So you don’t think people should have the legal right to defend themselves. That’s… pretty astonishing, to be honest. Killing someone in self defence should not be a crime, and those who kill in self defence are not criminals but the victims of crime. It’s pretty disgusting that you want to treat victims as criminals.
Potentially biased?
By what criteria are people to be judged to be potentially biased? Everyone is potentially biased. I might have a bias against people for a thousand of myriad reasons.
Who judges?
Of course people should defend themselves. But the immoral shouldn’t be able to easily use self defense to kill people either. There has to be a happy medium.
That’s a well reasoned, nuanced and insightful rebuttal to my arguments. Thankyou for your helpful contribution.
These are mutually contradictory and incompatible statements. Why is that not obvious to you?
When it comes right down to it, killing is killing. I want people to be very circumspect about using deadly force against any other human being for any reason. If it turns out they were victims and can persuade a jury to believe them, I am willing for the system to withhold punishment. But they have killed, and that should never go without societal censure.
The Pit thread, now with a higher, GD level of insults!
Or not. Steophan, you’ve been shown how wrong you are six ways from Sunday. It’s time for you to cut your losses and give up.
Someone who is proven beyond reasonable doubt not to be biased is not potentially biased.
Testimony that is corroborated is not uncorroborated.
Nonsense. Killing, by itself, is neither illegal nor immoral.
How do you prove what secrets people keep in their hearts?
Who will do this perfect prescreening?
Not really. People have claimed I must be wrong because of what they believe the consequences of my beliefs are. But I’m not going to change my view that people have a right to defend themselves, and a right to be presumed innocent of any charges against them, because of the possibility that someone might get away with murder.
A society where a few people get away with murder is going to be a far better society than one where people have to go in fear of either being attacked and beaten or killed with no right to defend themselves, or else being treated like a criminal for being the victim of such an attack.
Seriously? We’re talking about whether someone has a bias against a defendant, not whether they have a crush on their wife’s sister.
Why would that not be a bias?
Eh, it’s strange, but I’d rather live in the world where everyone who killed served a little time, than in your world where murder is de facto legal. I suspect most people would. Why, I suspect you would, if you ever were unlucky enough to inhabit the society you hypothesize. After all, how many times have you murdered in self-defense? Zero, right? And how many times has someone wished they could kill you and get off scot-free?. Judging by your personality, probably thousands of times. Maybe millions, but nah… you’re a shut in right?
It is possible that Witness A harbors an unnatural hatred of men in red hats. No evidence has been shown that A does so, I as the juror have no reason to believe that A does so, the red hat has never been mentioned in court, and I have convinced myself that A is a reliable witness who is telling the truth. It is still possible that A is lying through their teeth because B was wearing a red hat. I have no reasonable doubt that A is lying, but the potential is still there.
“Beyond a reasonable doubt” does not mean “absolute certainty,” and it would never be possible to prove lack of bias. That’s a nonsensical statement.
That’s a world I don’t want to live in.
And your view runs contrary to the arc of human civilization. Even given the numerous genocides since 1900, we are living in a time when fewer humans (as a proportion) die from human-on-human violence than any time in human history.
More specifically, we live in a country that is experiencing the lowest levels of human-on-human violence, and gun ownership in decades.
These are all good trends.
Deadly force by humans and humans is becoming less and less acceptable, and this trend should continue
No, I wouldn’t want innocent people to serve time under any circumstances. Even if that were to increase the risk to me. Not that I believe it would, as I’m not in the habit of attacking random people and putting them in the position of needing to defend themselves against me.
Most people can want something that’s wrong. That doesn’t make it right.
Killing in self defence is not wrong. Not even slightly. It is deserving of neither condemnation nor punishment.
Well, obviously zero, that’s a contradiction in terms. If it’s in self defence, it’s not murder, and if it’s murder, there’s a reason other than self defence.
And yet still more charming, intelligent, and eloquent than you, based on your contributions to this thread.
That’s a shame, because you do.
Steophan is quite correct: devoid of any context, killing is neither moral nor immoral.
I disagree completely.
Killing another human being always makes you a worse person and a little more dangerous to the people around you than you were before, even if you had to—or think you had to—do it.
And yet it’s the world you do live in.
I’ve asked this question before, and no-one’s been able to provide an answer. Is there a legal code, anywhere, which criminalises killing regardless of circumstances? Every crime involving death that I’m aware of has other elements of the crime.
Otherwise you would be criminalising genuine accidents, and that’s indefensible.
Yes. You have generally dominated the logical argument aspect of this thread, because you have been arguing with a collection of people that cannot argue well.