This insistence that because some DP opponents’ views have a foundation in more than mere pragmatism, you are absolved of the need to venture into anything resembling a factual debate is just astonishing. There exist people whose minds you can’t change, so you’re not going to bother defending your position with anything resembling a fact? Blimey. It’s all getting a bit “meta” around here, innit. Tell me, if you feel that debate is so essentially futile, what are you doing here? And since you are so convinced that people merely selectively view the facts as they see fit, why the continued insistence that you are right? Because let me tell you, you are studiously avoiding the need to in any way confront the fallibilities of a human system. Personally, I’m feeling left out; if you could trouble yourself to introduce just a fact-ette here and there, I’d have something to ignore so I could get on with my preconceptions.
Your story about Frank Abagnale beggars belief, frankly, and this is why:
He’s not a murderer, or anything like one.
He is, by his very admission, an inveterate liar and gilder of the lily.
It is a book, and thus in his interest to make it interesting.
3a) Prison is not naturally interesting. This is half the point.
Even if Sweden’s prison system is the haven he makes it out to be, what does this have to do with the DP? Oh, forgive me, I forget that you’re persisting in your quest to prove that the DP is only eschewed to feel superior. Again with the meta-debate. Why bother with reason when you can prove that your opponents are all snooty moral climbers? And hell, why bother proving when you can simply accuse?
You keep trying to present this ludicrous false dilemma, whereby opposition to the DP is equated with giving murderers fluffy bunnies to play with and making them pizza, but again, this is just so much rubbish. Try coming to prison in the UK some time, see if you think it’s so bleeding swell. Try asking Ian Brady if he’s having a blast.
This is just magic, coming half an hour after you take Abagnale’s word as gospel when it comes to Sweden’s penal system.
You’re the one that started it, buttpipe. You know damn good and well that I’m not normally given to such a way of talking, but like I said to you before (in I forget which thread), when in Rome…
You don’t want me calling you names, don’t call me names…pure and simple. As far as your sexual orientation, I was unaware of it and couldn’t care less. “Cocksucker” is an epithet I’ve known and used since long before gay rights even had a name. (And besides, maybe I thought you were a woman. What are you, sexist? Can only gay men be cocksuckers? Pig!)
Well, yours is an amusing post I must say. You might enjoy knowing that I actually laughed out loud at parts of it.
But be that as it may, I’ll pick up my machete and try to hack my way though the forest of misinterpretations wrongful conclusions you have presented me with. Here goes:
Not so. I’ve already explained that questions such as whether or not the death penalty is wrong cannot be answered with facts; it’s a waste of time to try. Amusingly enough, this statement of mine was met with a request that I present some anyway…you know…just to be fair. :rolleyes:
You know, I’ve been asking myself the same thing. Just last night I was thinking that even if all 44,000 of the teeming millions ( ) were to suddenly be converted to my point of view it wouldn’t constitute more people than a small town. And of course (I’ll point this out myself and save you the trouble) nowhere near that amount will be converted…perhaps no one will, as you say.
Sorry, didn’t mean to make you feel excluded…but I did acknowledge your point about the need to address the possibility of an innocent person being executed. It’s just that the subject I’m trying to address here is the moral justification of the death penalty in regard to people who actually are killers. Prior to the advent of DNA analysis, there were still plenty of people in this country running around claiming the DP was barbaric and should be done away with. Why? Because, they said, they didn’t like living in a country that “kills its prisoners,” as I heard one person put it. It offended their sense of civility. And as I’ve said, I’d regard a society that can go about its business happily and safely as being far and away more civilized than one in which murderers can about their business with very little fear of the consequences of their actions, which is the inevitable result of the molly-coddling that has been going on in the U.S. for the last four decades, and I’ve given more than an adequate explanation throughout this thread as to why I believe this to be the case.
Sorry, you’ll have to take that up with Abagnale.
Doesn’t matter. It’s still ludicrous to treat an international criminal as though he were a guest at bed-and-breakfast, and his experience illustrates the ridiculous lengths people will go to if unrestrained in an effort to transcend human nature and to adopt a “civilized” method of dealing with their criminals.
