BEST Argument for Death Penalty I've Seen!

[shesulsa]

Mod. Note.
Please return to a polite and respectful conversation.

-Georgia Ketchmark
-MT Senior Moderator-

 

[sgtmac_46]

Sanctimonious! Nope, sorry. The difference is that I try, really hard, all of the time, to do what I think is right...and I don't make excuses when I fail. My experience is relevant in that it equals any contribution you have made because of the above effort...despite our differences this is true.

Wow, this is getting way too personal, I'm outta here.

I don't just TRY to do what's right, I DO what's right. You act as if you are the only one with any courage of conviction. My convictions are just different and i'm willing to back them with actions. You keep backpedaling, now you've finally admitted that "the end's don't ALWAYS justify the means". Well, no kidding, but that statement leaves open the fact that they SOMETIMES justify them.

It's like the statement that violence isn't always the answer. Yes, that's true, and thank goodness. But when it IS the answer, it's the only answer.

Lets examine your line of logic. By your logic, your grandfather was a murderer and a war criminal. He didn't fight off an enemy that was attacking him, he proactively attacked an enemy that he believed was a threat to his country in the future. He went to them. That's not self-defense, according to you. It's murder. I don't see it that way, however, I honor your grandfather for what he did. Do you have any idea how many German and Japanese children we "murdered" in WWII? Do you think your grandfather was a war criminal?

 

[rmcrobertson]

"Have you even seen the dead body of a murdered child abused and tortured by it's step father, and finally suffocated because it wouldn't quit crying? Have you looked that same smug, whiney, SOB in the eye who did it, and heard him lie his butt off to your face about how the baby "accidentally" died?"

Pretty much, yeah, I have. And I think the death penalty's wrong.

 

[sgtmac_46]

"Have you even seen the dead body of a murdered child abused and tortured by it's step father, and finally suffocated because it wouldn't quit crying? Have you looked that same smug, whiney, SOB in the eye who did it, and heard him lie his butt off to your face about how the baby "accidentally" died?"

Pretty much, yeah, I have. And I think the death penalty's wrong.

Perhaps you could follow this link:

http://www.hrw.org/press/2001/10/afghan1030.htm

...and explain about the times you looked a woman whose six kids had been killed in a U.S. bombing raid right the eye, and told her that a) well, it was just a regrettable mistake, or b) these things happen in wartime, or c) it all was necessary, before launching that argument again?

You've "pretty much" picked up a murdered child? lol. Let me guess, from the safety and comfort of your computer and TV, right? You never cease to amuse me, robertson.

So exactly which is it, are murdered children a bad thing (deserving of NEVER going to war) or are they a not so bad thing (giving a child murderer a reason for a second chance, considering murder isn't so bad). Just exactly what IS your argument, Robertson?

I know, anything the US government does is REALLY bad (such as a child that dies from a US bomb gone astray) but anything a criminal does INTENTIONALLY and for SELF-GRATIFICATION or SEXUAL-GRATIFICATION, isn't so bad, because, hey, mistakes happen?

For rationality sake, you might want to discuss the role INTENT plays in murder. Are you saying, robertson, that if you are driving your car down a roadway, and you're going just a little too fast, and a child runs out in to the roadway and you kill the child, it's EXACTLY the same, morally, as a man who kidnaps a child, then tortures the child, then slowly strangles the child. Is that what you are trying to say with your idiotic analogies? Go ahead, i'd love to hear THIS rationalization.

 

[rmcrobertson]

My argument, as I suspect you know perfectly well, is that a) experience doesn't dictate political beliefs, despite the fantasy that if them libs just got out more, they'd all agree with Sean Hannity, b) if one is going to argue that one's beliefs can only legitimately come from direct experience of atrocity, perhaps one should get up close and personal with the full horrors of war before cheering them on.

By the way, I went back and edited the last bit. Thought it was over the top--but I see that not everyone has such compunctions.

