Capital Punishment: Should the Death Penalty Still Exist In A 'Civilised Society'?

And of COURSE morality comes into it. Trying to look at positive/negative effects to society and the death penalty's economic viability are red herrings of the highest order - it's upside-down thinking, at least to my mind.

I agree with this! I think it's immoral NOT to shoot people like Henry Brisbon.

Fergal: Ethics 210. Utilitarianism
Categorical Imperative

I find it very funny that many of the same people wearing their Old Testament indoctrinations on their sleeves are the same people who will take any opportunity offered on ILX to ridicule and denigrate Christianity.

xpost what are you all arguing about?

then they came for the shoplifters, ethically obtuse, .... etc etc

actually "why is it wrong to kill" is an interesting question.

I find it very funny that many of the same people wearing their Old Testament indoctrinations on their sleeves are the same people who will take any opportunity offered on ILX to ridicule and denigrate Christianity.

In the Old Testament, you've got the whole "eye for an eye" argument, which seems to bolster the pro-death penalty one, whereas the New Testament is where Jesus' "turn the other cheek" comes about. The two are not compatible, and obv. supply the greatest break between Judaism and Christianity.

I'd also argue that the European strand of anti-death penalty sentiment probably stems way more from the Enlightenment, Rationality and various post-French Revolution debacles than from Christianity itself.

aside from, like, Jesus being the Messiah, too. But you know that.

I don't think people and animals are comparible (one reason why I prefer to be referred to as 'a woman' rather than 'a female', but that's a whole nother rant).

Aha, this is a point of contention which I think it is best not to argue here. I don't really think serial killers or child rapists qualify as "people," though. It's interesting to note that I actively try to avoid referring to certain types of criminals as human, in fact, I just realized I even do this in normal conversation.

Maybe I'm the crazy person.

how does the death penalty not constitute "cruel and unusual punishment," as defined and prohibited by the Constitution?

The same way jailing Eugene Debs until he was practically crippled and incapacitated was not cruel and unusual, the same way interning Japanese-Americans was not cruel and unusual: like pretty much everything about our purposefully ambiguous US constitution, it's all up to the interpretation of the Court. If the Court says that the "eye for an eye" concept is not cruel or unusual, then it isn't. That's how our system is set up.

I'm not saying I agree with the Court, mind you. The system really is completely fucked up (justice in being handed out unevenly shockah), and I think that until a better system is set up perhaps a moritorium on the death penalty, as was in the early '70s, is perhaps called for. Not that that actually fixed the system back then, though, and one could make the point that the amount of false imprisonments in general and people getting handed really strict penalties for what seems to be petty crimes (the 3 strikes law, for example, is a pile of bullshit being used to hand what I would deem cruel and unusual punishment to fairly inane, boring, completely unthreatening "criminals") would imply that perhaps our entire justice system should be on moritorium, following the logic to its extreme.

The system en totale is just not really great. I do theoretically agree with the death penalty (I mean, would anyone here argue that the handful of executions of Nazis post-WWII were unjust?) but in practice it hasn't exactly done anything worthwhile enough to balance out the problems we have implementing it.

Also, the Messiah thing is NOT the biggest breaking point between Judaism and Christianity! Jews for Jesus 4eva!

the Jews for Jesus dudes in the Broadway-Nassau stop freak me out. Who funds these wackos?

(I am anti-death penalty, BTW.)

(OK I fully admit I'm just saying this because it came into my head--my grandfather used to threaten my mother when she was stroppy with that exact line)

If we developed a way to prove, without a shadow of a doubt, that someone had really killed other people in cold blood, with malice, for pleasure, would the death penalty still be a bad thing?

Also it is worth noting, to Tom I suppose, that death penalty is not something generally (read: ever, see here) applied to rape. Actually, real punishment is not something often applied to sex crimes. God help you if you're a Puerto Rican talking on your cell phone in your car in NYC though, tombs for a weekend.

xpost that's what I mean, hsilly!

lots of xposts

are "jews for jesus" really jew? i mean, were they ever actually jews? or is it just an evangelical organization with a strange twist?

Back to capital punishment.

And yes, hstencil, I agree, but you could pull a whole lot of issues and point to how they are extremely inconsistent vis a vis the issue of mitigating factors or historical precedent, in particular (the state legislature one is a little odder, they do seem more likely to tell the states to go done fuck themselves). It's like, ok, for example, part of Roe v. Wade cites that there WERE no anti-abortion laws prior to the 20th Century so therefore historical precedent says this is no one's business. However, historical precedent in cases like Debs or Abrams or Schenck (and I'm assuming whenever someone actually goes ahead and challenges Patriot Act) pretty much shows that the US didn't have draconian speech restrictions for 120 years and went thru several periods of tension/war without these laws but hey, dude, we gots to make you all shut yo' face. The 20th Century Court is wholly inconsistent, Holmes court v. Warren court v. Current Court etc.

Should I start a Supreme court thread?

btw everybody: http://www.ncadp.org/