[Glice]

Originally Posted by SpectralJulianIsNotDead

The point in killing the criminal is to prevent them from killing you. Not to give them "justice" for their crimes.

So you're saying that paedophiles should be allowed to work in primary schools, grooming children for their sick activities? You're fucked up dude.

[Moshe]

I'm against it. It teaches us that killing is allowed if you are strong enough.

[nicfit]

or if you think you're right and the one to kill is wrong.

[SpectralJulianIsNotDead]

Originally Posted by Glice

So you're saying that paedophiles should be allowed to work in primary schools, grooming children for their sick activities? You're fucked up dude.

Are you purposefully inferring random things from my sentence now to make me mad?

In a live or die, survival, situation, if you kill someone who is trying to kill you, you're not thinking "this guy has to pay for his crime against me," you're thinking, "if I don't kill him, he's gonna kill me."

In a courtroom, that isn't the case. There is no urgency and desperation- which is what normally drives a sane/normal nonkiller to kill.

The job of a judge is supposed to pass a penalty that will prevent the criminal from doing so again in a fair manner.

A judge is to take what means are necessary to prevent a pedophile from acting on the compulsion. Whether it is restricting his rights to be around little kids or putting him away for a long time or something else is up to the judge and the severity of the case (a child porn addict, a molestor, and a rapist should all have different sentences of course.)

[EMMAh]

Nope

[Hip Priest]

My first instinct in this question is always to err slightly on the side of the 'yes' vote, and in cases where there is absolute proof of a person's guilt I may still be tempted to do so. The death penalty can minimise the cost of penalising someone, saving on manpower and money (although the cost of execution and its preceding appeals is very high), it exacts very clear retribution and it guarantees that the criminal will not reoffend. A very clear signal is sent out to potential future criminals.

The first thing that makes me think twice if the criminals family; they may be the finest of people who have played no part in their relative's demise into criminality, who cannot help caring and hoping that he or she can be eventually rehabilitated, and I'm not convinced that inflicting the same grief and misery on them s is already imposed upon the victim's family is entirely the thing.

Originally Posted by The Lung

...I also think that the familys of the people who have been murdered should be able to at least beat the shit out of the murderer. I would be against the death penalty but the number of people who get out jail after a few years and then go do the same evil shit should be killed.

Whuist I sympathise entirely with the anger expressed practice, this would be a most heinous policy in practice: I cannot concieve that it would be right for society to train and employ someone for the purpose of torture. What kind of person would truly be willing to do the job? What kind of person would he or she become by doing the job? Who on earth would trust the authorities to handle the proper rsponsibility of torture without malpractice?

Originally Posted by Bastian

But I don't think that the death penalty is justified to punish "normal" murderers or rapists, for a lot of reasons. One being justice can be (and often is) wrong. You just can't revive a dead person after you found out he was innocent.

This is the premium objection, in my mind. We are told that innocent people have nothing to worry about from government, but to believe that means never to have read a newspaper or listened to a broadcast; there are many many cases of the state and its agents gaining a conviction against an innocent individual by both accidental and deliberate means. It is not safe to kill people for the horrible and very real possibility of a false conviction - absolute honesty and accountability from government and police would be neccessary before the instigation of capital punishment.

Originally Posted by Bytor Peltor

...Another way to look at the death penalty......if it were you about to be raped or murdered and you had a gun that you could use to shoot and kill your attacker......would you use deadly force? If you would kill your attacker to protect yourself from being raped or murdered, then don't you agree with the death penalty?...

I agree, but I think there has to be a distinction made between the two types of action. Even in the UK, where the death penalty is abolished, we have the long-standing principle that one may commit a crime if it prevents the commission of an equal or greater crime.

Originally Posted by jon boy

...what happens if the person who has been molested does something similar to someone else? a very high proportion of people who commit crimes like that were victims of them at one point.

I agree. We need to look more strongly at how people have been failed and left vulnerable.

Originally Posted by Prisstina

...Spending the remainder of their life in jail, however, is painful emotionally and mentally (and sometimes physically) and is much more appropriate.

For me at least, if the potential for wrongful conviction is the strongest argument, the point Prisstina makes is the clinching one; the thought of being held in a cell with no rights and no freedom for the rest of my life is far scarier than the thought of a quick death.



So I vote against capital punishment: imprisonment, in my view, means that: we safeguard against wrongful conviction; we have the potential, however distant, to rehabilitate; we do not take away a loved one; we are seen to be morally superior ie above the criminal element.