Incidentally, after ten years of hospital work, and over a year in a Children's Hospital mostly working in ICUs, I pretty much avoid connecting, "lol," and what sick bastards do, all too often, to children. And I wrote nothing about picking anybody up. Or driving. Or our government. Those are your fantasies, not mine....as is the notion that guys like me, or, "upnorthkyosa," are your enemies.

 

[sgtmac_46]

My argument, as I suspect you know perfectly well, is that a) experience doesn't dictate political beliefs, despite the fantasy that if them libs just got out more, they'd all agree with Sean Hannity, b) if one is going to argue that one's beliefs can only legitimately come from direct experience of atrocity, perhaps one should get up close and personal with the full horrors of war before cheering them on.

By the way, I went back and edited the last bit. Thought it was over the top--but I see that not everyone has such compunctions.

Incidentally, after ten years of hospital work, and over a year in a Children's Hospital mostly working in ICUs, I avoid connecting, "lol," and what sick bastards do, all too often, to children. And I wrote nothing about picking anybody up.

Understanding dictates belief. Sitting in your living room your entire life, does not give you the insight to make a decision. Inserting Sean Hannity in to the debate does nothing to advance your agenda.

Because it seems like that if the facts and evidence don't support your conclusions, you simply alter the argument. Stick to the topic. Does a man who tortures and murders a child deserve the death penalty. The question wasn't "Do you think US foreign policy is wrong". There is another thread for that question. The two are not mutually answerable. You can be FOR US foreign policy, and agains the death penalty, and vice versa. So answering one, doesn't answer the other. Debate one thing at a time.

Answer the car versus child analogy with an actual honest answer.

 

[rmcrobertson]

It's also your fantasy that I've spent my life sitting in my living room--would that that were true!

And as for your demand that I respond to your rather peculiar analogy, you are quite right to suspect that I wrote the, "Communist Manifesto," killed God, and changed the Pledge of Allegiance to legitimate gay marriage.

 

[sgtmac_46]

It's also your fantasy that I've spent my life sitting in my living room--would that that were true!

And as for your demand that I respond to your rather peculiar analogy, you are quite right to suspect that I wrote the, "Communist Manifesto," killed God, and changed the Pledge of Allegiance to legitimate gay marriage.

You always backpedal so poorly when cornered. Try to stay on task. I'll even repeat the question. Is a person who commits a traffic violation, and kills a child, morally equal to a man who kidnaps, tortures and murders a child? I'll await your (non) reply.

 

[Makalakumu]

I don't just TRY to do what's right, I DO what's right. You act as if you are the only one with any courage of conviction. My convictions are just different and i'm willing to back them with actions. You keep backpedaling, now you've finally admitted that "the end's don't ALWAYS justify the means". Well, no kidding, but that statement leaves open the fact that they SOMETIMES justify them.

It's like the statement that violence isn't always the answer. Yes, that's true, and thank goodness. But when it IS the answer, it's the only answer.

Lets examine your line of logic. By your logic, your grandfather was a murderer and a war criminal. He didn't fight off an enemy that was attacking him, he proactively attacked an enemy that he believed was a threat to his country in the future. He went to them. That's not self-defense, according to you. It's murder. I don't see it that way, however, I honor your grandfather for what he did. Do you have any idea how many German and Japanese children we "murdered" in WWII? Do you think your grandfather was a war criminal?

"Every person you kill, you get to live with for the rest of your life."

That pretty much sums up what my grandfather thinks and I agree. Do I think that my grandfather thinks of himself as a murderer? I don't know, but I'm sure the priest does.

I disagree that WWII vets weren't thinking about "self defense" in the terms of their country and their families, the Nazis and the Japanese were portrayed and believed to be a threat...but that is another thread.

Basically, can only strive to do their best. This isn't backpeddling, its a reverence for an ideal and an honest attempt at reaching it. I believe the murder is wrong, yet, if I had to defend my family, I could only hope that God would forgive me. For me, it is the last resort and the practical limit of my ideology. What else could a father do?

I would be a "murderer" for my family and go straight to hell to defend them.

