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

jeez i'm sorry i keep doing that on here it's really embarrassing

nah it's my bad

i always try to salvage some sense of having righteously stood up for the downtrodden against ridiculous + sarcastically lampooned allegations but it is no comfort, i have been a fool

i mean would it kill you to ;)

i was wondering tho, and shoot me down if i'm talking bollocks here, if one of the reasons the US retains the death penalty (or i assume the majority of states do anyway) is that the belief in an individual's control over their own destiny is such a central part of the idea of the USA? the same thinking that anybody can achieve anything if they work hard and persevere has as its shadow the belief that some murders are purely acts of personal volition and hence deserving of unrestrained retribution?

and i'm 99 percent certain that a quick examination of yr execution stats for any given year wd show a huge skew in the social class and educational achievement of the condemned ;)

not to get off topic but

( Mr. Bhuiyan was discharged the day after being treated; he was told he did not have health insurance. For the next several months, he slept on people’s couches and had to rely on physicians’ samples for medication, including painkillers and eye drops. He had several operations on his right eye; he now has only limited vision in it.)

jesus fucking christ get shot in the face then kicked out the next day

i was wondering tho... if one of the reasons the US retains the death penalty (or i assume the majority of states do anyway) is that the belief in an individual's control over their own destiny is such a central part of the idea of the USA

I can see that - and I like that idea - but on the other hand, it is the ultimate example of the state using its muscle against the individual.

think of it more of a casting out of Eden?

I think that it's more an issue of - when someone is murdered, there is nothing that can be done to bring them back. That's the end. A brother, a sister, a daughter, a mommy, a daddy, a friend. They're fucking gone and all the beautiful hope and potential that they could have had in life bleeds out in an instant - or over a long fucking period of time in some cases. And the pain of that murder branches out - it touches friends, family, a community where you can't even fucking feel safe anymore. "This guy was obliterated for no fucking reason. What if that happens to me? What if that happens to my dad?"

The idea that someone's social class and educational achievement should factor into the decision to punish someone for committing such a crime is sad and ludicrous. There is no level of social class or educational achievement that exists where someone wasn't told that murder is like, the worst transgression that you could ever commit.

that isn't my point. if murder, or criminality in general, is unrelated to those factors then we should expect the class etc. of murderers to be reasonably evenly distributed. it isn't. does that make it okay to commit murder if you're poor? i wouldn't say that. but if your upbringing impacts on the likelihood of your committing a crime then how can we attribute criminality to some internal badness that is untouched by external causes?

and then: do we want the state to try to reduce the amount of violent crime, or do we want the state to focus on punishing those who commit it?

but if your upbringing impacts on the likelihood of your committing a crime then how can we attribute criminality to some internal badness that is untouched by external causes?

I don't think we have to attribute it as such. I think the nature of the crime is sufficiently severe as to merit the most severe punishment available, regardless of excuses.

do we want the state to try to reduce the amount of violent crime, or do we want the state to focus on punishing those who commit it?

It should absolutely be both, and without a doubt, the American state (can't speak for the wider world) doesn't focus enough on preventing crime, both at a roots quality-of-life level or at a policing level.

when someone is executed, there is nothing that can be done to bring them back. That's the end. A brother, a sister, a daughter, a mommy, a daddy, a friend. They're fucking gone and all the beautiful hope and potential that they could have had in life bleeds out in an instant - or over a long fucking period of time in some cases. And the pain of that murder branches out - it touches friends, family, a community where you can't even fucking feel safe anymore. "This guy was obliterated for no fucking reason. What if that happens to me? What if that happens to my dad?"

or maybe the friends and family and dependents of the executed are complicit in their guilt somehow?

Well, yeah to your xpost. And that's why I made the decision to not support the death penalty any longer.

Although less about someone being executed at all than someone wrongfully being executed.

As far as the family/friends of a guilty person being executed goes, I would view them as his victims, not the state's.

i can't reconcile premeditated killing being regarded as the worst possible crime with premeditated killing being regarded as a prerogative of the state. the death penalty doesn't appear to deter, but it inevitably amplifies the violence it punishes - another set of victims, more lives blighted by killing. i think it sends a message that there is a point where killing is a legitimate solution to transgressions: but how citizens interpret transgression isn't likely to be identical to how the state interprets it. it tells citizens that vengeance is a noble instinct.

i think it sends a message that there is a point where killing is a legitimate solution to transgressions: but how citizens interpret transgression isn't likely to be identical to how the state interprets it.

This is an interesting thought. I'll think on it.

i shd be clear that my main opposition to capital punishment is based on repugnance at violence wherever it comes from, i guess. but i do have a secondary pragmatic objection in that it doesn't seem to be effective at preventing violent crime. i could argue that more effective policing might reduce the popularity of the death penalty because the probability of detection has more of a deterrent effect than the severity of punishment.

