Capital Punishment?

Post Reply New Topic

This is not directed to me, but I have answers to these questions. (My own answers, of course)

The better question isn't what is possible with rehabilitation; it’s whether we should rehabilitate at all. Certain crimes cannot be taken back, once you cross a certain line, you should not be allowed back, and certainly shouldn't be coddled by society. Some actions are too heinous to allow rehabilitation.


Many crimes, most even, should have rehabilitation and prison time. Lock them up, fix em, let em go when they're safe and productive. But locking someone in a cage, stripping them of freedom, is cruel, it is torture. Death is a better option.


No. Life sentences are not for people. They are for monsters, and they should be put down, not locked up.

Committing an act that strips a person(s) of their humanity.


It can be taken. If it is, the perpetrator should be executed.

You destroy another human being; you give up your right to your own life. Take a life, and yours is void.

I don't agree with giving the state the power over life and death, as they've historically had a tendency of extending capital punishment beyond violent criminals to non-violent political dissidents and advesaries.

since finding religion can look good to others i would hestitate to call anyone in that kind of pressure a true believer,

i never use capitals.
i do not think that people who use capitals should be punished however.

doyyyy

off to bed i go
high ho
high ho
high ho.
how many 'ho's" are high
is something i will never know.

Ah! You noticed.

Any rightful power the government has will soon be put to non rightful ends. It is the nature of government to grow worse with the passing of time.

ruveyn

I believe that anyone that commits an inhumane crime has some sort of mental illness.
There has been some instances when a schizophrenic person has heard voices which caused them to commit a crime.
There are more people that aren't considered mentally ill that commit a murder then mentally ill. How do we know that they don't have a mental illness? I believe that most humans are good and something must be mentally wrong if the commit a cold-blooded murder.

I have nothing against the mentally ill and to say so is ignorant.
I don't even know how I come off as prejudice!

Nothing that comes to mind.

It is a dream because not everyone will be rehabilitated. It will not happen. Some will, some won't. That is why it is naive

Politicians are a necessary evil. Keeping some criminals alive, not so much. You may believe that life is worth more than money, but reality says you're wrong. Lives can be bought and paid for. A human life is worth next to nothing, no matter what you believe. Reality is what is real, and it does not line up with what you believe.

Torture? A quick death is hardly torture. What about the torture the criminal inflicted on the victims of his crimes? Justice for the victim, not the criminal.

That depends on whether or not they can learn to function in society. If they will always be dangerous, then yes they should be killed. It's much the same as removing a cancerous tumour from a body, you kill the malignant cells so that the body may survive. However, if they are no danger to people, there is no reason to kill them.

League Girl, I know what you're talking about, but Texas hardly abides by that.

NarcissusSavage, I appreciate your input but I may have failed to ask the right questions... I'm not looking for a blanket statement like "some crimes can't be undone" to explain the beliefs, I'm looking to understand what specifically makes (not just you or posters here, but many people) people certain of the belief that one can distinguish one type of killing from another in terms of morality.

And I assume the belief holds that the execution of criminals is not something one would feel remorse for, how human life can be either deserving of protection, or the absolute opposite, deserving of elimination.

I'm trying to get a clear understanding of that.

What my brother did profoundly impacted my perception of what taking human lives means... He brutally slaughtered three of the most important people in my life. Lehya and Andre weren't my children, but I was heavily involved in their care, and I don't know how parents survive losing their children. Eight years have passed and I am pretty functional most of the time but I have come to accept that I may never stop feeling like he cut my heart out too.

I wanted a clarification of what humanity was meant to convey because the only definition I can think of that fits into the context it's being used is the shared psychological traits of humans, fear, aggression, empathy, compassion.

I don't think Andre has any humanity. He cut their hearts out and calmly placed them in his pockets to deliver to the trash can at his place, then went to the police or maybe the sherriff's office I don't remember... and I don't think it's a matter of public record that he wasn't confessing, he was doing his duty as a man of "god" to report to the proper authorities that he had slayed some demons. He had no humanity. He was so far gone, I don't know what makes a person turn into that.

I'm trying to understand how anyone could be certain that ending a human life is the correct thing to do, or do that without remorse for the survivors of the executed person... unless they lacked humanity too.

And I don't think anyone posting in favor of the death penalty lacks basic humanity,(or specifically, I think that's highly improbable) which is why I'm asking what it takes for someone to reach the conclusion that people should be killed. I want to understand it from a better perspective, it all looks like the same thing to me on a moral level, when people can advocate executing anyone.

I can understand when people say that people like Andre should be killed, I can actually see compassion in that notion.

But I'm having a hard time understanding what lies behind the assertion that people who kill should be killed etc.

This strikes me as incredibly cynical. We have a penal system - a philosophy underlying the penal system, even - which criminalizes an expanding swath of society for victimless infractions, and the lower rungs on the economic ladder get dragged into the social decay that mars every inner city in the country. The biggest component of this philosophy is the cheapening of that which is common; namely, life. Work is cheap. The environment is cheap. Animals are cheap. Human beings are cheap. Everything is cheap except for those large corporations which feed off the decay. They're quite valuable and their stock prices prove their worth.

And capital punishment is a bandaid to cover the problems caused by the same philosophy which formulated the solution. You can talk all you want about the cheapness of human life, but its valuation must be measured in like kind - dollars and cents are paper and a nearly devalued base metal medium. At worst, dollars and cents are just bits on a screen - hardly worth anything in reality. They're only worth something in the imaginings of a huge amount of human beings. Imagination isn't reality, though. I have no interest in paper and zinc. I'm only interested in living my life, and that medium of trade - worthless, as it is in reality - is the absurdity of living in modern times.

I concur with the first paragraph for the most part.

As far as the second paragraph goes, not so much. Money is worth something because of imagination, yes, but it hold real value. I can go to the store, and with those dollars and cents procure whatever that store is selling (assuming I have enough of them). Life can be bought in much the same way, hence I say it is cheap. I can buy a life by hiring a hitman, or simply take one by killing someone (at low or no monetary cost, cheap).

Did you know that if you melt a pre-1983 penny, it's worth 2.5 pennies in terms of its constituent metal composition? A post-1983 penny in total value, melted, is worth $0.0055. The value is entirely subjective - imaginary, and the basis of a consensual delusion.

On the other hand, a bullet, I'm sure, is worth more than the sum of its component parts, provided a gun to fire it. This is the only reason our currency has any value - real or imaginary.

Correct. A bullet is quite cheap to make, the added value is there both because of the time spent to create, ship, and store the bullet and also a mark up that is there just because we will pay it.

It can also be used to enforce the arbitrary order imposed on human beings by other human beings who enjoy the advantages of a currency they control and may devalue at will. The cancer in society is this maladaptive and improper view of value in terms of material commodities that are, in reality, nearing the worthless end of the spectrum. Human life has value - but that value is not weighed in dollars and cents.

I think it would be interesting to see if there is a significant difference in empathy between pro and anti death penalty people.

Yeah, I feel like the death penalty is mostly about making the average person feel better about themselves. It's no different than when you were a kid and enjoyed seeing your siblings get punished when they made a mistake, it's just on a much larger scale.