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- Want to be a parent?/The Death Penalty
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| Want to be a parent?/The Death Penalty | |
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| Topic Started: Jan 25 2010, 06:45 PM (413 Views) | |
| Fairy Fabulous | Jan 26 2010, 06:22 PM Post #16 |
The Picture Whore
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My uncle had a bad past, his father, my grandfather, committed suicide when he was 17. He had been stealing for most of his life to get by. He was arrested for robbery. Served time. Got out. 3 years later... My uncle went nuts over not seeing his children, Kidnapped and then held his 2 year old at gun point, while his 4 month old slept in the same house. My aunt going crazy thinking he was going to kill them both and himself. 25 years. No parole. Got out 3 weeks ago Sunday. My uncles have to take turns monitoring their mother, also his mother, and my dad's, just in case he comes back here to hurt her. Who he also had threatened to kill. There is no reason that I see why he should be allowed out to live among people who he is endangering. With no attempt to monitor him, or make sure he isn't near my grandmother, or me, and my family. I guess I am a bit biased, but I don't think 25 years is enough, I don't think he should have been killed, since he didn't kill anyone else, but he shouldn't just be allowed to walk free. |
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Sheldon: I am aware of the way humans usually reproduce which is messy, unsanitary and based on living next to you for three years, involves loud and unnecessary appeals to a deity. Penny: Oh, God. Sheldon: Yes, exactly.   <<<<<<Tis Lyfe!Ah, gravity - thou art a heartless bitch. -Sheldon | |
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| Count Carver | Jan 26 2010, 08:46 PM Post #17 |
Jedi Master of Making Things Sound Dirty
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Man, I think people here really don't understand the nature of the death penalty in the United States and its legal process. Though, I can't blame Sinead seeing as she isn't from the United States and is thus speaking from a different perspective. But in regards to the quoted post. 1. The problem is that we have prisons that have no support for actually trying to reform criminals. Our system is entirely punitive. Of course they are going to keep doing what they've always done once they get out. Maybe if prisons actually tried to help change people's lives, this wouldn't happen, but in the US, we just stuff people in cells to get raped and killed. You've pointed it out yourself in your next point. This indicates a problem with the prison system, it is not a validation of the death penalty. By this logic, we should do exactly what I proposed earlier, which is to kill every criminal, no matter what the crime. 2. This doesn't even make sense. Are you suggesting periodic prisoners sweeps where all the "bosses" are exterminated? You are talking about prisoners already serving life sentences, not people on death row. What we're talking about here is those people. Death Row prisoners are typically (from my experience) kept solitary. Thus they aren't even related to the rest of the prison community at all, so I don't see how this replies. Besides, mandating the death penalty simply to damage the criminal hierarchy, rather than as a form of justice for a crime sends our morality into a very scary place. By this logic, why don't we randomly sweep up possible threats off the street, rush them off to shadowy prisons, then torture and execute them? (oh wait) 3. Okay, the argument that life sentences cost more money to taxpayers is total bullshit. It is a common phalluscy (yes, I'm aware of the spelling) that was debated earlier with Andy in a previous topic (things are different in Colombia, though). In the United States, the appeals process of actually bringing someone from death row to the chair is a long, long one and incurs many costs, much more so than a life sentence. And despite this appeals process, we STILL get it wrong sometimes. There have been multiple cases of executed people in this country (usually Texas) being exonerated AFTER the fact. And of course, DNA evidence has exonerated countless death row inmates. It is not ethical, in my mind, to be killing people if there is a very real chance that we could be wrongly killing someone. And then, just overall, I don't think it is right for me to decide who lives and who dies. I'm just a human, a mere mortal, who I am to play God with people's lives for fuck's sake? What gives me the right to pass fatal judgment on others? Furthermore, how can a society or government as a whole decide? Aren't the lines for what is eligible for capital punishment merely arbitrary? Oh, this heinous crime of xyz is just bad enough to be worth the death penalty but this crime of abc is not quite bad enough. I mean, what the fuck? If the four of us here can't even draw a consensus line on what is worth the death penalty, how the fuck can society come up with some just standard of what constitutes a capital crime and what doesn't? |
-Carver? 
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| Count Carver | Jan 26 2010, 08:49 PM Post #18 |
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Jedi Master of Making Things Sound Dirty
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-Carver?
