Do You Support Capital Punishment?

mzungu said:

If your country could afford to pay 1 billion dollars per day on the Iraq and Afghanistan invasions then it certainly can afford to better the penal system! Ignorance and laziness are no excuse!

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I take offense to the accusation of ignorance and laziness. It is an emotional attack, not factually based.
The remainder of your comment is somewhat off topic and should be discussed elsewhere.

mzungu said:

How so? It has never brought back the murdered victim and it certainly has not lessened such crimes! Don't believe me? Look up Amnesty International.

Any country that applies the death penalty is uncivilised!

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The citizens of Greece riot in the streets against the government budget decisions to avoid bankruptcy. Lives have been lost in the riots, do you disagree? It is documented on the BBC.
BBC News - Three dead as Greece protest turns violent

My point is not to criticize, but to enlighten there is a cost associated with socialism. Nobody wants less for themselves, and we still want to provide for the welfare of others. One facet of welfare is the security of our society. Those in violation of that security for whatever crime require incarceration. The cost of that incarceration is similar per criminal to the income of one family per year. It is not cheap.

It costs more money to incarcerate a murder, rapist and pedophile. Statistics show there is little chance for rehabilitation of sex offenders and serial murderers. They have a bigger reason to escape, they are a larger threat to society. So how much are you willing to pay for the life-long incarceration of these criminals? So, when your government has no money (which is actually the people's money), and when you have to choose between feeding yourself and family or paying for the incarceration of a serial rapist, what will you choose.

That is the reality.

Notedstrangeperson said:

Are we always able to tell which criminals can be reformed and which can't? It's hard to get good data on the subject, as many murderers who are released are given new identities - making it hard to tell how many serious criminals can be rehabilitated.

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it will always be best to defult to the safe side, the worst that can happen is a few innocents get lost in the shuffle. There are worse outcomes if we are too lax and/or lenient.

A stupid solution is no solution at all - which goes back to one of my original questions: is capital punishment an effective deterrent? To be honest, I'm not sure. The results (from various countries) seemed mixed.

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It's not meant to be a deterrent, whether it is would just be a chocolate coating on the emergency ration.

Do either of us have any evidence that countries which eliminated the death penalty experienced a sudden rise in crime, especially murder? I'll see if I can dig anything up.

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You do that.

needinganame said:

N0, the "human beings" lose their humanity in their violations of others in violent crime.

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Humanity is not some pin that can be won or lost! It is an intrinsic part of who we are, denying our darksides does nothing more than impower them.

We must all be fully aware that there is very little difference between the best of us and the worst of us. There is darkness in all of us, but so too is there light.

Notedstrangeperson said:

This is one of my main arguments againts the death penalty: no punishment must ever be irreversible.

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Imprisonment is no more reversible than is execution.

needinganame said:

The citizens of Greece riot in the streets against the government budget decisions to avoid bankruptcy. Lives have been lost in the riots, do you disagree? It is documented on the BBC.
BBC News - Three dead as Greece protest turns violent

My point is not to criticize, but to enlighten there is a cost associated with socialism. Nobody wants less for themselves, and we still want to provide for the welfare of others. One facet of welfare is the security of our society. Those in violation of that security for whatever crime require incarceration. The cost of that incarceration is similar per criminal to the income of one family per year. It is not cheap.

It costs more money to incarcerate a murder, rapist and pedophile. Statistics show there is little chance for rehabilitation of sex offenders and serial murderers. They have a bigger reason to escape, they are a larger threat to society. So how much are you willing to pay for the life-long incarceration of these criminals? So, when your government has no money (which is actually the people's money), and when you have to choose between feeding yourself and family or paying for the incarceration of a serial rapist, what will you choose.

That is the reality.

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So you have no objection to abortion? After all society cannot take care of all those unwanted babies!

Sorry if you took offence. I was merely pointing out that capital punishment is the easy way out and that is never a good thing.

Are hard ways out always preferable? The hard way out of a house is to smash through the wall with a sock full of batteries, why can't we just open the door?

mzungu said:

So you have no objection to abortion? After all society cannot take care of all those unwanted babies!

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Yes I DO object, but it's WAY off topic..... put a smoking gun in the baby's hand and we can talk.

Sorry if you took offence. I was merely pointing out that capital punishment is the easy way out and that is never a good thing.

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Very well.


