If the government decided that the cost overshadowed the lives of a few innocent people, 95% of that high cost of killing would disappear.
Except for the whole "the real murderer is still on the loose," thing.
Yeah. Fuck the innocent. Who needs to find the real killer anyways.
But if the innocent man is in jail/burned at the stake, nobody would even be looking for the murderer. He'd be free anyway. Unless the "real" murderer started striking more and more, and left notes saying "I am the real murderer of XXX", the innocent guy would remain behind bars anyway.
Murder trials aren't taken lightly, and believe it or not, the defendant has the advantage in court. It takes a LOT of evidence to make a jury believe "beyond a shadow of a doubt" that someone is guilty.
Given the explosion of new investigative equipment, DNA testing, etc. in the past 20 years, I'd say it's quite difficult to get innocent people lined up on Death Row. Well, a lot more difficult than it was in the past.
I'm sure there have been murderers that have gotten away with their crimes due to the murders getting pinned on some poor schmuck, but I'd bet most murders where the murderer gets away just go into the "unsolved" file cabinet. And by most, I mean almost all.
Im all for the death penalty. The 0.0% recidivism rate alone makes it a good thing. Frankly I think more crimes should be punishable by death, and the time between trial and execution lowered dramatically. Rape and child molestation being the two crimes i would definately add to the list.
Ive had to many people i care about have their lives destroyed or altered to have any sympathy for people who commit those type of crimes. There is no punishment harsh enough for the kind of mental trauma things like that can inflict, and no rehabilitation is 100%.
Tell me... did you read the thread before you posted this? Would you feel the same way if you were falsely accused of murder/rape/whatever by a corrupt prosecutor, and required to defend yourself before a racist jury? Are you not aware of the number of falsely accused who have been exonerated ten or more years after being sentenced to death?
Actually, I'm not aware of the number of people who have been exonerated 10 years or more after being sentenced to death. Is there even a real number, or some estimate, or what?
EDIT: If there are numbers exact enough, are there numbers differentiating honest, innocent people who have gotten off after finding new evidence vs. criminals who got off on technicalities, got a good lawyer, etc. during their 20 year appeal calvacade?
EDIT Part 2: Are the numbers even high enough to justify the tens, if not hundreds, of billions of dollars that we spend on incarcerating lifetime/career criminals, lifers, those on Death Row, etc.?
To date the United States has exonerated 124 innocent people who would have been summarily murdered under your idiotic system. This does not include the people who have been acquitted with new evidence after being murdered by the state. No quantity of money saved would outweigh the atrocity of executing a single innocent citizen.
Again, I have to ask whether you would feel the same way if you were incorrectly accused and convicted of a capital crime. It could happen to you, just as easily as it happened to this guy.
Im all for the death penalty. The 0.0% recidivism rate alone makes it a good thing. Frankly I think more crimes should be punishable by death, and the time between trial and execution lowered dramatically. Rape and child molestation being the two crimes i would definately add to the list.
Ive had to many people i care about have their lives destroyed or altered to have any sympathy for people who commit those type of crimes. There is no punishment harsh enough for the kind of mental trauma things like that can inflict, and no rehabilitation is 100%.
Tell me... did you read the thread before you posted this? Would you feel the same way if you were falsely accused of murder/rape/whatever by a corrupt prosecutor, and required to defend yourself before a racist jury? Are you not aware of the number of falsely accused who have been exonerated ten or more years after being sentenced to death?
Actually, I'm not aware of the number of people who have been exonerated 10 years or more after being sentenced to death. Is there even a real number, or some estimate, or what?
EDIT: If there are numbers exact enough, are there numbers differentiating honest, innocent people who have gotten off after finding new evidence vs. criminals who got off on technicalities, got a good lawyer, etc. during their 20 year appeal calvacade?
EDIT Part 2: Are the numbers even high enough to justify the tens, if not hundreds, of billions of dollars that we spend on incarcerating lifetime/career criminals, lifers, those on Death Row, etc.?
To date the United States has exonerated 124 innocent people who would have been summarily murdered under your idiotic system. This does not include the people who have been acquitted with new evidence after being murdered by the state. No quantity of money saved would outweigh the atrocity of executing a single innocent citizen.
History, governmental and private industry compensation, war, medicine, and reaction to both natural and manmade catastrophe would disagree with you.
Every situation in every facet of life has a limit to how much money will be put towards a life. protip: it is absurdly low in almost every case.
