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My opposition to the death penalty and my arborphilia are completely unrelated!
I'm a cat-hugging hippie* pbsaurus hugs cat
Wow. Don't they teach anything in English anymore? arbor = of treesphilia = a root meaning "to love"Therefore, "love of trees." Tree-hugging hippies are smarter than you.
Being an atheist I believe there is nothing after this one. I am also against the death penalty for the same reason as PB and I am also a 50 % tree hugging hippy. I think Saddam should been sentenced to life in prison and with that I mean a life in prison, the whole old-fashioned no tv prison thing also no visitors. He is bad to the bone and should be punished accordingly. Being locked-up like that is a bigger punishment then death. Your life is totally worthles. Being hanged like him is a snap, neck is broken while he is choked at the same time. So it is gone in a flash, does Saddam notice ? According to my beliefs, no. He just isn't there anymore. So there is no punishment, it is even a relief. If someone gives me the choice between being imprisoned for the rest of my life, on really crappy food, no visitors, no fresh air, just sit in a cell and that's it or a swift death, I would choose death.
Being an atheist I believe there is nothing after this one.
No matter what you're living through it is a gift just to be alive. Anything is better than nothingness.
Not to mention the fact I don't think people should pay money to keep alive the person that murdered their family members.
Actually Arbor and philia are both from Latin. So the correct question would be, do they teach Latin anymore, and the answer is no.
I'm also an atheist, but I believe ending someones existence is the ultimate punishment. No matter what you're living through it is a gift just to be alive. Anything is better than nothingness. Not to mention the fact I don't think people should pay money to keep alive the person that murdered their family members.
That is something of a personal nature, because while you are sitting in a room with the biggest worry being people making fun of you on the internet, that is not the case for all. I don't know what your situation really is like, but let's assume it's less that say someone being tortured for information. Suffering is very relative, and the decision to end your life is something deeply personal. Who am I to say someone else isn't suffering?
So you are trying to tell me that a dollar is worth more than a human life?
Arguments For:It is a deterrent for people committing murder.The punishment fits the crime. (An eye for an eye.)
That it is painless and very efficient.
It is NEVER alright to kill a human being.->or It is only alright to kill during times of war or in self-defense->or It is alright but only in certain situations
Innocent people are put on death row.
Would YOU trust the government to present all evidence in a murder trial?
The murder rate for states that have the death penalty is consistently higher than states that do not have the death penalty, and while it is hard to determine what the effects would be on the states if they removed their death penalty, it is equally hard to show that the death penalty is having a positive effect. Texas, for example, has a higher murder rate than the national average even though they have executed the most people and have the most on death row.
Eye for an Eye:46% of the people on death row are white, and 42% are black. (Total: 3415) Of the entire prison population, however, blacks make up 12%. While it is argued that there is no racism, that blacks just seem to commit the crimes that end up with a death sentence, this fails to mention about what may have led up to the arrests, trials, and convictions. (Higher quality policing in rich neighborhoods, etc...)
Also, it is a well known fact that innocent people are put on death row. On Bullshit!, they interviewed a guy who had been convicted and was sentenced to death, when something like 7 years later he was retried and released because it was found that the prosecutor had hidden evidence, including that fact that he was already in jail at the time for another unrelated crime. The witnesses that testified against him were also found to be the actual perpetrators of the crime. Would you trust government officials to show all of the evidence, when a) we have evidence that they don't, b) there is evidence of racism, c) we don't even trust them to develop good policies like the drug policy, etc...
Besides, what is more of a punishment: a "swift" execution (I'll get to that), or a lifetime in jail.
Let's pretend for an instance that you support the death penalty. Assuming that man had been killed, you would have been responsible for his murder. Therefore, you were responsible for the death of an innocent man, and should also be put to death.
Painless:There are horror stories about hangings, using the electric chair, the guillotine, and other more ancient methods of execution. With lethal injection, a study found that some people had less of the sedative than required for surgery, and would mean that even though they were paralyzed and not showing pain, it was likely that they were awake at the time and suffered a horrible pain of choking and their heart being stopped. Interestingly enough, the guy who developed lethal injection was the physician to Adolf Hitler. (Not an argument against, but it should show the mindset of where this idea came from...)
In terms of efficiency is the question of whether MONEY is more valuable than a HUMAN LIFE. If you think that a dollar bill is somehow more valuable than a human being, that's your choice, but who knows what you are liable to do when confronted with someone willing to pay you to kill another human being.
Throughout all of this is whether it is EVER right to kill a human being, or any of the sub questions.
Wrong. 'Do they teach Latin anymore?' is not the correct question. It's called etymology, and yes, they do still teach it in English class.
A gift from what/who? By definition, a gift is given. So, who or what is doing the giving?
I never learned this, so whatever, not worth arguing over.A gift (unintended perhaps) from the world around us. No entity gave it to us, but we received it through random luck in the universe.
One of the main things that turns me against the idea of capital punishment is the fact that the courts can, have, and WILL continue to fuck things up ever so often. What do you say when it turns out that the courts killed a father of three for a crime that he didn't even commit? Is doing justice for people who are already dead (and by your own admission incapable of caring) worth the risk of killing an innocent, the very crime that is theoretically being punished?
So is the dog crap that stuck to my boot on the way over also a gift from the universe? This sounds awfully theistic to me.
The current issue of the Economist speaks of some breakthroughs in neuroscience, which bring free will into question. A specific example is of a guy who was relatively normal became a pedophile. Drs. discovered a brain tumor, removed it, and the guy lost all of his pedophillic tendencies. The tumor grew back, the tendencies returned. The tumor was again removed. Tendencies gone. Did this man exercise free will to be a pedophile? Is he a criminal?
So if this is a possible cause. Couldn't all crime theoretically be traced back to a biological process and thus be a treatable mental illness? You seem to over-generalize and try to make a complicated, multi-variate world too simple.
No, if I kill someone out of greed it's not due to a mental illness
Criminals like murders and rapists are too wicked to reform, and thus they can not be integrated into society. So in essence they are worthless, because all they can do is cause harm and consume resources. A dollar has value, it can save other people's lives as well as make life easier for those who are suffering. Therefore a dollar can be worth more than a "human" life.
Some people are just bad eggs and have to be put down.
No, if I kill someone out of greed it's not due to a mental illness, it's because I'm an asshole and I'll do anything for profit. Same with Racism, same with sudden impulses, ect.In this case there was something that was interfering with that man's normal line of thought. His normal line of thought was not the problem.
A person being legally executed my a court isn't the same as one man killing another. A court is not a man, it's a legal body.
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