[Glice]

Originally Posted by SpectralJulianIsNotDead

Are you purposefully inferring random things from my sentence now to make me mad?

By the bleeding hands of shitting Christ, I was taking the piss. For the blessed first-wanks of children everywhere, I despair.

[Glice]

Originally Posted by SpectralJulianIsNotDead

Are you purposefully inferring random things from my sentence now to make me mad?

I'll just quote this a second time so that the irony which fuelled my cheap, and very obvious gag is entirely transparent.

[Bastian]

A little side note on death penalty: Did you know that one of the major reasons why the death penalty was abolished in Germany was to save the lives of Nazi criminals? A lot of the people in postwar Germany who helped abolish it were brown bastards who wanted to protect their old comrades.

So Americans, keep that in mind next time someone from Germany wants to tell you that his country is moral superior to yours because it got rid of capital punishment 60 years ago already.

[atari 2600]

(this one goes out to demonrail666)


Lyrics


Baby, you'll come knocking on
my front door
Same old line you used to use before
I said ya...well...
what am I supposed to do
I didn't know what I was getting into

So you've had a little trouble in town
Now you're keeping some demon down
Stop draggin' my...
Stop draggin' my...
Stop draggin' my heart around

It's hard to think about
what you've wanted
It's hard to think about what you've lost
This doesn't have to be the big get even
This doesn't have to be anything at all

I know you really want to
tell me good-bye
I know you really want to
be your own girl

Baby you could never look me in the eye
Yeah you buckle with the weight
of the words
Stop draggin' my...
Stop draggin' my...
Stop draggin' my heart around

There's people running 'round loose
in the world
Ain't got nothing better to do
Than make a meal of some
bright-eyed kid
You need someone looking after you

I know you really want to
tell me good-bye
I know you really want to
be your own girl
Baby you could never look me in the eye
Yeah you buckle with the weight
of the words
Stop draggin' my...
Stop draggin' my...
Stop draggin' my heart around

[demonrail666]

oops.

[demonrail666]

Such kind words Atari:

Just for you -

I know sometimes I'm like a child
I disappoint you so
And how you keep forgiving me
I'll never never know
When I stumble and I fall
And need love desperately
You are always there for me

Like an oak in the wind
Like an old familiar friend
Like a harbor in a wild and raging sea
Darlin' you are always there for me

When I take your love for granted
Like I often do
It's not that I don't need you so
It's not I don't love you
It's just that I'm a fool sometimes
Just too blind to see
That you are always there for me

Like an oak in the wind
Like an old familiar friend
Like a harbor in a wild and raging sea
Darlin' you are always there for me

Like an oak in the wind
Like an old familiar friend
Like a harbor in a wild and raging sea
Darlin' you are always there for me

[demonrail666]

Originally Posted by atari 2600

Stop draggin' my...
Stop draggin' my...
Stop draggin' my heart around

Tell me it isn't so!

[cuetzpalin]

death penalty is murder. that's obvious. noone has any right to kill. neither the murderer nor some fucking law of some fucking nation. the human's brain isn't explored. maybe after about hundred yrs will the scientist find out that when you kill someone it's just some error in brain chemism. also the murderers suffer a lot in prison in my opinion..

[SYRFox]

No.

[MellySingsDoom]

Does the death penalty really act as a deterrent? No.
Does the state use the death penalty as a cheap and cynical way to distract it's citizens from it's uselessness in dealing with crime? Yes.
Does it appeal to our atavistic instincts? Yes, certainly.
Is the death penalty moral? Depends how you interpret morality.
Is it inhuman? Almost certainly, in as much that murder is inhuman.
Would I want the death penalty re-instated in the UK? No.
Do I believe it will be re-instated within my lifetime? Yes.

[pokkeherrie]

To everyone who seems to think the death penalty saves lots of tax money:

Death penalty is only cheaper than life imprisonment in places like China, where you not only get executed soon after the verdict without having much possibilities of appeal, but where they (until recently) even used to charge your family members for the bullet used in the execution should they wish to reclaim your body.

This saving money argument isn't valid for the US. All you pro-death sentencers will have to choose between either saving tax money and not being too careful about who gets executed or not... or being careful and having costly trials with even more costly appeals.

[gmku]

No. But then, I basically don't agree with the Death. And He cheats at chess.

[!@#$%!]

people still arguing about this shit?

but only morons believe on the goodness of the death penalty. end of the fucking story!

[screamingskull]

capitol punishment makes me feel physicaly sick. I couldn't even watch it happening in that capote movie. I think it is the most horrible evil terrible thing in the whole world.