I am pro-life etc. ...

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Most murderers arn't serial killers so your logic doesn't hold that like theft their will be multiple victims.

penalties have yielded highly mixed returns in the suppression of violent crime. Whether or not you believe this, you have just made yourself obligated to oppose death penalties in light of evidence that they tend to result in higher rates of violent crime. I will not argue with you about the statistics[/quote].

I would really like to see those statistics. But you kind of contradict yourself anyway. After all it's violent crime that people worry about the most not non-violent which could certainly be controlled in a wholly different matter than the prison industrial complex.





Isn't learned helplessness an oxymoron? Dependency is a form of manipulation not a form of helplessness and considering that humans have no idea to the extent of their survival threshholds until they are put in the situation of life or death I find that phrase rather empty and meaningless.


[Handy rationalization. Many who have commited acts of premeditated murder also formed rationalizations for their immoral actions.[/quote][/quote]

Maybe if one is either a male or is a female who has not at least reached their late 20s I could accept that statement of hypocrisy. Whether we like it or not women will continue to have abortions and will continue to have them whether it's legal or not. Lust does not come with reason and the more technology that is availible to a woman the more likely she will abort her child if her child has the potential of being born with a birth defect. I say don't judge until you are given the sentence that if you don't terminate your child; you will have a lifetime of guilt and pain. Women arn't matyrs and they should be able to decide whether or not they want to make the sacrifice of having to bring a child in this world. Lastly not every murderer killed an innocent victim. So this whole good vs. evil BS is just plain laughable.

When I use sciency terms, you should do a little bit of research. I am very sorry, but I am living under an intense delusion that intelligent discussion requires something more interesting than clever wordplay.

Why do you think that people commit the act of murder, Othila? Moral insanity? Anger? A desire to "feel tough"? Or is it a terribly irrational belief that, for one reason or another, they have no choice but to take another human being's life? Depression turns reason on its head, Othila.

Depression is sometimes based on reason though. A lot of times it is based on genetic defects causing improper neurochemistry etc, but not always.

Back to the issues.

Pro-life/pro-choice: I think pro-choice would be pro-life depending on WHO is choosing whether to end whose life. If the child were allowed to be born, grow to the point where they can speak and understand death/life and were offered the CHOICE to live or die, what choice would they pick? If they actually choose death, list them in the Darwin Awards. Most I think would not.

Death penalty: if someone intentionally and premeditatedly takes another's life I think they have forfeited their own. If it's an accident or self defense there should be no punishment.

I'm pro-life with the exception of life-threatening medical cases. I don't like war, but it has its place. I support the death penalty and why we have it. Life in prison without the possibility of parole is just a joke.

I do believe suicide is a sin. Unjust mMurder is a sin and it doesn't change the rules just because it's self-inflicted. I would forgive, but it's up to God to make the final decision.

Interesting thread.

Lets be specific here, If Arthur Shawcross had been executed for the first two premeditated murders (of children) that he committed, then he would not have been alive to start another series of murders after only serving 15 years of a 25 year sentence. Likewise, if Edmund Kemper had been executed for the premeditated murders of his Grandparents when he was 15 years old, then he would not have been alive to commit 8 more murders when he was in his early 20s. John Douglas of the FBI Behavioral Sciences Unit stated , in his book Mindhunter, that the best predictor for future behavior is past behavior. Criminals have very often shown themselves to be quite persistent in engaging in criminal behavior. Thats why the term recidivism was coined. As for your friend changing for the better, I know that this can happen, I know two Union Brothers that I have worked with a lot that have been in Prison, that I have had no problems with and don't anticipate any. I don't believe that it is reasonable to count on it happening especially with confirmed Psychopaths. The cost of trusting known violent offenders not to do more of the same can be very high.

Of course. Statistical outlyers are in plentiful supply.

Keeping him in prison would have been just as effective.

You're misapplying John Douglas's theory. It is designed to predict the behavior of individuals, not the effect of death penalties upon instances of premeditated murder.

This wasn't the point of my argument at all. I was trying to point out the idea that not having the death penalty as an option could improve the effectiveness of the penal system.

I have not once advocated doing so. It was you who brought this up.

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/straw-man.html

Take your BS elsewhere, Velodog.

Yet, when justice rules the Earth, wolves will live among lambs, and there will be no harm. Hmm.

Griff, the whole point of my bringing up Arthur Shawcross is that he was not kept in Prison as you suggest should have happened. He was released by sob sisters to do more of the same. You made the argument that the death penalty has mixed results. I responded with two specific cases , in which over a dozen additional murders were committed because the perpetrators were alive and free to do so. What is your evidence for the death penalty causing more violent crime? What is it then that lowers crime? Perhaps a stern rebuke and a slap on the wrist? A hug and a good cry? The fact that most convicts will not go up to the local yard boss of the Crips or Aryan Brotherhood and spit in that persons face indicates to me that swift, sure, violent punishment does, in fact, have a deterrent effect on the behavior of habitual criminals. Your friend apparently told you the same. I'll take my postings elsewhere when you own this board Griff. Until then feel free to ignore me.

No. You brought him up specifically because he commited crimes against children, hoping to get your way by emotional appeal.

You responded with a red herring.

I have not made a strong claim. I was pointing out to Zendell that, if his position on the subject really is based upon the prevention of murder, then he would be under moral obligation to oppose the death penalty if it proved itself counter-productive. The information available to me does not suggest that it is effective, but that is not the point that I am arguing here per se. I'm just trying to get Zendell to stick by what he says, rather than backing down from it when it happens to interfere with him being a diehard partisan.

