I use to think my vision of the world is far from immaculate, and my ideas are far from idealistic. There are facts (like the map I linked), and then, well, your offensive sarcasm. Saddening, indeed.
Edit: How the hell you could say such a hideous and false thing is beyond my comprehension. You don't know me, remember. Counter facts with facts, please.
About those saying there should be absolutely NO death sentences.. I think that opinion is wrong.. a maniac goes and kills 50 people and you do what? Just put him in the prison where he can live for free until the end of his life.
@theirishnoob - by your actions in this thread I think you should be given a ban not for 5 days, but at least a month.. that was unbeliavable.
He doesn't live for free, he leeches his life support from the same people he preyed on.
Albieg, if I were so inclined, I'd feel offended by your holier than thou statistical pigeon-holing and stereotyping, which is exactly what I'm illustrating with that sarcasm. I personaly don't see the rethorical value of "being offended" etc. I don't feel I'm superior or that you're inferior or any of that crap, so you yourself could probably take your own advice.
Blackout, the political landscape has gotten as deep into the two party groove as it has only because the people's vote has allowed it to. There are plenty of alternatives that just aren't getting votes, mostly for the wrong reasons.. they don't have the connections, the money, or the sort of charisma that resonates well with the media. People just aren't doing their homework (with regards to the candidates and political process in general), but that doesn't mean American values are condemnable.. those values need to be taken in their proper context, not in that of a rotting apple cart.
There have been a number of candidates outside of the two parties, but they have been ignored, not least because too few people want to risk their vote on a 2 percenter.
With some luck, though, the recent trend towards a large enough amount of people being just fed up with the BS that passes for government in Washington will yield enough good people being elected before those same people settle down into complacency again.
Ain't the internet great?! Makes experts and armchair politicians of all of us- free reign to speak our wisdom. Sadly the opportunity goes out to fools and bigots as much as it does to informed and educated people. Far less comeback for expressing opinions here - not like getting involved in a heated debate in a public place.
Long live free speech.
I'll mantain that the only G8 Country which has death penalty is the US. If you can't live with this fact, it's none of my business. I can live with this easier than you think.
Yes, isn't it great Al...and I do wish you weren't being sarcastic with that post.
US politics is a very interesting topic Breizh, but I think my English is preventing me expressing my thoughts as I liked, I can try though. I think we can agree that the "winner takes it all" -voting system eventually leads to two party system which doesn't work. One problem I could imagine with only two real options is that there is no middle ground because the minorities have no chances as the one with the most votes wins, even if more people had been against the winner i.e. voted someone else. If there is no middle ground you are either on their, or on our side, I see that kind of situation very difficult. Basically, if you don't agree with either of the parties, you can vote for the lesser bad, or not vote. I would also imagine that it will make the two parties very passive eventually, they don't really have much motivation to make things better to prove they are worthy because there is only one competitor.
Why is this fact relevant? Shame on the other seven, I say!
To those claiming that the death penalty is not an effective deterrent...there are studies which show that the death penalty does reduce the murder rate and there are studies which show that it doesn't. The nature of the problem means that it is almost impossible to prove one way or the other. Any claims that the death penalty does not act as an effective deterrent are subjective claims only.
I think it's a perfectly valid way of punishing those who have committed serious crimes.
Six. I forgot Japan has death penalty too, so I stand corrected by myself. Why is this fact relevant? Because G8 countries all share some common traits: they're industrially advanced, they're fully formed democracies, they're countries where civil liberties are considered good, at least to some extent.
Was about to post the same thing. I wouldn't consider Russia as democracy, nor free country and we should actually be more worried about them than the Americans at the moment.
That's why I said "at least to some extent": because I think you're right, Maelstrom. Yet we cannot consider Russia equal to Syria, Cuba, Iraq or North Korea, just to name the Countries of the axis of evil.
He he he... You misunderstand me Gunn. I don't consider those countries to be part of the axis of Evil (I missed Iran ). In fact I think you're perfectly right about idiotic politicians. It was a quote without quotes, and nothing more.
Who said they were experts? The expertise common people don't have is in special cases such as the exact interdependencies of crime and punishment. What everyone does have is common sense, and that's what we're doing: debating the pros and cons of capital punishment in principle.