Thankfully, I haven't been tested like this and I believe that this is a direct results of my efforts to keep the peace in my community and bring people together. This reduces the overall violence in my city...and I work with some of the most violent.

As far as the death penalty is concerned though, there is nothing of this extremity involved. There is no immediate emergency that demands action. It is a cold blooded act of murder and it leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

upnorthkyosa

ps - when you say I DO what's RIGHT you imply many things. I would like to know what you think is right?

 

[rmcrobertson]

Well, skipping blithely past the personal attacks that seem so essential to what passes for "intellectual," argument by conservatives these days (who knew I'd ever miss Goldwater!), you simply haven't provided sufficient information and detail to make any moral judgment meaningful.

I also see that you haven't answered any of the questions I posed, which were rather more specifically described.

Did I mention that I personally built the Gulags?

 

[Makalakumu]

The problem I have with the death penalty is that nothing is really forcing your hand to take another's life. There are no circumstance that are beyond one's control. There is no emergency. One is simply selling out their values for the sake of revenge...cold blooded as it may be (and I do not believe for one minute the line that "one is not deserving of life" that just gives me shivers).

The rationalizations I've seen thus far have been barely vieled attempts to shunt aside the difficulties of morality.

It takes a lot of strength to lock a guy like this up for life knowing that those beautiful children are dead. Just as it takes a lot of strength to speak out when other children are killed by the state in the face of criticism, hatred, and violence.

 

[sgtmac_46]

"Every person you kill, you get to live with for the rest of your life."

That pretty much sums up what my grandfather thinks and I agree. Do I think that my grandfather thinks of himself as a murderer? I don't know, but I'm sure the priest does. Nobody ever claimed otherwise. Every man you kill, you have to live with. But that doesn't always make it wrong.

I disagree that WWII vets weren't thinking about "self defense" in the terms of their country and their families, the Nazis and the Japanese were portrayed and believed to be a threat...but that is another thread.

Of course they were thinking about self-defense. Just as I think about defending my child when i'm glad to hear some violent criminal is put to death. That's what the Nazis were, violent criminals who needed to be wiped from the planet, and thanks to your grandfather and his generation, they were.

Basically, can only strive to do their best. This isn't backpeddling, its a reverence for an ideal and an honest attempt at reaching it. I believe the murder is wrong, yet, if I had to defend my family, I could only hope that God would forgive me. For me, it is the last resort and the practical limit of my ideology. What else could a father do?

I would be a "murderer" for my family and go straight to hell to defend them.

Thankfully, I haven't been tested like this and I believe that this is a direct results of my efforts to keep the peace in my community and bring people together. This reduces the overall violence in my city...and I work with some of the most violent.

Nothing wrong with working to reduce violence, I salute your efforts. However, not all violence is a misunderstanding, some violence is predatorial. That's what most idealists refuse to ever understand. Some men operate as predators, and they don't care about conflict resolution, they merely seek to rip what they want from the weak. Those are the men I concern myself with. Your idealogy does not allow you to deal with men like that BECAUSE you are a fundamentally decent person, you don't understand their mentality. I salute YOU for being a good and decent person. Please understand, however, that predators will use that very decency against you. Those men DON'T respect you, they only understand FEAR.

As far as the death penalty is concerned though, there is nothing of this extremity involved. There is no immediate emergency that demands action. It is a cold blooded act of murder and it leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

upnorthkyosa

It leaves a bad taste in your mouth because you are a fundamentally good, and decent person. If this world were fully civilized, it would be filled with men like you. Because it is NOT yet fully civilized, but at most half-civilized (if we're lucky), then it needs men like me. I'm not your enemy. I am the enemy of predators who seek to prey on good and decent people. I've dedicated my life to rooting out those who prey on the weak and helpless.

You see, upnorth, it is not our goals that are different from one another, but the understanding on my part that this world is not yet civilized enough to accept your ideology. There is still much work to be done before that can happen.

ps - when you say I DO what's RIGHT you imply many things. I would like to know what you think is right?