I can't ever side with the death penalty and its advocates. There are so many reasons why I am against it. From wrongly convicted to being more expensive than life imprisonment and the fact it doesn't deter other people from killing/stealing whatever...

my great uncle was in a concentration camp so I have no real sympathy if a bill magill gets beaten mercilessly by a stranger with a baseball bat

― iatee, Saturday, July 30, 2011 12:52 AM (21 hours ago) Bookmark

How sad it wasn't one of your direct ancestors so we wouldn't be subjected to your stupidity. Go fuck yourself.

can't wait for bill magill's sb

happy to contribute there

Same. Consider ingesting a chill pill, William!

I don't blame you Bill, but you might want to go for a walk...

my great uncle was in a concentration camp so I have no real sympathy if a bill magill gets beaten mercilessly by a stranger with a baseball bat

― iatee, Saturday, July 30, 2011 12:52 AM (21 hours ago) Bookmark

How sad it wasn't one of your direct ancestors so we wouldn't be subjected to your stupidity. Go fuck yourself.

― You're a notch, I'm a legend (Bill Magill), Saturday, July 30, 2011 10:47 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

http://i283.photobucket.com/albums/kk281/duhflushtech/GIF%20Files/friday.gif

can you really support suggest banning if you don't support the death penalty, though

i support wiping humanity of the face of the earth, so i've got no problem starting with bill magill?

^^^ tough on the causes of crime

i'm pretty much down with vengeance as a motivator, i think? Even for the state. I'm not strongly for death penalty tbh, but saying that in eg 1st degree murder cases where no real doubt exists it's not a huge moral quandary that i'd personally struggle with.

i think i understand the impulse to vengeance, but then i think i understand the impulse to murder. i feel like we shd try to legislate for our society to be better than we are as individual people.

see, I think we should legislate society so that the government is in charge of the serious jobs that individual citizens would almost certainly fuck up. obviously it doesn't work like this in reality, but that's how it should be, damn it.

and in turn that's understandable, of course, just.... not to an unrealistic/unrepresentative extent, maybe?

Should point out i'd gleefully hang the little shits bouncing on the beds in the next room

xp to nv, that

Darragh, bouncing on the bed is actually mad good exercise in a word where kids have increasingly fewer outlets for (particularly state-sanctioned) exercise.

murder cases where no real doubt exists

this is always an intriguing notion, are you suggesting there should be two verdicts: guilty and totally guilty?

well yeah y'know

Of greater concern is the possibility that broadcasting executions could have a numbing effect. Douglas A. Berman, a law professor, fears that people might come to equate human executions with putting pets to sleep. Yet this seems overstated. While public indifference might result over time, the initial broadcasts would undoubtedly get attention and stir debate.

This is wrong, I think. I wish I thought well enough of people in general to think that broadcasting executions would make them think "this is barbaric," but within minutes of each execution animated gifs of "funny" jerks and twitches would be getting play all around the web, and it would further desensitize an already terrifyingly desensitized population.

if you'll excuse me now I'm off to listen to some goregrind

Lol

maybe they'd see that y'know it's not such a bad way to go tbf?

i mean the method isn't really the debate, or am i wrong there?

What's the point of a form of vengeance where one party is no longer around afterwards to see how badly he's been pwned after the act of vengeance is done?

Not really into the idea of the state taking vengeance btw, just saying capital punishment hasn't really been thought through from that POV.

Capital punishment is pretty draconian. At one time, I opposed the death penalty on pure 'oh noes don't execute innocents' grounds, which are valid, but now have just grown to detest the entire practice. It serves no function except to convince American citizens that the government killed the "monster in the closet". It doesn't clear out overcrowded prisons significantly, so that argument doesn't really work.

The problem with it as a deterrent is that a basic psychological tenet is that punishment is most effective when doled out immediately and consistently. If we all knew that if, after killing someone in pre-meditated fashion, we were arrested, we would be executed, say, in two days time, regardless of circumstance, race, socioeconomic status, etc...we might think twice. And there are some people out there who quite (erroneously) say we should do things like this.

But, that cuts into the accused's civil rights, and we know way too many people have been exonerated from Death Row to say "oh, nobody is ever wrongfully convicted of murder" with a straight face.

Likewise, the death penalty is inconsistently handed out, and much more likely to be given to a minority of low socioeconomic status. This is one major reason it doesn't work as a deterrent.

I do have a major issue with the State deciding it has the right to determine when someone lives or dies. Like, I will never bat an eyelid when the military commits a tactical strike against someone (say, Bin Laden) in the name of battle. Or when the police incarcerate someone. But the State condemning someone to death is them intervening on moral, and not punitive grounds -- after all, if the subject is incarcerated, for life or not, he/she is removed from society and therefore unable to commit said crime again.

I'm terrified that the state might execute the wrong person, so NO. Also I just think that flipping the switch corrupts people, it debases them. I think it debases a culture and a nation.

so much so that the Pixies wrote a song about it

but ya in all srsness, dudders to death penalty

La La 'Lectrocute You? xp

wouldve only made the album better imo