Everyone is free to say exactly what they want, and that's exactly how it should be. Ideas are the precursor to action, and here we are in a free for all. What better place to find out which idea is best? It's a perfect sandbox. I haven't seen anyone proclaim themselves King of the sandbox yet.. Idea is the quintessence of debate, and here it is reduced to text which is at least as good as someone getting all red in the face or being distracted by anything from the arguments themselves.
Anyone, regardless of age, social standing, race or whatever, can type in the solution to any given debate and be recognized for it as he/she deserves. That's a whole lot better than you can usualy count on in most debates in the flesh. Most people don't make good debating company, in the flesh at least. Stick a blade of sharp logic in em over there and they'll cry foul play.
Did you forget to mention the common obsession with banning abortion in the US? Don't you think you ought to account for Americans' (a sizeable portion of them anyway) holding embryonic life sacred in such a way? Don't you think it incongruous to focus only on the death penalty (which you've yet to precisely demonstrate why you think it's not defendable) and not reconciliate such a humane disposition with your accusation of inhumane punishment? Or holding the right to survive so sacred as to allow everyone to have an equalizing but lethal means of self-defense even at the risk of criminals having guns more readily? These sorts of things are what you need to account for if you really mean to make a comprehensive assessment of the American context of things.
You're more on about how well you (I said already I'm only interested in a dispassionate discussion) can or can't cope with 'hideous' this or that which you suppose is going on in a brain trillions of electrons away than about the pros and cons of capital punishment. I'm done replying to anything but arguments towards that debate.
That's very close to what most people in the US are getting to grips with Blackout
Spurious, irrelevant comment, considering we're talking about civil criminal law and not military actions. Blows my mind how some people can just post without actually understanding what's in front of them in black & white.
However, if we are going to introduce military actions to the discussion, the US wins again anyway: more military expenditure than most of the rest of the world combined, more military interventions than everyone else combined & the world's biggest arms manufacturer. Either way ...
I'm against death penalty because I don't believe anyone should have a right to take other human lives, except for self defense, and death penalty is no self defense to me. Moreover, I am not willing to surrender this kind of rights to a juridical person (the State) whose behaviour should be far more rational than that of a physical person. I'm fine with the ability of a State to take away one's freedom, but nothing more than that. It suffices, and it's an unsurpassable limit for me. As for abortions and the like, open another thread if you like.
Yet you consider mine simple Antiamericanism, it seems. What an idiocy. Remember the outrage for the French nuclear tests at Mururoa? No one complained so hard about China, or Pakistan, or India... This happened because some protests are much more pragmatic than you think: you talk to someone you consider able to listen, not to deaf people. This is what happens with some aspects of the American life too: some people complain not because we think all Americans are stupid, but because they are allies.
I still remember Rumsfeld talking about old Europe, and then, after a year or two, I remember him humbled, saying "I am not the same Rumsfeld that I was before" during a visit in Europe. He learned that Europeans were just warning the US not to do something stupid. But we know how things are going in Iraq, don't we?
And now we're discussing about a person who's going to die for reasons most Europeans don't understand. This happens because we think we can actually talk about this with US people, while we would consider this almost impossible with China. Be pragmatical then: stop suggesting I am antiamerican, it's exactly the opposite.
Edit: Name a single post where I said that death penalty is not defendable. Name a single post where I said death penalty is a cruel and inhuman punishment. Name a single person attacked here by me just because he believes in death penalty. Why do you attribute these expressions to me is beyond my comprehension once again. The things I consider hideous in this thread are only your empty accusations. As for a dispassionate discussion, trying to shit on my head from the start just because I linked a map that clearly shows that the USA (and Japan, sure) aren't in good company when it comes to death penalty isn't a good start, and all those things go a long way to demonstrate your prejudices.
@Breizh: I don't understand how you can dismiss the practice of death penalty as irrelevant? Of course, in an ideal world, only those who "deserve" it are put to death (for me that's actually nobody, but that's a different matter). But in an ideal world, we wouldn't need punishment at all, so practice is all that counts. And yes, punishment on the whole can never be perfectly just, but that's still no argument for taking someones prime human right (=life). On the contrary, for me, that's an argument against life sentence just the same.