What I think is right, is that children be able to play without fear, that they should be educated, that they should grow up in a world without anger and hate. What I think is right as that people should live a decent and just life, free from tyranny and repression. That's what I think is right. I'm a little more cynical about the work necessary to bring that about, however.

 

[rmcrobertson]

Oh wow, there are actually bad people in the world. And sometimes violence seems necessary, unfortunately.

'Tis meet I write this down.

Did I mention that I was actually Son of Sam's dog?

 

[Makalakumu]

Of course they were thinking about self-defense. Just as I think about defending my child when i'm glad to hear some violent criminal is put to death. That's what the Nazis were, violent criminals who needed to be wiped from the planet, and thanks to your grandfather and his generation, they were.

Nothing wrong with working to reduce violence, I salute your efforts. However, not all violence is a misunderstanding, some violence is predatorial. That's what most idealists refuse to ever understand. Some men operate as predators, and they don't care about conflict resolution, they merely seek to rip what they want from the weak. Those are the men I concern myself with. Your idealogy does not allow you to deal with men like that BECAUSE you are a fundamentally decent person, you don't understand their mentality. I salute YOU for being a good and decent person. Please understand, however, that predators will use that very decency against you. Those men DON'T respect you, they only understand FEAR.


It leaves a bad taste in your mouth because you are a fundamentally good, and decent person. If this world were fully civilized, it would be filled with men like you. Because it is NOT yet fully civilized, but at most half-civilized (if we're lucky), then it needs men like me. I'm not your enemy. I am the enemy of predators who seek to prey on good and decent people. I've dedicated my life to rooting out those who prey on the weak and helpless.

You see, upnorth, it is not our goals that are different from one another, but the understanding on my part that this world is not yet civilized enough to accept your ideology. There is still much work to be done before that can happen.


What I think is right, is that children be able to play without fear, that they should be educated, that they should grow up in a world without anger and hate. What I think is right as that people should live a decent and just life, free from tyranny and repression. That's what I think is right. I'm a little more cynical about the work necessary to bring that about, however.

Nice, well thought out, post. I'll leave you to spar with Robert, I've got to put my kids to bed.

 

[arnisador]

Does a man who tortures and murders a child deserve the death penalty.

Yes. I have no ethical issue with this at all.

But that doesn't mean we should necessarily do it. First, we'd have to be 100% sure he did it, and knew what he was doing--easy in a hypothetical situation, harder in real life.

Second, we can rise above vengeance, however justified it may be. Can't we be better than killing killers? Look how many nations have rejected the notion of institutionalized murder. Sure, it's justified--but do we really want to codify appropriate situations for murdering U.S. citizens?

I can't support it because of the large number of mistakes that have been made. When everyone facing Death Row gets a Johnny Cochrane style defense, ask me again.

 

[MA-Caver]

Sometime this week in Idaho a man found his wife, brother and friend murdered in his home. His two small children are missing. It is hoped beyond hope that the children are still alive and will be long enough for the authorities to find them.
As to the why's of this particular crime it's not known. But already the perpetrator(s) have marked themselves for just cause of capital punishment.
Of course that's just my opinion isn't it?

There's lots of bad people out there and lots of them have a better chance of getting life in prison than capital punishment because of the fights to abolish it. Not a deterrent? Mebbe not, but it will ensure that these animals do not grace our planet again doesn't it?

Yahoo News article here
Pictures of these innocents here. Yeah it's manipulative I know but it might help show the point.

 

[Tgace]

Yes. I have no ethical issue with this at all.

But that doesn't mean we should necessarily do it. First, we'd have to be 100% sure he did it, and knew what he was doing--easy in a hypothetical situation, harder in real life.

Second, we can rise above vengeance, however justified it may be. Can't we be better than killing killers? Look how many nations have rejected the notion of institutionalized murder. Sure, it's justified--but do we really want to codify appropriate situations for murdering U.S. citizens?

I can't support it because of the large number of mistakes that have been made. When everyone facing Death Row gets a Johnny Cochrane style defense, ask me again.