I would go so far as to say that far as I know, the cost of absolutely ensuring guilt and putting a man to death may very well be the largest amount of money spent by the general masses to protect a single life. Given almost every other circumstance, that cost would exceed the general population's desire to save a life.
However, I do agree that our system is completely retarded, but I think my opinions of why are different than yours.
interesting post but im guessing that you made it because you havent been reading my responses to other posters. hopefully i can clarify my position a bit.
Keth, the problem I have with your argument is that you're the one saying what those "dues" are, who should pay them, and how.
im not saying that i personally should get to arbitrarily choose what penalties should be given for what crimes. im saying that i agree with what society has deemed the appropriate penalty for certain crimes. i think this is an important difference.
You're inventing an elaborate and flimsy justification to prop up your personal feelings on the matter. At the core of your argument is a simple statement of "that's the way we should do it", but you don't say why that's the way we should do it, or give any justifications beyond "it's part of the human condition".
again, i agree that we should use the death penalty because i believe in the fundamental principle of fairness. for lack of a better phrase, i believe in an eye for an eye. im not sure why you consider that a "flimsy" justification.
in my ideal world, murderers are punished severely. im not a christian but the heaven imagery works well as a metaphor. imagine if heaven was granted to every murderer, rapist, arsonist, etc. and in heaven these criminals are rewarded with plasma tvs and servants and massages. to me, that kind of heaven is not ideal. why? it goes without saying that such a heaven would contain more "happiness" than one where retributive justice exists.
but that kind of heaven rubs me the wrong way. it goes against the principle of fairness that i subscribe to.
You claim to be a subjective moralist, but you're advancing theories of natural law. You constantly criticise the meta-argument, but you haven't put forward any justifications more complex than secondary benefits or simple repetitions of how you personally feel.
just because i personally subscribe heavily to a theory of fairness, doesnt mean that i think all people do. nor do i think the universe necessarily does*. i can see how someone might think that all people, no matter how monstrous and evil they are, should be forgiven and be allowed to enter heaven. maybe some people think that invoking jesus' name on one's deathbed is enough to cleanse them of all sin and send them into the pearly gates. that's fine and good. i simply disagree with them. i think that if that's the case, then the christian god sucks.
some evil motherfucker who invokes jesus' name on his deathbed should not get the same treatment as some saint who has sacrificed himself to help people all his life. those are my feelings on the matter. i bet lots of people agree with me.
but does that mean fairness is some kind of natural law? no, not at all. its just a preference that lots of living things seem to possess. we see it in lots of people and sometimes even in animals.
You admit that the desire for revenge may be bad, but then say we should do it anyway. In fact, you sum up your entire position with "I like that". That's as complex as your argument is. "I think this is right, so this is how we should do it."
i've never once said the desire for revenge is bad. never once. i think the exact opposite. the desire for revenge is good.
however, that doesnt mean that personal revenge is not disruptive to society. because it is. personal revenge is almost impossible to regulate and causes far more problems than it solves. however, the death penalty has none of these problems.
like i said earlier, people have preferences and instincts, due both to nature and nurture (please remember however that i dont think any of these are universal). personally i like food and companionship and fairness. i hear that lots of other people enjoy similar things. however, just because i like food doesnt mean i like it so much that i'll kill another person and eat him. i recognize that cannibalism likely makes for bad society. so i regulate my preferences and instincts to a certain degree in order to build a better society. it is no different with revenge (fairness). i like it about as much as i like food and companionship. but i recognize that personal revenge is destructive. so i regulate my desire for fairness and accept that personal revenge is too destructive. that doesnt mean however that state sponsored revenge is too destructive, because they are totally different things.
again, you might be reading this and say, this still boils down to "i like retributive justice and therefore it's good". i can understand why you might think that and i even think it's a fair response. but the problem with that response is that it dismisses my position without fairly addressing it. my position is no different from the opposite position (i.e., retributive justice is bad because you don't like it). and that is what your response boils down to. i am arguing that people should get what they deserve (both good and bad). that is the essence of retributive justice. in order to disagree with me, you would have to argue that people should not get what they deserve. is that really what you believe?
if we are only disagreeing about the weight of the penalty (e.g., death penalty vs. lwop) and not the principle, then you've pretty much subscribed to the ideal of retributive justice. if however, you actually think sometimes people should not get what they deserve, then id be interested to know why.