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| zeromus | Feb 1 2010, 02:57 PM Post #19 |
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I’m posting this in debate forum, seeing as the direction has clearly steered away from casual news commenting.
If you’re implying that all prisons are like the ones in American History X and Shawshank (which you seem to be saying with strong statements like an “entirely punitive” system where “we just stuff people in cells to get raped and killed”), this is absolutely untrue. There are many prisons and FCIs that provide a structured and well-intended support system for inmates, such as Ashland Federal and its wellness program or FPC Montgomery and its help for career retraining. Before he moved out, one of my neighbors used to work at a prison in Norfolk, MA. He invited us to visit him on the job a couple years back, and I clearly recall that prisoners were treated with respect, had plenty of fresh air, were afforded lengthy visits with loved ones, and were treated like actual human beings. Granted, I did not mention much of this humane side earlier, but it’s clear I was initially showing the dark side of prisons to provide more breadth vs Sinead’s point, and nowhere in my aforementioned post did I group them all into some all-encompassing nightmarish institution. So no, not every inmate is going to get a wangus special while doing his time, and yes, some prisons DO try to help change people’s lives. And while the level of their success and sincerity does depend on many variables like geopolitical factors (for example, maximum security prisons in the Midwest generally have a worse reputation than those in the Northeast), prisoner reform can happen, and it does happen in the US – therefore, your latter leap of logic about killing all criminals is unfounded.
Well of course it doesn't make sense to you if you’re comparing my suggestion to some sort of monthly political purge in a fascist regime. Major players in the criminal underground would not survive if they left their dirty laundry everywhere. It takes investigators years, sometimes decades, to pull up enough information proving that an inmate is essentially running an operation from his cell block; this isn't a process that's going to get a lot of quick results. The problem with major syndicates is that they always have a network built in place in and out of prisons – the only way to damage the system is if a kingpin dies. If there is evidence connecting these individuals to homicides and other terrible atrocities even after they're imprisoned, why shouldn’t we be putting them away for good? Because we're afraid of their second-in-commands or excessive moral jurisprudence?
You’re making a quantum leap here. First of all, I don’t know who the people in “we’re” consists of, because from the beginning of the topic, the discussion centered upon the merits of the death penalty, not those already on death row confined in solitary. Like I hinted earlier, those who deserve the death penalty are often the most labile individuals in regards to circumventing it. Elitist lawyers, bureaucratic mumbo-jumbo, and maybe a little pressure/blackmail here and there ensure that many of the worst criminals are given life sentences instead of what they deserve. How does the isolated nature of Death Row have anything do with a critique of how to handle the inmate criminal hierarchy when most of its leadership is kept off of it?
Another strawman. You’re implying that my suggestion was solely intended as shock value against the criminal hierarchy, rather than as a form of justice, so let me repeat what I said: “If you gave their ‘bosses’ the death penalty, it would not only make people feel safer, but damage the criminal hierarchy.” If you want to talk about morality and justice, how's this: How is making the community feel safer not moral? How is giving mourning relatives some needed closure not a form of justice? What is truly unethical – executing murderers and deterring future ones, or failing to execute murderers and allowing the killing of innocent victims (in the form of both murders by released convicts and the message it sends to those thinking about taking another life)? The death penalty is a warning, just like a lighthouse throwing its beams out to sea. We hear about shipwrecks, but we do not hear about the ships the lighthouse guides safely on their way. We do not have proof of the number of ships it saves, but we do not tear the lighthouse down. -Hyman Barshay
I am not debating how obstructed the appeals process is, nor am I disagreeing that DNA evidence has exculpated many ex-prisoners on death row; yet once again, these statements go way off base from my original point – you’re talking about the financial dilemma of life sentences vs death, while I’m dealing with Sinead’s assertion that some kind of expensive scientific foray into analyzing a criminal’s brain is good idea, because in my opinion, it would certainly not assuage taxpayers’ minds. If you’re implying that I was trying to make a bullshit argument “that life sentences cost more money to taxpayers” rather than executing them, you’re attempting to knock down another strawman. Please point to any instance where I clearly stated I was in favor of executing everyone with a life sentence because it was a fiscal convenience, because I sure as hell did not.
