Well, shit.
That certainly pokes a hole in my argument, I guess.
So are you saying that due process should not include a right of appeal?
Argent, it wouldn’t work, because there is NO DETERRENT. Unless, or until we develop a society without rage, greed and plain old evil, we are ALWAYS going to have murderers. If taking a life is such a crime against humanity, who is worse - the person who kills because of a psychopathic rage they have never been able to control; or the person who does it rationally and calculatedly for a fee, or as a “public service”?
Uh…whichever one of them isn’t killing an innocent man, is the better of the two.
Let’s say the murderer was a drug dealer, who had killed another drug dealer, who had also killed his brother, and he had been caught enacting his bloody revenge? He hasn’t killed an “innocent”, but it seems he’d get a pass in your book?
My recollection is that for countries other than the US, such as Canada, abolition of the death penalty did not affect murder rates. I’ll see if i can dig it up.
From Northern Piper’s link, it would seem to suggest that potential murderers definitely pay no heed whatsoever to the prevailing sentence, otherwise they would be traveling to states without the death penalty to commit their heinous crimes, and thereby increasing their murder rates!
Here’s a summary from Amnesty International (Canada): The Death Penalty in Canada: 20 Years of Abolition
And what happens to the income of working class people in the surrounding areas of prisons if you have an available workforce at next to zero cost? So not only should the poor be the likely victims of crime, they should be suffer from your fantasy of a penal system?
I’m checking back in – I didn’t just drop the bomb and then walk away.
I have only one quibble: **Argent Towers ** mentioned the swiftness with which Saudi capital punishment is administered, and equated it with a reportedly low murder rate there. My quibble concerns what is considered murder in Saudi Arabia. Are “murder” victims overwhelmingly male? Are “honor killings” tacitly approved, thus deducted from the murder statistics? I’m not saying they are, I’m just saying that a nation inhabited by a large number of people whose loyalties are more often tribal than national (not unlike street gangs in the U.S.) I would expect sudden death to be a fairly common way of settling disputes.
Understand, I could have a completely wrong cultural view of Saudi Arabia, in which I’m confident my ignorance will be successfully fought.
There’s someone around here who would know about all that…I think he has the same name as one of the Beatles…no, not George…not John either…Ringo? Ringo in Saudi? I think that’s it.
Anyway - Der Trihs - I seem to remember you saying that you supported American troops being killed in Iraq, and that you thought they deserved to die. Why do they deserve to die, but not someone who shoots his fellow countryman in the back of the head over twenty dollars or a bag of crack? Why is invading Iraq morally worse than raping a woman, mutilating her and then slitting her throat? You’d really have no problem with American Marines being blown to bits simply for being in Iraq, but the idea of Mumia Abu-Jamal getting the electric chair makes you go into hysterical fits?
Leaving aside Der’s nutty view on US troops (or America in general…he probably thinks we ALL deserve to die), it’s not a matter of deserve. A lot of people ‘deserve’ to die after all…and a lot of people that die ‘deserve’ to live (echo’s of LotR, to be sure). The point is that Capital Punishment as it is currently effected in the US is a costly, time consuming and inefficient process. It’s also wildly unpopular outside of the US (not something I’m overly concerned with myself, mind, but certainly a factor). It would be better to simply take CP off the books and instead close down the loopholes that allow for parole of some of the more heinous crime you mentioned.
Personally, I think it’s MUCH worse to condemn someone to spend the rest of their lives behind bars than to kill them quickly and cleanly…and it’s also a lot cheaper, all things considered. And you know…in the case of some of these guys, I’m willing to give them the worst and put them behind bars for the rest of their lives.
YMMV of course.
-XT
I’m equally dubious of Saudi Arabia’s rape statistics.
Condemn them to live their lives behind bars…like Richard Speck, who was videotaped doing lines of cocaine and was undergoing gender-reassignment hormone therapy to become a woman and grow tits…or Mumia Abu-Jamal, who was punished for shooting policeman Daniel Faulkner in the back by being allowed to do a radio show and give commencement speeches.
Please. Puhh-leeeeeease. “Worse” my ass. They get decades to write manifestos, file nuisance lawsuits, and turn themselves into political martrys. Fuck that! They deserve to be hanged, on the day of the sentence. Of all the people on this forum you’re one of the ones I’d least expect to jump in and offer sympathy for these cold-blooded fucks.
shrug…as I said, YMMV. I don’t think the run of the mill prisoner would agree with your assessment about the joyful conditions you seem to think prevail. And, if you will forgive me, I think I have a better idea of what prison conditions actually are for most of those who would be getting (legally) whacked than you do, considering the number of my relatives who are or have spent time behind bars.
If you and the majority of American’s wish to spend more money, time and legal effort to keep CP on the books then there isn’t a lot I can do about it, except to point out that it’s really stupid…
-XT
What part of this viewpoint do you think is unpopular?
America shouldn’t be emulating Saudi Arabia?
A lower rate of rape and murder is good?
All Americans should get due process?
Or that public executions would scare the shit out of all citizens?
If the conclusion of all this is supposed to be, “America should practice immediate executions,” you picked a weird way to frame your argument. I think all your points are actually quite popular, but they don’t add up to the answer you think they do.
Are you saying that we should aspire to be Saudi Arabia, a theocracy? Do you think maybe the reason that there reported figures for Rape are so low is that they tend to punish the victim? Personally, I’d like to think that we can aspire to a little better than that.
Most of the people who are on death row had poor representation. To take the example of Virginia, this article from 2001 states that the cap on felony cases was a whopping $1,196.00, which I believe has since been increased although I’m not sure by how much. Virginia is an extreme example, but you can see why they aren’t getting the most effective counsel.
I’m not completely against the death penalty in theory, but I can certainly see strong arguments as to why we should abolish.
Go ask the people whose nations we’ve wrecked if my views of American troops are “nutty”. You’re just taking the standard American position that it’s OK to kill non-Americans, but American lives are sacred. It’s OK for us to kill other soldiers, but it’s terrible if ours get killed, right ? Because after all, only Americans are actually human.
Because one is a soldier in an invading army and the other isn’t ? Because there’s more evidence for the soldier being actually guilty ? Because the soldier is more dangerous, and ISN’T in a prison ?
Because that sort of thing and more, and worse is part of our invasion.
Um, no actually…that’s YOUR strawman. I never said it’s ok for us to kill anyone we like. I just said your view that US personnel deserve to die is nutty…just as your view that the US is the font of all evil is nutty.
Again, that’s YOUR strawman, ehe? It bears not reflection of my own views on the subject. You might want to take a quick step back though and see the irony of this strawman, especially with regards to your own feelings about American’s…
-XT
There is nothing more heinous or grotesque that the state can do in my name than killing an innocent man. There is no number tiny enough to justify it.