So, too, was his ghost writer, apparently. But I don’t remember anyone anywhere arguing that their country or prison system was misrepresented in his book.
See answer to point #2.
Yes, it appears you have answered your own question.
Well, accusing is all that’s possible. What sort of “proof” can there be to prove “snooty moral climbing?” It’s like being in love; when it happens it’s recognizable.
Pardon me, but I’m not the one guilty of propagating rubbish here. What I have said is that convicted inmates are allowed to enjoy pleasures (limited though they may be…so what?) that they deliberately deprived someone else of. Why should they be allowed to smoke, paint, work out, watch televison, visit family members and loved ones, etc., when they have deprived someone else of even these small pleasures. And not to mention the pain, grief and sorrow that the families and loved ones of the murdered person have to live with all their days.
Not to be flippant here, but this is irrelevant. The mere fact that so many deathrow inmates fight to the very end to stay alive shows that they prefer their life as it is to no life at all. I’m sure their victims would have liked to live also. But unlike as is the case with them, their victims had no choice in the matter. It didn’t matter whether they wanted to live or not.
As I said, I’ve seen or heard nothing from anyone in a position to know that contradicts Abagnale’s account of time in either France’s or Sweden’s prison system. The book may contain fabrications, but not everything in it is false.
It’s a difficult call. But if it is okay for me to take the law into my own hands when I know that I am right, what will prevent another person from cold bloodedly murdering someone and claiming he was executed in the act of a felony?
Time and time again I have stated that those who commit many crimes forfeit their moral right to live. But executing them is not practical due to the ones that would take advantage of that by claiming to exercise justice when they are really engaging in bloodlust or outright murder.
Okay, I think I see the point yor’re making. In the first place, I don’t think the kind of action you described would really be considered to be taking the law into your own hands. Taking it upon yourself to deliberately attack someone because they committed a wrong the police or courts either can’t or won’t take care of is what is usually called taking the law into your own hands. Or, as in the case of the Ohio man that was recently beaten within an inch of his life and had a tree branch stuck up his rectum by a couple of strippers and their friends. They never called the cops when they thought he was window-peeping. They just beat the crap out of him themselves.
Another example would be if you were to come home and find someone from your neighborhood raping your wife and although you recognized him he was faster than you and got away. You would be furious but you would likely call the police and let the legal system take over. On the other hand, if you were to go to his home and attack or shoot him, then you would be taking the law into your own hands.
On the other hand, if you came home, heard your wife crying or moaning or calling for help and you grabbed a gun you had stashed away and ran into the room and shot him, it would not only be understandable but you’d be within your legal rights. In this case you would not be taking the law into your own hands.
As far as other people contriving to make murder look like self-defense, it does happen. But that has nothing at all to do with whether or not people are permitted to harm or injure someone who is in the process of committing a crime against them. And the only way to prevent concocted self-defense murders would be to make self-defense itself illegal, and think where that would lead.
I understand what you were driving at now. Sorry for my previous sarcasm.
Many people here in Sweden say similar things. And, like you, they’re all ignorant morons. I’ve been in a Swedish prison (not as an inmate though, as a visitor). That was a minimum-security prison, the most pleasant kind you get here. I still couldn’t wait to get out, get a shower, and get a beer as soon as I could. Prisons are fucking awful. If you don’t get that, it’s because you open your mouth about things you simply do not understand.
To all the people who say things like what you said above, I say “do it”. The answer is always some variation of “I would, but I’ve got morals”. Bullshit. If you had morals, you would open a book before you blabber on about an important subject. None of them are doing it, I’ve never heard of anyone who’s done it, and it’s for the reason that they don’t want to be in prison. They’re lying shits. They don’t want to be cut off from friends and family. They want to be able to decide when to go to bed. They want to be able to go out. They don’t want to live with violent maniacs. They don’t want their noses broken if they happen to act too pleasantly towards a guard. But, like you, they’re all primitive little yearners for pathetic vengeance, so they’ll shoot their mouth off about this at any and all times.
Ignorant, certainly. As are you. We are all ignorant about more than we know. “Moron”, I have to say, is probably overreaching.