I agree, that imprisonment is inhumane, but don't you think it's less inhumane to imprison someone than to take someones prime human right? It's about the difference between taking away a human right and circumscribing it. A judicial system can always err and death was irreversible last time I checked, imprisonment is not and it's therefore alone already the more humane punishment.
And about this:
No, that's not the critical difference. The critical difference is, that I think the validity of human rights (with life being the most important one) is the indispensable basis of a civil society. Money is utterly irrelevant in that regard.
And here's another critical difference. I would never, ever call any human being "useless ballast". That's an offence towards human rights in itself.
Pfft, I think far worse things about people than that. On the whole they are selfish and inconsiderate, all about making their own lives better despite (or sometimes at the expense of) everyone else.
I do agree that the death penalty is extreme, but I also agree that the money spent on prisons (especially in this country - they live tax-free, they have access to technology that a lot still don't, they have free gym access, etc) is totally over the score. Seems to me if you commit a crime - and in cases where the death penalty is advised, violent crimes - you have disregarded your human rights. Murderers gave no thought to the rights their victim had to life, so why treat them any different?
The downside is there's very often not 100% certainty that the person did it. Even when all the evidence points to them it can still be wrong. In those situations the death penalty shouldn't be the only option. But if they were caught on CCTV sticking a knife into someone and running off with their wallet, identified by several witnesses and forensics, then admitted doing it, zap them. Seriously. Or maybe something a little less showy would be better. Lethal injection maybe.
Prison overcrowding decreases, less people commit violent crimes because they're scared to, and the general public no longer pays to house them.
In every human society, there is an effort continually tending to confer on one part the height of power and happiness, and to reduce the other to the extreme of weakness and misery. The intent of good laws [is] to oppose this effort and to diffuse their influence universally and equally. But men generally abandon the care of their most important concerns to the uncertain prudence and discretion of those whose interest it is to reject the best and wisest institutions.
Anyway Beccaria's conclusions are exactly the opposite, since he believes a State cannot claim a right on citizen's life, being life an inalienable good, and thus arguing that a citizen cannot surrender this right to a State. In fact when you accept death penalty you basically accept that a State has the power to take life away from you.
But using the same text, I could also argue that by committing (for example) murder, you have shown that you do not fit this ideal of "inalienable good" and therefor should not be bound by the same rules as those who are (or have not yet been proved not to be).
I stand by my initial thoughts that by breaking rules and committing a heinous crime, you violate someone else's human rights and should therefor sacrifice your own.
The problem isn't with taking away a right from a single citizen, it's the fact that all citizen must agree that a State has this potential right on life, and thus can excercise it right from the start. This encompasses every citizen, and not only criminals. Life is an inalienable good for its particular nature: once taken it cannot be given back, differently from freedom. Surrendering this right to a State means enabling the State to claim it. For Beccaria the right to life was non-existent, so you cannot claim it. When you kill someone you murder it, you don't claim his right to life. But when a juridical person does it, it does so because some laws enable it to do it. Yet States do not murder like criminals, it seems, they just take a non-existent right to life away from criminals.
Edit: to be a bit more clear I'll state that life is a biological concept and a natural condition. This sets it apart from legal rights, such as freedom, which isn't a biological concept nor a natural condition since its theoretical definition is much more abstract, in scientific terms, then the definition of life, or life as we know it.
All you guys should probably see the movie (preferably original version) called 12 Angry Men.
The crux of this issue for me comes down to whether people are o.k. with the fact that they could allow an innocent man to be executed due to human error. If you're against the killing of an innocent person, then why the hell shouldn't that extend into the fullness of the law as well? Tristan's post (I'll raise it again) makes him come off as a guy who's actually more concerned about the proper use of grammar and correct spelling than with the basic protections and rights of human beings. Totally insane and retarded. It's this kind of astonishing illogic that defeats the best arguments for capital punishment. People, grow a brain!
). In fact I think you're perfectly right about idiotic politicians. It was a quote without quotes, and nothing more.
