I’ve never understood the people who won’t trust the government to handle money because they’re so incompetent but will trust the government to handle deciding who lives and who dies.
Not another thread about life after death, please.
To them it’s probably not the government who decides who lives and who dies - it’s other citizens.
That’s true. If only the government were made up of citizens… 
Okay, no more hijacks from me.
Whoa, now you’re the one positing. Death is a black box, so using any assumption on what the box contains (e.g. happiless oblivion) to draw conclusions seems flawed. I’ll meet you halfway and not mention my mansion blueprints and luxury accomodations in my future after-life if we can agree we both have zero proof of anything (including oblivion).
Well… there’s the undeniable crux. Some recompense is possible. Obviously full recompense is not. And yes.. prison sucks.. 
Yarr!!! Snap, Crackle, Pop!
I believe that the lives of all persons have inherent value. Some might have more value than others, and I’d be willing to stipulate, for the sake of argument, that the life of a murderer has less value than that of an innocent, but all else being equal, a live murderer (who can’t possibly murder again) is a better state than a dead murderer.
As for the deterrent argument, if for some reason I wanted to commit a murder (I don’t), then I would want to do it in Texas. Why? Because in Texas, I’d just have to lay low for a little while and wait for someone to get convicted and executed for it, and case closed, I’m off scott-free. In civilized places, though, even if they convict and imprison someone else for the crime, there’s always the chance that they’ll be found innocent by some new evidence and the case re-opened.
Death penalty supporters as a rule either refuse to believe it happens or don’t seem to care.
There’s no evidence that the death penalty IS a deterrent. If anything it seems correlated with higher murder rates.
That would be a no brainer, I would think. (And in any case, there HAVE been cases of retarded individuals being executed)
Der Trihs, or when they acknowledge it, it’s simply, “well, it’s bound to happen, and it’s unfortunate, but that’s the price we pay…” Sort of an “oh well, that’s life.”
That’s why I always point out – would YOU be willing to be that innocent person?
Yep my point, better explained than I could.
I saw what you did, there.
“The state” kills way more innocent people in war than through the death penalty. Yet most people accept war as necessary in some circumstances. Do all of the opponents of the death penalty on the grounds that innocent people are killed also object to war? I don’t even want to begin to count how many totally innocent people were minding their own business and then were blown to bits by bombs.
As for the idea of it being wrong for “the state” to have the power to end someone’s life, how is this really any worse than “the state” having the power to lock someone up in a room for fifty years? No sane person, outside of the context of the penal system, would keep someone locked up in a room for fifty years, and anyone who actually did this would be deemed a sadistic monster. Yet “the state” does it to other people, as well as throwing vulnerable young inmates into a lion’s den of rape and brutality that will permanently shatter their minds.
The map simply shows who we are. It shows nations who are like us. We do not respect life very much.
The key is the some circumstances qualifier. I am an opponent of capital punishment and I am also an opponent of wars of aggression and conquest. I do, however, believe that it is not immoral for one to kill to protect themselves and/or their family from grave and/or mortal harm. In the same way, I am not opposed to states entering into wars to defend their shores and/or culture. The state is obligated to protect its people, and to some extent, its allies. Ergo, I believe Japan and Germany’s entrance into WWII were wrong, whereas the U.S. and Great Britain’s was necessary and moral. I also believe that targeting civilians on either side is wrong and though I realize that collateral damage is difficult to avoid completely, it is morally imperative that states avoid directly killing civilians. As an example, I believe the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was very wrong and immoral, regardless of the facts that a) we were defending ourselves and b) it had enormous impact on ending Japan’s aggression.
The state has an obligation to protect its citizens. It does so through it’s laws and enforcement of those laws. In carrying out that obligation, it becomes necessary to separate destructive and dangerous individuals from society and remove their ability to endanger citizens. That doesn’t give the state the right to take their lives, however. For the state to do so is to permanently remove the right of the accused/convicted to seek review and redress of their case. As to your “lion’s den” argument, you’ll get no argument from me. The state’s obligation to protect its citizens does not cease with incarceration of some of those citizens. Incarcerated individuals also ought to be protected by the state from harm and that they often are more susceptible to being harmed while incarcerated is a strong argument for prison reform – not for capital punishment.
Agreed with Brown Eyed Girl. The state killing anyone should be as a last resort when all other options are exhausted. If I were in a situation like “Lost,” capital punishment might be the only way to protect the survivors from a murderer. We wouldn’t have the resources to do otherwise. But the US and the rest of the west has the resources to do otherwise. When we execute someone, it’s because we’re choosing to do so, not because we are being forced. And the wars we’ve been in lately are also because we’re choosing to kill people rather than being forced to do so to protect ourselves.
Death is a worse penalty than life in prison if the accused happens to be innocent.
Life in prison is a worse penalty than death if the accused is guilty.
If police and prosecutors were subject to the death penalty if it were shown that they engaged in misconduct that resulted in a wrongful capital conviction, then I might be less opposed to the death penalty. As it stands, the bar is very high for proving this, and the usual punishment seems to be at most a forced change of career direction, and often not even that. Seems like a lack of accountability to me. Seriously, when a cop lies under oath, or prosecutor withholds exculpatory evidence in order to obtain a capitol verdict they should be subject to the same risk they are imposing on the victim of their malfeasance. The current state of affairs seems to be that if the cops are convinced of guilt, then they pretty much do whatever they can get away with to assure a conviction. If these folks think the death penalty is such a great idea, let it loom over their actions.
Now that you have been proven wrong, do I take it that you would advocate the establishment of a systematic program that would investigate claims of innocence posthumously? It wouldn’t have to be publicly funded, though subpoena power would be necessary. Or were you just making a baseless wisecrack?
OP: More the latter than the former. The death penalty does not appear to be a cost-effective method of advancing public safety. This is an empirical observation. If the evidence shifted, I’d be willing to change my mind.* I support the death penalty in narrow circumstances such as national security: I have Nicolae Ceauşescu of Romania in mind. Politically motivated execution is not without its disadvantages: it can morph into a Soviet-style purge.
Another aspect is that I recognize is that I have a more clinical perspective than most.
Finally, Qin Shi Huangdi: Perhaps you might experiment with putting more time and humility into your threads. Write a first draft, then try to anticipate some possible objections to it. Then address them. Then print it out and read it over the next day. Throw in a disclaimer or softener and see what happens.
- Incidentally, some of the evidence has shifted, but I have not seen a systematic evaluation of it. IIRC, the strength of the some of the studies fall short of decisive, which is frustrating.
If taking a life is wrong, and I think that’s true, then the state is wrong to do it. Two wrongs and all that.
You know what? I actually did not intend that. :o Heh.
However, there HAVE been cases of the mentally retarded being executed, and I find it despicable.