*edit: in fact, i think the universe does not subscribe to a principle of fairness. if anything, it subscribes to a principle of only the strong survive.
in my ideal world, murderers are punished severely. im not a christian but the heaven imagery works well as a metaphor. imagine if heaven was granted to every murderer, rapist, arsonist, etc. and in heaven these criminals are rewarded with plasma tvs and servants and massages. to me, that kind of heaven is not ideal. why? it goes without saying that such a heaven would contain more "happiness" than one where retributive justice exists.
but that kind of heaven rubs me the wrong way. it goes against the principle of fairness that i subscribe to.
See, for me, one of the turning points in my philosophy is when I decided that, if I had the choice, I would make everyone happy.
Even horrible people. Every last one of'em. Even assholes like Jerry Falwell. Because fuck, fairness is meaningless to begin with, and I'd really just like for everyone, EVERYONE to be happy, because trying to get back at people is part of why humanity sucks so very badly. We just can't get the fuck over wanting to get back at people, so you have, shit, pretty much anything to do with the Abrahamic groups.
Oh, my instinct is still to kick the shit out of someone who harms me or others. But I have a truly vicious nature beneath my intellectualism, and I don't hold human life that high. Thing is, I let the darkness pass once things are settled, and danger has passed. And if nobody is harmed by it, the fuck, what kind of sick fuck am I if my happiness requires the pain of others?
So while I understand your position on getting back at people, I can't agree with it. Not when I'm not in the same mood in which I'd break a person's body parts.
if we are only disagreeing about the weight of the penalty (e.g., death penalty vs. lwop) and not the principle, then you've pretty much subscribed to the ideal of retributive justice. if however, you actually think sometimes people should not get what they deserve, then id be interested to know why.
Because "getting what they deserve" is an inherently self-serving desire. "You hurt me so I want to see you hurt".
If we had a magical device that could remove all murderous thoughts from people, and turn a hardened killer into a good citizen, using that on a convicted murderer would make far more sense than capping him "because it's what he deserves". Of course, we don't have a machine like that - but we try to replicate the effects using our penal system. Sometimes it works, a lot of the time it doesn't - but what's important is that we try, and keep on trying.
Ideas of natural justice (which is what you believe in, whether you admit it or not) are blind to the fact that sometimes bad people getting what they deserve is less important than creating a harmonious society. That giving up on people - even undeserving people - is a step towards a system where they're no longer people at all.
As I've said, lots of times - there is a place for retributive justice. But that's only part of it.
And you're confusing the practicalities of the argument with the theoretical. It's well and good for you to trot out a hypothetical "eye for eye" doctrine, but people have already pointed out the fact that the death penalty in the real world leads to situations where you're responsible for the death of an innocent. At the very least, you're never able to be entirely certain that the person you're killing was in fact guilty of the crime. You can be sure within "a reasonable doubt", but for your hypothetical "pearly gates" scenario, is that enough?
Keth, the problem I have with your argument is that you're the one saying what those "dues" are, who should pay them, and how.
im not saying that i personally should get to arbitrarily choose what penalties should be given for what crimes. im saying that i agree with what society has deemed the appropriate penalty for certain crimes. i think this is an important difference.
So if society voted tomorrow to abolish the death penalty and give all murderers puppies to help them rediscover love and joy, you'd be down with that?
Your beliefs simply align with society's as they are at the moment. Don't play bullshit little tricks to lend credence to your position.
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HacksawJ. Duggan Esq.Wrestler at LawRegistered Userregular
It takes a LOT of evidence to make a jury believe "beyond a shadow of a doubt" that someone is guilty.
Not really. In this country, all it really takes is an accusation for someone to get a guilty verdict in the court of public opinion. And since jurors are drawn from the public...
It takes a LOT of evidence to make a jury believe "beyond a shadow of a doubt" that someone is guilty.
Not really. In this country, all it really takes is an accusation for someone to get a guilty verdict in the court of public opinion. And since jurors are drawn from the public...
Indeed. Anyone who says shit like that has never been in a courtroom, and presented with two very plausible and persuasively-argued explanations for the facts.
if we are only disagreeing about the weight of the penalty (e.g., death penalty vs. lwop) and not the principle, then you've pretty much subscribed to the ideal of retributive justice. if however, you actually think sometimes people should not get what they deserve, then id be interested to know why.
