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Post by pinbalwyz on Sept 10, 2007 7:26:54 GMT -5
Yes, I know this is an anti-death penalty website but I was curious as to what your opinions were in regards to being anti-death penalty. Once I found this topic, titled "Question for Antis", inside of the "Debate The Death Penalty and Related Issues HERE" section of these forums, I thought I would pose my questions to the antis... was I wrong? Also, what would be the point of raising these questions to death penalty supporters? Thats why this section of the forums begins with the title, "Debate The Death Penalty..." so we can DEBATE the topic. I'm simply providing my point of view on this subject and had to jump in when I read some of these posts. So now I pose a question to you (although I had a similar one in my first post). You mention that we should "let them die when it is there time to die" but did they do the same to their victim? To me, the punishment certainly does not fit the crime in these cases. You also said "They just might suffer worse in prison" and I wish that were true. The only problem is that extreme criminals such as those who rape and kill people or go on killings sprees are usually secluded from the rest of the prison population... so their actually being protected! If their going to suffer in prison, let them stand up like a man and face the beating of other inmates, but nooooo, we have to protect them. And even if they are "suffering" in prison, at least their ALIVE. I just feel that we have a MORALE obligation to remove these people from our world when its a given fact as to what they did. Take the BTK killer (Dennis Rader) for example. This guy doesn't just kill, he binds, tortures, and then killed 10 or more women back in the 70's. Correct me if I'm wrong, but because the death penalty was not instituted at the time of the crimes, this guy is not eligible for the death penalty. How is that justice? It also sends a great message to sick minded people in states with no death penalty that you can kill as many people as you want and do whatever you want before killing them, but no matter what, the worst you get is life in prison. What a spit in the face to the victims families. Public/social policy based only on the 'worst of the worst' necessarily suffers. Would you advocate 'torture' because of the horrendous nature of some of these crimes? The DP amounts to going 'nuclear' so far as public/social policy is concerned. It may take out the intended miscreants but the collateral damage is so huge (although apparently non-intuitive for you, et al) that it weakens the social fabric of civilization, which is always a thin veneer, to the point it begins to unravel. This is so obvious to those willing to see and listen it's frustrating addressing the remedial education needed by those who do not.
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Post by pinbalwyz on Sept 10, 2007 7:42:07 GMT -5
In regards to skyloom's comment about no need to execute someone because of our maximum security prisons, you must be fine with your tax dollars being used to keep these kind of people alive. I know some people could say it costs more to put someone to death rather than keeping them alive, but if we weren't so objective to the execution process, a bullet or two to the head would do just as good a job and cost much less... but we know groups like the ACLU would wine and cry about how were violating the inmates human rights (again, rights not given to the victims by the criminals). First off, Slim, there are only a very few categories of individuals that I would ever want to see in prison for life with no possibility of parole. Those would be serial murderers and serial pedophiles, and those only because medicine and/or science has no idea how to change their behaviors, at least for now. I would like to see the U.S. return to its original (colonial and post-colonial) concept of prisons as a place for correction. That does not mean that I would like public whippings, the stocks, or any of that sort of thing. Nonetheless, our earliest prisons were intended as places where prisoners were to reflect, read the Bible, and consider for themselves what they had done wrong and how to amend their lives in the future. Nowadays, that would translate into efforts to educate prisoners, equip them with job skills, provide them with psychological and other forms of counseling, give them opportunities to read library books, relocation assistance once they are released so they don't have to go back to the same environment, and such things as would work towards a new beginning for the individual. Frankly, as far as my tax dollars are concerned, there are far more distasteful things my tax dollars are supporting at the moment: the invasion of Iraq, tax cuts for the wealthiest 1% of people in the country, government bailouts and other support for large corporations, holding people at Guantanamo without charges and/or trials, "extraordinary rendition" of individuals to secret detention facilities in Asia and Eastern Europe, and, of course, building more and more new prisons throughout this nation. I want my tax dollars to support universal, single payer health care for every person in the U.S., more funds to programs like Head Start and to our country's public schools generally, and more social services for those who are "at risk" or already in desperate situations. I believe we need a change of course in the U.S., and I believe we are capable of significantly reducing the violent and non-violent crime rate... but we lack the will. Certainly, with ever-increasing crime of all sorts, plus the myriad other social ills from which we suffer, it's clear that what we are doing now is not working. I really do get disgusted with the idea that my tax dollars are spent on programs that have already and demonstrably failed so miserably. No, no, Skyloom--Joe (the guy in my signature line on GREGGSMOM's board) would say that's all a waste of scarce public tax dollars and that we can execute our way (done consistently enough--he applauds China in this respect) to a better society. He feels NONE of what you suggest works and uses atypical examples like Ted Bundy, the Mendenez brothers, and a few other relatively rare but fat educated murderers. Naturally if Joe were to pick stocks on the same basis he argues for the DP and ignores environment/social conditioning, he'd lose his shirt. He repeatedly insists on generalizing the atypical and using it as a counter-argument/example to anti-DP assertions. Most readers understand the general (if not lockstep) correlation between abuse, poverty, lack of education, non-existent job skills, and crime. Joe even argues that crime (including violent crime) isn't a continuum ending in murder. Again, he cites atypical examples of first time offender murderers. I have consistently suggested we as a nation/society should get AHEAD of the curve by PREVENTING as many murders as possible through early intervention (which Joe insists is 'racist'), childhood development programs (such as head-start), firm early moral instruction, support for parents of young children, and 100% support of self defense (like the 2nd Amendment). Such programs and emphasis (IMO) reduce the need for dealing with the aftermath of murder. But Joe would argue otherwise including the fact we are not morally immutable (Stanley Milgram's experiments) and that the tipping point for murder strikes like some unpredictable alien virus which only the DP can cure. I reject his 'scorched earth' recommendation and analysis. But he *IS* a fantastic foil, if only because he is so obsessively 'consistent' and loathe to be otherwise to the extreme.
