Truthfully, I don't really buy that capital punishment isn't a deterrent if put into full swing, I've read the studies and reports myself but considering how bad most nations are for executing criminals it's no wonder that criminals have no fear of it. In the end what are the odds any are going to be executed, again most cases get dragged out over the years, dismissed or otherwise, they get tossed out of jail back into the streets to repeat the circle repeatedly. There is no reason to fear capital punishment when it's hardly ever put into action.
Put it into greater use and I'm sure crime would decrease, no half measure though. Let's see if it would really make an impact or not and see who would be right or wrong on the matter.
So, you choose not to believe facts when you read them?
Tell me, what do you base your beliefs in, then, or are they completely unfounded.
You are suggesting that we aren't killing enough people. That makes me question how highly you personally regard human life. You don't seem to care for it too much.
Truthfully, I don't really buy that capital punishment isn't a deterrent if put into full swing, I've read the studies and reports myself but considering how bad most nations are for executing criminals it's no wonder that criminals have no fear of it. In the end what are the odds any are going to be executed, again most cases get dragged out over the years, dismissed or otherwise, they get tossed out of jail back into the streets to repeat the circle repeatedly. There is no reason to fear capital punishment when it's hardly ever put into action.
Put it into greater use and I'm sure crime would decrease, no half measure though. Let's see if it would really make an impact or not and see who would be right or wrong on the matter.
How many innocent deaths are an acceptable price to pay to kill one guilty person?
How many innocent people are already rotting in prison and will do so for the rest of their lives?
It's an unfortunate situation either way don't you think.
In the end though I stand by my opinion on the matter and I don't think I need to repeat it again do I.
A lifer can be pardoned and released after fifty years.
You can't ressurect a man who was killed fifty years ago.
Truthfully, I don't really buy that capital punishment isn't a deterrent if put into full swing, I've read the studies and reports myself but considering how bad most nations are for executing criminals it's no wonder that criminals have no fear of it. In the end what are the odds any are going to be executed, again most cases get dragged out over the years, dismissed or otherwise, they get tossed out of jail back into the streets to repeat the circle repeatedly. There is no reason to fear capital punishment when it's hardly ever put into action.
Put it into greater use and I'm sure crime would decrease, no half measure though. Let's see if it would really make an impact or not and see who would be right or wrong on the matter.
How many innocent deaths are an acceptable price to pay to kill one guilty person?
How many innocent people are already rotting in prison and will do so for the rest of their lives?
It's an unfortunate situation either way don't you think.
In the end though I stand by my opinion on the matter and I don't think I need to repeat it again do I.
Those three sentences aren't numbers. How many innocent deaths are an acceptable price to pay to kill one guilty person?
You're proposing eliminating basically all checks on prosecutorial authority, you need an answer to this question in order to have a coherent argument.
Meaning that executing innocent people in order to reduce costs has ONLY one benefit, and that is monetary.
Actually, capital punishment doesn't even have that benefit. Due to the "super due process" of death penalty litigation (experience requirements for lawyers, automatic appeals, DNA processing, individual security/housing), it usually ends up costing more to execute someone than it does to imprison him for life. Cost is actually one of the main reasons that New Jersey and New Mexico opted to abolish the death penalty.
As for whether a "utopian" form of capital punishment (a quaint idea) could ever actually have a deterrent value, the hypothetical is a fundamentally impossible one and therefore moot. In the real world, capital punishment hinges on racism, incompetence, injustice, etc. It's pretty much by its very nature an imperfect system that leads to the deaths of innocent people, and has been proven to have (at best) a net neutral deterrence effect. Just because we can imagine a "perfect" system of capital punishment does not mean it could ever exist—and even then, whether or not it would have a deterrent value is up in the air.
Cade, I respect your opinion, and I hope these others will learn to do respect it as being different as well.
I don't have to respect that opinion any more than that of a segregationist.
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MorninglordI'm tired of being Batman,so today I'll be Owl.Registered Userregular
edited May 2009
I was talking to a chinese lawyer (this took effort since he didnt speak english and my gf had to translate between us) about the death penalty, and the gist I got from it is that they have so many fucking people its not a choice.
I couldn't get any more subtlety than that considering the translation barrier and the fact it was just a social outing so he could meet the bf of his best friends daughter, anybody who lives there might have a better idea.
Also how I stated this shouldn't be taken as any indication of my opinion: I have none. I haven't had time nor do I have time to seriously consider it and my gut feeling is mixed.
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Chinese government is all sorts of jacked up. On the one hand you have the CCP maintaining power, on the other you have increasing organized crime in the government trying to gain more power, and neither have a real incentive to not execute people either officially or otherwise.
Truthfully, I don't really buy that capital punishment isn't a deterrent if put into full swing, I've read the studies and reports myself but considering how bad most nations are for executing criminals it's no wonder that criminals have no fear of it. In the end what are the odds any are going to be executed, again most cases get dragged out over the years, dismissed or otherwise, they get tossed out of jail back into the streets to repeat the circle repeatedly. There is no reason to fear capital punishment when it's hardly ever put into action.
Put it into greater use and I'm sure crime would decrease, no half measure though. Let's see if it would really make an impact or not and see who would be right or wrong on the matter.
So, you choose not to believe facts when you read them?
Tell me, what do you base your beliefs in, then, or are they completely unfounded.
You are suggesting that we aren't killing enough people. That makes me question how highly you personally regard human life. You don't seem to care for it too much.
