innocent victims are sociopaths who don’t believe they will be caught or that the law applies to them, or else aren’t weighing the ramifications of their actions in the heat of the moment. The death penalty is pretty ultimate regardless of how much suffering they would get put through, and that’s still not a perfect remedy.

Second, innocents would absolutely be harmed, though not killed: the people administering the retribution. This has been mentioned a few times, most recently in elucidator’s stump speech. I wouldn’t wish that job on anyone. If a criminal must be put down, let it be quick and clinical to spare the executioner.

Hence I said hypothetically. In reality, I do not support death by torture.

@Skald_the_Rhymer

Two things, Qin:

1. You did not answer Lobohan’s question about your Christianity. May I ask why (especially since you have frequently discussed your faith hereabouts)?

2. Christian means *one is is like Christ. *I do not believe that Jesus would support the use of torture; do you? If yes, what makes you think that? If no, is not your support of torture for the purpose of expedience sinful by definition?

[/QUOTE]

I do not believe Christ would support torture for its own sake. But at the same He also believed in justice and protecting innocents.

[Fear_Itself]

@Qin_Shi_Huangdi

I do not believe Christ would support torture for its own sake. But at the same He also believed in justice and protecting innocents.

Would he engage in torture to protect innocents and dispense justice?

[Lobohan]

@Qin_Shi_Huangdi

Hence I said hypothetically. In reality, I do not support death by torture.

I do not believe Christ would support torture for its own sake. But at the same He also believed in justice and protecting innocents.

So, if Jesus was actually guilty of sedition, it was perfectly fine to torture him to death?

[Qin_Shi_Huangdi]

@Lobohan

So, if Jesus was actually guilty of sedition, it was perfectly fine to torture him to death?

Actually Jesus and Paul both said if they actually committed crimes they’d be willing to accept capital punishment.

[Omg_a_Black_Conservative]

@elucidator

OMG, I don’t believe you.

That’s too bad for you.

I think you are but another of a string of tighty rightys who have appointed themselves to the SDMB as the conservative gadfly who exposes the hypocrisy and folly of the left. Their unmarked graves can be found up on Reboot Hill. You guys pop up, you crow and preen, you are gone, another comes along, and so it goes.

Ummm, okay?

Obviously, you haven’t thought this through. Who will we hire to be professional tormentors? What kind of people will we be looking for? The only person I could trust for the job would be the man who refuses to even consider it, the man who is eager to don the robes of justice for this purpose is more likely a monster than a man, and a well-groomed mad dog is no improvement.

We don’t have to hire anyone, since “cruel and unusual” punishment can be enacted without physically torturing anyone. I made this point earlier, and I will make it again. Take the adults in the OP. Leaving them in the desert to bake without water would be deemed “cruel and unusual” punishment, yet it does not involve any physical contact. Feeding them once every five days would be considered “cruel and unusual” punishment, yet it does not involve any physical contact. Leaving them alone in a 104 degree room with no air conditioning would be considered “cruel and unusual” punishment, yet it does not involve any physical contact. And so on and so forth with multiple situations that need not be explained here.

This idea which has been promoted in this thread that “cruel and unusual” punishment must be akin to physically torturing someone is, well, ridiculous. The two are not the same, nor do they need to be the same, nor do they need to overlap and/or interact.

You wouldn’t do it. I offer you that summary judgment more in faith than knowledge, I offer you the presumption of humanity, that you would not do it. Have you ever seen anyone afraid of you?

Of course I wouldn’t physically torture someone, and I’ve made no statements indicating that I would do it. As it is, I’m not so sure what point you’re attempting to make here by asking me if I would do something. It’s worth noting that there are many things I wouldn’t do; that doesn’t mean those things are inherently wrong to do.

I tell you once, I tell you twice, what I tell you three times is truth: I can deal with being afraid of someone, I cannot cope with them being afraid of me.

That’s great for you. It has no bearing here, however.

