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Death penalty etc

Started by NellGwyn, February 23, 2018, 06:57:56 AM

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NellGwyn

Hey, it's me again.  This is not exactly a well-put together question, but what do you think is the difference between someone executed by death penalty, and get beaten to death?  Sorry, the question seemed non-relevant, but I really don't quite grasp the difference.
I believe in science more than God.

PopeyesPappy

Some context would probably help, but ultimately there isn't a difference. They are both dead. The body of the later probably shows more obvious signs of how they died, and chances are they felt more physical pain before dying.
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Munch

Sad fact is, there are people in this world who deserve to be either beaten to death or given the death penalty. There isn't anyone who won't at some point in their lives wish someone they hate would just die by these methods, and there really are just some disgusting farces of humanity walking around who deserve it.

like my ex-manager :)
'Political correctness is fascism pretending to be manners' - George Carlin

SGOS

You obviously have your own opinion, so asking others to explain it to you would be rather obtuse.  As Popeye notes, context is important.  Why do you ask when the differences in execution can so easily be enumerated and observed?  Saying you can't grasp the difference is hardly believable, unless you are a cyber bot.

Sal1981

Death penalty is state mandated, but it is still murder.

PopeyesPappy

Quote from: Sal1981 on February 23, 2018, 07:46:51 AM
Death penalty is state mandated, but it is still murder.

Technically a state-sanctioned execution is not murder. By definition, murder is an unlawful killing. Like it or not the death penalty is lawful under US federal and many state laws if applied correctly. It is homicide, but it isn't murder.
Save a life. Adopt a Greyhound.

Sal1981

Quote from: PopeyesPappy on February 23, 2018, 07:52:31 AM
Technically a state-sanctioned execution is not murder. By definition, murder is an unlawful killing. Like it or not the death penalty is lawful under US federal and many state laws if applied correctly. It is homicide, but it isn't murder.
That comes off as hair-splitting and defining out what the state mandates via law.

Blackleaf

Quote from: Sal1981 on February 23, 2018, 08:03:33 AM
That comes off as hair-splitting and defining out what the state mandates via law.

He does have a point. Murder isn't just when one person kills another person. Self-defense isn't murder, and neither is killing in war (provided the soldier isn't performing war crimes). I don't like the death penalty either, but as long as it's law, it's not murder.
"Oh, wearisome condition of humanity,
Born under one law, to another bound;
Vainly begot, and yet forbidden vanity,
Created sick, commanded to be sound."
--Fulke Greville--

Baruch

Quote from: Sal1981 on February 23, 2018, 07:46:51 AM
Death penalty is state mandated, but it is still murder.

Are you assuming the authority of the state to execute, is illegitimate?  Some would say so.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Baruch

Quote from: PopeyesPappy on February 23, 2018, 07:08:43 AM
Some context would probably help, but ultimately there isn't a difference. They are both dead. The body of the later probably shows more obvious signs of how they died, and chances are they felt more physical pain before dying.

Execution in civilized societies is supposed to be humane.  People however want vengeance, and the state wants intimidation ... and perhaps sadism.  Here in the US we can't even manage a humane drug induced killing.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

trdsf

The fundamental difference is that in principle someone receiving the death penalty has gone through a legal process to determine that they have committed a crime that is already defined as having a penalty of capital punishment, or has pleaded guilty to such a crime, and that no mitigating factors were found that would warrant a less severe punishment, and that the jurisdiction has defined a state-sanctioned means of execution.

Whatever the actual merits or demerits of capital punishment, it is a defined process applicable only to certain crimes, and to the extent that the criminal actually committed a capital crime, bears responsibility for making themselves liable to that penalty.  You can scatter a few more "in principle"s there, because I know that as applied it's a flawed process.  I'm speaking in the abstract, and in the abstract, and separate from arguments about its appropriateness or deterrent efficiency, capital punishment is the statement by the state (or by society as represented by the state) that this set of crimes warrant this punishment and not a random act of individual violence.

The victim of being beaten to death, none of that applies, particularly making themselves liable to capital punishment by an act of their own commissionâ€"extenuating circumstances were not stated, so they are not being assumed.  As stated, the victim of the beating is not being put forth as having in any way 'earned' the beating.