How often does any state execute a prisoner? Answer, very rarely to very little. Capital punishment is hardly enforced at all, it's not a common occurrence so why would a criminal fear it? It's like winning the reverse lotto only you got to be damn unlucky. There really is nothing to fear when so many can commit such horrible crimes in society and are simply locked away. Getting executed for it, come on, how many criminals worry about execution in this day and age? They know it's not going to happen.
Put capital punishment into actual action instead of randomly slapping one convicted with it and then do the studies and reports and tell me what they say, not when they're on done on such half measures which is a joke. No wonder it says capital punishment does nothing, how can it when it's hardly ever used.
A lifer can be pardoned and released after fifty years.
You can't ressurect a man who was killed fifty years ago.
True enough you can't. Is having to spend fifty years in prison any better of a fate though? How many of those actually get through it, what kind of life do they have when it's all over with. Is that any better? Is that justice, is that a life in the end?
Those three sentences aren't numbers. How many innocent deaths are an acceptable price to pay to kill one guilty person?
You're proposing eliminating basically all checks on prosecutorial authority, you need an answer to this question in order to have a coherent argument.
You see it in how many innocents are going to pay for the deeds of those that committed crimes.
I see it in how many criminals that would be prevented from being able to get out and commit more crimes.
the studies I'm talking about, by the way, are studies in the USA, where capital punishment IS used.
Studies show that capital punishment actually INCREASES violent crime rates. Look at the figures I posted earlier in the thread.
Oh I know. I've studied and followed such reports and cases in the past, they've been quite the things to read over the years. I've followed such studies in Canada and US greatly, not to mention in other parts of the world from place to place when they came up on the news. In the end though capital punishment is hardly ever used, seldom as such, yes they do happen. We all see the protest and hoopla when ever one single case happens, how some go out saying how wrong it is while those that were victimized or families of the deceased say yes it's justified.
As it is right now capital punishment is more of an after thought, again put it into greater action with more executed and then do such polls and studies and see what they say. I have yet to see one good argument how or why capital punishment actually increases violent crimes, especially in the US or Canada since they are so rare. I don't believe any of the current reports are even remotely accurate when they say they increase violent crime, most of those that commit crimes believe life is cheap to begin with for any number of reasons, go ahead pick one, they're all excuses in the end. To say they suddenly believe life is cheap due to capital punishment itself seems laughable at best. "Hey buddy why did you kill that guy?" "Because they kill criminals!" Yeah....not buying it sorry. If there were more executions done at a regular rate and such studies said what your arguing about then I could concede the point to you, but with the low number right now I simply can not.
Cade: Stop making a gut argument seem fancier than it is. You want to reject the evidence, that's fine, but in turn, I get to reject your opinion.
That's your right to do so. For anyone to do so, but then your opinion based on anything more than your own gut as you put it? I'm sure you will mention the studies already said but I"m going to wager you thought this way to begin with, am I so wrong in that. Everyone believes what they do for the most part based on how they grow up, what they see, what they learn or what they think, so few ever really take into account what studies or reports say although that can influence some. But in the end very little, most people come to believe what they do and stick with it no matter what.
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MorninglordI'm tired of being Batman,so today I'll be Owl.Registered Userregular
edited May 2009
They really do have.
a fuckload of people.
In a small space though.
Which gives it all some environmental context that I can't really ignore, since one of my primary interests is social psychology.
So morally, I don't know what to think at all.
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Cade: Stop making a gut argument seem fancier than it is. You want to reject the evidence, that's fine, but in turn, I get to reject your opinion.
That's your right to do so. For anyone to do so, but then your opinion based on anything more than your own gut as you put it? I'm sure you will mention the studies already said but I"m going to wager you thought this way to begin with, am I so wrong in that. Everyone believes what they do for the most part based on how they grow up, what they see, what they learn or what they think, so few ever really take into account what studies or reports say although that can influence some. But in the end very little, most people come to believe what they do and stick with it no matter what.
I'd like you to imagine you started learning psychology and found it a passionate interest. you have an open mind, and your opinions, thoughts, even feelings and morals, began to be influenced and shaped by an influx of information and facts on a weekly basis, so that for the last three years you have been in a constant state of mental evolutionary flux. Like a constant epiphany high. In addition, you have been taught how to deal with this information, wether or not to credit or discredit it, taught multiple theories that you must informationally process, remember, and which are affecting you as well. Rules for how to rationally think your way through the madness of information that compeltely lays waste to the illusions on which you have lived your life up until you started learning this field.
Now, turn around, and say what you said, to yourself as that person.
How would you react.
Cos that's how I'm reacting now.
We have no common ground here. I don't agree with you, at all.
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Truthfully, I don't really buy that capital punishment is
Those three sentences aren't numbers. How many innocent deaths are an acceptable price to pay to kill one guilty person?
You're proposing eliminating basically all checks on prosecutorial authority, you need an answer to this question in order to have a coherent argument.
You see it in how many innocents are going to pay for the deeds of those that committed crimes.
I see it in how many criminals that would be prevented from being able to get out and commit more crimes.
Either way, you can't conduct a cost benefit and claim your policy idea is good without having numbers.
So, put up.
edit: I seem to have fucked up my quote tree. Probably better not to quote this post.
Eat it You Nasty Pig. on
it was the smallest on the list but
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
I was arguing against REDUCING due process in order to cut costs.
Ahh, my bad. Just got in from a long leg in my roadtrip, my reading comprehension isn't as sharp as it usually is.
And yeah, you're right, all reducing due process would do is reduce cost and lead to the deaths of more innocent people. And undermine that whole rule of law thing, but who cares about that.
