Re: The Death Penalty
This is a fairly ambiguous statement, but virtually every interpretation still strikes me as wrong.
If you're saying: I don't have the right to interfere with a killers actions, that's a somewhat shocking statement.
If you're saying: I don't have the right to prevent the government from killing someone I don't like, that seems to contradict an earlier statement.
Why don't you just clarify what you mean?
It sure is. A horrible, indefensible, inexcusable human trait.
Your first justification is literature, your second the first legal code ever enacted which happens to be millenniums old.... ... right.
You don't. People may give lip service to a perspective that contradicts yours, but by and large they don't think or act that way.
You feel that two wrongs make a right. No offense, please try to understand the context in which I mean this, I doubt you think much on the subject at all.
Great. So, being religious like we apparently are, Adam and Eve are to blame, and perhaps Cain as well. That's great news.
No, to mimic the senseless and hypocritical educators of this country "I don't care who started it, if you continue it you're just as bad as anyone else". Except I don't go on to prove my lack of character by forcibly restraining you and putting you in confinement.
Not that that's necessarily a bad thing. Sticks and stones...
Assuming the first part is true, I would still hold that the minimum effective punishment should be employed. However, I don't consider the first part to be true. The only justification, period, for aggression against another human being is self-defense. Punishment should thus be pragmatic based on its effect in preventing and minimizing further damage.
What constitutes "good reason"? For that matter, what constitutes "initially"?
Ironically this is also fairly common, although at least the specifics of your dogmatism vary from others. I have to give you that.
The same "degree" of legitimacy? How quickly you betray your black and white perspective. Well this is where mine comes in then. There either is legitimacy or there isn't legitimacy in terms of things such as murder. Self defense isn't so much the "ultimate" legitimate excuse for killing another as it is the only legitimate excuse for killing another.
Right. You can't outlaw feelings. There's also no guarantee that a human being will act on their feelings in an immoral way, meaning preemptive restriction is a violation of liberty. I just want people to have enough self-awareness to prevent their feelings from getting the better of them.
Perhaps, but killing people isn't justified merely because they're "lower".
In terms of rights we generally assume that they are. When rights aren't universal, they become privileges. How would suggest determine who has the "privilege" to life? Doesn't this question itself strike you as repugnant?
Isn't that up to the voters?
I think he placed himself below them as a politician, but not as a human being. At least not in terms of rights. Similarly a murderer places themselves below others in terms of morality, but they're still human. There is necessity in treating the murderer differently to prevent further crime , but I don't think the maximum possible punishment, death, should really be called for.
A threat to other humans, but no less human.
There's a number of senses in which this is both right and wrong. They may not have constituted a threat in terms of individual potential to harm, but remember that both of those individuals were most threatening by how they influenced others. Keeping them alive at all permits them the opportunity to do this. This isn't unfounded paranoia either, when the US finally conquered Japan at the end of WWII, we were faced with the option of hanging a number of similar figures, which we ultimately didn't do because we wanted a strong Asian ally to offer strategic military benefits to our country. Now, many conservative Japanese politicians point to the lack of executions as evidence that no war crimes were committed by the Japanese people.
The other issue is that while generally I would disagree that they waive their humanity as a result of their crimes, I think there is a potential argument that as a person entrusted with power over a populace by the populace, by failing this contract they have deprived themselves of something or other, although I'm having difficulty weighing specific considerations at the moment.
I'm not sure what difference the procedures make, except for making something which is already horrible into something both mechanical and cultural custom.
I'm highly skeptical over whether a superior implementation could be achieved.
You haven't sounded cold-hearted, you've just sounded unduly passionate.
They won't be fed "forever" either way, you realize. Oh, and if spending money on food is wrong because of what it accomplishes, keeping a murderer alive, isn't spending money on appeals wrong as well because it accomplishes the same thing? But this can't be right, because now we've ruled out the ability of a person to defend themselves, opened up the likelihood of ever more innocent deaths, and all because we were so hasty in our emotions we threw the baby out with the bathwater.
You know what the best guarantee is that an innocent person might be exonerated? If they're alive. If you're willing to spend money to give a person the opportunity to prove their innocence, there's no reason paying to keep them in prison for life and to feed them contradicts this.
There's no way to solve the appeals problem without turning the death penalty into something with no redeeming merit at all.
