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

plenty of european countries would still have the death penalty if it were up to voters so thank your post-democratic national elites gukbe

fuck yeah!

also i'm glad the gentle humanist europeans have everything so well worked out, perhaps they can explain away stalin, hitler, vichy, etc as learning curve?

i'm disgusted too, but i'm not going to pretend that "they" don't have their own legal or philosophical tradition to base the death penalty on, just as we have a progressive tradition on which to oppose it

― funk master friendly (moonship journey to baja), Thursday, September 22, 2011 12:24 AM (55 seconds ago)

it's a tie then. that was easy

, perhaps they can explain away stalin, hitler, vichy, etc as learning curve?

that's a horseshit argument and you know it.

fact is, it's 2011 and they're not executing their citizens and we are. i'm not holding the UK or the EU up as a gold standard of amazingness by any means, but they've managed to work some things out and we haven't.

moonship are you trolling right now

nope.

just really misses grad school

fuck off bitch

i'm a problem solver. i try not to blame my problems on "idiots". i am a public servant, and i have to balance my ethics and values with those of stakeholders whose ethics and values are wildly different from mine, and that informs my approach to politics too.

I agree w/ the last line but they can still be idiots, is the thing

the death penalty isn't a political issue for me

my problem is that its never the ppl i want who are getting the death penalty

um, whether or not to have the death penalty is a collective decision between groups of people with different views, isn't it? so it is a political decision.

this is a message board, not reasoned debate where we can reach compromises that might affect change.

i wish you the best of luck in your irl role, and i hope you work out the best way to make things better, inch by inch, because that's practicality calls for doing what you can with what you got.

meanwhile, over here on the internet, where it doesn't mean anything, i'm gonna call out pro-death penalty people for being really fucking stupid. it's not necessarily their fault - america is hardly the kind of country that promotes self-examination and a vigilant understanding of its goings-on - but they're still stupid.

xposts

in the same way that it's not a political issue for the supporters

xxxp

ok enjoy the internet, have fun making ILX a better place ... YOU IDIOTS

also its EFFECT change YOU FUCKING IDIOTS

don't know why you're taking this so personally

i never called you an idiot. i get where you're coming from and that's totally cool.

haha i'm not! it's just a message board! :-)

*hugs*

:-)

http://turbo.indyposted.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/Stanford-University.jpg
http://www.free-press-release.com/members/members_pic/200909/img/1252165688.jpg

i'm just saying you seemed to be advocating for dickish behavior, so i thought i'd give it a try

^^ that's me :-)

public servants gone wild

ps you are acting like a condescending dick, moonship, go take a nap or something

i'm a problem solver.

beyond public opinion polls are there any signs of progress on this issue?

the rare state-level legislative accomplishment and a few supreme court decisions

yeah, i don't mind. you see, i just happen to believe the people who are pro-death penalty -for one or all the reasons the pro camp states - are intellectually underdeveloped and, thus, idiots. but this is ILX, so I have no issue with stating that here because ILX tends to be reasonably intelligent people who don't think that killing someone is the answer to the problem.

xposts to moonship

but hey, i've been back here a year and it's still difficult trying to adjust to the unholy amount of bullshit being an american citizen entails. so excuse me for being rash.

Was it Illinois or Michigan that put a halt to them a few years ago?

Illinois

but I think texas makes sure to kill some extra people to pick up the slack

advances can (and have) been made. my thing is that it's absolutely shocking that this is still even a thing.

racist guy was executed in Texas earlier today. while i'm all for racist people not existing, I don't think the State has the right to make that happen.

This country wouldn't have ended up where it is today had we not killed millions of people in pursuit of it. It's good to want to be idealistic about things, and to want to improve the world. And it's good to want to change things for the better, and to believe that America can do better. Just don't forget who dropped the atomic bomb.

2 of em, baby

Just don't forget who dropped the atomic bomb.

We're animals. Animals who figured out how to split an atom, but animals all the same.

haha I love roger adultery's anti-death penalty philosophy upthread...he doesn't care about people dying, he just hates the government. maybe that's the way we should sell the issue nationally.

"oh yeah totally lots of people should be killed...but do you want BIG GOVERNMENT involved? can't our private crime sector do the job more efficiently?"

it's not necessarily their fault - america is hardly the kind of country that promotes self-examination and a vigilant understanding of its goings-on
― Gukbe, Thursday, September 22, 2011 4:38 AM (24 minutes ago) Bookmark

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/international-polls-and-studies

g w bush announcing gravely that in his capacity of governor of texas he couldn't in conscience grant karla faye tucker clemency and then reading about how later in an interview he put on a high-pitched squeaky voice and imitated her pleading for her life makes me a bit suss of dp supporters and how much they are driven by legal/philosophical traditions.

and yet, Japan aside, etc... xpost

wtf dude

what you mean

I don't really hear reasoned, rational arguments for the death penalty - it's usually more along the lines of "he needs killing" and "think of the victim's family" which is a fine and understandable emotion, but a shitty way to run a justice system. As Baja said, the system isn't set up to care about the executed's loved ones - but at the same time it shouldn't be set up to take into account revenge on the part of the victim's family (who will have a particularly clouded view of situations like Troy Davis).

what you mean

― Gukbe, Thursday, September 22, 2011 5:13 AM (26 seconds ago) Bookmark

Japan, Russia, UK, Brazil, DR, China, South Korea.

has anyone ever lost an election in america for being pro-death penalty?

?? xpost

while I am 100% opposed to the death penalty, we kill a lot more people with our health care system and military. those are both areas where we can actually already do things to save lives on the national level...whereas we have a long way to go w/ public opinion on this. gay marriage will be legal nationally before the death penalty is gone.

I don't count China as a democratic country.

more likely to happen: death penalty reinstated in massachusetts, new jersey, illinois vs death penalty abolished in texas, florida, georgia?