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peterson get death

Discussion in 'Serious' started by I'm_Not_A_Monster, 14 Dec 2004.

  1. penski

    penski BodMod

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    You're making assumptions. You are also failing to see the difference between disapproving of the actions of an individual or a group and using dehumanisation to allow you to kill an individual. It is not a hard concept to grasp.

    *n

    PS: it is 'etc' - it stands for 'et cetera'.
     
  2. fathazza

    fathazza Freed on Probation

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    Before you spack out again, why don't you try and comprehend what i was saying. whether it is a secondary argument or no, (and you did not say it was in the first place), cost should have no bearing on justice and punishments otherwise things become bias, which is the antithesis to the whole point of the rule of law.
    I also never inferred that money doesn't affect anything, i have no idea where you got that little idea from or what the point of your amusing little diatribe was :hehe:

    congratulations, the Nazis agreed with you and that is why they sent them to death camps.

    p.s. given your overreaction to a post on an internet forum you might want to curb your temper, lest you murder someone in a fit of rage and end up on the electric chair you seem to favour so much
     
  3. Nexxo

    Nexxo * Prefab Sprout – The King of Rock 'n' Roll

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    OK, guys, let's keep perspective. No-one here is a Nazi, OK? :grr: All points raised are valid ones.

    I can see how bellier argues that killing a murderer is not murder because the murderer accepts his death as a possible consequence of his actions by committing the crime. If someone deliberately jumps in front of an onstorming train and gets killed, we hardly call the train driver a murderer, right? The victim made a choice that he knew could get him killed, and it did. So it is simple choice-action-consequence.

    Monkeyboy sort of says: hey, it's done by social consensus, and what else are you going to do with them? And how is life imprisonment any less of a death?

    Jumeira_Johhnie (and I) say: it's not as simple as that. When I question execution I'm not so much concerned about the murderer, as what it makes us. Like the murderer, we too are defined by our actions...

    Ubermich says: but if the guy knows the consequences of his actions, and obviously cares little enough to commit the crime, why should we, the concientious good guys, pay to keep supporting the immoral, wicked bad guy, rather than just kill him as the cancerous growth in society he is?

    OK, let's take it from here (please let me know if I did not summarise correctly), and let's keep it civil, right? :thumb:
     
  4. acrimonious

    acrimonious Custom User Title:

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    Keeping a prisoner on death row and executing him or her costs far more than simply jailing them for life (in the USA).

    Not only is the financial argument immoral at best, it's also completely unfounded.
     
  5. fathazza

    fathazza Freed on Probation

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    the whole, the criminal made a choice, factor may be valid in some cases, but it is clearly apparent that it is utter crap in others.

    For example, how many of you have been in a fight with a friend at some point in your lives? And how many of you were thinking about the consequences before the first punch was thrown? "oh, no i can't hit billybob, because i might get done for A.B.H/G.B.H." The same goes for murder, i should think that many, if not most, of them are done more on instinct than with any forethought.

    Secondly, you have people that are just plain nuts, such as Aileen Warnos. She may have even thought and made a conscious choice to kill someone, and done it even knowing the likely consquences but given that she was mad can we truly hold her wholly responsible for her actions.

    ps. nexxo, if i can't call someone a nazi will pseudo-almost-quasi-fascist be ok?
     
    Last edited: 16 Dec 2004
  6. belier

    belier What's a Dremel?

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    This has actually been covered several times. I think the underlying argument is that some people don't particularly feel like directing their tax dollars to murderers. It's weel documented that it costs more to execute someone than it does to imprison them for life.
     
  7. belier

    belier What's a Dremel?

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    Every time I ever even thought about fighting I was weighing the pros and cons. No matter how angry I get I can always temper it with the knowledge that every action must be followed with a reaction. Granted, this doesn't extend to everyone.
    Thus the Insanity plea. Very rarely (if ever to my knowledge) have we executed a confirmed insane person.

    It's hardly "utter crap" to expect people to behave rationaly when confronted with a situation that they don't care for. The legal systems of most of the "civilized" world are based on people acting with reason and civility.
     
  8. fathazza

    fathazza Freed on Probation

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    That is just my point tho, people do not act rationally. The fact that the argument that they know the penalty for the crime and that will put them off relies on rational thought. And that is it's major flaw.

    A cold blooded murder is a hell of a lot different than a crime of passion
     
  9. belier

    belier What's a Dremel?