A man tormented has no past, has no future, he is a creature of a wretched moment. His crimes are not relevant, they don’t even exist in that moment of suffering, there is only the suffering. There is no objective difference between a criminal tormented for justice and an innocent tormented for sheer dark joy.

This is all around nonsense. One’s life is the sum of choices one makes. A criminal’s crimes are very relevant, for it’s his crimes which have led him to the situation he is in. If he has been convicted of a crime, it is because he chose to commit that crime and was found guilty. If that crime carries certain penalties, then the criminal only has himself to blame for being in a position where he is subjected to those penalties. A criminal cannot be a victim of his own choices. To say there is no objective difference between punishing someone for his crimes and someone tormenting an innocent is, well… I want to call it asinine, but even then that wouldn’t begin to adequately state just how ridiculous of a statement that is.

But you’re right. There is no objective difference between the two… If you ignore the circumstances by which the two situations occur. One of those situations is punishment for one’s actions; the other is nothing more than one individual doing to another for no other reason than they have the ability to do so or, put more simply, solely because they exist to be done to. How, on Earth, do you equate punishment for one’s actions to, literally, being done to because you exist? This requires, at best, an extreme amount of cognitive dissonance.

Their humanity is stripped away, they are helpless, they have no choices, no decisions to be better or worse, you have taken all of that away. They are not people, they are victims, and how they got to be victims is irrelevant.

This is probably an even more ridiculous statement than the above. Nothing is stripped from them. When you commit a crime, you are considered to forfeit your right to be free. All humans are assumed to be free. Does this loss of freedom mean that their ‘humanity’ has been stripped from them? Where is your outrage?

…Oh, that’s right. There isn’t any, because you accept that criminals forfeit their right to be free when they choose to trespass against another (I’m tempted to add in a liberal dig here, but I will refrain from doing so :D). However, when one states that trespassing against another should be met with an equal loss to the trespasser, or that the one who does the trespassing should be met with an equal punishment equal to the harm they inflicted on another-- you claim that they are victims. Well, that’s not going to fly. They are not victims in any sense of the word, as they had the ability to ensure that they did not end up in such a predicament.

You’re doing nothing by trying to draw some kind of false equivalence between the victim of a crime and one who commits a crime. How? I don’t know, but it’s odd.

And you only open the one door, the door to the sinister malice in our natures.

No, you don’t. While a slippery slope isn’t always a fallacy, in this case it most certainly is.

“Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord” is one of the wisest wordings in Scripture, it reminds us that we a fallible, that our judgment is narrow, that true justice, correct vengeance, requires an understanding we do not possess. Therefore let us be cautious, let us not forget that we cannot know all the facts, and, at best, our justice is a crude approximation. If there is a God, that is His business, if there is not, let us not presume that we can fill the Office. Here be Monsters, and that way lies Madness.

Here’s a simple question for you. Let’s say that we had a perfect conviction rate (that is, everyone convicted of committing a crime committed that crime in actuality). Would it therefore be permissible to subject the convicted to “cruel and unusual” punishment? I have a sneaky suspicion your response will be no, meaning that this whole thing regarding “torturing an innocent” is nothing more than a red herring. It’s simply not an integral part of your argument.

But, I don’t believe you. I don’t believe that if a tormented man cries out to you for mercy, you will simply brush it aside and act in accordance with stern duty. I believe in your humanity as I believe in mine own, it is a choice of faith, and I persist despite massive evidence to the contrary. I insist upon it, as I firmly believe that without it, I am lost, simply another animal, grubbing in darkness to my doom. I will not.

lolwut? I’m going to go out on a rather short limb here and say that the majority of people feel little sympathy for people who commit violent crimes. Their sympathy is generally aimed towards the victim and his or her family rather than the perpetrator. So is mine. People who act against someone knowingly forfeit their rights to not be acted against in the same way.

I don’t believe you.

Again, that sucks for you.

[Fear_Itself]

I know you are but what am I?

[Omg_a_Black_Conservative]

@Fear_Itself

I know you are but what am I?

I don’t know. What are you?