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Current Events: The Death Penalty

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TheEllipticalDisillusion
Post subject: Current Events: The Death Penalty
Posted: Wed 11 Nov , 2009 5:42 am
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DC Sniper Executed

The DC sniper convicted of kill 10 and wounding 3 was executed today by lethal injection. From what I know, lethal injection is expensive. If we're going to use the death penalty, we should revert to firing squad. It isn't pretty, but it doesn't put a drain on our economy. Obviously, I mean this for only those sentenced to death. I'm not advocating firing squad for anyone else. What are the moral implications of either means?

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Pippin4242
Post subject: Re: Current Events: The Death Penalty
Posted: Wed 11 Nov , 2009 12:09 pm
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One of them feels like murder. :roll:

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jewelsong
Post subject: Re: Current Events: The Death Penalty
Posted: Wed 11 Nov , 2009 12:33 pm
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I think both of them are murder, actually

I am against the death penalty, but it seems that the lethal injection method attempts to make it somehow "clean" and "nicer."

If you're going to kill someone as a deterrent, well, then do it at high noon and broadcast it on national TV. Public executions used to be a spectacle in the town square.

We don't do executions publicly anymore. Instead, we do them in virtual secret, at midnight, with only a few select witnesses.

This makes us more civilized.

The death penalty is the condoned killing of a defenseless person. It is murder. Is it justifiable murder? That may be up for debate, I suppose.


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Dave_LF
Post subject: Re: Current Events: The Death Penalty
Posted: Wed 11 Nov , 2009 1:25 pm
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If you're going to execute people, I see no reason not to use firing squads. The whole lethal injection thing is almost a farce, IMO; a way to make the procedure seem clean and medical. It isn't. It's an ugly, dirty thing; but sometimes ugly, dirty things need to be done. It's far better to be honest and own up to what you're doing than to paper the whole thing over with euphemisms.


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MariaHobbit
Post subject: Re: Current Events: The Death Penalty
Posted: Wed 11 Nov , 2009 3:39 pm
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I think chopping their heads off would be quicker. If you are going to kill something, it should be in the way that shuts down the brain in the fastest way possible. Decapitation causes instant catastrophic drop in blood pressure to the brain and near instant unconsciousness. At least it does in chickens.

Bleeding out from gunshot wounds would take a longer, and the person would feel more- especially if nobody hit anything vital. Deer can run hundreds of yards while dying from a fatal wound.

Lethal injection is seriously creepifying. One drug to paralyze you while another slowly shuts down your systems? Yuck! Dying would seem like an eternity, I think.

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TheEllipticalDisillusion
Post subject: Re: Current Events: The Death Penalty
Posted: Wed 11 Nov , 2009 4:25 pm
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I agree that lethal injection hides the reality of the situation, as well as increases the amount spent on that now deceased prisoner. Would you take a job as the beheader? The firing squads keeps things anonymous, and even with lethal injection there is one doctor doing the injecting.

I see the death penalty as necessary murder. Sometimes we have to do unpleasant things in society.

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tinwe
Post subject: Re: Current Events: The Death Penalty
Posted: Wed 11 Nov , 2009 4:35 pm
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The textbook definition of murder is unlawful killing with malice aforethought (to distinguish it from other forms of homicide such as manslaughter), so capital punishment is not, by definition, murder, although it certainly is a form of homicide.

I am not opposed to the death penalty in theory but I am in practice, and one of the practical issues that bothers me is the attempt to sanitize it. If we are going to do it let's be honest and upfront about it and not try to hide it. Public executions only, by hanging, firing squad or guillotine. I see no need to worry about the suffering of the condemned - they'll be dead anyway. More of a deterrent if it's gory and ugly, right?

My main practical objections to the death penalty are that it is not an effective deterrent, it is inefficient (costs more to execute than life imprison), but more than anything it is not applied fairly (depending on such factors as race and economic status).

I'm not shedding too many tears for John Allen Mohammad, though.

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MariaHobbit
Post subject: Re: Current Events: The Death Penalty
Posted: Wed 11 Nov , 2009 6:54 pm
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I think a guillotine would be better than an ax.

And no, "executioner" wouldn't be my preferred form of employment- but I'd do it if I thought it needed to be done- and for some strange reason it fell upon me to do it. I imagine it would be less traumatic than when I killed one of my cats last year who got run over. More traumatic than killing a food animal- less traumatic than killing my own pet animal.

What can I say? To me, everything has a soul. We put down insanely viscious dogs, we have a duty to put down insanely viscious people.

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sauronsfinger
Post subject: Re: Current Events: The Death Penalty
Posted: Wed 11 Nov , 2009 7:14 pm
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One aspect that caught my eye on the news last night about this story was the time element. Muhammad committed the murders in October of 2002. He was tried a year later and convicted in November of 2003. Six years later he was executed. That leaves a span of seven years that elapsed between his capture and his execution and a span of six years between his conviction and his execution.