There is some truth in that....however I believe that points out that changes in the system need to be made to make the system work better, not as a reason to abandon it.

http://archives.cnn.com/2000/LAW/06/11/death.penalty/

...

Bad lawyers are to blame, study finds

Leibman said incompetent counsel is to blame for many of the errors his study found in death-penalty cases.

"Thirty-seven percent of all the error that is being found in this system is because of lawyers that are so bad that you can actually prove that the outcome probably would have been different if you had had a better lawyer," he said.

It's because of the large number of errors made that appeals in death sentence cases can be stretched out, he said. Only 1 to 2 percent of death-row inmates are executed in any year, he said.

Leibman's study, "A Broken System: Error Rates in Capital Cases, 1973-1995," was based on research into court records of the three stages of review of capital cases before they reached executive level -- state direct appeal, state post-conviction and federal habeas corpus.

Beth Wilkinson, one of the prosecutors who tried Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols for the April 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, said the study would help provide a factual rather than an emotional basis for the debate on capital punishment.

"Only 5 percent of the death sentences were actually implemented, and I think that would be difficult to accept if you were a victim or believe in the system because there is supposed to be some finality," said Wilkinson, who favors the death penalty in limited circumstances.

"It tells me that we probably are putting too many people on trial for death sentences, cases that shouldn't have been death cases from the outset."

No wrongful executions found

Utah's Cassell argued that the use of the term "error rates" was counterintuitive.

"I think most Americans would be interested in the error rate in the sense of how many people are wrongfully convicted, and that can be derived from the study," Cassell said. "Based on that data, the death-penalty system is more than 99 percent accurate in that more than 99 percent of the time the system identifies the proper person. There is no claim that anyone has been wrongfully executed."

The Leibman study found that Virginia, the state with the second highest number of executions after Texas, had caught mistakes at a rate of 18 percent. While Leibman suggested "something there is not happening," death-penalty proponent Cassell argued "the judges there are doing their job and maybe we should move them to California, where liberal judges are going on their personal views."

The study found an overall error rate of 87 percent in California and 52 percent in Texas.

"Our 23 years worth of results reveal a system in which lives and public order are at stake, yet for decades has made more mistakes than we would tolerate in far less important activities," the report said.

No definitive cases have been shown of innocent people executed, but according to the Death Penalty Information Center public policy group, 87 people have been released from death row since 1973. Eight were cleared by DNA evidence, and the rest for a variety of reasons, from recanted testimony to evidence overlooked or withheld to inadequate legal representation.

A Gallup Poll in February revealed that 66 percent of Americans still support the death sentence for murder, although that's fewer than just six years ago, when support reached its peak at 80 percent. The U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976.

In other words, very few of these errors were "innocent man put on death row" type events. Most were cases of "while they did do the crime, they were not death penalty cases" events.

 

[arnisador]

In other words, very few of these errors were "innocent man put on death row" type events. Most were cases of "while they did do the crime, they were not death penalty cases" events.

Or, they did do the crime, but procedural or other errors were made in their defense, which is unfair.

But, there certainly are a number of cases of absolute mistakes as well. Perhaps the system can be repaired to an acceptable extent. For now, it's hard to support it as it stands.

 

[MA-Caver]

Yeah okay but who's going to do the repairs? Seems that is up to the judical committees and all the other law makers on capital hill... but they got better things to do don't they? Like fighting a war on Terror, balancing the budget, giving themselves raises, wondering who's party is going to rule the house and so forth.
If I remember correctly one of our historical documents starts out with "We The People..." hmm seems that's the answer right there.

 

[sgtmac_46]

Or, they did do the crime, but procedural or other errors were made in their defense, which is unfair.

But, there certainly are a number of cases of absolute mistakes as well. Perhaps the system can be repaired to an acceptable extent. For now, it's hard to support it as it stands.

Perhaps a system where the TRUTH is the ultimate goal, as opposed to the system we have where it's about who's lawyer is the best in front of a jury.

Truth? I can't believe I said that, I guess deep down inside I must be a bit of a romantic to even think that truth should be part of the equation.