How often does any state execute a prisoner? Answer, very rarely to very little. Capital punishment is hardly enforced at all, it's not a common occurrence so why would a criminal fear it? It's like winning the reverse lotto only you got to be damn unlucky. There really is nothing to fear when so many can commit such horrible crimes in society and are simply locked away. Getting executed for it, come on, how many criminals worry about execution in this day and age? They know it's not going to happen.
Put capital punishment into actual action instead of randomly slapping one convicted with it and then do the studies and reports and tell me what they say, not when they're on done on such half measures which is a joke. No wonder it says capital punishment does nothing, how can it when it's hardly ever used.
How often should we be killing people? Give me a number here. Texas has averages about 15 a year for the past few years. That's more than one a month. That's a lot of dead people, in one state alone.
Why do you value human life so little, man?
And let me ask you another question. Would YOU be willing to die, wrongfully -accused, in order to increase the rate of capital punishment. If you ignore everything else I've said, please answer that question.
That's your right to do so. For anyone to do so, but then your opinion based on anything more than your own gut as you put it? I'm sure you will mention the studies already said but I"m going to wager you thought this way to begin with, am I so wrong in that. Everyone believes what they do for the most part based on how they grow up, what they see, what they learn or what they think, so few ever really take into account what studies or reports say although that can influence some. But in the end very little, most people come to believe what they do and stick with it no matter what.
This is not how an argument works. You don't claim someone, after citing and backing up their own argument, didn't really use facts and sources to reach that opinion. You can't prove jack, he can. You are quite simply wrong. And a terrible person for thinking it's better to kill more people based on nothing but a feeling.
That's your right to do so. For anyone to do so, but then your opinion based on anything more than your own gut as you put it? I'm sure you will mention the studies already said but I"m going to wager you thought this way to begin with, am I so wrong in that. Everyone believes what they do for the most part based on how they grow up, what they see, what they learn or what they think, so few ever really take into account what studies or reports say although that can influence some. But in the end very little, most people come to believe what they do and stick with it no matter what.
This is not how an argument works. You don't claim someone, after citing and backing up their own argument, didn't really use facts and sources to reach that opinion. You can't prove jack, he can. You are quite simply wrong. And a terrible person for thinking it's better to kill more people based on nothing but a feeling.
But what if it is...more than a feeling?
I looked out this morning and the sun was gone
Turned on some music to start my day
I lost myself in a familiar song
I closed my eyes and I slipped away
It's more than a feeling
(More than a feeling)
When I hear that old song they used to play
(More than a feeling)
I begin dreaming
(More than a feeling)
'Til I see Marianne walk away
I see my Marianne walkin' away
So many people have come and gone
Their faces fade as the years go by
Yet I still recall as I wander on
As clear as the sun in the summer sky
It's more than a feeling
(More than a feeling)
When I hear that old song they used to play
(More than a feeling)
I begin dreaming
(More than a feeling)
'Til I see Marianne walk away
I see my Marianne walkin' away
When I'm tired and thinking cold
I hide in my music, forget the day
And dream of a girl I used to know
I closed my eyes and she slipped away
She slipped away
It's more than a feeling
(More than a feeling)
When I hear that old song they used to play
(More than a feeling)
I begin dreaming
(More than a feeling)
'Til I see Marianne walk away
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MorninglordI'm tired of being Batman,so today I'll be Owl.Registered Userregular
edited May 2009
Cade your cognitive dissonance is going to have to be resolved in favour of you being wrong if you want to continue this discussion, because nobody here is going to agree "why yes maybe we are wrong waht an interesting way to think about this I should have considered it."
You are gonna have to do that in your own fantasy land, somewhere else.
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The death penalty is a shitty deterrent because most murderers commit their crimes under the assumption that they won't get caught. If they knew from the get-go that they were going to spend 15-25 years behind bars for their premeditated homicide I think they'd probably find another way of dealing with the situation.
Cade your cognitive dissonance is going to have to be resolved in favour of you being wrong if you want to continue this discussion, because nobody here is going to agree "why yes maybe we are wrong waht an interesting way to think about this I should have considered it."
You are gonna have to do that in your own fantasy land, somewhere else.
especially when you are presented with facts and figures, and your response is "well, I don't agree with those numbers"
You can't just disagree with reality. It doesn't work that way.
The death penalty is a shitty deterrent because most murderers commit their crimes under the assumption that they won't get caught. If they knew from the get-go that they were going to spend 15-25 years behind bars for their premeditated homicide I think they'd probably find another way of dealing with the situation.
not to mention crimes of passion and criminals who are not mentally all there
The death penalty is a shitty deterrent because most murderers commit their crimes under the assumption that they won't get caught. If they knew from the get-go that they were going to spend 15-25 years behind bars for their premeditated homicide I think they'd probably find another way of dealing with the situation.
not to mention crimes of passion and criminals who are not mentally all there
That too.
Which you would think goes without saying, but apparently some people are of the impression that violent crimes are always committed by people of sound mind who would realize "Hey I shouldn't kill someone"
Those three sentences aren't numbers. How many innocent deaths are an acceptable price to pay to kill one guilty person?
You're proposing eliminating basically all checks on prosecutorial authority, you need an answer to this question in order to have a coherent argument.
You see it in how many innocents are going to pay for the deeds of those that committed crimes.
I see it in how many criminals that would be prevented from being able to get out and commit more crimes.
Again no numbers. You need to do an accounting here. If you don't have a concrete answer to the numbers question, then your argument is about as good as this one:
I think we should kill Cade because his opinion sucks. That's just my opinion. You all have to respect it.