A little defensive, are we? If what you say is true and they’re miserable anyway, what is accomplished by the effort to treat them in a more “civilized” way? It’s exactly what I said. So the people responsible can sit back and congratulate themselves for having risen above their animalistic desires for revenge, retribution and justice. And if what you say in regard to many people in Sweden saying the same thing that I’ve said, what kind of deterrent effect does that kind of system have? You’re proving my own point. It sounds like many Swedes go through their lives thinking the Swedish prison system is pretty cushy, so why are they supposed to fear the consequences of illegal acts? It doesn’t matter one whit whether they’re unhappy once they get there. By then it’s too late. It’s the fact that the prison system is perceived as so being cushy that created lack of fear of it, and this lack of fear of the consequences plays a key role in the fact the crime is perpetrated in the first place. Like I said, these misguided efforts to be “human” or “civilized” not only don’t reduce crime, they ultimately cause more of it.
And to people who would order me around like that, particularly in such an obnoxious and belligerent way, I’d say “Stuff it!”
I’ve already told you what my answer would be.
And so now you’re so convinced of the rightness of your position that you set yourself up as arbitor of what people would do if they had morals, and therefore by implication if they were to do other than you prescribe, they have no morals? (And lissener call me fascist!)
Ah, now we get down to the nub of your ire. You regard yourself as one of those impassioned do-gooders I described who pride themselves on being so evolved as to have risen above the desire for “primitive” and “pathetic” vengence.
Well, bub, you’re not so evolved after all. It’s a well-known phenomenon that one of the strongest human urges is to find a perch upon which to look down upon everyone else. And that’s what motivates people like you.
But in closing, I’ll give you a chance (and anyone else who wants to jump in and give it a try) to convert me. Explain to me just what is wrong with “vengence,” “retribution” and “justice.” Assuming it isn’t wrongfully applied like in the case of the innocent Israelis I spoke of earlier who were killed as revenge for a Palestinian boy’s death they had nothing to do with, what’s wrong with it? Why is it better to divorce ourselves emotionally from the punishment and deterrence aspects of crime fighting? What is made worse by making criminals pay for their crimes in harsh ways?
In other words, apart from the warm, fuzzy feeling that comes from being able to congratulate yourself on your “enlightened” approach to crime and punishment, what good does it accomplish? My opinion is that it only makes things worse. Where am I wrong?
Reading comprehension is down, it seems. They say that, but it’s bullshit. I made this clear in my last post.
So why are Swedish crime rates so low compared to, say, American?
More bullshit. You’re so stuck in your own little world that you cannot even imagine what it would be like to be different. It’s called “projection”.
Let’s leave “justice” out of this, as it is a matter of opinion and I didn’t mention it anyway. As for “vengeance” and “retribution”, what’s wrong with it is that it does no good and much bad. Why is this so hard for you to understand?
Increasing anger towards society, reinforcing criminal identity, reinforcing sense of alienation towards the rest of society, and so forth. What we want to do with criminals is the exact opposite. Get them back into society, get them to feel a part of it, give them a chance to lead normal lives. Putting them in hellholes on bread and water doesn’t do that.
Come on, you cannot truly be this naive. Do you really believe that criminals sit around planning a crime and then someone says “hey, they doubled the jailtime for robbery, maybe we shouldn’t do this”, and they all get up, get jobs and raise well-adjusted kids? You cannot truly believe that.
Because I don’t see any good being accomplished by eliminating “vengence,” “retribution,” and what most people would call “justice.” I know you think they’re bad. I’m asking you to explain why they’re bad.
Good points. I can buy that. But what about murderers? They are what this thread is really about? What is wrong with vengence, retribution and justice where they are concerned?
First, a correction. There should be a period rather than a question mark after “thread is really about.” Secondly, I’ll to address the rest of your post now as the nightly cutoff interrupted me before I could finish.
Certainly not, and I’m confident you won’t be able to find anything anywhere that says I did.