Over the past two decades we have repeatedly been told that it often takes a dozen years or more to go through the procedure necessary to get up to that execution date. In this case, that time line seems to have been cut in half.

Of course, that is nothing compared to the case of wannabe FDR assassin Guisseppe Zangara. He killed Chicago mayor Anton Cermak while attempting to assassinate FDR on February 15, 1933. Zangara was tried, convicted and then executed on March 20, 1933. Not even five full weeks had elapsed between his crime and his execution.

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Ara-anna
Post subject: Re: Current Events: The Death Penalty
Posted: Wed 11 Nov , 2009 7:29 pm
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tinwë wrote:
The textbook definition of murder is unlawful killing with malice aforethought (to distinguish it from other forms of homicide such as manslaughter), so capital punishment is not, by definition, murder, although it certainly is a form of homicide.

I am not opposed to the death penalty in theory but I am in practice, and one of the practical issues that bothers me is the attempt to sanitize it. If we are going to do it let's be honest and upfront about it and not try to hide it. Public executions only, by hanging, firing squad or guillotine. I see no need to worry about the suffering of the condemned - they'll be dead anyway. More of a deterrent if it's gory and ugly, right?

My main practical objections to the death penalty are that it is not an effective deterrent, it is inefficient (costs more to execute than life imprison), but more than anything it is not applied fairly (depending on such factors as race and economic status).

I'm not shedding too many tears for John Allen Mohammad, though.

I agree Tinwe, and see this as the same way I see war. There is no way to sanitize either. Calling a war a humanitarian war is just an oxymoron imho.

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vison
Post subject: Re: Current Events: The Death Penalty
Posted: Wed 11 Nov , 2009 8:05 pm
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I agree with tinwe, except that I am against execution in principle as well as practice.

I admit there are a few people I wouldn't be sorry to see dead, but since I doubt that I could do it myself, I don't think I have the right to expect someone else to do it for me.

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Nienor SharkAttack
Post subject: Re: Current Events: The Death Penalty
Posted: Wed 11 Nov , 2009 11:42 pm
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I am totally against the death penalty in theory and principle and practice and whatever way you'd like it. I think it's barbaric. Punishing people by killing them? No modern, enlightened society has any business doing that. Killing people when it is not absolutely necessary (like self defense) is immoral and wrong. Necessary evil? Unnecessary evil! There is nothing the death penalty does that cannot be achieved in other ways (want to keep society safe, sure, lock 'em up for life), except revenge. And the state and the legal system has no business dealing with revenge. Or killing people.

Yes, sure, use firing squads. Makes it easier to see how barbaric it really is. All the sophisticated medical stuff makes it look like it belongs in the modern age. And it does not.

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yovargas
Post subject: Re: Current Events: The Death Penalty
Posted: Wed 11 Nov , 2009 11:57 pm
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I oppose the death penalty, but if we're going to do it, a modern, industrial guillotine seems the best solution to me.


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vison
Post subject: Re: Current Events: The Death Penalty
Posted: Thu 12 Nov , 2009 1:23 am
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yovargas wrote:
I oppose the death penalty, but if we're going to do it, a modern, industrial guillotine seems the best solution to me.
The guillotine as it already exists is just fine. It doesn't need "modernizing", it's already state-of-the-art. And it was, indeed, designed, built, and used as being "more humane" than other methods.

The miserable old Countess of Norfolk was beheaded with an axe. I think it was 4 or 5 hacks before the axeman succeeded. Just bloody imagine. :Q

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TheEllipticalDisillusion
Post subject: Re: Current Events: The Death Penalty
Posted: Thu 12 Nov , 2009 3:31 am
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Our modern, enlightened society condemns people all the time and in all sorts of ways (sometimes to death)--war, poverty, inability to afford health care, sex offender registry... I think it's a fallacy to think we are so much more civilized today than we have ever been.

The death penalty does ensure that the convicted person will never be free to terrorize society ever again. I'm not saying it's right, but it is the way things may be.

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yovargas
Post subject: Re: Current Events: The Death Penalty
Posted: Thu 12 Nov , 2009 4:13 am
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vison wrote:
The guillotine as it already exists is just fine. It doesn't need "modernizing", it's already state-of-the-art. And it was, indeed, designed, built, and used as being "more humane" than other methods.
I remember reading somewhere that the old ones didn't always go through. :neutral: I was imagining something powerful enough to ensure that wouldn't happen.