But too often the other side thinks we are taking the easy way out. I don't see it as easy....
-I pulled the plug on my father's life support, long story. It was a decision my mother wouldn't make either way, and one I debated for days. But there isn't a time I recall the memory when my heart doesn't weep nor isn't broken. At times it drives me to a drink because I miss him dearly. But I still believe I made the right decision.
-My dad was a mortician, and we worked together for years. The circumstances of many we buried and their beloved were unfortunate, some were heartwrenching. We buried too many that didn't die of old age. Innocent and guilty.
-My uncle was a veteran of World War 2, he was on the front lines in the European campaign. He never told anyone his "confession of battle" and tours until about his last year of life. And I mean never. All my aunt ever knew was that he was on the German front. He told me it's easy to hang the guilty until you are holding the rope, even when you witness the brutal crime. He freed Dachau. We were as close as father and son.

I heard witness firsthand both sides of this issue, diverse as it is. I do place a high value on all life, but unfortunate as it is there are times when a decision is needed that places a greater value on one over the other. It is a decision that should never be taken lightly. If a man came at my son with a gun and I had a gun I would protect my son with intent to kill. Period.

I believe there is a system in this country that tries to handle the difficult issue of crime and punishment. And I believe the system tries to address the gravity of the crime. Unfortunately the truth is our financial means of incarceration is limited and those waving a flag of criminal rights can burden the system. There is never a perfect solution on earth, only His Judgement afterward. And one thought that continues in my head in this discussion is that in the event, rare as it may be, we convict and hang an innocent man in defense of our society, there is a heaven and there is a hell. On that day we carry out the sentence, the innocent is freed and the guilty is Judged according to God. Because He will know.

once executed, criminals lose all chance for repentence and making amends.

I think it is morally justifiable in certain situations, but it should be an abnormality in the western world.

"Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy." That is not even worth saying if everyone obtains mercy. But, if you execute an innocent, are you not guilty? And if the innocent must sometimes be sacrificed, why should the guilty ever be allowed mercy?

So if we don't know, and history shows that we often do not know (e.g. Jesus, Socrates, Spartacus, Bruno, et al.) ought we to execute anyone and put ourselves in danger of judgment? (That is, of course, if you believe in judgment!)

Despite its use throughout the centuries it has deterred nothing. People still commit capital crimes because they believe they will not be caught.

It has failed.

Not to mention it costs more to try for capital punishment that incarceration for life.

chris4243 said:

Imprisonment is no more reversible than is execution.

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Of course it is. You free the criminal. It's true that you can't undo the past, but you can undo the future!


eudaimonia,

Mark

needinganame said:

N0, the "human beings" lose their humanity in their violations of others in violent crime.

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No, they don't. They may have acted less than human, but they still have the capacity to act in a human way. They still have human potentials. They still have a human nature. They are still human.

As human beings ourselves, we aren't entitled to treat criminals in just any way we please. We aren't entitled to sell them into slavery, for instance, which is where this non-human rhetoric may easily lead. We ought to give some respect to their potentials, all the time isolating them from society to protect the innocent.


eudaimonia,

Mark

Eudaimonist said:

Of course it is. You free the criminal. It's true that you can't undo the past, but you can undo the future!


eudaimonia,

Mark

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Same with the execution. You cancel the execution. It's true that you can't undo the past, but you can undo the future!

As someone on these boards once pointed out - If the death penalty isn't about revenge, why do we have suicide watch on death row?

It doesn't work as a deterrent and is open to mistakes and corruption. I would only agree with the death penalty for those who are unrepentant psychopaths who demonstrate that they will never stop killing. But even then they can be secured.

My concerns about the death penalty are less about the criminals and more about what it says about our society. In this very thread people have demonstrated a cold and detached remorselessness for criminals and even the innocent. I think that a society in which criminals were executed without question is a terrifying concept but some people seem to revel in the concept.

I would add one caveat to my disapproval of the death penalty however. I would suggest that perhaps prisoners serving life sentences, those who will never be released, can opt for euthanasia instead. Would pro-death penalty advocates support that?

Ryal Kane said:

for those who are unrepentant psychopaths who demonstrate that they will never stop killing. But even then they can be secured.

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Who would pay to keep these unrepentant psychopaths that have demonstrated they will never stop killing alive? They need to be fed and watered every so often. That costs money.

An effective solution is to not feed or water them, they die of natural causes. That's kind of like a life sentance.

Taking the easy way out (capital punishment) only makes a society lazy and not want to actually put an effort and find and rectify the causes that make people commit such crimes. After all why do some countries have almost ZERO murders while others have rampant homicides? If we look at the world statistics a pattern emerges and it proves that capital punishment does nothing to stop crimes.

chris4243 said:

Same with the execution. You cancel the execution. It's true that you can't undo the past, but you can undo the future!

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Please don't be obtuse. You can't cancel an execution after it has taken place.


eudaimonia,

Mark

mzungu said:

capital punishment does nothing to stop crimes.

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It stops the crimes the executed would have commited, but can't because they're dead.

I want to go on record that I support Capitol Punishment. Everyone in the Capitol should be punished.


eudaimonia,

Mark