You can see the answer for yourself - we're a bunch of teens (well, most of us) giving our opinions about a complex issue on a Harry Potter forum. We are not criminal justice majors. We are not constitutional experts. We do not work for the ACLU. We entrust others to make those difficult decisions for us, because we cannot afford to replace trust with complete doubt and anarchy. I talked earlier about an investigator who collects strong evidence against a criminal hierarchy – what good is it to society if we throw all that evidence away? While you can debate the ethics of our current penal system all you want, it is evident that society has come a long way, and that over history, punishments have generally become more humane. Unless a reporter convinces me otherwise, I believe that most of the people in charge of the penal process have good intentions to safeguard their communities, even if we all have a ways to go before we create a “perfect” system of punishment from universal consensus. You said you’re a human, a mere mortal with no right to play God - yet you aren’t willing to be proactive thinking about someone who clearly and willingly oversteps those boundaries. You can accuse investigators, attorneys, judges, etc that they’re trying to play God all you want. I’m not saying none of them harbor devious intentions. But haven’t you ever thought maybe some of them have more in mind than just handing down divine punishment? That they’re there to protect the rest of us? |
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| Count Carver | Feb 1 2010, 04:29 PM Post #20 |
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I don't have time for this, but I think you've (intentionally or unintentionally) misunderstood my points, resulting in you making contradictory statements such as saying that reform is so unlikely that it never happens so we should just kill them all, to now saying that reform does happen, that the justice system is corrupt (but also mostly good-intentioned) as well as the death row thing. This is all small stuff for why I don't support it, and I only make these arguments because I've already picked a side. The biggest reasons for me are simply these: 1. We can get it wrong. We're fallible. We can't risk having any more innocent blood on our hands. And don't tell me that the death penalty saves lives, you're smarter than that. Murderers don't take long, reflective pauses to rationalize the cost-benefits of killing someone, the fact that they are ready to kill shows they've already left rationality behind. And further, this isn't the movies, people with life sentences don't escape. Killing them or locking them up, they aren't going to get out and kill more people. 2. It isn't ethical to kill people if it is avoidable. (killing someone we could lock up instead to "protect" people is not "unavoidable") 3. Holding that 2. is true, this violates the Bill of Rights. I have to wonder what seriously perverted moral code I was brought up with to believe that somehow killing people is not okay, since a majority of Americans believe that it is. Huh. |
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-Carver?
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| zeromus | Feb 1 2010, 09:33 PM Post #21 |
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Personally, I don't think I misunderstood your points as much as you exaggerated or ignored mine. I simply replied to each one that I thought was questionable or irrelevant, hence all the quote blocks. I understand that time is limited, so if there's anything you want to focus on, just address one quote at a time - we don't need to waste a whole week debating the death penalty, (it would probably take a year), and it's not like I'm going to get upset or anything because A. You're Asian. B. I don't want "death by pink python suffocation" on my obituary. My statements were not contradictory. They were representative of different but necessary perspectives - for any issue as delicate and complex as the death penalty, you cannot begin to choose sides without understanding the whole picture (which I don't claim to, but I'm at least attempting to). When Chrissy made a point I thought was too strong or unsubstantiated, I tried to show another side of the argument. Same with Sinead. And same with you. Nowhere did I commit 100% towards saying something like "we should just kill them all," and I certainly wasn't the one espousing one-dimensional terms like "an entirely punitive system." I try to take everything into consideration when forming my opinion - I'm sorry if you don't see it that way and choose to think of me as a hypocrite instead.
I agree, we can get it wrong, and we have done so before. But if you're saying we can't risk having any more innocent blood on our hands, why aren't you taking into account the innocent lives that the death penalty saves? Yes, the lives that it saves. I don't need to tell you that the death penalty saves lives, because you wouldn't believe me. But would you believe research and data? “I personally am opposed to the death penalty...But my research shows that there is a deterrent effect.” -H. Naci Mocan, economist at LSU and author of a study finding that each execution saves five lives "The evidence of a variety of types — not simply the quantitative evidence — has been enough to convince me that capital punishment does deter and is worth using for the worst sorts of offenses.” -Gary Becker, economist and 1992 Nobel Prize recipient "The evidence on whether [the death penalty] has a significant deterrent effect seems sufficiently plausible that the moral issue becomes a difficult one. I did shift from being against the death penalty to thinking that if it has a significant deterrent effect it’s probably justified." -Cass R. Sunstein, law professor at the University of Chicago "Those who object to capital punishment, and who do so in the name of protecting life, must come to terms with the possibility that the failure to inflict capital punishment will fail to protect life.” -Adrian Vermuele, law professor at Harvard "According to roughly a dozen recent studies, executions save lives. For each inmate put to death, the studies say, 3 to 18 murders are prevented...The studies, performed by economists in the past decade, compare the number of executions in different jurisdictions with homicide rates over time — while trying to eliminate the effects of crime rates, conviction rates and other factors — and say that murder rates tend to fall as executions rise. One influential study looked at 3,054 counties over two decades." -The NY Times, 2007 I may not be the smartest guy around, but at least I'm smart enough to browse some studies first.
