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How do you know for sure it's not resulting from a mental illnesss?
Seriously, that statement scares me. Making the assuming that any rapist is beyond redemption is not good enough for me. No matter how disgusting their actions are, those people need help more than anything. As it ever occur to you that a sociopath may have abnormal brain activity and perhaps a mental disease is contributing to how they think, feel, and view the world? So if they are in fact sick and could perhaps be helped trough medication, psychiatric treatment, and perhaps even surgery, should we just ignore that and just kill them just because it's convenient? By doing so, aren't we guilty of a similar crime?
What if we decided that people with cancer didn't deserve to live and we started to execute those diagnosed with the disease instead of treating them? What if we didn't fund cancer research, didn't pay attention to the cause, didn't invest time and money in finding solutions to the problem, and simply spend 1$ on a bullet for each person diagnosed with cancer instead? What kind of society would we live in? Certainly not one I'd want to be a part of. Why can't the same principle apply to the criminals who are perhaps simply victims themselves.
First, how do you define what a bad egg is, and second how do you become one? Are you born already a bad egg, or is it learned behaviors and principles that turn you into one? If that's the case, why you couldn't relearn and to become a good egg. You have the capacity to learn.
Capital punishment is a coward's convenience. It's just easier to close your eye on the underlying problem and simply make it go away, but it is not responsible or fair. Resorting to it is simply a confirmation of our own failures in dealing with the real issues.
...The United States already does not execute people with mental illnesses, so really your arguments are irrelevant, because I'm arguing for the death penalty, which already can't be applied to the people you're saying we shouldn't kill...
:bsThe US has already killed plenty of the mentally ill. Plenty of schizophrenics have been put to death although their condition can be treated with medication. Andrea Yates I believe is on death row and she is obviously mentally ill and it was completely treatable (plus her husband is a bastard for ignoring her post-partum depression, but that's another debate altogether). It also has on death row several who are probably innocent of the crimes for which they were convicted and possibly has even killed someone in this category. Death is final, and juries and judges are fallible, and legal counsel is quite different for those with money and those without. Look at the difference between the defense of OJ versus one of say an indigent in Texas having to have the court appointed public defender who sleeps through the trial.
So do you have a fortune to spend on defense? Let's say you are accused of raping and killing the daughter of a rich person. You can't afford a defense attorney nor afford to pay for DNA testing. You are subsequently convicted and sentenced to death. This is the system as it is now. It does happen. With your life in the balance do you still support your stance?
People are defined by their actions, not their birth, at least in my mind, obviously not in yours. It can be born, if someone is born with a split personality, or if someone is born that is prone to violence, but I for one happen to think it's acquired. Anyway, after someone is far gone enough, they can't be reformed. Some things can't be changed after a while, some things are permanent. If it's caught before they've harmed someone else, I'd say it's worth a try, but after they've harmed someone else I feel that they're beyond redemption.I say opposition to Capital punishment is ignorant. You don't know what its like to lose someone, and therefore you don't understand that the victims (if they're still alive) or the victim's family needs a sense of closure, and as much as this goes against hippyism 101, human beings want revenge when someone they love is taken from them, and in all honesty, I think it should be given to them. It's the least that can be done to ease their pain.
People are defined by their actions, not their birth, at least in my mind, obviously not in yours. It can be born, if someone is born with a split personality, or if someone is born that is prone to violence, but I for one happen to think it's acquired.
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...)
Not to mention, just because Hitler had an association with something doesn't make it evil. Hitler is a political figure, who did something very bad; however, he was a man, and like any other man he did things that were good and bad. Not everything surrounding Hitler was bad.
If it's caught before they've harmed someone else, I'd say it's worth a try, but after they've harmed someone else I feel that they're beyond redemption.
I say opposition to Capital punishment is ignorant. You don't know what its like to lose someone, and therefore you don't understand that the victims (if they're still alive) or the victim's family needs a sense of closure, and as much as this goes against hippyism 101, human beings want revenge when someone they love is taken from them, and in all honesty, I think it should be given to them. It's the least that can be done to ease their pain.
These people are useless to society, and thus there is no reason to keep them alive. All they do is consume.
People with cancer are not a danger to those around them. They haven't harmed those around them. That is the difference.
I see no problem with killing another human being when need be.
Life is worth more than we would often think, and I can say that from experience.
It's called etymology, and yes, they do still teach it in English class.
I never learned this, so whatever, not worth arguing over.
that must blow geting hanged in 2006 - 2007 then again it must blow geting hanged at all
Wow, where to begin?You say TheJudge "obviously" believes that birth defines a person. I can't figure out where he said that when he was asking you questions to better define your view of a "bad egg."