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/straw-man.html

Death penalties are neither, in practice. You're still skirting my point, though, because you do not want to admit that my point is a logical one.

What he told me was, very simply, "You gotta do what you gotta do. I didn't think I had much choice at the time. I know better now, but, at the time, it was about survival. I didn't realize how easy it was to just walk away."

In the case of Shawcross had he been executed for the first two murders that he committed, then he would not have been alive to kill 11 other people.

In the case of Kemper, had he been executed for the murder of his Grandparents, then he would not have been alive to kill 8 other people.

Detention and regular visits with a prison psychiatrist would have been effective. Again, though, deranged serial killers are outlyers.

It remains, the death penalty might or might not be the strongest approach to dealing with murder convicts. I will not take a strong stance on it, but I will remain firm on the point that prevention is our goal.

The most common cause for murder is a sense of helplessness. It sounds strange, doesn't it? When people talk about murder, they hardly ever seriously ask, except out of morbid curiosity, why a person would commit murder. Murder is often a way for the offender to gain a feeling of control in an environment in which he or she feels otherwise helpless. Although the offender may not think of him or herself as being helpless (we're not talking about highly educated philosophers, here, after all), what we're dealing with, in most cases, is a person who feels, for some stupid reason (or sometimes a very good reason. Who knows?), that control over his or her own life can only be bought at the expense of another person's life.

The question, here, is not just how best to persuade these specific individuals not to try this perceived solution. We have to take into account the broader repercussions of anything that we do about the problem, which cannot always be known. We aren't going to learn about these factors in a philosophical debate. As valuable as these discussions are, they're not going to teach everything there is to know about life.

The only thing that is going to affect my stance on the death penalty is what I perceive to be the most effective method of keeping people from killing other people. If you do not take the same stance, Velodog, I have trouble thinking of you as a moral or ethical person. If you do, then you are within your rights to have your own ideas as to how to go about it. Your personal experiences with people are very different from mine, and your observations may have given you very good reasons for seeing your solution as the strongest.

However, I personally believe that your primary motive is a hatred for people who have commited murder. It is evident in how you discuss the issue. I believe that you are angry at them and that you want to kill them. I think that you are perfectly willing to see murder rates quadruple as long as you can satisfy your desire to see another person die. I bet you shoot your load every time you hear of an execution being carried out in your state. You don't give a hoo-hah about prevention. You're willing to jeopardize my life and to put my family in danger to satisfy your bestial, primitive revenge lust. If a person takes that kind of attitude toward my safety and my family's safety, my first and strongest instinct is to break every single bone in his body. You got that?

Whether or not I would favor the death penalty depends entirely upon whether it proves, under scrutiny, to be instrumental in promoting the safety of myself, my family, my neighborhood, and my nation. That is final. That is what I am going to stand by. The political candidate that I vote for would depend not upon whether or not he or she supports the death penalty but upon whether or not I believe that he or she has the wisdom and tenacity to do what is necessary to insure the well being of myself, my family, my friends, my community, and my countrymen.

No more red herrings, velodog. Shoot straight, or hit the road.

I have a big problem with the death penalty on various levels. The biggest criminals always go free...someone that kills one person will at the very least go to jail for a very long time, while if you're the architect of a foreign policy that results in millions of deaths you'll be invited to speak at universities.

You are a punk piece of s**t. Shawcross did have visits with shrinks.

Last edited by velodog on 31 Mar 2008, 1:53 am, edited 1 time in total.

yeah that is considering how many innocent people could essentially be killed by the death penalty. i mean unless you can know for absolute sure, that a pretty heavy penalty to make someone pay with even the slightest inkling of innocence. i mean just look at mumia abu-jamal. black panther member who was convicted of killing a cop with almost no evidence and has been fighting for his life ever since. it's a clear example of using the death penalty and prison as a means of political suppression. which has been at least somewhat admitted that the government did harass these people and has employed the cointelpro to smear their public image.




yes they can by removing their personal religious beliefs from the matter. just because it's something you believe personally does not necessarily mean that it is a crime or hurts society. just look at the various obscenity cases against lenny bruce. it's all legislating taste and not looking at the big picture that ended up getting him in trouble and that legislation was from direct influence of people's religious beliefs being put up first.

i think everyone has a right to practice what they want and believe what they want but they have no right to enforce their religious views on others. even if 2 or 3 religions agree on something. like, for example, how christians, theistic jews, and muslims all pretty universally agree on premarital sex being wrong and many many sexual acts and ideas being wrong but most of those have little to no impact on society as a whole.


the problem is that many religious leaders and talking heads that claim to represent religious factions all want to legislate their beliefs and morals...which is something that you're not supposed to do. i mean just because you think marilyn manson is evil and vile doesn't mean that everyone will or that everyone should be banned from listening to his music. you can not listen to it and encourage others and state your opinions on why his views are wrong but little more than that.

Death penalty makes criminals commit more violent crimes? Think about that for a minute and get back to me. Try to put logic before ideology.

I consider the unneccessary execution of criminals to be a violent crime. For those that can't ever be reformed there's always Supermax prisons where you can neither harm nor be harmed.

If the death penalty prevented violent crime the US and China would have the lowest violent crime rate in the world and we don't.