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Death Penalty

Started by The Skeletal Atheist, February 02, 2016, 06:50:32 PM

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The Skeletal Atheist

Quote from: aitm on February 02, 2016, 07:47:42 PM
Perfect the methodology of conviction and I am all for it. There are indeed some pieces of shit that if I was allowed would indeed be allowed to live. But I would render them a blob with a perfectly good mind, all alone in the quiet, no sound, no smell, no sight, no taste, just blackness and a perfect mind….
I have no mouth, and I must scream.
Some people need to be beaten with a smart stick.

Kein Mehrheit Fur Die Mitleid!

Kein Mitlied F�r Die Mehrheit!

Unbeliever

Quote from: aitm on February 02, 2016, 07:47:42 PM
Perfect the methodology of conviction and I am all for it. There are indeed some pieces of shit that if I was allowed would indeed be allowed to live. But I would render them a blob with a perfectly good mind, all alone in the quiet, no sound, no smell, no sight, no taste, just blackness and a perfect mind….

You mean kind of like how Wesley was going to leave Prince Humperdinck?


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoSHmVkjmuA
God Not Found
"There is a sucker born-again every minute." - C. Spellman

widdershins

For me, the death penalty is not about revenge or closure.  It's simply about throwing out garbage.  If someone is a useless piece of shit then why should a society be expected to squirrel them away at the expense of taxpayers for a good, long life?  What is the purpose of lifetime imprisonment?  Is it punishment?  Is it mercy?  Whatever it is, it's pointless.  As long as the person lives they pose a risk to others.  Prisoners escape, are accidentally let out or attack guards or other prisoners.  Frankly I think anyone who is an unredeamable piece of shit should just be flushed like a turd.  Not for "justice" or revenge, but simply because if something is broken and irreparable it is stupid to keep it on a shelf until it turns to dust of its own accord.  Likewise, if a person has crossed the line and become a monster I see no point in coddling them for the next 50 years, give or take, making sure they get 3 square meals, clean clothes, a bed and a roof while so many more deserving people go without one or more of those things every day.

When you imprison someone for life you agree to take care of their every need until they die.  A murderer doesn't deserve that.  Violent offenders don't deserve that.  They are useless garbage, societal vampires, and that doesn't end when you give them free room and board for life.  If something is useless and will always be useless you throw it out.  The ONLY exception I could see to this is if you could get some use out of them.  If, for instance, they were willing to provide some service or labor which ordinary people did not want to do or which is too high risk to expect "decent" people to do it.  I certainly wouldn't be for forced labor, but a choice between becoming in some way useful to society or going out with the garbage, combined with some sort of "one strike and we shoot you on the spot" to prevent violent offenses or escape attempts, I would be okay with that.  But feeding, clothing and housing murderers and other violent jackasses for life while children starve?  I'm never going to be for that.

Now, probably I don't see death like most people do, to be fair.  I don't see it as something to be avoided at any cost, nor do I, personally, want to live absolutely as long as possible.  When my quality of life is gone, I want to be done.  It's going to happen anyway, so I'd like to go out when I'm thinking life is okay, not after 10 or 20 years of being unable to control my bladder or remember my children.  I don't see life as this thing we should hold onto for the sake of being alive, but for the sake of truly living.  To take a life, I see that as pretty serious, of course.  But assisted suicide, I'm okay with that, as well as suicide in general, although I would prefer it didn't happen for mostly mental cases such as depression.  I don't see life as something "precious" just because it's life, but rather precious if the one living it feels it is.  And frankly, I don't care how a murder "feels" about his or any other life, so his life is in no way precious to me and he is not deserving of my tax dollars to house and feed him and give him free medical care for life.