Just to speed things up, I'll offer you a suggestion: one possible accounting you could do here is to say that the rate of innocents killed per legitimate execution should be less than the rate of lives saved by the average deterrent effect of one execution.
So, now we have to go and calculate the deterrent effect of execution. But oh no! It turns out that the death penalty doesn't appear to have any deterrent effect at all in its present form. Even a very low rate of innocents killed should be unacceptable, then, and since we can't eliminate error from the process, even with extremely long delays and protracted appeals processes, we can't in good conscience use the death penalty.
So, going back to the 'punishment in general' thing. Just to sort of play devil's advocate here:
When a child does something wrong, they need to get punished. This is how they learn right from wrong, on a basic level. Not necessarily corporal punishment or anything, maybe just time out, losing tv privileges, whatever. The younger the child, the more necessary it is, since they don't have the cognitive capacity to understand all the arguments presented here. Likewise with animals - when you house break a dog, usually if it shits on the rug or something, it knows that it fucked up, and will anticipate the punishment (slinking around, whining, etc).
So basically, is punishment necessary for the criminal? As in, for their understanding of how society works? Not even that rehabilitation doesn't work on them necessarily, just that they need to know that objectively, certain things are right and wrong? Could not reinforcing that through our penal system disrupt the part of our reptilian brain that computes our base morality?
Just having rehabilitation, and not phrasing it in terms of punishment, seems like it could soften the line between 'illegal' and 'undesirable behavior'. Is there a potential slippery slope there? Isn't it good to have a hard line between 'objectively wrong and punishable' and 'a behavior that should be changed'?
I also don't get why the whole morality as money was such a big deal here. The only thing that really points to that was the 'morally bankrupt' phrase. Everything else might have been morals as karma, or physics or algebra. It's a balancing of the scales.
I also don't get why the whole morality as money was such a big deal here. The only thing that really points to that was the 'morally bankrupt' phrase. Everything else might have been morals as karma, or physics or algebra. It's a balancing of the scales.
I think it was just some linguist being really clever and stretching the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis way past the breaking point.
So, going back to the 'punishment in general' thing. Just to sort of play devil's advocate here:
When a child does something wrong, they need to get punished. This is how they learn right from wrong, on a basic level. Not necessarily corporal punishment or anything, maybe just time out, losing tv privileges, whatever. The younger the child, the more necessary it is, since they don't have the cognitive capacity to understand all the arguments presented here. Likewise with animals - when you house break a dog, usually if it shits on the rug or something, it knows that it fucked up, and will anticipate the punishment (slinking around, whining, etc).
So basically, is punishment necessary for the criminal? As in, for their understanding of how society works? Not even that rehabilitation doesn't work on them necessarily, just that they need to know that objectively, certain things are right and wrong? Could not reinforcing that through our penal system disrupt the part of our reptilian brain that computes our base morality?
Just having rehabilitation, and not phrasing it in terms of punishment, seems like it could soften the line between 'illegal' and 'undesirable behavior'. Is there a potential slippery slope there? Isn't it good to have a hard line between 'objectively wrong and punishable' and 'a behavior that should be changed'?
I also don't get why the whole morality as money was such a big deal here. The only thing that really points to that was the 'morally bankrupt' phrase. Everything else might have been morals as karma, or physics or algebra. It's a balancing of the scales.
Seems to me like this is a question of what constitutes effective rehabilitation.
I'd wager that some level of punishment IS involved, if only for behavioral conditioning purposes.
One thing is for sure, though. Capital punishment has never rehabilitated anyone.
When a child does something wrong, they need to get punished. This is how they learn right from wrong, on a basic level. Not necessarily corporal punishment or anything, maybe just time out, losing tv privileges, whatever. The younger the child, the more necessary it is, since they don't have the cognitive capacity to understand all the arguments presented here. Likewise with animals - when you house break a dog, usually if it shits on the rug or something, it knows that it fucked up, and will anticipate the punishment (slinking around, whining, etc).
So basically, is punishment necessary for the criminal? As in, for their understanding of how society works? Not even that rehabilitation doesn't work on them necessarily, just that they need to know that objectively, certain things are right and wrong? Could not reinforcing that through our penal system disrupt the part of our reptilian brain that computes our base morality?
You punish a child because a young child sometimes lacks the understanding of the murky concepts that are "right" and "wrong," and because children's "crimes" are so frequent and minor that the most effective way to prevent them is simple, dumb deterrence. Comparing a toddler's mental process to an adult's and suggesting they respond the same way to the same stimuli is silly, even without unpacking your basic premise that "children need to be punished."
I also don't get why the whole morality as money was such a big deal here. The only thing that really points to that was the 'morally bankrupt' phrase. Everything else might have been morals as karma, or physics or algebra. It's a balancing of the scales.
You don't think the idea of "paying" a "debt" to society speaks to the wealth as morality claim? It reinforces the idea that we must extract some "payment" from criminals when they commit a crime. In earlier times the state often took it's pound of flesh literally; we only incarcerate people now. There are no "scales" that need "balancing" (more financial terms?), except in metaphor used to justify a punishment ethic.
Eat it You Nasty Pig. on
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MorninglordI'm tired of being Batman,so today I'll be Owl.Registered Userregular
edited May 2009
for punishment to another person to be a deterrant that person being deterred has to realise and accept that it could happen to them.
I don't doubt that for the majority of the populace this happens, and that punishment works as a deterrant for them.
The key thing is that those who it doesn't work for, get put through the system, for those who would be deterred.
Like, I don't know what the theory is behind it, but that's what I see happening.