And no, I’m not naive at all. People’s behavior to a large degree can be conditioned by what they’ve always been led to believe or what they’ve always known to be the case. I’ll say this yet again, if you grow up believing that execution is the certain penalty for murder you will carry this in the back of your mind all your life. People tend to have certain things in mind that they simply will not do for any reason because they’ve come to the belief that it is wrong under any circumstances and they make up their minds never to do it. A simple example would be automobile to automobile contact. Most people have had it so ingrained in them that it’s bad to run into another car that they sometimes will cause serious accidents swerving to avoid what would have been a minor fender-bender.
People can also be so convinced that it’s bad to commit murder that they will not do it under any circumstances. Some come to this feeling through what they’ve been taught; others by being aware of the penalty for it…and often it’s a combination of the two. If on the other hand, people grow up seeing murderers getting parolled out of jail after sixteen years, or maybe getting life with parole or even life without parole, it sends the message that you can commit the ultimate crime without paying the ultimate penalty. Add to that sporadic application of the death penalty, a 10 to 20 year appeals process, and the possibility some anti-DP judge somewhere down the line will find a way to either commute or overturn your sentence, and you have a populace that doesn’t go through life fearful of the consequences of committing murder, and therefore they don’t have the built-in aversion to it that would keep them from doing it under any circumstance.
That leaves only being taught that killing is morally wrong as an internal governing device, and a great many people today get no such teaching. Yeah, they know it’s wrong, but they’re not that afraid of the consequences, so then when the chips are down they react reflexively and pull the trigger. Others deliberately kill their victims in order to leave no witnesses to lesser crimes they’ve committed such as rape and/or robbery.
I can’t belive all the people in this thread who think I believe murderers sit around and say “Hey, this punishment exists now so I think I won’t kill somebody after all,” or “Hey, I guess it’s okay to kill this person because there’s no death penalty and even if I’m caught I’ll still get a roof over my head, three squares a day, t.v., visitation, books, etc.” That is so stupid that I’ve hardly been able to bring myself to take it seriously enough to respond to, but your post has finally done the trick.
In the great majority of cases people commit murder without thinking of the consequences. Often it’s a spur of the moment thing. Other times it’s planned. But almost no one takes into account the liklihood they will be caught and punished. The more they can see people being caught, and the more they can see that society holds that if they choose to take someone’s life they will forfeit theirs, they will have built up enough of an aversion to the idea of taking someone’s life that in most cases they will not do it.
This is why I think the death penalty is a deterrent to murder. And I think the benefit to society (not to mention the people whose lives would be saved) by having this deterrent in place far outweighs whatever benefit is to be derived by trying to adopt a more “civilized” and less “barbaric” way of dealing with killers so as to assuage our desire to rise above our natural human desires for revenge, retribution, justice, etc.
So again I ask you, just what is so great about taking this more “civilized” approach and rising above these instinctive desires that makes them more valuable than the alternative? Such an approach damn sure doesn’t save lives. And in my opinion it actually causes more murders to occur. So, what’s the advantage if not just the feeling of moral superiority it engenders?
Well, I guess not if your plan is to return them to society. An idea I think is abominable.
Thanks. I appreciate the correction.
:smack: How humiliatin.’ I’ve been doing that for three days now, and maybe even longer. (And while we’re on the subject, does the apostrophe at the end of humiliatin’ go before or after the period at the end of the sentence?)
Since this was an open invitation I’ll venture an effort, with little expectation of success…
There is nothing intrinsically wrong with vengeance, retribution and justice (I’m not sure why you used quotation marks for these words, so if I miss some implied meaning I apologise in advance). At most I can say that the use of the words vengeance and retribution, rather than punishment, suggests an infliction of cruetly or brutality. Some people feel uncomfortable with the notion of being routinely cruel and brutal towards other human beings, regardless of their crimes, which is why the use of torture is no longer employed by most nations. On the other hand some people have no problem with this at all and feel that an ‘eye for an eye’ holds true, regardless of how barbaric we have to be to achieve parity.
If this were the only aspect of the DP debate then there would be a lot open for discussion as both sides do have their merits. But it’s not.