No, this isn't the movies - this is real life, where, as I told Sinead, some criminals can convince their captors to release them, which leads to incidents like these: In 1985, 13-year-old Karen Patterson was shot to death in her bed in North Charleston, S.C. Her killer was a neighbor who had already served 10 years of a life sentence for murdering his half-brother Charles in 1970. Joe Atkins cut the Pattersons' phone lines, then entered bearing a machete, a sawed-off shotgun, and a pistol. Karen's parents were chased out of their home by Atkins. Karen's mom ran to the Atkins home nearby, where Joe then murdered his adopted father, Benjamin Atkins, 75, who had worked to persuade parole authorities to release Joe from the life sentence. When Katy Davis observed three strangers outside her Austin, Texas, apartment, she walked away. Returning later, she was attacked and forced to open the door by Charles Rector, on parole for a previous murder. The men ransacked her apartment, abducted her and took her to a lake where she was beaten, gang-raped, shot in the head and repeatedly forced underwater until she drowned. Ruby Longsworth of Pasadena, Texas, met Jeffrey Barney through a prison ministry, then helped him get paroled from an auto-theft sentence. Her kindness was repaid when Barney raped and sodomized her, then strangled her with a cord. Look, would it trouble my conscience if I had to decide another man's life? Of course it would. But am I really going to delude myself into thinking that the best way to prevent innocent bloodshed is to increase its chance of happening even if the evidence showed otherwise? As much as I think the death penalty is unethical, it is in my mind the lesser of two evils. And again, this does NOT mean I'm for wanton, periodic executions a la Pinochet.
As you can imagine, the problem here is we could debate endlessly on the exact definition of "avoidable." And though I've already mentioned what I thought was an ethical (albeit uncommon) example of executing someone, I don't want you somehow translating these examples, as you did earlier, into "we should have everyone executed no matter what the crime."
Finally, our discussion has nothing to do with a referendum on American opinion at large. A majority of Americans are low-information people. A majority of Americans are inactive or lethargic towards politics. A majority of Americans voted an idiot who could barely construct a grade-school sentence into the most powerful office in the country - twice. You and I are not like "most Americans," and therefore, you shouldn't have any reason to mention them. You are giving Carver's side of the argument, and I'm giving my own side. And at least your argument, whether it's right or wrong, is making me think a little - and for that I appreciate it. |
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| Count Carver | Feb 2 2010, 12:09 AM Post #22 |
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Again, time constraints, but let me simply point out that there are a multitude of statistical and scholarly bits of evidence supporting the exact opposite of your quoting bonanza, as a simple Google search can reveal: http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/facts-about-deterrence-and-death-penalty The point is, either side can pick and choose their evidence here. On a side note, I like how after I said "don't tell me it saves lives" you did exactly that. 
