MANDATORY death sentences? Fuck off Singapore.

The BBQ Pit
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[QUOTE=Monty]
Possibly on a case-by-case basis:
[ul][li]The condemned is a citizen of my own country: incredible concern[/li][li]The condemned is not a citizen of my own country: incredible lack of concern[/ul][/li][/QUOTE]

This has been hinted at throughout this debate. Actually, I don’t think this way of thinking is such a bad thing. Human beings aren’t designed for the sensory overload of worrying about every single death that occurs on this planet. It’s beyond us. Being concerned for a fellow citizen is something we can grasp, however. I don’t think that is a terribly evil, hypocritical thing. On an intellectual level, yes I have problems with it, but on a human level, no.

Yet, if that biased concern can be a stepping stone to a broader one, then I think it is a positive thing.

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My apologies for not allowing that our Kiwi Dopers may have a more universal view. I should have realised, after all Helen Clark was the only non-Aussie politician that I heard make an intelligent comment and offer support.

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Re: CP in the U.S. I read an article on BBC last night that said support for the death penalty is dropping in the U.S. It’s still up around 64%, but when life-without-parole is an option it drops to 50%. According to the article, Republicans are pushing to expand the death penalty to other crimes and to limit the appeals a convict has so that he may be executed more quickly. (The article says that the average wait is ten years.) Thirty-eight states and the Federal government have the death penalty on their books. Connecticutt has not executed anyone since 1960. So the penalty will be with us for a long time to come. But at least support is falling.

Re: Just say NO to Bush. I did. All I got was ‘Thank you for your input.’

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Some of the legitimate criticisms of death penalty in the U.S. are that it takes too long and that it is unevenly applied. That makes it a less effective deterrent as well as needlessly expensive. Singapore is a good model in this regard. They institute it in a way that is fair and efficient. We should work to emulate their model. Kooks among us seem to love implementing Asian ideas when it comes to crackpot medicine and other things but draw the line when it comes to effective social and legal measures.

Again, why are so many people bigoted against a prosperous culture that most of their citizens admire and outsiders are never forced to step foot in? You should think about your level of cultural tolerance. You can’t just take the superficial fruit-loop parts from around the world and call yourself enlightened. This is the real deal. Bigotry is frowned upon.

Why are you blaming Bush for this? Like you stated, there is a serious percentage of Americans that are for the death penalty. If that was an election result, it would be called a landslide. It is more of a consensus that than just about any other issue of its type. You said that the percentage of Americans for the death penalty is dropping now, yet it is Bush’s fault.

------Insert request for you to expand upon and defend contradictions here------

I am now certain that opponents of the death penalty latch onto it because they have a generalized fear about mortality.

“This guy is going to die, that makes me feel bad and sad. No one should have to die. Heah, if we protest it enough, then maybe there won’t be a death. Awwwwwwww nooooooo, if we get him out out of the death penalty, he is going to have to spend the rest of his life in prison anyway. Hey, if we get get a good enough defence lawyer, I bet we can prove that this guy didn’t do anything after all! He is innocent. I am sure of it now! Awwwwwwww nooooooo! Even if we get him off, there will still be many sitting in here being punished for things that I am sure people just don’t do. Even if they did something like it, I am sure that it was just a misunderstanding. People just don’t do bad things unless they are forced to by outside forces. I bet we can prove that many of these people didn’t commit a crime at all. Wouldn’t that be swell?”

-----Insert to immaculate conception of a bleeding heart here-----------

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Speeding up the process only makes mistakes more likely. There is a documented case in another Pit thread about a man in Texas who was executed and then found innocent of the crime. I used to be in favour of the death penalty. But then I saw that people really do change over the years. I can’t reconcile killing someone who is ‘not the same person’ as the one who committed the crime. I think that justice is served when the threat to society is removed. If the person has changed, then s/he’s no longer a threat. Not that I’m saying they should be released; but there’s no logical reason to kill him/her. And if a person has been imprisoned for ten or twenty years, then he’s already been neutralised as a threat to society. Has Charles Manson gone on any killing sprees since he’s been incarcerated? Why kill someone when they can simply be removed? And I have moral issues with the clinical nature of judicial homicide. Certainly hauling someone to the gallows immediately after conviction woud eliminate the ‘changed person’ problem. But if a person can change, and if a person can, even from prison, atone for his crimes, then I see no reason to kill him. And there’s that pesky problem of killing an innocent person…

Now I’m not going to shed any tears for unrepentant killers whose crimes have been proven beyond any doubt and who are put to death. But since imprisonment alone removes the threat, I don’t see a need to kill them. And not killing them would prevent others from being killed for crimes they didn’t commit.