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Nienor SharkAttack
Post subject: Re: Current Events: The Death Penalty
Posted: Thu 12 Nov , 2009 10:30 am
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TheEllipticalDisillusion wrote:
Our modern, enlightened society condemns people all the time and in all sorts of ways (sometimes to death)--war, poverty, inability to afford health care, sex offender registry... I think it's a fallacy to think we are so much more civilized today than we have ever been.
So because things aren't perfect, we shouldn't even try to do what's right?

Also, I don't agree with you. I think we've come a long way.

Just look at the very issues you mentioned. There has never been less war or poverty in the world. (Not saying that there aren't huge sufferings out there, just saying that things have in fact improved.) Health care troubles and sex offender registry - well, not around here... So those aren't something you can't overcome, or that countries haven't overcome.

95 countries has abolished capital punishment. That makes the world more civilized than it was. And I think it makes it damn hard to claim that the death penalty is in some way "necessary".
TheEllipticalDisillusion wrote:
The death penalty does ensure that the convicted person will never be free to terrorize society ever again. I'm not saying it's right, but it is the way things may be.
You can do that by keeping them in jail for the rest of their lives, you don't have to chop their heads off - to follow the guillotine line of thought here...

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ToshoftheWuffingas
Post subject: Re: Current Events: The Death Penalty
Posted: Thu 12 Nov , 2009 12:44 pm
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Who would have thought in the 1970's that Russia would abolish capital punishment and the United States would revert to it?.
You're up there with Saudi Arabia, Iran and China.
Good company there folks.

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Dave_LF
Post subject: Re: Current Events: The Death Penalty
Posted: Thu 12 Nov , 2009 1:19 pm
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NN wrote:
You can do that by keeping them in jail for the rest of their lives, you don't have to chop their heads off
Well; Eowyn would argue that death is more humane than a cage. But don't quote me on that until I need to make the choice for myself. Besides, you can keep some violent criminals in jail for the rest of their lives, but if you've got a whole bunch of them plus a budgetary crisis plus a prison overcrowding problem, something has to give. And there's something almost obscene about giving the worst criminals a lifetime of food, shelter, and health care at no cost while honest people are dying for want of the same things.
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95 countries has abolished capital punishment. That makes the world more civilized than it was.
Rather, I would argue that because the world is more civilized than it was, 95 countries have been able to get away with abolishing capital punishment. Horse before cart.

I agree that in a perfectly-civilized or even well-civilized society, violent crime will be relatively rare and there will be enough wealth available to keep any offenders locked up for life. If both those conditions are met, by all means get rid of capital punishment. But where I live, neither is.
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So because things aren't perfect, we shouldn't even try to do what's right?
Oddly, that's my response to many of the arguments against capital punishment.


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Nienor SharkAttack
Post subject: Re: Current Events: The Death Penalty
Posted: Thu 12 Nov , 2009 1:57 pm
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Dave_LF wrote:
NN wrote:
You can do that by keeping them in jail for the rest of their lives, you don't have to chop their heads off
Well; Eowyn would argue that death is more humane than a cage. But don't quote me on that until I need to make the choice for myself. Besides, you can keep some violent criminals in jail for the rest of their lives, but if you've got a whole bunch of them plus a budgetary crisis plus a prison overcrowding problem, something has to give. And there's something almost obscene about giving the worst criminals a lifetime of food, shelter, and health care at no cost while honest people are dying for want of the same things.
I think there is a sort of contradiction in this paragraph: first you say that death is more human than a lifetime in prison, and then you say that criminals get a lifetime of greatly coveted things.

Personally, I don’t think giving people in prison food and healthcare can weigh up for the loss of freedom.

And then we should rather focus on getting everyone else these goods, rather than complaining about inmates having them.

I don’t think an organizational problem can justify killing people. From what I’ve read, the USA puts an unusually high percentage of their population in prison. I’d say you look into that and do something about it, rather than saying the system requires you to kill people to make it work. Countries without capital punishment manage this.

Also, with so many years on death row, I can’t see that capital punishment reduces overcrowding much.



I live in a country where the maximum penalty is 21 years in prison. You can be sentenced to preventive detention and be kept in prison longer than that if you are deemed to be a danger to society, and so in theory, it’s possible to sit a lifetime in prison, but in practice, everyone gets out at some point. Everyone gets a seond chance. I like this system, I think it’s more humane and makes society more humane, and appeals to better values than emotional cries for the worst possible penalties.

And then you don’t have that much of an overcrowding problem. ^^

Dave_LF wrote:
Quote:
95 countries has abolished capital punishment. That makes the world more civilized than it was.
Rather, I would argue that because the world is more civilized than it was, 95 countries have been able to get away with abolishing capital punishment. Horse before cart.
Fair enough. ;)
Dave_LF wrote:
Quote:
So because things aren't perfect, we shouldn't even try to do what's right?
Oddly, that's my response to many of the arguments against capital punishment.
Elaborate?

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