To the two individuals, of course, there's no practical difference: both are dead.
"My faith in the Constitution is whole, it is complete, it is total, and I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction of the Constitution." -- Barbara Jordan

aitm

I have no problem executing someone who kills another person. However I have a problem executing someone who killed my dog...for them I want to slice off their testicles, acid their eyes to remove their sight..destroy the ear drum and anvil to remove hearing....burn the nostrils to remove smell....put a ice pick 5-6 vertebrae to engage paralysis, in simpler terms to render them healthy but in a dark quite box ....but hey..thats just me...don't fuck with my dog.
A humans desire to live is exceeded only by their willingness to die for another. Even god cannot equal this magnificent sacrifice. No god has the right to judge them.-first tenant of the Panotheust

Cavebear

Quote from: aitm on February 23, 2018, 09:10:40 PM
I have no problem executing someone who kills another person. However I have a problem executing someone who killed my dog...for them I want to slice off their testicles, acid their eyes to remove their sight..destroy the ear drum and anvil to remove hearing....burn the nostrils to remove smell....put a ice pick 5-6 vertebrae to engage paralysis, in simpler terms to render them healthy but in a dark quite box ....but hey..thats just me...don't fuck with my dog.

Same with my cats.
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!

Cavebear

Quote from: trdsf on February 23, 2018, 02:16:11 PM
The fundamental difference is that in principle someone receiving the death penalty has gone through a legal process to determine that they have committed a crime that is already defined as having a penalty of capital punishment, or has pleaded guilty to such a crime, and that no mitigating factors were found that would warrant a less severe punishment, and that the jurisdiction has defined a state-sanctioned means of execution.

Whatever the actual merits or demerits of capital punishment, it is a defined process applicable only to certain crimes, and to the extent that the criminal actually committed a capital crime, bears responsibility for making themselves liable to that penalty.  You can scatter a few more "in principle"s there, because I know that as applied it's a flawed process.  I'm speaking in the abstract, and in the abstract, and separate from arguments about its appropriateness or deterrent efficiency, capital punishment is the statement by the state (or by society as represented by the state) that this set of crimes warrant this punishment and not a random act of individual violence.

The victim of being beaten to death, none of that applies, particularly making themselves liable to capital punishment by an act of their own commissionâ€"extenuating circumstances were not stated, so they are not being assumed.  As stated, the victim of the beating is not being put forth as having in any way 'earned' the beating.

To the two individuals, of course, there's no practical difference: both are dead.

I agree.  Executing a person after long involved legal procedures and thoughtful jury conclusions and as painlessly as possible is not the same as beating a person to death.  I kind of think intravenous vodka to "pass out" level (however much it takes) and a small plastic bag over the head.  Taped around the neck.
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!

SGOS

I have always been quietly amused at mankind's attempt to make state sanctioned executions more humane.  The Old West strung them up and with a snap of the neck they were gone, or at least seemed like it, because I don't know if their minds experienced hideous after images and pain after their feet stop twitching.

The firing squad seemed a little weird.  Ten riflemen at near point blank range, with one shooting a dummy blank.  Not a great improvement over hanging as far as I could tell, and kind of bloody, but the advantage is that it is technologically superior, as a rifle is more technologically advanced than a piece of rope.

But in my youth with the help of Thomas Edison, the electric chair was hailed as the most humane, even though electrocution is assumed to be quite painful as the condemned convulses and smoke pours out of his ears, and he continues to breath for 30 minutes after getting fried.  Clearly, it's more humane, right?

Then the gas chamber came into vogue.  Strap a guy in a chair and put him in a chamber where he chokes to death.  The chamber has windows so you can watch to see when he looks like he's dead, so you don't have to interrupt the killing process unnecessarily.

Something new was needed, and we've settled on the lethal injection of assorted poisons that few prison guards are competent enough to deliver in the right order.  While their hearts are in the right place, they continually manage to fuck it up.

There apparently is no way to kill a guy without making him suffer, and making the process more complicated doesn't seem to help at all.