I’m not blaming Bush. That was a flippant reply to another poster.

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I haven’t chimed in yet, because both sides have people making good points (along with some not so good ones) and felt I had nothing to add. This one however, warrants a remark.

Shagnasty, you refute that “societal context” has any relevance to the situation. However, here you admit that alchohol can be a drug with a terrible influence in some people’s lives, and then condem illegal drug dealers.

Alchohol used to be an illegal drug in the U.S. people spoke of barkeepers, brewers, distributers and drinkers in exactly the same vitriolic, polemic way that you are. The only difference between then and now, is that alchohol is legal. It follows that is other drugs were made legal they would only promt as much violence and abuse as alchohol. In that case, there wouldn’t be much different between “Joe’s Opium Den” and “Joe’s Bar.” How would your attitudes be different?

/hijack

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My “societal context” rebuttal simply means that the harm drug and alcohol addiction causes can’t be controlled by overriding social influences nor can its effects be anything other than detrimental in any society. Those are fundamental physiological and psychological processes and they have nothing to do with any society once you get to the point of addiction.

You are correct that the re-legalization of alcohol was probably the best alternative in the U.S. That isn’t necessarily true when you talk about crack, the opiates, and meth.

I am a libertarian. That means that I believe in few restrictions on individual freedom and that the ultimate accountability lies with the individual. I was once for the legalization of drugs. However, I sat down one night and tried to come up with a realistic way that this would be implemented. I could not do it. I have come to the conclusion that like, nuclear weapons, a good libertarian can be against the legalization of some things that cause mass harm.

I have yet to hear a workable plan on how the legalization of hard drugs would work at a detailed level. I would love to hear one.

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OK, try this one. Your illegal hard drug of choice is provided free of charge by the government, to be consumed on-site, under medical supervision.

The physical damage of the drug can’t be stopped, but we can’t stop people from main-lining Drain-O, either. However, with the exception of said physical harm the drug causes over time, what problems are left? There is no crime needed to support your drug habit, and damn little demand for a drug dealer. You are sure to be getting your drug uncut with nasty additives, and you aren’t going to lay about in a drug-induced stupor in the middle of the street.

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just because there isn’t a clear wy to resolve a pressing social issue doesn’t mean that issue doesn’t exist, and it doesn’t mean we should leave things the way they are. Must. Stop. My. Own. Hijack. Bones!

I’m just saying that the Aussie kid wasn’t doing anything more or less wrong than being a prohibition era bootlegger.

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First off, thanks Monty for your mostly thoughtful and non-condescening post.

I appreciate the correction on various forms of government, by the way.

I think life in prison without possibility of parole would have been a just sentence. To me, the death penalty is just going to far. And yes, the “fuzziness” of trying to aid his dumbass brother is a mitigating circumstance to me.

The implication that I am a bigot against other races or cultures is just too stupid to comment on, Shagnasty.

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According to one study I read, in the 1800’s in the USA, heroin was legal and available by prescription. Really, really cheap.

Many doctors were addicted. Not a problem, since they had access to a sufficient and affordable supply. According to my source, this particular drug has very few deliterious effects on humans (unless you consider addiction as a bad thing of itself) – most of the commonly assumed bad effects like nutritional problems and crime are caused by the addict’s need to doggedly pursue a high-cost supply at the expense of food and shelter, not by the drug itself.

So these doctors (and others) led pretty normal, productive lives. Only when the San Francisco opium dens, associated with the Dreaded Oriental Menace, became noticed did the public become upset, leading to Comstock-style laws and prohibitions. This in turn led to a skyrocketing drug cost for the end user, who had no choice but to pay it.

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In a lot of ways I agree with you. I’m not the “just legalise the damn things” person I once was. Having said that, I’m yet to hear a detailed plan of how keeping drugs illegal is going to be workable. Fact is, it currently isn’t. My city is still full of gas station hold-ups, car theft, break ins, bogged down court systems, heart attack victims dying because an ambulance was diverted to give naltrexone a junkie.