Leaving aside any perceived benefits or drawbacks of DP he real crux of the debate comes down to your caveat ‘assuming it isn’t wrongly applied…’
The application is founded on an inherently flawed system, in which miscarriages of justice are disturbingly regular. The chances of vengeance, retribution and justice being wrongly applied are greater than zero, which means that at some point innocent people will be victims. It is a logical certainty.
Thus, the question for debate must be ‘how many innocent people is it acceptable to kill in order to satisfy some part of society’s desire for vengeance, retribution and justice?’
While I am open to persuasion on all aspects of perceived benefits and drawbacks of the DP, I find it impossible to believe that the answer to the above question is anything other than zero. If you disagree with this, then we shall respectfully have to agree to differ.
Maybe my reading comprehension is not very good but it seems you have made to very different statements in this paragraph.
People are aware of the penalties of crimes and that awareness is a deterrent.
(Most) People have a built in moral code that does not allow them to commit certain crimes.
I think that, other then “career criminals”, most crime is commited with very little thought of the penalty that may be received. I believe that is true for everything from “minor” crimes (something like shoplifting maybe) right through to murder. Surely more murders are heat of the moment events rather then well planned “perfect crimes”. If someone is in such a moment of rage that impulse drives them to kill the last thing on their mind is what the penalty may be.
I don’t believe that anyone commits a murder thinking “cool I will only get 16 yrs” (and I come from a country where this penalty is only too common).
A very recent case here was a homeless guy who killed a gay man he had gone home with. It was a horrible beating and the guy was convicted of manslaughter (a case of the justice system fucking up big time) but I don’t think for one moment that this slimebucket thought “oh groovy no DP so I can beat this guy to death”.
He was in a moment of rage and that rage was all he was thinking about.
If someone had caught his paticular ambulance at the top of the hill rather then the bottom, then a man would still be alive. The threat of the death penalty would not have prevented this tragedy.
There have been many threads here where rational, intelligent, moral people have declared they would have no problem in taking a life, if their life or their families lives were threatened. I believe often the people who commit murder are working on this same rationale (just a screwed up version). If your “job” is burglary then you have made a very fucked up career choice, but if you are in the middle of your “job” and feel threatened you might just react to protect yourself (as fucked up as that is). You may not spend the seconds it takes to decide that if you pull the trigger you may get the death penalty.
Exactly.
But what you just said contradicts this.
They are not thinking of the consequences (generally). But if that is true why do countries without the DP not have murderers running amok?
Prevention is always better then cure. If we did a lot more work at the top of the cliff we would not have to be so concerned about what happened at the bottom of the cliff.
My late husbands father was hung in Britain in the early 60’s. He robbed a shop and hit the owner of the shop over the head with a bottle. The owner died. You can bet he didn’t think he would get the death penalty. You can also bet that he didn’t know how many other people he sent off the cliff with his actions.
Society is responsible for all it’s citizens. Even the ones we don’t want to be responsible for. Nothing happens in isolation. We should be giving less thought to what we do when we catch them and more thought on what we can do to make sure they don’t end up doing something we catch them for.
You keep asserting things like this, but when people call you on it, you refuse to provide a cite, and indeed say that cites are meaningless. In fact, you then say that facts are not part of your argument at all. Then you come out with more bullshit like this.
Sorry, it doesn’t work that way. If you want to make such an assertion, you’re going to have to show me the money. Otherwise, I’m forced to conclude that you are pulling such “facts” out of your ass. They add nothing to your argument, and in fact make you out to be a liar.
These are two different things. I agree with the latter (to a certain extent), not the former. The facts don’t bear it out.
And yet there are murders everywhere, no matter what the local punishment for the crime is.
Come on. This sounds exactly like you think a would-be murderer would say “I’ll do it, it’s only sixteen years in jail”, and yet you continue to claim you don’t think that. I can’t see another way to interpret this statement.
Which I, personally, would be more likely to do the harsher the punishment for my lesser crime was.
We can’t take what you’re saying any other way.
Eck-zactly. That is precisely the point. And if they don’t think of the consequences, then how could the consequences keep them from doing the deed?