Which is just, massively ironic.
Also stay the fuck away from children to adult comparisons.
They don't react the same way to morality as we do.
Children are not tiny adults. Their brains are still developing.
Morninglord on
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When a child does something wrong, they need to get punished. This is how they learn right from wrong, on a basic level. Not necessarily corporal punishment or anything, maybe just time out, losing tv privileges, whatever. The younger the child, the more necessary it is, since they don't have the cognitive capacity to understand all the arguments presented here. Likewise with animals - when you house break a dog, usually if it shits on the rug or something, it knows that it fucked up, and will anticipate the punishment (slinking around, whining, etc).
So basically, is punishment necessary for the criminal? As in, for their understanding of how society works? Not even that rehabilitation doesn't work on them necessarily, just that they need to know that objectively, certain things are right and wrong? Could not reinforcing that through our penal system disrupt the part of our reptilian brain that computes our base morality?
You punish a child because a young child sometimes lacks the understanding of the murky concepts that are "right" and "wrong," and because children's "crimes" are so frequent and minor that the most effective way to prevent them is simple, dumb deterrence. Comparing a toddler's mental process to an adult's and suggesting they respond the same way to the same stimuli is silly, even without unpacking your basic premise that "children need to be punished."
I also don't get why the whole morality as money was such a big deal here. The only thing that really points to that was the 'morally bankrupt' phrase. Everything else might have been morals as karma, or physics or algebra. It's a balancing of the scales.
You don't think the idea of "paying" a "debt" to society speaks to the wealth as morality claim? It reinforces the idea that we must extract some "payment" from criminals when they commit a crime. In earlier times the state often took it's pound of flesh literally; we only incarcerate people now. There are no "scales" that need "balancing" (more financial terms?), except in metaphor used to justify a punishment ethic.
I think you're confusing poetry for legalese, to some extent.
What you have stumbled onto my friend is the so called "Star Trek Effect". See when Star Trek first aired in the late 1960's it ushered in a new era of peace and understanding. The plucky crew of the Enterprise gave the world hope for a better tomorrow. Which you can clearly see indicated by the corresponding drop in California's homicide rate from the pre-Star Trek era.
Further if you compare the pre-Star Trek era (15,000BCE-1966AD) number of violent deaths with the post Star Trek Era (1967-Present), you can see just how great an affect Star Trek has had. Seriously, Statistics don't lie.
Claiming that the drop in the murder rate is due to suspending the death penalty is just plain silly.
When a child does something wrong, they need to get punished. This is how they learn right from wrong, on a basic level. Not necessarily corporal punishment or anything, maybe just time out, losing tv privileges, whatever. The younger the child, the more necessary it is, since they don't have the cognitive capacity to understand all the arguments presented here. Likewise with animals - when you house break a dog, usually if it shits on the rug or something, it knows that it fucked up, and will anticipate the punishment (slinking around, whining, etc).
So basically, is punishment necessary for the criminal? As in, for their understanding of how society works? Not even that rehabilitation doesn't work on them necessarily, just that they need to know that objectively, certain things are right and wrong? Could not reinforcing that through our penal system disrupt the part of our reptilian brain that computes our base morality?
You punish a child because a young child sometimes lacks the understanding of the murky concepts that are "right" and "wrong," and because children's "crimes" are so frequent and minor that the most effective way to prevent them is simple, dumb deterrence. Comparing a toddler's mental process to an adult's and suggesting they respond the same way to the same stimuli is silly, even without unpacking your basic premise that "children need to be punished."
I think that your assumption that all children grow up to be perfectly rational and objective in their moral stance is specious at best. You're also ignoring the possibility that this kind of justice is something that people crave on an emotional level, like love, or acceptance, or respect. The way people act when moving from childhood to adulthood changes a lot, but that doesn't mean that our base behaviors, needs, and responses to stimuli change.
I also don't get why the whole morality as money was such a big deal here. The only thing that really points to that was the 'morally bankrupt' phrase. Everything else might have been morals as karma, or physics or algebra. It's a balancing of the scales.
You don't think the idea of "paying" a "debt" to society speaks to the wealth as morality claim? It reinforces the idea that we must extract some "payment" from criminals when they commit a crime. In earlier times the state often took it's pound of flesh literally; we only incarcerate people now. There are no "scales" that need "balancing" (more financial terms?), except in metaphor used to justify a punishment ethic.
Ok, there's paying a debt to society. The rest are still not financial terms. I could just as easily argue that they're financial because they're such old phrases that finance was the only group of terms which applied, since I don't think most people knew physics or algebra terms. Unless you think weighing your heart against a feather is a financial transaction.
Just because we describe it in those terms doesn't mean that's how we actually view it.
"Debt to society" is an idiom. Most people would say that the person did something wrong and they deserve to suffer the consequences; the idea of a transaction doesn't enter into it.
I think it's kind of obvious when you realize that other societies who use entirely different linguistic conditions than we do have essentially the same systems of incarceration and punishment.
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MorninglordI'm tired of being Batman,so today I'll be Owl.Registered Userregular
edited May 2009
stay the fuck away from children when talking about morality, alright.
you guys just dont have enough understanding of which brain systems influence morality to make any useful comparisons from this, nor do you have the knowledge of child development to know when a child is old enough to be a valid comparison. its a complete waste of time.
you want an example heres one.
kids below a certain age, which i think is around 7 or 8 (its been a while since developmental)
will know something is "wrong" but wont feel guilty if they do that wrong thing.
you can go is it wrong and theyll say yes
you can go will you feel bad if you take it and theyll go no
after this age they will say they'll feel guilty
(remember this is a range of ages, so 7-8 is just an average, since children develop at different rates)
this is just an example of where adult to children comparisons mess up, since most of these arguments are based on the assumption that we would both know its wrong, and feel guilty at doing it.]
children aren't a nice easy comparison, they're not a static group. they're a rapidly evolving group in a state of constant flux. you can't say anything specific about the whole group.