Neither method is going to be wonderful. Surely we can all agree that the war on drugs is failing though. Maybe give the other idea a run for a while and see how it goes. I do like the idea of free unadulterated government heroin for registeredd users to be consumed inside restricted government premises (to prevent smuggling and resale). Removing the dealers from the equation is a very evocative thought.

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It wasn’t his “place” to pass judgement on the laws of a nation he’s not even a citizen of. I can’t believe I live on the same planet as some of you people.

Look, I happen to feel that there’s nothing wrong with pornography. But there’s no way in hell I’d carry some Playboy magazines with me through a Saudi airport.

You have to respect the laws of a soverign nation, even if you don’t agree with them.

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I am no drug dealer and there is no way in fucking hell I’m ever going to Singa-fucking-pore. What if you go there for vacation and someone plants some drugs on you? Death for you. This country is sad and pathetic and hopefully no one ever goes there again. Fuck you Singapore and your hypocritical laws. May your tourism industry sink like a fucking rock. LIKE A FUCKING ROCK.

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Erm… who has to? If you’re talking about Mr Nguyen, then yes he should have respected Singapore’s laws. But if you’re talking about people protesting after the fact, then no. Individuals and governments protest against foreign sovereign states all the time.

There’s nothing at all wrong about kicking up a storm about this, IMHO.

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Floyd:

How are their laws hypocritical? FWICT they apply the law equally to anyone who happens to be in their jurisdiction. Every time my ship made a port-of-call in Singapore, the crew was made very aware that they were subject to the local laws, including the laws against illegal drugs.

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You’re confusing “publicised” and “hypocritical” there, sunshine.

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Hey, moonshine, I’m not confused at all. As I said above, Singapore applies its laws to everyone in their jurisdiction. I don’t see any hypocrisy. My point about the port briefing was that said briefing apprised us that the laws are being applied equally.

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Hypocritical laws surely , in this case, would mean that Singapore, faced with having caught an Aussie citizen with drugs in contravention of their laws, bowed to pressure from a strident media in Australia and took into account that Australia is an ally of Singapore’s in the War on Terror, as well as other trade and security agreements. But they didn’t. They pulled their heads in tight and still carried out the sentence.

Shitty, but not hypocritical.

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I’m firmly against the death penalty (as a Catholic I consider myself quite morally consistent, I’m against abortion and the death penalty, thou shalt not kill and all that.)

But even I look at a lot of the anti-DP arguments and recognize how insanely flawed they are.

-The number of executions carried out in the United States is incredibly small, if the death penalty actually has any deterrent effect, you’d have to have more executions, in my mind, to see that effect.

-Singapore has quite a high ratio of executions:population, and if you look at drug offense per capita singapore is extremely low on that list in comparison to the United States (the U.S. has like 10x as many drug offenses per capita.) Now obviously we haven’t shown causation here, but it is an interesting fact.

-The “the death penalty isn’t a deterrent” argument makes the assumption that deterrence is the only justification there could be for the death penalty. There is also the idea of the State being an actor that equitably rights the injury that a criminal has done unto society and individuals.

For example, if the only goals of the criminal justice system were deterrence, rehabilitation, or just plain ole segregating dangerous people from the public, then there’d be good reason to let many first degree murderers go. For example, a man who kills his wife to collect on the $1,000,000 life insurance policy will almost definitely never kill again. He probably has less chance of killing after that due to his financial security, that his chances of doing another murder are lower than that of the general population.

So what’s the justification in sending someone like that to prison for the rest of their life? I think the fact that he TOOK another life means he should expect to have his freedom forfeited, forever.

I have only one good reason for opposing the death penalty. And the fact is, it’s a reason that in my opinion trumps anything else.

It’s wrong for the State to kill someone. I obviously don’t mean that in a sweeping generalization, a soldier or police officer can obviously kill someone that is an imminent threat to themselves or other (or in the case of a soldier an enemy combatant in general is typically fair game.)

But when the State has someone who is effectively defenseless, it is simply immoral and unacceptable to kill that person. Sure it may be “fair” I don’t deny that some people deserve death. But I don’t think dealing out that death is the place of society or our government.