That’s why you think that, but the facts just don’t bear it out. We’ve shown that countries with the death penalty have more crime than countries without it, that states within the US with the death penalty have more crime than states without it. We have an explanation. What’s yours?
Finally, I’d like to correct some misconceptions. For example, I don’t consider the Swedish penal system to be perfect. Far from it. In fact, it’s piss-poor. It’s among the best in the world, but it still sucks big hairy donkey dick. No jokes.
Also, I don’t care what others might have said to you, but I couldn’t care less if a punishment is “barbaric” or “civilised”. When I call the yearning for vengeance “primitive” or “pathetic”, it isn’t because its primitivity or patheticity is in itself an argument against it, but because I do find it primitive and pathetic. If I were shown that public crucifixions would significantly increase the average quality of life in society, my next request would be for a hammer, some nails, and a pile of sturdy planks. I’ve just never seen anything to even remotely indicate that.
Six or eight years ago I did a study for a polisci class. I picked five states that have the death penalty, five that didn’t have a death penalty, and five that have a death penalty but don’t or rarely use it. The study covered a nine-year time span - the three years when the DP was abolished, the three years previous, and the three years after. I went to the library and pulled murder statitistics from the books published by the Department of Justice and plugged those numbers in where they belonged. Despite a horrible skewing of the murder rate in Wyoming* the murder rate was still lower during those three abolish years than on either side of the un-abolish years.
Any idiot can do the same, even Starving Artist, but he won’t because it’ll make his world-view implode, or something.
*Wyoming, IIRC, had 0 or 1 murders per year. During the 3-year abolish period they had a whole 3 murders. In a small state like that you just KNOW the actual murder rate went through the roof…but not enough to skew the lower murder rates from the other ten states in the death-penalty group.
I suspect that even if I proved beyond any shadow of a doubt that abolishing the death penalty and using the extra money that would have been used on executions on crime prevention programs instead was more effective at preventing murders than the death penalty, Starving Artist would still want the death penalty.
It’s all about ideology. You instincively want to kill those who kill in order to make a moral statement about how wrong it is to kill people. The practical effects bedamned. The statistics which show that innocent people are sentenced to death and that blacks are significantly more likely than whites to be condemned for the same crime bedamned. You want to make your moral statement. That’s all that matters.
I’ve been trying to stay out of this thread because it’s taking too much of my time; I’m having to repeat myself over and over again; and it’s getting me annoyed to the point that I’m occasionally reacting out of disgust or anger at what someone has said rather than stating my own position as objectively as I would like…
…but this is so ridiculous I couldn’t let it go unanswered. I have said nothing about thinking that killing killers makes a moral statement about how wrong it is to kill people. I’ve seen this said before and it sounds incredibly naive and sophomoric. Are we trying to teach people that it’s wrong to kidnap people and keep them against their will by arresting them and keeping them in a jail cell? Such a notion is ludicrous.
The purpose of capital punishment is to punish the murderer, hence the word “punishment” in capital punishment. The idea is that if you choose to deprive someone else of life, you lose the right to keep your own. Secondarily, it’s to show people that this will happen to them also, should they choose to take someone’s life. Thirdly, it usually serves as a comfort to the families and loved ones of the murder victim. Some people here say this shouldn’t be a factor. I disagree. The murderer inflicted horrible lifelong suffering upon them, why shouldn’t he be made to alleviate it at least somewhat by the forfeiture of his own life?
In a word: nonsense! You don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve said at least twice that I can recall that these sorts of things need to be solved. I’m arguing the moral and societal reasons for supporting the death penalty apart from these issues. This argument has been going on since long before DNA testing ever came on the scene. The questions of innocent people being condemned, or racial inequities in the DP’s application, are weapons in the quiver by and large of people who oppose the death penalty no matter what. As a weapon to argue against it, these are powerful weapons, but if a way could be found to solve them so they are no longer an issue I would wager at least 85%, if not more, of the anti-DP crowd would still oppose it. It is with these people and their beliefs that I disagree.
) were to suddenly be converted to my point of view it wouldn’t constitute more people than a small town. And of course (I’ll point this out myself and save you the trouble) nowhere near that amount will be converted…perhaps no one will, as you say.