Discussion: Death penalty

deicider said:
"In the formal debate, James R has a massive lead in both style and substance. It's hardly a fair match. "
Ofc he has,cause his opponent is someone like syzygys.
/debate
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I disagree. James put on a good show, but his arguments were weak and resorted to repeating the same thing without proving it or backing it up; that is typical of James, though. "Agree with me or you're a bigot".

I declare Syz the victor. In my opinion, of course.
 
"I disagree. James put on a good show, but his arguments were weak and resorted to repeating the same thing without proving it or backing it up; that is typical of James, though. "Agree with me or you're a bigot".
i don't support james,am just saying that anyone can beat syzygys the weakling.
peace be into you ..all the way :)
 
I actually would like to hear a neutral but intelligent opinion on our performance. If you have a grievance with either me or James please don't bother, you are obviously biased.
Now I am not really interested on just hearing "X won the debate" but citing examples why one thinks so. Let's say bringing up some of the good or bad arguments,etc.

Repo-Man and Deicider are staying on my Ignore, so luckily I won't be able to see their I am sure very fair and balanced views. :)

P.S.: I do note that the issue of DP for most people is like a religion and they are most likely won't change their views on it, nevertheless a few good points from the other side still can be acknowledged....Personally I haven't heard any good points what I haven't heard before.
 
i agree with syz,there should be death penalty in all countries,to erase ppl with the lvl of syzie's iq,they just slow down evolution.
:/
 
i suggest anyone who surports the death penelty follows the SA oposition leader. She surports the use of tasers so much that she had to have one tried out on herself. I suggest DP advocates follow her lead:p
 
Asguard said:
i suggest anyone who surports the death penelty follows the SA oposition leader. She surports the use of tasers so much that she had to have one tried out on herself. I suggest DP advocates follow her lead
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Kay, and in the mean time you can try out life in prison.
 
Norsefire said:
Kay, and in the mean time you can try out life in prison.
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I wanted to post the exact same. :)

The interesting part is that none of the anti-DP people can come up with just one decent argument for their position. I mean with that much of brainpower if their position had a chance I am sure someone would have been able to find just one by now.

Asguard is the device that one needs when goes to prison for a long time. (pardon my pun) :)
 
I wasn't really looking, but since I like history and to teach the ignorant:

HISTORICAL EVIDENCE OF DETERRENCE:

"There are many examples of how the death penalty deters murder, most haven't even been listed on this webpage. But here is an example of how the use of consistent executions have dramatically improved certain societies.

In the 1800s, in English occupied India, there was one of the worst gangs of murdering thieves the world has ever known, the Indian hoodlum band known as the Thuggees. Through the course of their existence, dating back to the 1550s, the Thuggees were credited with murdering more than 2,000,000 people, mostly wealthy travelers. The killer secret society plagued India for more than 350 years. The Thuggees traveled in gangs, sometimes disguised as poor beggars or religious mendicants. Sometimes they wore the garb of rich merchants to get closer to unsuspecting victims. One of their principles was never to spill blood, so they always strangled their victims. Each member was required to kill at least once a year in order to maintain membership in the cult. But they killed in the name of religion. The deaths were conceived of as human sacrifices to Kali, the bloodthirsty Hindustani goddess of destruction. It came to pass that the Thuggees began to kill using pickaxes and knives. According to legend, the Thuggees believed that Kali devoured the bodies of their victims. The story goes that once a member of the society hid behind a tree in order to spy on the goddess. The angry goddess punished the Thuggees by making them bury their victims from then on.

The ruling British government worked very hard to stop the Thuggee religion and its murderous practices. Between 1829 and 1848, the British managed to suppress the Thuggees by means of mass arrests and speedy executions. Indeed, rows and rows of Thuggees were left hanging from the gallows along the roads by the dozens. This not only established a zero recidivism rate, but it also greatly discouraged new membership into the cult. The most lethal practitioner of the cult of Thuggee was Buhram. At his trial it was established that he had murdered 931 people between 1790 and 1840. All had been strangled with his waistcloth. Burham was executed in 1840. Appropriately enough, he was hanged until he strangled. In 1832, the Agent to the Governor-General of India, F. C. Smith had this to say about the Thugees and their deeds.
I have never heard of such atrocities, or presided over such trials, such cold-blooded murders, such heart-rending scenes of distress and misery; such base ingratitude; such a total abandonment of the very principle which binds man to man; which softens the heart and elevates mankind above the brute creation...mercy to such wretches would be the extreme of cruelty to mankind...blood for blood.
In 1882, the British government deemed the problem solved with the hanging death of the last known Thuggee. "

P.S.: For extra credit:

deathpenaltygraph2.jpg
 
Exactly; but the death penalty needs to be made apparent and criminals need to know, full well, that society will not tolerate crime. One problem is that it isn't made clear enough; we need to have posters that remind people that they ARE being monitored and WILL be executed if they hurt others.