Morninglord on
(PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
What you have stumbled onto my friend is the so called "Star Trek Effect". See when Star Trek first aired in the late 1960's it ushered in a new era of peace and understanding. The plucky crew of the Enterprise gave the world hope for a better tomorrow. Which you can clearly see indicated by the corresponding drop in California's homicide rate from the pre-Star Trek era.
Further if you compare the pre-Star Trek era (15,000BCE-1966AD) number of violent deaths with the post Star Trek Era (1967-Present), you can see just how great an affect Star Trek has had. Seriously, Statistics don't lie.
Claiming that the drop in the murder rate is due to suspending the death penalty is just plain silly.
First off, this is the state of California, not the country (thanks for looking at the actual information)
secondly, there's other data I posted about it which also suggests that states with capital punishment have higher murder rates, REGARDLESS of year.
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MorninglordI'm tired of being Batman,so today I'll be Owl.Registered Userregular
What you have stumbled onto my friend is the so called "Star Trek Effect". See when Star Trek first aired in the late 1960's it ushered in a new era of peace and understanding. The plucky crew of the Enterprise gave the world hope for a better tomorrow. Which you can clearly see indicated by the corresponding drop in California's homicide rate from the pre-Star Trek era.
Further if you compare the pre-Star Trek era (15,000BCE-1966AD) number of violent deaths with the post Star Trek Era (1967-Present), you can see just how great an affect Star Trek has had. Seriously, Statistics don't lie.
Claiming that the drop in the murder rate is due to suspending the death penalty is just plain silly.
First off, this is the state of California, not the country (thanks for looking at the actual information)
secondly, there's other data I posted about it which also suggests that states with capital punishment have higher murder rates, REGARDLESS of year.
this second data is the most important data with that graph being focused on here just being supportive.
What you have stumbled onto my friend is the so called "Star Trek Effect". See when Star Trek first aired in the late 1960's it ushered in a new era of peace and understanding. The plucky crew of the Enterprise gave the world hope for a better tomorrow. Which you can clearly see indicated by the corresponding drop in California's homicide rate from the pre-Star Trek era.
Further if you compare the pre-Star Trek era (15,000BCE-1966AD) number of violent deaths with the post Star Trek Era (1967-Present), you can see just how great an affect Star Trek has had. Seriously, Statistics don't lie.
Claiming that the drop in the murder rate is due to suspending the death penalty is just plain silly.
First off, this is the state of California, not the country (thanks for looking at the actual information)
secondly, there's other data I posted about it which also suggests that states with capital punishment have higher murder rates, REGARDLESS of year.
It does bring up the point though, that the information given in the chart is merely correlation and the text doesn't provide strong evidence as to whether one causes the other, or why.
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So, you choose not to believe facts when you read them?
Tell me, what do you base your beliefs in, then, or are they completely unfounded.
You are suggesting that we aren't killing enough people. That makes me question how highly you personally regard human life. You don't seem to care for it too much.
A lifer can be pardoned and released after fifty years.
You can't ressurect a man who was killed fifty years ago.
Those three sentences aren't numbers. How many innocent deaths are an acceptable price to pay to kill one guilty person?
You're proposing eliminating basically all checks on prosecutorial authority, you need an answer to this question in order to have a coherent argument.
Studies show that capital punishment actually INCREASES violent crime rates. Look at the figures I posted earlier in the thread.
Is this the right color for lime I don't do it much I can't tell.
That onion article is the best thing I ever read.
Cade: Stop making a gut argument seem fancier than it is. You want to reject the evidence, that's fine, but in turn, I get to reject your opinion.
Actually, capital punishment doesn't even have that benefit. Due to the "super due process" of death penalty litigation (experience requirements for lawyers, automatic appeals, DNA processing, individual security/housing), it usually ends up costing more to execute someone than it does to imprison him for life. Cost is actually one of the main reasons that New Jersey and New Mexico opted to abolish the death penalty.
As for whether a "utopian" form of capital punishment (a quaint idea) could ever actually have a deterrent value, the hypothetical is a fundamentally impossible one and therefore moot. In the real world, capital punishment hinges on racism, incompetence, injustice, etc. It's pretty much by its very nature an imperfect system that leads to the deaths of innocent people, and has been proven to have (at best) a net neutral deterrence effect. Just because we can imagine a "perfect" system of capital punishment does not mean it could ever exist—and even then, whether or not it would have a deterrent value is up in the air.
I couldn't get any more subtlety than that considering the translation barrier and the fact it was just a social outing so he could meet the bf of his best friends daughter, anybody who lives there might have a better idea.
Also how I stated this shouldn't be taken as any indication of my opinion: I have none. I haven't had time nor do I have time to seriously consider it and my gut feeling is mixed.
How often does any state execute a prisoner? Answer, very rarely to very little. Capital punishment is hardly enforced at all, it's not a common occurrence so why would a criminal fear it? It's like winning the reverse lotto only you got to be damn unlucky. There really is nothing to fear when so many can commit such horrible crimes in society and are simply locked away. Getting executed for it, come on, how many criminals worry about execution in this day and age? They know it's not going to happen.