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Paka
Settlin' In
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Post by Paka on Sept 13, 2007 7:05:35 GMT -5
My qualms with it and arguments against it consist of many of the common ones. Some of these would include the question of possible innocence of course, racial and economic biases and the arbitrary application of it, cost vs. life imprisonment, the fact that it is not conclusively shown to be a deterrent, the question of cruel and unusual punishment (and lowering ourselves to the level of the killers, seeking revenge and not justice), plus the evolving standards of ethics worldwide.
An irreversible punishment, and arbitrarily assigned one, in a system which is so prone to error (uneducated juries, corrupt prosecutors, forensic fraud, inadequate defense, ect.) is unethical in the extreme, and there is no evidence that these issues can ever be resolved.
In response to part of the original question, even in cases where guilt is definite, there can never be a definite determination of the state of mind or motive, even if the killer confesses... the # of those who are intellectually impared, suffer from mental illness or have had their personalities altered by years of abuse, ect., on death rows is quite large. Many states seem to factor in aggravating and mitigating factors, but the problem becomes that you can never know for SURE the mind of accused (evil, or very ill and damaged?) and the extent of the mitigating factors, which are subjective in any case and difficult to try to weigh quantitatively. Even in the case of unrepentant and admitted murderers who committed their crimes in the name of a cause, executions only produce martyrs and further killings, plus even in non-cause related killings the attention given to the executed can inspire copycats.
Also, execution creates a whole new group of victims in the loved ones of the executed. Society is well served and completely protected by giving the worst offenders life without the possibility of parole. Indeed, the conditions in U.S. "supermax" prisons are very harsh (possibly inhumane, really) and life spent in one is certainly an ultimate punishment in itself.
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Post by hartnsol on Sept 22, 2007 11:50:04 GMT -5
i am for and against. why im against it is because of the methods, yes, these people did horrible things to be sentenced, tat doesnt mean i want to hear it took an average of 12 minutes to pronounce death in the gas chamber, or how lethal injection paralyzes their body and they DID are in pain they just cant do anything about it. lethal injection reminds me of people coming to during surgery and feeling everything but they arent able to move or speak, so they have to endure it.
i guess right now, they are trying to make a new mix of chemicals to make sure the people pass out basically and then die.
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Post by janet on Jan 23, 2008 13:53:28 GMT -5
Undoubtedly, the states that have the death penalty are busily concocting new pharmaceuticals to sanitize the entire process. This is for the benefit of the public who may view these executions.
There is no humanity at all in the death penalty. I diminishes each and every one of us. I don't consider passing out and dying acceptable either. It doesn't make an individual any less dead or the deed less evil.
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sdl
New Arrival
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Post by sdl on Feb 10, 2008 19:11:51 GMT -5
My father is a Holocaust survivor. He was anti-DP. He always felt that the DP brought people down to the level of the Nazis
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Post by pumpkinpie on Feb 10, 2008 22:32:39 GMT -5
My father is a Holocaust survivor. He was anti-DP. He always felt that the DP brought people down to the level of the Nazis I'd say it sure does. I agree with your father. That was a good statement sdl.
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Post by banshee on Feb 11, 2008 12:01:56 GMT -5
My father is a Holocaust survivor. He was anti-DP. He always felt that the DP brought people down to the level of the Nazis Your father is a wise man SDL
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