I am a strict believer in rules; and society must have rules, right? And therefore a logical society will not even BEGIN to bother with people that break the laws. You break the rules, you die. It needs to be that simple. Really.

You do good, you get rewarded. There we go: logical, and absolutely intolerant of what doesn't need to be tolerated: breaking the rules. I invite James to agree with me. Certainly you do, don't you? That rules are necessary.
 
Hey, anyone recall my example from the debate? Here is the real life version of it:

http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/01/12/scotus.sex.offender.law/

story.andrews.martin.courtesy.jpg


"As a teenager in Portsmouth in 1973, Andrews (13) was walking to the store in snowy weather when a van pulled up and the man inside asked the boy whether he wanted to earn some extra money moving furniture. Andrews agreed but instead was taken to a rural area and a metal box dug into the side of a hill.

What followed was days of brutal rapes and beatings. Ausley eventually left, and Andrews would certainly have died if some rabbit hunters had not stumbled upon him after hearing his screams."
 
My main critique of that debate would be that James put too much emphasis on secondary points, when the debate could begin and end with the issue of execution of innocent people. A big, bureaucratic system like the ones under consideration is going to end up executing innocent people by mistake, and we already have fairly solid evidence that this rate is in the range that many - including myself - consider unacceptable even if the various pro-death-penalty arguments about deterrence, etc. are taken at face value.

Also, one other point that came up:

If the state wants to say "killing is wrong", it can hardly make that point by killing prisoners itself.
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Which begs the question: does the state want to send the message "killing is wrong?"

It doesn't seem that it does. All of the states in question spend large sums of money to maintain military forces, whose express purpose is to kill. And the states uniformly regard this killing as legitimate, and go to great lengths to send exactly that message.

An important aspect of a statehood is the monopolization of the use of force, and so all states share a deep vested interested in "sending the message" that state-sanctioned killing is acceptable, while non-state-sanctioned killing is wrong. This is true of every state, whether or not they use the death penalty, pursue an aggressive foreign policy, etc. Statehood is all about emphasizing the legitimacy of state violence while delegitimizing non-state violence.

The message the state is interested in advancing in this context is "murder is wrong." Which is a damned site more specific than "killing is wrong," and not fundamentally in conflict with execution of murderers. On the contrary, if the state can succeed in advancing the "no murder" message through state-sanctioned violence, so much the better (from the state's perspective, that is).
 
quadraphonics said:
when the debate could begin and end with the issue of execution of innocent people.
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Was addressed several times and nicely refuted, although I haven't heard counterargument to the refutal. Also, after reading your post I couldn't even decide which side you are on....(either on the issue or on the debaters) :shrug:
 
The execution of innocent people is horrible, but it isn't reason in itself to stop administering justice. Especially in cases where guilt can be proven without a doubt; for instance in the case of BTK or the Green River Killer, both of which were cold-blooded psychopaths that showed zero remorse for their actions (BTK was actually amused after he was caught). I see no reason why not to execute these people.
 
quadraphonics said:
My main critique of that debate would be that James put too much emphasis on secondary points, when the debate could begin and end with the issue of execution of innocent people. A big, bureaucratic system like the ones under consideration is going to end up executing innocent people by mistake, and we already have fairly solid evidence that this rate is in the range that many - including myself - consider unacceptable even if the various pro-death-penalty arguments about deterrence, etc. are taken at face value.

Also, one other point that came up:



Which begs the question: does the state want to send the message "killing is wrong?"

It doesn't seem that it does. All of the states in question spend large sums of money to maintain military forces, whose express purpose is to kill. And the states uniformly regard this killing as legitimate, and go to great lengths to send exactly that message.

An important aspect of a statehood is the monopolization of the use of force, and so all states share a deep vested interested in "sending the message" that state-sanctioned killing is acceptable, while non-state-sanctioned killing is wrong. This is true of every state, whether or not they use the death penalty, pursue an aggressive foreign policy, etc. Statehood is all about emphasizing the legitimacy of state violence while delegitimizing non-state violence.

The message the state is interested in advancing in this context is "murder is wrong." Which is a damned site more specific than "killing is wrong," and not fundamentally in conflict with execution of murderers. On the contrary, if the state can succeed in advancing the "no murder" message through state-sanctioned violence, so much the better (from the state's perspective, that is).
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superstring01 said:
How about cases where there is video footage or where the person admits to the charges.
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Video footage can be faked and confessions coerced or made up (maybe the guy is just crazy). The scenarios you cite would, again, be "beyond reasonable doubt" (supposing there was good evidence that the video was un-tampered-with, or that confessions hadn't been coerced or invented).

There is no such thing as "without a doubt." It's always possible that any set of evidence, no matter how compelling, is all just a huge cosmic accident. It is impossible to remove all such doubts; hence we only worry about the "reasonable" ones.
 
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