And then you say:So it can be inborn behavior, but it can't? You just contradicted yourself by acknowledging that such traits can be genetic, but then saying you think they're entirely a product of environment. How would you test an infant to see if they're born with a tendency for violence, or with schizophrenia? Are you advocating a move toward exhaustive genetic testing to "prove" these tendencies, in a subtle push for some kind of Utopia?
If Hitler's personal physician invented lethal injections, I'd say there's a damn good chance that method was used to kill hundreds or thousands of innocent people in concentration camps. That makes it evil.
So, two strikes and they're out? Many people are put to death for being accused of harming just one person. Making other people feel better shouldn't be justification enough for ending someone's life.
No, I don't know what it's like to lose someone to violence, but that doesn't mean I don't understand how victims might feel.
It's not enough to just kill them, not for me. Death is the easy way out for them.
Revenge != justice. Revenge is personal. Justice is communal. We live in a society with laws that shouldn't leave room for revenge. Justice isn't an eye for an eye. If that were the case, the guilty parties from Enron would've been stripped of their wealth and forced to work behind a grill flipping burgers for the rest of their lives. They screwed over thousands of people. Where's the justice?
You've just described the entire United States in general. Hell, humanity is the ultimate parasite.
No, but we put millions of dollars into a health care system that supports people who become consumers of that system, too ill to do anything else "useful" in society. How is that any different from a mental disorder?
But...Yes, it is. And not just yours.
Finally, because this bothers me:Considering they teach elementary school kids how to read above their level by breaking apart words they don't recognize into familiar bits, yeah, I'd say you might've learned it. But since you can't grasp homonyms, I'd have to admit a failure of the education system, as they're graduating asshats with abandon.
The Judge thinks that just because someone is born a human being then they are therefore too sacred to harm or destroy.
I just said that it could happen both ways. Sometimes people are born with a mental illness, and other times its just done out of greed or emotional stress.
but I for one happen to think it's acquired.
No, that makes their original use evil, it doesn't make the thing itself evil. Hitler also made a ceasefire with Stalin that allowed him to invade Poland and cause World War II, which killed tons of people. That doesn't make cease fires evil. Just because an evil person used something does not make the thing itself evil.
If I killed someone I should face the death penalty as well, but then again, that is my motivation not to kill anyone.
Where did he say that?
I'd accept that if you hadn't said...
Yes, and Hitler also used public speaking to rally his supporters. Therefore all public speaking is to be considered evil. He probably used a hairbrush as well. Hurr. It's not the act or method itself, but rather the intended use and it's consequences that determine whether something is evil. Lethal injection has zero positive direct consequences. Yes, as a method of capital punishment, it indirectly may bring some level of closure to a victim's family, but in the process, you're killing someone else.
If your only motivation to not kill someone is the possibility of punishment, then you're a sociopath waiting to happen. Kohlberg says thanks for trying, but he already has enough Level 1 participants.
I already told you that there is evidence where THEY WERE AWAKE BUT LOOKED PEACEFUL. IT ISN'T A MORE PEACEFUL WAY TO GO and you said that IT DOESN'T MATTER. Are you now changing your story?
And you briefly glossed over the fact that INNOCENT PEOPLE ARE KILLED. End of argument.
You want to go further? I don't think it's right to kill a TREE senselessly, because I don't see a tree as more or less important than a human being. "People feel pain, trees don't" Bullshit, they respond to stimuli in different ways, and while we are so far doubtful of them having consciousness, they are still a life form.
I don't think it's right to kill someone because any reason you give could be rationalized as being stupid, and then their is no way to take it back. There is almost NO way to justify the extinction of a human being, because there will always be a rational, logical, and often "true" argument against it.
He believes that humans shouldn't kill other humans, therefore he believes that because someone is born human they are already guaranteed some level of forgiveness for whatever they do.
If someone grows up in a gang ridden neighborhood, where gang killings occur, and this person has been surrounded by murder their entire lives, it's more likely that they'll become a killer, just because they're more desensitized to violence.
There are cases where people are born with serious mental illnesses, that cause them to do things that harm others, but I think in the majority of cases the former is the problem.
It provides a more painless way of killing someone than the electric chair or hanging them. It honestly doesn't bother me, I'd say bring back the firing squad the noose and the guillotine if it were up to me, but that's not considered humane these days.
But there is a person who, if I could get away with it, I would kill, and I do believe it would be for a damn good reason. You can't understand it because you aren't in my position, and you haven't been through what I have. You don't know what it's like to hate someone else, and that's why my point of view does not make sense to you, because you have never felt what I have felt.