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    Indeed so, yet even if they choose to react violently in a "crime of passion" situation, they still know that the penalty could be severe. Even if they don't immediately think about it at the time, the knowledge is there. The consequences of certain actions are thumped into us at an early age. This is why we don't run through the house with sharp metal objects, why we don't put paperclips into those strange holes in the wall, and why we don't leap from 3 story buildings.

    A consequence is a consequence. Whether I choose to pause and reflect upon how my actions will affect the rest of my life or not, I am still held responsible for making the decision to act.
     
  10. hacker 8991

    hacker 8991 What's a Dremel?

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    There is a simple solution:

    Send all convicts to Australia.

    ... oh, wait ...
     
  11. fathazza

    fathazza Freed on Probation

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    you are missing the whole point. In "crime of passion" they do not make a conscious rational decision to kill, it is instinct. (google the term if you want)
     
  12. belier

    belier What's a Dremel?

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    No, I understand completely what a "Crime of Passion" is. You are missing my whole point, which is the fact that regardless of whether or not they consciously decide to strangle a woman and her unborn infant at the time, they have still been told about the penalty, they understand that there is a penalty even if they don't think about it while they're taping the body up and dumping it in the river.

    Again, the entire point I was making is that if they, as a member of (in this case the USA) are brought up in a country with the death penalty then they know that such a beast exists. They are beholden to that knowledge, even if it doesn't cross their minds at the time. Thus "murder" is not a proper description for capital punishment in such cases any more than it is a proper word for a soldier killed in the battlefield, even though he ran ahead to save his friend in a moment of passion. He knew before he picked up his rifle that he could die violently.

    I do understand your view, I just happen to disagree with it for the above reasons.
     
  13. RotoSequence

    RotoSequence Lazy Lurker

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    Argh... Too many posts. This is rediculous and out of hand.

    EDIT: Anyway, the general argument of "Death being more expensive than Life in Prison" is completely dependant on the number of appeals. If they are limited or non-existant, the Death penalty is far cheaper than Life imprisonment. In the Scott Peterson case, it is unlikely any appeals will be succesful; Scott appears to have no will to continue with appeals, so it looks like things should be over with-unless the lawyers get greedy and do it for him :grr:
     
    Last edited: 16 Dec 2004
  14. Nexxo

    Nexxo * Prefab Sprout – The King of Rock 'n' Roll

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    Name-calling is the last resort of those who have weak argument. ;)

    The problem for me it that regardless what we call the killing of a murderer (and let's assume he is guilty, which is, in practice, by no means absolutely certain), whether "execution", "justice", "divine retribution", "revenge" or plain "punishment", this action defines us.

    The above names we give it are all attempts to distinguish it from what he did. He is the monster, because... We are not, because... That appears to be the main thrust of this thread --arguments attempting to differentiate what society does to murderers from what murderers do to their victims (whether by pointing at reasons, motives, context, fairness) vs. arguments stating there is no difference and we would basically be the same.

    As I said before in post #68 (and I notice no-one has addressed those points), it is not as simple as that. There is no stereotypical murderer. There is no unadulterated evil. Killing someone in retribution is not a nice, clean, sanitised act from which you will walk away with a spring in your step, a job well done (unless you are a monster yourself). These issues are a mire of not-so-good... not-so-evil... with a winding, obscure path. One step wrong and you're sucked down to become part of this mire forever.
     
  15. I'm_Not_A_Monster

    I'm_Not_A_Monster Hey, eat this...

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    glad to see that everybody has calmed down a lot since the last page, i was about to whip out my quietin' stick and beat some silence into y'all.

    people made the comparison between soldiers and murderers. now, what do you think would happen if the soldiers didn't shoot back? the "terrorists" (actually probably people defending their homes with a spiffy name attached to desensitize us to their mass killing) would kill them. kill or be killed.

    but if the soldiers knowingly killed women and children because someone left the deck of cards back at the base and they had nothing else to do, thats called murder.

    one cannot justify killing women and children by saying they are at war, and one also cannot call shooting back murder. anyone else would shoot back but i would not blame you if you shot back until you could stop (i mean, shoot back as long as you had to, because you had no choice)
     
  16. fathazza

    fathazza Freed on Probation

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    Are you saying that because they were informed of the penalties in the past, that it should have some sort of subconscious effect on all their future actions?