If you're against the death penalty, yeah, many people are.  I am not, if our criminal system weren't broken.  I see nothing whatsoever wrong with taking a murderer straight out of the courthouse and into the street to put a bullet in his head on the spot, so long as there is absolute, irrefutable proof he is guilty.  I just don't have a problem with that.  If you do have a problem with it, that's okay by me, but I don't.  But don't make the claim that no "civilized society" would ever do such a thing because it's a no true Scottsman argument.  You can no more get a group of random people to agree what is "civilized" and what is not than to get them to agree what is "moral" and what is not.  And nobody is suggesting that the executioner go all baby seal on their asses like it was the zombie apocalypse or anything.  You flip a switch, push a button, pull a trigger...  In many case there is more than one executioner and some of them aren't actually participating, but none of them know which ones are "live" and which ones are dummies.  If you're asking someone to brutally murder a brutal murderer, you'll have very few people who could stomach that.  But if you're asking someone to push the button that does the dead as humanely as we know how, it wouldn't be difficult to find volunteers any more than it's difficult to find people willing to sign up for military service during wartime, and that killing actually IS brutal.
This sentence is a lie...

Unbeliever

I think the death penalty is a barbarism best left to such dastards as DAESH. Too many innocents convicted on flimsy evidence, once they're dead it's too late to make amends.
God Not Found
"There is a sucker born-again every minute." - C. Spellman

drunkenshoe

#34
Quote from: The Skeletal Atheist on February 03, 2016, 02:25:40 PM
I honestly didn't know that Turkey didn't have capital punishment.

If I am not mistaken since around '80s. (E: Official since 2004, bodily since 1984.) It was mostly used with high treason. We had a prime minister (1950-60) who was executed after a coup. I think JFK has sent a plea for his pardon, along with Elizabeth II and a few others.




"science is not about building a body of known 'facts'. ıt is a method for asking awkward questions and subjecting them to a reality-check, thus avoiding the human tendency to believe whatever makes us feel good." - tp

Youssuf Ramadan

Quote from: aitm on February 03, 2016, 03:17:34 PM
Really if the death penalty was up to me, at some "time" inmate x would have his dinner spiked and go to sleep and wake up dead. Real real easy, and very tidy.

Quote from: The Skeletal Atheist on February 03, 2016, 04:17:45 PM
If we have to have the death penalty, my preferred method would be nitrogen asphyxiation. As an inert gas, nitrogen doesn't trigger the sensors that you're dying, you just knock out and die. It's quite literally the most painless way to kill someone. As an added bonus, you don't need any medical expertise to do it. Put them in a room, turn on the nitrogen,  and they're dead.

Yes. It always amazed me how governments manage to find either really gruesome or really farcical, drawn-out methods of knocking someone off when there are simpler alternatives.

FWIW I think the death penalty is a bad idea due to the potential for miscarriages of justice in the legal system.  But, like others have said, I would agree that there are people on the planet that we would be better off without.

Mermaid

Quote from: aitm on February 02, 2016, 08:54:40 PM
Well, lets be honest here. It was YOU that stated point blank: And I pointed out quite clearly that you are wrong.
So how is this a fallacious argument?
Because prison escapes are a rare anomaly.
A cynical habit of thought and speech, a readiness to criticise work which the critic himself never tries to perform, an intellectual aloofness which will not accept contact with life’s realities â€" all these are marks, not as the possessor would fain to think, of superiority but of weakness. -TR

aitm

Quote from: Mermaid on February 03, 2016, 07:44:07 PM
Because prison escapes are a rare anomaly.

You know, they argued and fought over killing the cab driver. One guy was fully invested into killing him. Exactly how many fathers or brothers or sisters or mothers are you willing to let be murdered because it doesn't involve your family?
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

Mike Cl

Quote from: aitm on February 03, 2016, 08:04:01 PM
You know, they argued and fought over killing the cab driver. One guy was fully invested into killing him. Exactly how many fathers or brothers or sisters or mothers are you willing to let be murdered because it doesn't involve your family?
Yeah, that is a factor, isn't it??  Your loved ones................If my wife were hurt on purpose, my daughter, my grandchildren, my dogs---well, I'm not too sure I'd not simply off them given the chance.   I am convinced that if someone enters my house with bad intentions, they are history if I can manage it.  If Charles Manson had killed my mother, I am positive I would not want him sitting around watching TV, giving interviews, smoking cigs--or doing anything but dying.  I really hope I never get tested in this area.
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?<br />Then he is not omnipotent,<br />Is he able but not willing?<br />Then whence cometh evil?<br />Is he neither able or willing?<br />Then why call him god?