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| zeromus | Feb 2 2010, 12:09 PM Post #23 |
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First, let's make a distinction here. When I gave you that "quoting bonanza," it was from multitude of disparate sources - an economist's case study, group research from law experts, a trusted newspaper in the NY Times (which, if anything, has a liberal bias). If I wanted to go to a single biased website favoring my argument, I would've just linked you to this article from the conservative leaning Heritage foundation. The "evidence" you cited was taken from a website with a clear anti-DP agenda. It doesn't take a genius to figure out what line they're taking: -The "deterrence" section conveniently omits any references to studies tying the DP with saving lives (even though most of these studies are more recent than the ones mentioned here) -The "public opinion" section consists of a whopping three polls - one administered by the website, and two outdated polls from the early 90s - none of which show real public opinion, which is that according to a Gallup poll released more recently than any of those three, there's a 67/28 split among the public in favor of the DP. Now I'm not saying that the public always gets it right, but if you're going to have a section titled "public opinion" on a site full of information, shouldn't your polls reflect recent, actual public opinion? -The main page talks about current debate on the DP...in Mongolia. Yes, a country that commits many human rights violations, enforces cruel and inhumane punishments by our standards, and hides statistics on executions. How exactly is their situation relevant to the DP in the US? You are correct that either side can pick and choose their evidence. However, the evidence you chose is pretty much one big FU to data tying the DP with saving lives (just go to your website's massive "studies" section and count how many of those ones you can find - I'm still on zero), and that website is obviously comfortable with a tagline Faux News would be proud of - "We report (a bunch of one-dimensional studies and outdated polls designed to influence you to agree with our pre-conceived notions while ignoring important studies suggesting the opposite), you decide." At least the studies I cited agree that there are contrasting views worth looking at, as this article exemplifies. But assuming that we both acknowledge the existence of empirical data concluding that the death penalty saves AND does not save lives, this brings up an interesting question: Shouldn't we be on the side of caution here? If you're right, then the DP doesn't save lives. I have not seen any study suggesting that the DP increases the likelihood of homicides. If the studies I referenced were right, then the DP does save lives. Each execution saves 3 to 18 innocent people. Honestly, which line of reasoning should we be more proactive on if we truly cared about safeguarding society? |
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| Count Carver | Feb 2 2010, 01:01 PM Post #24 |
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Ironically, this is exactly why I oppose the electric chair. The chance that we get the wrong guy. Shouldn't we err on the side of caution? If we lock someone up who is later proven innocent, it is horrible and all, but at least we can let them go and let them salvage what's left of their life. But if we kill someone, well, there's no Ctrl-Z for that. And I don't want that person's blood on my hands. Because if a murderer kills someone in cold blood, that was their hand, their choice. If the state kills someone, then, as a party to the social contract of the state, it is my hand plunging the dagger, flipping the switch, pumping the drugs. My hands are already drenched with the blood of dead Americans, some who may have been innocent. And honestly, I wish I had all day to debate this with you, it would be a productive and interesting conversation, but I don't. Which I why I (and I admitted it earlier) I merely gave you the first result on the Google to show the prevalence of countering numbers, if not the credibility of that particular source. There are plenty of others on the Google: http://www.amnestyusa.org/death-penalty/death-penalty-facts/the-death-penalty-and-deterrence/page.do?id=1101085 Even this one, which gives you both sides (click the "Other Side" button): http://deathpenaltycurriculum.org/student/c/about/arguments/argument1b.htm What some of these opposing numbers suggest is not merely that the death penalty doesn't save lives, but that states with the death penalty have consistently higher murder rates. |
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| zeromus | Feb 2 2010, 01:24 PM Post #25 |
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And this is exactly where our arguments diverge. You don't need to be visceral in your descriptions - it's clear you believe it's unethical to have blood on your hands because the DP can lead to the execution of innocents (true). I will err on the side of the DP because it would prevent the same inhumane concept of innocent bloodshed. There are studies and data that support both sides of the aisle, so if you don't agree with me, I'm not holding it against you (btw thanks for citing more sources than just the DPIC site). But until I see overwhelming empirical evidence suggesting that the DP has an adverse effect on society, my position is immutable, and I believe yours is too. Like I said, it's the lesser of two evils. Do you really think that connection is a referendum on the effects of the DP as much as it's indicating regional demographics? |
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| Count Carver | Feb 2 2010, 03:06 PM Post #26 |
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Here's a fun ethical scenario. A man kills another man because he thinks the other man is going to kill a whole bunch of innocent people at a later time. He truly believes this and kills this man in order to prevent innocent bloodshed. However, the jury finds him guilty of murder, disagreeing that this murder was necessary and in defense of life. (plus, I don't think it's a legal defense unless there is a clear and present danger, to kill someone else in defense of others). Thus, the state executes him. Under the principles of having a death penalty to protect innocent lives. Thus, the state has killed a man for the same reason that he killed another man. Now that's getting pretty crazy philosophical, which is not my strong point. But still, as a person, I don't make the decision for a murderer to murder someone. However, as a citizen, I do make the decision to execute someone. I am, through the state, the executor. Since I don't make decisions for the murderer, only the state, I feel a much higher moral obligation to exercise the decision in favor of life for the state. |
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