    So someone ,who kills the person that raped and murdered daughter in a fit of rage/crime of passion, should face the death penalty because somewhere deep in his subconscious he knew the death penalty existed and continued anyway? That is almost as silly an idea as having retroactive lawmaking
    :rolleyes:

    As to Soldiers, they are not a good analogy because in war, they should not be fighting for deeply personal reasons, and should be doing it out a sense of duty or not at all.

    Regarding name calling: Rotosequence, if you have something to say, then say it and follow through with it. Do not post it and then edit it, because we all see it in our email notifications and you look like a tit.

    And as for the previous few pages, i say what i feel and don't feel the need to curb what i say for the sake of someones feelings. While i will apologise for calling Ubermich a Nazi, i only do so because of the nastier connotations that come with it. Some of his political views, and not just in this thread, do come remarkably close.
     
  17. Ubermich

    Ubermich He did it!

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    And this is why I say we all have our opinions and should be permitted to stick to them. We all have a different path. I may pick up groceries for the old man, you might not... you may stop to help the woman change her tire, I may not (I probably would... but anywho) The point is that we all have different paths and different yins and yangs, different rights and wrongs... Why? Because there is no one sure way. (Well, okay, there IS, but no one can follow it, because to follow it one must always believe everything else is on the same path). Anything on the median between the path of evil and the path of righteousness will always have people on both sides, and people on one side on one issue may be on the other with another issue. This is the way things are and the way things will be.

    Edit: and fathazza, I thank you for at least noting that I am not racist. I'll have to go look up the actual political values of the Nazi party to confirm or deny the rest...
     
  18. Jumeira_Johnny

    Jumeira_Johnny 16032 - High plains drifter

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    If this tread keeps going, I may well take up smoking again.
     
  19. mikecx

    mikecx What's a Dremel?

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    Flawed argument here. The Nazi's didn't send killers to death camps (well, some maybe, but's that's hard to tell) they sent innocent human beings who had done nothing (on the scale of punishable offenses) to invade the rights of another human being. Now, if you are equating sending the 1/10 (or whatever the number may be) to it, then by your standards only 1/10 the jewish people that died in these camps should be dead right now.

    It's obvious to me that our justice system doesn't work (take the case of the woman who spilled coffee on her lap and sued McDonald's because it was hot and won.). Find a 100% way of proving that someone did the crime to me and i'll agree with killing them rather than storing them in prison. Prison, IMHO is not nearly enough punishment for killing someone. You are cut off from some things, but in some ways your life is better than the people who are outside who haven't commited a crime. If we want to inprison these people have 2 types of prisons. Petty crimes prison, for shop lifters and the like (cases not involvin murder) with amenities like tv and workout rooms, and a prison for the most harsh crimes. This prison will have tiny cells, enough for 2 beds, a toilet, and floor space for 1 person to walk through. No tv or workout rooms or magazines or congical(sp?) visits. The point of this prison would be to remove thier personal freedoms, not keep them from the public.

    Would I call lethal injection on a 100% certain case barbaric? No. Would I call it a worthy punishment? No. Would I call jail a better option? At it's current levels, no. What do I suggest? On 100% certain cases, firing squad. If you rather a non-violent solution, solitary confinement (except lawyer visits).
     
  20. Nexxo

    Nexxo * Prefab Sprout – The King of Rock 'n' Roll

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    Does not sound like fascist ideology to me... ;)
    This is why I prefer to think of it as doing the good thing rather than doing the right thing. What is "right" and "wrong" you could philosophise about for ages. Before you know it you're arguing that the end justifies the means and you find yourself dumping napalm on villagers to bring their country "democracy" or something. But we all know a good deed or a bad deed when we see it.

    Yeah, but that's because society (and hence, the jury) is currently rather confused about this thing called "personal responsibility".

    That's just advocating a form of torture. Although I can see the attraction of making a heinous murderer suffer greatly for his misdeeds, we have to question our own motives here...

    In that case, just give them the needle. It would be the most humane thing to do under the circumstances.

    ...so let's question our motives. Do we want plain revenge? Then the torture of harsh lifelong solitary confinement will do the trick. Do we want a deterrent? The same applies (I suspect death is little deterrent to a psychopath, but suffering is). Do we want punishment? That implies that we want to modify a murderer's behaviour (so he won't do that again), and I don't see the logic of lifelong imprisonment or death in that respect, given that he won't get the chance to change his ways. Do we just want to prevent a re-occurence? In that case, just humane lifelong imprisonment or a humane death will do nicely. It all depends on what we want to achieve. And what we want to achieve, says something about us.
     
    Last edited: 17 Dec 2004

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