Because "getting what they deserve" is an inherently self-serving desire. "You hurt me so I want to see you hurt".
are self serving desires bad? if not, then why do you point out that what i want is self serving?
If we had a magical device that could remove all murderous thoughts from people, and turn a hardened killer into a good citizen, using that on a convicted murderer would make far more sense than capping him "because it's what he deserves". Of course, we don't have a machine like that - but we try to replicate the effects using our penal system. Sometimes it works, a lot of the time it doesn't - but what's important is that we try, and keep on trying.
i disagree that what you describe above is what we want and try to achieve. i agree it's one of the things that we might hope for, in that it would serve as a perfect deterrent for recidivism, but even if we were to have such a device, i believe we would choose to use it at the cost of sacrificing our need for retribution. just as we forego personal revenge in our desire for stable society, we might one day forego all forms of retribution in our desire for perfect deterrence. i dont necessarily see that as a good thing though.
Ideas of natural justice (which is what you believe in, whether you admit it or not) are blind to the fact that sometimes bad people getting what they deserve is less important than creating a harmonious society. That giving up on people - even undeserving people - is a step towards a system where they're no longer people at all.
still not sure why you think i believe in natural justice.
As I've said, lots of times - there is a place for retributive justice. But that's only part of it.
i agree with this wholeheartedly. that's why i've said that i agree with our collective decision to forego our desire for personal revenge (retributive justice in its purest form) and instead have the state conduct acts of retributive justice on our behalf.
And you're confusing the practicalities of the argument with the theoretical. It's well and good for you to trot out a hypothetical "eye for eye" doctrine, but people have already pointed out the fact that the death penalty in the real world leads to situations where you're responsible for the death of an innocent. At the very least, you're never able to be entirely certain that the person you're killing was in fact guilty of the crime. You can be sure within "a reasonable doubt", but for your hypothetical "pearly gates" scenario, is that enough?
well, i did start this thread out with a question regarding whether theoretical arguments were welcome (see page 1).
that being said, there is no confusion in my stance. i dislike how the death penalty is administered. but i dont oppose it in theory. furthermore, im not convinced that poor administration is enough to warrant its abolishment. ive stated before that we sacrifice innocents all the time for other purposes. i dont see why sacrificing innocents for retributive justice is any different.
Keth, the problem I have with your argument is that you're the one saying what those "dues" are, who should pay them, and how.
im not saying that i personally should get to arbitrarily choose what penalties should be given for what crimes. im saying that i agree with what society has deemed the appropriate penalty for certain crimes. i think this is an important difference.
So if society voted tomorrow to abolish the death penalty and give all murderers puppies to help them rediscover love and joy, you'd be down with that?
Your beliefs simply align with society's as they are at the moment. Don't play bullshit little tricks to lend credence to your position.
if society voted tomorrow to abolish the death penalty, i would simply disagree with them, just as i disagree with incenjucar's above post. but that doesnt mean i dont acknowledge that society's collective opinion on the matter is more valid than mine.
they are two totally different things. society has stances on many things and sometimes i agree with its collective conclusion and sometimes i dont. however, i do subscribe to the overriding principle of majority rules. as such, even if i think some criminals should be killed for the crimes they commit, if society disagrees, then so be it. majority rules. this is obviously a different stance than that of "ketherial's own personal monarchy", which is what you are implying my stance to be.
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HacksawJ. Duggan Esq.Wrestler at LawRegistered Userregular
It takes a LOT of evidence to make a jury believe "beyond a shadow of a doubt" that someone is guilty.
Not really. In this country, all it really takes is an accusation for someone to get a guilty verdict in the court of public opinion. And since jurors are drawn from the public...
Indeed. Anyone who says shit like that has never been in a courtroom, and presented with two very plausible and persuasively-argued explanations for the facts.
Defense: *plausable scenario #1*
Prosecution: *Plausable scenario #2*
Judge: Search your feelings for the truth.
Jury: Fucking hell, we're going to be here all night.
It takes a LOT of evidence to make a jury believe "beyond a shadow of a doubt" that someone is guilty.
Not really. In this country, all it really takes is an accusation for someone to get a guilty verdict in the court of public opinion. And since jurors are drawn from the public...