Put capital punishment into actual action instead of randomly slapping one convicted with it and then do the studies and reports and tell me what they say, not when they're on done on such half measures which is a joke. No wonder it says capital punishment does nothing, how can it when it's hardly ever used.
True enough you can't. Is having to spend fifty years in prison any better of a fate though? How many of those actually get through it, what kind of life do they have when it's all over with. Is that any better? Is that justice, is that a life in the end?
You see it in how many innocents are going to pay for the deeds of those that committed crimes.
I see it in how many criminals that would be prevented from being able to get out and commit more crimes.
Oh I know. I've studied and followed such reports and cases in the past, they've been quite the things to read over the years. I've followed such studies in Canada and US greatly, not to mention in other parts of the world from place to place when they came up on the news. In the end though capital punishment is hardly ever used, seldom as such, yes they do happen. We all see the protest and hoopla when ever one single case happens, how some go out saying how wrong it is while those that were victimized or families of the deceased say yes it's justified.
As it is right now capital punishment is more of an after thought, again put it into greater action with more executed and then do such polls and studies and see what they say. I have yet to see one good argument how or why capital punishment actually increases violent crimes, especially in the US or Canada since they are so rare. I don't believe any of the current reports are even remotely accurate when they say they increase violent crime, most of those that commit crimes believe life is cheap to begin with for any number of reasons, go ahead pick one, they're all excuses in the end. To say they suddenly believe life is cheap due to capital punishment itself seems laughable at best. "Hey buddy why did you kill that guy?" "Because they kill criminals!" Yeah....not buying it sorry. If there were more executions done at a regular rate and such studies said what your arguing about then I could concede the point to you, but with the low number right now I simply can not.
That's your right to do so. For anyone to do so, but then your opinion based on anything more than your own gut as you put it? I'm sure you will mention the studies already said but I"m going to wager you thought this way to begin with, am I so wrong in that. Everyone believes what they do for the most part based on how they grow up, what they see, what they learn or what they think, so few ever really take into account what studies or reports say although that can influence some. But in the end very little, most people come to believe what they do and stick with it no matter what.
a fuckload of people.
In a small space though.
Which gives it all some environmental context that I can't really ignore, since one of my primary interests is social psychology.
So morally, I don't know what to think at all.
Please read the discussion before repeating what everyone else (including me) was saying.
I was arguing against REDUCING due process in order to cut costs.
I'd like you to imagine you started learning psychology and found it a passionate interest. you have an open mind, and your opinions, thoughts, even feelings and morals, began to be influenced and shaped by an influx of information and facts on a weekly basis, so that for the last three years you have been in a constant state of mental evolutionary flux. Like a constant epiphany high. In addition, you have been taught how to deal with this information, wether or not to credit or discredit it, taught multiple theories that you must informationally process, remember, and which are affecting you as well. Rules for how to rationally think your way through the madness of information that compeltely lays waste to the illusions on which you have lived your life up until you started learning this field.
Now, turn around, and say what you said, to yourself as that person.
How would you react.
Cos that's how I'm reacting now.
We have no common ground here. I don't agree with you, at all.
Just FYI
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
Ahh, my bad. Just got in from a long leg in my roadtrip, my reading comprehension isn't as sharp as it usually is.
And yeah, you're right, all reducing due process would do is reduce cost and lead to the deaths of more innocent people. And undermine that whole rule of law thing, but who cares about that.
How often should we be killing people? Give me a number here. Texas has averages about 15 a year for the past few years. That's more than one a month. That's a lot of dead people, in one state alone.
Why do you value human life so little, man?
And let me ask you another question. Would YOU be willing to die, wrongfully -accused, in order to increase the rate of capital punishment. If you ignore everything else I've said, please answer that question.
But what if it is...more than a feeling?
Turned on some music to start my day
I lost myself in a familiar song
I closed my eyes and I slipped away
It's more than a feeling
(More than a feeling)
When I hear that old song they used to play
(More than a feeling)
I begin dreaming
(More than a feeling)
'Til I see Marianne walk away
I see my Marianne walkin' away
So many people have come and gone
Their faces fade as the years go by
Yet I still recall as I wander on
As clear as the sun in the summer sky
It's more than a feeling
(More than a feeling)
When I hear that old song they used to play
(More than a feeling)
I begin dreaming
(More than a feeling)
'Til I see Marianne walk away
I see my Marianne walkin' away
When I'm tired and thinking cold
I hide in my music, forget the day
And dream of a girl I used to know
I closed my eyes and she slipped away
She slipped away
It's more than a feeling
(More than a feeling)
When I hear that old song they used to play
(More than a feeling)
I begin dreaming
(More than a feeling)
'Til I see Marianne walk away
You are gonna have to do that in your own fantasy land, somewhere else.
especially when you are presented with facts and figures, and your response is "well, I don't agree with those numbers"
You can't just disagree with reality. It doesn't work that way.
not to mention crimes of passion and criminals who are not mentally all there
That too.
Which you would think goes without saying, but apparently some people are of the impression that violent crimes are always committed by people of sound mind who would realize "Hey I shouldn't kill someone"
Again no numbers. You need to do an accounting here. If you don't have a concrete answer to the numbers question, then your argument is about as good as this one:
I think we should kill Cade because his opinion sucks. That's just my opinion. You all have to respect it.
Just to speed things up, I'll offer you a suggestion: one possible accounting you could do here is to say that the rate of innocents killed per legitimate execution should be less than the rate of lives saved by the average deterrent effect of one execution.