I don't think there are impartial juries. I also don't think a killers motive is ever legitimate unless it's self-defense.
Innocent people are on death row. I guarantee it. If you have no response to this, perhaps you should consider adopting an alternate stance.
Such a method doesn't exist.
This is a fairly ambiguous statement, but virtually every interpretation still strikes me as wrong.
If you're saying: I don't have the right to interfere with a killers actions, that's a somewhat shocking statement.
If you're saying: I don't have the right to prevent the government from killing someone I don't like, that seems to contradict an earlier statement.
Why don't you just clarify what you mean?
Well, frankly, I dont see why I can't punish the killer by the same rule he breaks. That itself is a human trait.
In Dante's inferno, people are punished ironically as a result of whatever sin they commit. Hammurabi says "eye for an eye".
Like I said, I operate differently than others.
I think two wrongs make a right.
The source of human ill is those who initially choose to break the rules, not those who respond.
No, to mimic the senseless and hypocritical educators of this country "I don't care who started it, if you continue it you're just as bad as anyone else". Except I don't go on to prove my lack of character by forcibly restraining you and putting you in confinement.
Well we've already had run-ins in the past, me and you, so I think we'll come to be very much judgemental of each other here on CT 
Well in my eyes, as soon as someone murders another, that person forfeits his/her right not to be punished in turn. Whether the victim's family chooses to use that to seek revenge or chooses instead to forgive is up to them.
The problem with this debate is that I define society's ills not in the desire of humans to kill and then for revenge to be sought after, but for anyone to believe they have the right to kill initially with no good reason.
No I don't mean in terms of just the death penalty. I'm one of those people who sees things more in black and white than in grey. I think sometimes there is no compromise and that sometimes there can be only two sides or two options.
Well of course it doesn't have the same degree of legitimacy, but that's because self-defense is the ultimate legitimate excuse for killing another.
Plenty more feelings other than revenge can lead to rage. But I don't see the anger that results from adultery being outlawed, or adultery itself outlawed.
We're going to reach a loop again here. In my view, a killer places him/herself lower than those hurt by his/her actions through killing.
Not everyone in the world is equal.
A politician convicted for scandal should not be entrusted to hold his position and should not be treated with sympathy.
That person is a criminal. That person placed himself below, as a human being, everyone else who is qualified to be an effective politician who wouldn't engage in corruption.
A dictator who murders his own people is below other humans.
By your logic, people like Adolf Eichmann or Mussolini shouldn't have been hanged because they were no longer a threat. Now I can actually see the argument behind that, but I just don't agree. By doing what they've done those people are officially lower, in every sense of the word, than those they have harmed. They have subjected themselves to the will of those they have harmed.
The other issue is that while generally I would disagree that they waive their humanity as a result of their crimes, I think there is a potential argument that as a person entrusted with power over a populace by the populace, by failing this contract they have deprived themselves of something or other, although I'm having difficulty weighing specific considerations at the moment.
Well of course there shouldn't be some honor revenge killing on the spot. Procedures have to be followed.
Ok yeah you're right. But that's a problem with the American implementation of the death penalty more than with the Dp itself.
As cold-hearted as I've been sounding this whole thread, even I believe the most brutal of killers should be given food, hell in fact, the best food there is, if they are going to be executed shortly.
I think we're getting way too deep into this eating thing...my only point is that without the DP a murderer will be proven guilty and convicted and will be given sustenance by taxpayers, and with the DP a murderer will be proven guilty and convicted (at some point- and that seems to be the problem here, since at what point ends up a huge mess because of the appeals system), and won't be fed forever by taxpayers.
You know what the best guarantee is that an innocent person might be exonerated? If they're alive. If you're willing to spend money to give a person the opportunity to prove their innocence, there's no reason paying to keep them in prison for life and to feed them contradicts this.
Well the emphasis here is the "likely until the same age" and that once again goes into the whole appeals problem.
I think it's fair for an impartial jury to make the decision of whether the killer's motives were legitimate enough not to be killed or whether they were twisted enough for him/her to deserve death.
The very fact that innocent people could be on death row is terrifying. Imo, that's the greatest argument against the DP and one I have trouble responding to.
Yes I've acknowledged a thousand times the seriousness of the appeals problem and the necessity of a more effective- but no more harsh- method of finalizing conviction.
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