I also think most of you are speaking from a very ignorant point of view, because most of you have probably never lost anyone dear to you, so you wouldn't know the feeling.
Mistakes happen. Can't make an omlett without breaking a few eggs. Innocent people die, it's unfortunate but it happens. More innocent people are killed by criminals than are put to death by the government.
I don't believe humans should kill other humans, for whatever reason. I don't believe that forgiveness is absolute, but I also don't believe we have the right to Play God, so to speak -- and I'm an atheist. We have a legal system for a reason. It may be broken or corrupt more times than I care to think about, but there's something in place.
My father grew up in a gang-ridden neighborhood in Chicago, and was in fact part of a gang. I don't think it's entirely true that exposure to something makes you more likely to do it, though I'll admit that can be part of it. Desensitization to violence, or anything else, makes you less likely to have a strong reaction to it. I think in neighborhoods riddled with crime, violence is unfortunately a survival technique.
That same level of violence is simulated in most popular video games, by the way. (You want to talk about desensitization, there's your focus. By all means, argue against white privilege. I'm sure pb would be happy to resurrect his argument that the justice system is inherently racist.)And in some of those mental illness cases, the defendents have no concept of right and wrong because they lack mental capacity, reasoning, and a mature morality. Even those deemed criminally insane receive punishment.
I don't understand how, if you want someone to suffer for what pain they've caused you, you can advocate death. Even for less humane methods of capital punishment, it's still extremely short in comparison.
You have no idea what I or anyone else have or have not been through. I think my implied suggestion that you seem to treasure your life and place your reasons on a higher level than you do others' is because you make statements like, "You have never felt what I have felt." Calling us ignorant only serves to strengthen that belief. Don't you dare assume that I don't know what it's like to justifiably hate someone. I'm sure your hate is justified, and I'm not discounting your desire for revenge, as it's a very human response, but using vengeance as your basis for a justice system is immature. Telling us that we have no right to argue against extreme forms of capital punishment, or against it at all, because we've (assumedly) never lost anyone is egocentric - and that's a horrible position from which to dictate far-reaching policy.
A) I assume you are talking about OUR government, in which case I point you to look at many of the wars we have fought, including the current one, and especially WWII with the dropping of atomic weaponry on Japan.
B) Wow, what lack of concern over the death of someone. Besides the fact that we're not talking about EGGS here, we're talking about INNOCENT FUCKING PEOPLE,
how is it somehow alright for the GOVERNMENT to kill an innocent person, but if I were to kill an innocent person there would be a problem?
According to the death penalty, if killing an innocent person is considered murder and punishable by death, and if the GOVERNMENT and those that support it kill an innocent person, then THOSE people should also be put to death. That's just logic.
If we can't treat it, it's unfortunate, but we can't treat it.
People are defined by their actions, not their birth, at least in my mind, obviously not in yours.
Some things can't be changed after a while, some things are permanent.
You don't know what its like to lose someone
It's the least that can be done to ease their pain.
Mistakes happen. Can't make an omlett without breaking a few eggs. Innocent people die, it's unfortunate but it happens.
I think that easing the victims pain or their family and friend's pain is just what a justice system should go for.
I mean, if it can work against them, why couldn't it work for them. Unless... Oh I don't know... you had double standards?
This is exactly why I brought up the cancer example. There are things we can't cure. It doesn't mean we shouldn't try. I understand cancer victims do not pose a risk to others. It was just an example to illustrate a principle. And if I follow your logic, then someone who has a deadly decease that can spread from person to person airborn, then they should be killed because A - We can't treat it, and B - They pose a risk to others. That's just ridiculous, yet that is your logic.
First, I'm not convince that vengence is the best way to ease someone's pain. (Just ask Batman! OMFGLOL!!!)
Let's say you had a brother that was murdered. And let's say you had the power to decide if his killer should be put to death or should be locked up for life. If you decide death, it's a decision that you'll have to live for with the rest of your life. In 10 years, maybe you'll regret that decision and it will cause you serious problems in life.
I'm not saying it capital punishement cannot ease someone's pain, but I will say it's not a universal effect. It can even cause further damage to the surviving victims in some cases. And when you say it's the least that could be done, that's not true. There are plenty of other things that can be done, including therapy to deal with the anger. Some turn to religion for answers. Some even forgive. Your view of things is too black and white.
It's a sacrifice for the greater good.
I look at things in favour of what the majority would want, and what's good for the greatest amount of people. All the things you used can still be adhered to and tried, but there is nothing that can replace a sense of closure.
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