TomFoolery

Quote from: aitm on February 03, 2016, 08:04:01 PM
You know, they argued and fought over killing the cab driver. One guy was fully invested into killing him. Exactly how many fathers or brothers or sisters or mothers are you willing to let be murdered because it doesn't involve your family?

That's the best argument you can come up with? An appeal to safety and security in the face of some trumped up serious threat? What is the average murder rate for escaped prisoners annually? It absolutely fucking pales in comparison to practically everything else. More people are probably accidentally strangled by neckties than prisoners who escaped from prison.
How can you be sure my refusal to agree with your claim a symptom of my ignorance and not yours?

Hydra009

#40
Quote from: aitm on February 03, 2016, 08:04:01 PM
You know, they argued and fought over killing the cab driver. One guy was fully invested into killing him. Exactly how many fathers or brothers or sisters or mothers are you willing to let be murdered because it doesn't involve your family?
I've seen this sort of argument before in a discussion about traffic safety.  If we dropped the speed limit by just 5 mph, some people would live who might otherwise die.  If you don't do just that, you're responsible for someone dying who otherwise might not die.  How would you tell the grieving families you let their son/daughter/father/mother die?

So basically, we should just keep dropping the speed limit until absolutely no one is at risk.  We have to have some sort of perfect solution or else we're tearfully giving condolences to some hypothetical stranger.  I forget what it's called, but I'm pretty sure this is a logical fallacy of some kind.

TomFoolery

Quote from: Hydra009 on February 03, 2016, 10:01:12 PM
We have to have some sort of perfect solution or else we're tearfully giving condolences to some hypothetical stranger.  I forget what it's called, but I'm pretty sure this is a logical fallacy of some kind.

You actually had it on accident. It's the perfect solution fallacy, also sometimes referred to as the Nirvana fallacy. I'm not trying to be a know-it-all, but I looked it up today in reference to a discussion about welfare distribution and abuse.
How can you be sure my refusal to agree with your claim a symptom of my ignorance and not yours?

Baruch

Quote from: TomFoolery on February 03, 2016, 09:48:42 PM
That's the best argument you can come up with? An appeal to safety and security in the face of some trumped up serious threat? What is the average murder rate for escaped prisoners annually? It absolutely fucking pales in comparison to practically everything else. More people are probably accidentally strangled by neckties than prisoners who escaped from prison.

Simply marvelous!  A bunch of bohemians is so much more interesting company than normal people.  Quite as exciting as the Tatooine alien bar in the first Star Wars movie.  Yes, neckties are part of the most subtle plans of Darth Vader.  Then he can telepathically strangle victims leaving plausible evidence that it was self inflicted!
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.

widdershins

Quote from: Unbeliever on February 03, 2016, 04:42:18 PM
I think the death penalty is a barbarism best left to such dastards as DAESH. Too many innocents convicted on flimsy evidence, once they're dead it's too late to make amends.
Of course I'm not for it in our current system, as I've said.  But comparing a modern execution of a convicted, violent criminal where we at least try to carry it out as painlessly and peacefully as possible to the brutal, public beheading of someone who disagrees with you isn't exactly a fair comparison.
This sentence is a lie...

GSOgymrat

Quote from: widdershins on February 04, 2016, 11:55:03 AM
Of course I'm not for it in our current system, as I've said.  But comparing a modern execution of a convicted, violent criminal where we at least try to carry it out as painlessly and peacefully as possible to the brutal, public beheading of someone who disagrees with you isn't exactly a fair comparison.

Why should the execution be peaceful or private? If one of the purposes of capital punishment is deterrence an execution that is both public and painful would be more effective. I think a televised extraction of the condemned's organs for donation without anesthesia would be efficient, impactful and educational.

Of course I am being facetious but if the execution of criminals by government is necessary or good why shouldn't it be public?