So, now we have to go and calculate the deterrent effect of execution. But oh no! It turns out that the death penalty doesn't appear to have any deterrent effect at all in its present form. Even a very low rate of innocents killed should be unacceptable, then, and since we can't eliminate error from the process, even with extremely long delays and protracted appeals processes, we can't in good conscience use the death penalty.
When a child does something wrong, they need to get punished. This is how they learn right from wrong, on a basic level. Not necessarily corporal punishment or anything, maybe just time out, losing tv privileges, whatever. The younger the child, the more necessary it is, since they don't have the cognitive capacity to understand all the arguments presented here. Likewise with animals - when you house break a dog, usually if it shits on the rug or something, it knows that it fucked up, and will anticipate the punishment (slinking around, whining, etc).
So basically, is punishment necessary for the criminal? As in, for their understanding of how society works? Not even that rehabilitation doesn't work on them necessarily, just that they need to know that objectively, certain things are right and wrong? Could not reinforcing that through our penal system disrupt the part of our reptilian brain that computes our base morality?
Just having rehabilitation, and not phrasing it in terms of punishment, seems like it could soften the line between 'illegal' and 'undesirable behavior'. Is there a potential slippery slope there? Isn't it good to have a hard line between 'objectively wrong and punishable' and 'a behavior that should be changed'?
I also don't get why the whole morality as money was such a big deal here. The only thing that really points to that was the 'morally bankrupt' phrase. Everything else might have been morals as karma, or physics or algebra. It's a balancing of the scales.
Seems to me like this is a question of what constitutes effective rehabilitation.
I'd wager that some level of punishment IS involved, if only for behavioral conditioning purposes.
One thing is for sure, though. Capital punishment has never rehabilitated anyone.
You punish a child because a young child sometimes lacks the understanding of the murky concepts that are "right" and "wrong," and because children's "crimes" are so frequent and minor that the most effective way to prevent them is simple, dumb deterrence. Comparing a toddler's mental process to an adult's and suggesting they respond the same way to the same stimuli is silly, even without unpacking your basic premise that "children need to be punished."
You don't think the idea of "paying" a "debt" to society speaks to the wealth as morality claim? It reinforces the idea that we must extract some "payment" from criminals when they commit a crime. In earlier times the state often took it's pound of flesh literally; we only incarcerate people now. There are no "scales" that need "balancing" (more financial terms?), except in metaphor used to justify a punishment ethic.
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
I don't doubt that for the majority of the populace this happens, and that punishment works as a deterrant for them.
The key thing is that those who it doesn't work for, get put through the system, for those who would be deterred.
Like, I don't know what the theory is behind it, but that's what I see happening.
Which is just, massively ironic.
Also stay the fuck away from children to adult comparisons.
They don't react the same way to morality as we do.
Children are not tiny adults. Their brains are still developing.
I think you're confusing poetry for legalese, to some extent.
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
What you have stumbled onto my friend is the so called "Star Trek Effect". See when Star Trek first aired in the late 1960's it ushered in a new era of peace and understanding. The plucky crew of the Enterprise gave the world hope for a better tomorrow. Which you can clearly see indicated by the corresponding drop in California's homicide rate from the pre-Star Trek era.
Further if you compare the pre-Star Trek era (15,000BCE-1966AD) number of violent deaths with the post Star Trek Era (1967-Present), you can see just how great an affect Star Trek has had. Seriously, Statistics don't lie.
Claiming that the drop in the murder rate is due to suspending the death penalty is just plain silly.
I think that your assumption that all children grow up to be perfectly rational and objective in their moral stance is specious at best. You're also ignoring the possibility that this kind of justice is something that people crave on an emotional level, like love, or acceptance, or respect. The way people act when moving from childhood to adulthood changes a lot, but that doesn't mean that our base behaviors, needs, and responses to stimuli change.
Ok, there's paying a debt to society. The rest are still not financial terms. I could just as easily argue that they're financial because they're such old phrases that finance was the only group of terms which applied, since I don't think most people knew physics or algebra terms. Unless you think weighing your heart against a feather is a financial transaction.
"Debt to society" is an idiom. Most people would say that the person did something wrong and they deserve to suffer the consequences; the idea of a transaction doesn't enter into it.
I think it's kind of obvious when you realize that other societies who use entirely different linguistic conditions than we do have essentially the same systems of incarceration and punishment.
you guys just dont have enough understanding of which brain systems influence morality to make any useful comparisons from this, nor do you have the knowledge of child development to know when a child is old enough to be a valid comparison. its a complete waste of time.
you want an example heres one.
kids below a certain age, which i think is around 7 or 8 (its been a while since developmental)
will know something is "wrong" but wont feel guilty if they do that wrong thing.
you can go is it wrong and theyll say yes
you can go will you feel bad if you take it and theyll go no
after this age they will say they'll feel guilty
(remember this is a range of ages, so 7-8 is just an average, since children develop at different rates)
this is just an example of where adult to children comparisons mess up, since most of these arguments are based on the assumption that we would both know its wrong, and feel guilty at doing it.]
children aren't a nice easy comparison, they're not a static group. they're a rapidly evolving group in a state of constant flux. you can't say anything specific about the whole group.
First off, this is the state of California, not the country (thanks for looking at the actual information)
secondly, there's other data I posted about it which also suggests that states with capital punishment have higher murder rates, REGARDLESS of year.
this second data is the most important data with that graph being focused on here just being supportive.
you wanna debate this point you focus on that one
this one
fuck the other one
It does bring up the point though, that the information given in the chart is merely correlation and the text doesn't provide strong evidence as to whether one causes the other, or why.