Indeed. Anyone who says shit like that has never been in a courtroom, and presented with two very plausible and persuasively-argued explanations for the facts.
actually, there are tons of hurdles that have to be overcome before a case even reaches a courtroom.
prosecutors are overworked and have far too many cases to handle.
indictment (although it is held to no standard of proof) is pretty much a pretrial on the basic facts.
and once it reaches a courtroom there are the myriad difficulties of trial.
we could of course make it even more difficult to convict criminals, but in terms of standards, i think the u.s. has a set a pretty high one.
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Apothe0sisHave you ever questioned the nature of your reality?Registered Userregular
It takes a LOT of evidence to make a jury believe "beyond a shadow of a doubt" that someone is guilty.
Not really. In this country, all it really takes is an accusation for someone to get a guilty verdict in the court of public opinion. And since jurors are drawn from the public...
Indeed. Anyone who says shit like that has never been in a courtroom, and presented with two very plausible and persuasively-argued explanations for the facts.
Defense: *plausable scenario #1*
Prosecution: *Plausable scenario #2*
Judge: Search your feelings for the truth.
Jury: Fucking hell, we're going to be here all night.
If they're both plausible, then that should be reasonable doubt.
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HacksawJ. Duggan Esq.Wrestler at LawRegistered Userregular
It takes a LOT of evidence to make a jury believe "beyond a shadow of a doubt" that someone is guilty.
Not really. In this country, all it really takes is an accusation for someone to get a guilty verdict in the court of public opinion. And since jurors are drawn from the public...
Indeed. Anyone who says shit like that has never been in a courtroom, and presented with two very plausible and persuasively-argued explanations for the facts.
Defense: *plausable scenario #1*
Prosecution: *Plausable scenario #2*
Judge: Search your feelings for the truth.
Jury: Fucking hell, we're going to be here all night.
If they're both plausible, then that should be reasonable doubt.
You'd think.
Of course you're probably also assuming the average American juror isn't a moron.
i saw that you posted and i was all excited to get into fistcuffs with you (if i remember correctly, i think we might disagree on this one), and then all you do is reply to one of the more inane posts in the thread.
you and i were meant to hash out all of life's important issues on these forums to come to some imminently reasonable conclusion.
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Apothe0sisHave you ever questioned the nature of your reality?Registered Userregular
edited July 2007
Sorry Keth, we do disagree, but I'm also in no state to argue anything coherently at this time.
Every situation in every facet of life has a limit to how much money will be put towards a life. protip: it is absurdly low in almost every case.
I would go so far as to say that far as I know, the cost of absolutely ensuring guilt and putting a man to death may very well be the largest amount of money spent by the general masses to protect a single life. Given almost every other circumstance, that cost would exceed the general population's desire to save a life.
However, I do agree that our system is completely retarded, but I think my opinions of why are different than yours.
Actually, the actuarial tables put the value of a human life somewhere between seven and ten million dollars, which if you'd read this thread, you'd know. You'd also know that the average capital case costs between $300,000 and $2,000,000.
I guess what I'm saying is that you should probably read the thread.
Defense: *plausable scenario #1*
Prosecution: *Plausable scenario #2*
Judge: Search your feelings for the truth.
Jury: Fucking hell, we're going to be here all night.
Thanks! This gave me a great giggle. Am sigging it!
Posts
Except for the whole "the real murderer is still on the loose," thing.
Yeah. Fuck the innocent. Who needs to find the real killer anyways.
But if the innocent man is in jail/burned at the stake, nobody would even be looking for the murderer. He'd be free anyway. Unless the "real" murderer started striking more and more, and left notes saying "I am the real murderer of XXX", the innocent guy would remain behind bars anyway.
Murder trials aren't taken lightly, and believe it or not, the defendant has the advantage in court. It takes a LOT of evidence to make a jury believe "beyond a shadow of a doubt" that someone is guilty.
Given the explosion of new investigative equipment, DNA testing, etc. in the past 20 years, I'd say it's quite difficult to get innocent people lined up on Death Row. Well, a lot more difficult than it was in the past.
I'm sure there have been murderers that have gotten away with their crimes due to the murders getting pinned on some poor schmuck, but I'd bet most murders where the murderer gets away just go into the "unsolved" file cabinet. And by most, I mean almost all.
Again, I have to ask whether you would feel the same way if you were incorrectly accused and convicted of a capital crime. It could happen to you, just as easily as it happened to this guy.
History, governmental and private industry compensation, war, medicine, and reaction to both natural and manmade catastrophe would disagree with you.
Every situation in every facet of life has a limit to how much money will be put towards a life. protip: it is absurdly low in almost every case.
I would go so far as to say that far as I know, the cost of absolutely ensuring guilt and putting a man to death may very well be the largest amount of money spent by the general masses to protect a single life. Given almost every other circumstance, that cost would exceed the general population's desire to save a life.
However, I do agree that our system is completely retarded, but I think my opinions of why are different than yours.
im not saying that i personally should get to arbitrarily choose what penalties should be given for what crimes. im saying that i agree with what society has deemed the appropriate penalty for certain crimes. i think this is an important difference.
again, i agree that we should use the death penalty because i believe in the fundamental principle of fairness. for lack of a better phrase, i believe in an eye for an eye. im not sure why you consider that a "flimsy" justification.
in my ideal world, murderers are punished severely. im not a christian but the heaven imagery works well as a metaphor. imagine if heaven was granted to every murderer, rapist, arsonist, etc. and in heaven these criminals are rewarded with plasma tvs and servants and massages. to me, that kind of heaven is not ideal. why? it goes without saying that such a heaven would contain more "happiness" than one where retributive justice exists.
but that kind of heaven rubs me the wrong way. it goes against the principle of fairness that i subscribe to.
just because i personally subscribe heavily to a theory of fairness, doesnt mean that i think all people do. nor do i think the universe necessarily does*. i can see how someone might think that all people, no matter how monstrous and evil they are, should be forgiven and be allowed to enter heaven. maybe some people think that invoking jesus' name on one's deathbed is enough to cleanse them of all sin and send them into the pearly gates. that's fine and good. i simply disagree with them. i think that if that's the case, then the christian god sucks.
some evil motherfucker who invokes jesus' name on his deathbed should not get the same treatment as some saint who has sacrificed himself to help people all his life. those are my feelings on the matter. i bet lots of people agree with me.
but does that mean fairness is some kind of natural law? no, not at all. its just a preference that lots of living things seem to possess. we see it in lots of people and sometimes even in animals.
i've never once said the desire for revenge is bad. never once. i think the exact opposite. the desire for revenge is good.
however, that doesnt mean that personal revenge is not disruptive to society. because it is. personal revenge is almost impossible to regulate and causes far more problems than it solves. however, the death penalty has none of these problems.
like i said earlier, people have preferences and instincts, due both to nature and nurture (please remember however that i dont think any of these are universal). personally i like food and companionship and fairness. i hear that lots of other people enjoy similar things. however, just because i like food doesnt mean i like it so much that i'll kill another person and eat him. i recognize that cannibalism likely makes for bad society. so i regulate my preferences and instincts to a certain degree in order to build a better society. it is no different with revenge (fairness). i like it about as much as i like food and companionship. but i recognize that personal revenge is destructive. so i regulate my desire for fairness and accept that personal revenge is too destructive. that doesnt mean however that state sponsored revenge is too destructive, because they are totally different things.
again, you might be reading this and say, this still boils down to "i like retributive justice and therefore it's good". i can understand why you might think that and i even think it's a fair response. but the problem with that response is that it dismisses my position without fairly addressing it. my position is no different from the opposite position (i.e., retributive justice is bad because you don't like it). and that is what your response boils down to. i am arguing that people should get what they deserve (both good and bad). that is the essence of retributive justice. in order to disagree with me, you would have to argue that people should not get what they deserve. is that really what you believe?
if we are only disagreeing about the weight of the penalty (e.g., death penalty vs. lwop) and not the principle, then you've pretty much subscribed to the ideal of retributive justice. if however, you actually think sometimes people should not get what they deserve, then id be interested to know why.
*edit: in fact, i think the universe does not subscribe to a principle of fairness. if anything, it subscribes to a principle of only the strong survive.
See, for me, one of the turning points in my philosophy is when I decided that, if I had the choice, I would make everyone happy.
Even horrible people. Every last one of'em. Even assholes like Jerry Falwell. Because fuck, fairness is meaningless to begin with, and I'd really just like for everyone, EVERYONE to be happy, because trying to get back at people is part of why humanity sucks so very badly. We just can't get the fuck over wanting to get back at people, so you have, shit, pretty much anything to do with the Abrahamic groups.
Oh, my instinct is still to kick the shit out of someone who harms me or others. But I have a truly vicious nature beneath my intellectualism, and I don't hold human life that high. Thing is, I let the darkness pass once things are settled, and danger has passed. And if nobody is harmed by it, the fuck, what kind of sick fuck am I if my happiness requires the pain of others?
So while I understand your position on getting back at people, I can't agree with it. Not when I'm not in the same mood in which I'd break a person's body parts.
Because "getting what they deserve" is an inherently self-serving desire. "You hurt me so I want to see you hurt".
If we had a magical device that could remove all murderous thoughts from people, and turn a hardened killer into a good citizen, using that on a convicted murderer would make far more sense than capping him "because it's what he deserves". Of course, we don't have a machine like that - but we try to replicate the effects using our penal system. Sometimes it works, a lot of the time it doesn't - but what's important is that we try, and keep on trying.
Ideas of natural justice (which is what you believe in, whether you admit it or not) are blind to the fact that sometimes bad people getting what they deserve is less important than creating a harmonious society. That giving up on people - even undeserving people - is a step towards a system where they're no longer people at all.
As I've said, lots of times - there is a place for retributive justice. But that's only part of it.
And you're confusing the practicalities of the argument with the theoretical. It's well and good for you to trot out a hypothetical "eye for eye" doctrine, but people have already pointed out the fact that the death penalty in the real world leads to situations where you're responsible for the death of an innocent. At the very least, you're never able to be entirely certain that the person you're killing was in fact guilty of the crime. You can be sure within "a reasonable doubt", but for your hypothetical "pearly gates" scenario, is that enough?
So if society voted tomorrow to abolish the death penalty and give all murderers puppies to help them rediscover love and joy, you'd be down with that?
Your beliefs simply align with society's as they are at the moment. Don't play bullshit little tricks to lend credence to your position.
Indeed. Anyone who says shit like that has never been in a courtroom, and presented with two very plausible and persuasively-argued explanations for the facts.
are self serving desires bad? if not, then why do you point out that what i want is self serving?
i disagree that what you describe above is what we want and try to achieve. i agree it's one of the things that we might hope for, in that it would serve as a perfect deterrent for recidivism, but even if we were to have such a device, i believe we would choose to use it at the cost of sacrificing our need for retribution. just as we forego personal revenge in our desire for stable society, we might one day forego all forms of retribution in our desire for perfect deterrence. i dont necessarily see that as a good thing though.
still not sure why you think i believe in natural justice.
i agree with this wholeheartedly. that's why i've said that i agree with our collective decision to forego our desire for personal revenge (retributive justice in its purest form) and instead have the state conduct acts of retributive justice on our behalf.
well, i did start this thread out with a question regarding whether theoretical arguments were welcome (see page 1).
that being said, there is no confusion in my stance. i dislike how the death penalty is administered. but i dont oppose it in theory. furthermore, im not convinced that poor administration is enough to warrant its abolishment. ive stated before that we sacrifice innocents all the time for other purposes. i dont see why sacrificing innocents for retributive justice is any different.
if society voted tomorrow to abolish the death penalty, i would simply disagree with them, just as i disagree with incenjucar's above post. but that doesnt mean i dont acknowledge that society's collective opinion on the matter is more valid than mine.
they are two totally different things. society has stances on many things and sometimes i agree with its collective conclusion and sometimes i dont. however, i do subscribe to the overriding principle of majority rules. as such, even if i think some criminals should be killed for the crimes they commit, if society disagrees, then so be it. majority rules. this is obviously a different stance than that of "ketherial's own personal monarchy", which is what you are implying my stance to be.
Prosecution: *Plausable scenario #2*
Judge: Search your feelings for the truth.
Jury: Fucking hell, we're going to be here all night.
actually, there are tons of hurdles that have to be overcome before a case even reaches a courtroom.
prosecutors are overworked and have far too many cases to handle.
indictment (although it is held to no standard of proof) is pretty much a pretrial on the basic facts.
and once it reaches a courtroom there are the myriad difficulties of trial.
we could of course make it even more difficult to convict criminals, but in terms of standards, i think the u.s. has a set a pretty high one.
If they're both plausible, then that should be reasonable doubt.
Of course you're probably also assuming the average American juror isn't a moron.
i saw that you posted and i was all excited to get into fistcuffs with you (if i remember correctly, i think we might disagree on this one), and then all you do is reply to one of the more inane posts in the thread.
you and i were meant to hash out all of life's important issues on these forums to come to some imminently reasonable conclusion.
I guess what I'm saying is that you should probably read the thread.
Thanks! This gave me a great giggle. Am sigging it!