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Please attempt to distinguish between extremists and non extremists to avoid starting the inevitable waste of time that is "can Islam be judged by its believers?" - KwarK |
On May 25 2013 18:54 sc4k wrote:Show nested quote +On May 25 2013 03:31 NoxiousNoodles wrote:On May 25 2013 02:52 Shiori wrote:On May 25 2013 02:51 Reason wrote:On May 25 2013 02:47 Shiori wrote:On May 25 2013 02:45 Reason wrote:On May 25 2013 02:33 NoxiousNoodles wrote:On May 25 2013 02:21 Reason wrote:On May 25 2013 02:15 NoxiousNoodles wrote:On May 25 2013 02:08 Reason wrote:
[quote]
No, it really depends.
Take speeding in a car for example. That's something people can accidentally do and if people were so afraid of being put to death for going 1k/mph over the speed limit there'd probably be more car accidents with everyone staring at their speedometer lol.
Now take rape.
There's "omg I was drunk at a party and making out with this drunk guy in bed then I passed out and I woke up and he was having sex with me"
and there's
"I was walking home from work when this man came out of nowhere, held a knife to my throat, forced me into a dark corner and proceeded to rape me.
For awkward situations like the first example, maybe she's making the whole thing up, maybe she consented to sex then passed out because she was so drunk and can't remember it anymore, maybe maybe maybe....
I'm leaving important details out but I think you can see what I'm saying, I doubt this person would be found guilty of rape by a jury.
The second example though? Yeah sure if he's proven guilty, caught on camera, his DNA inside her vagina etc etc
Yes the penalty should be death. 1 less problem in the world. (also like to point out that rapists know a lot of rape crimes go unreported, a lot of them don't get caught, and even if they do the sentence is simply a few years in jail, if they know they will be executed if found guilty then this type of attack would decrease)
[quote]
Yeah I see why the trial for show is important now.
Their fate is to be released back into society as that story shows... I fear with you at the helm of a country the population may drastically decrease. To punish many crimes such as stealing would be totally disproportionate to the crime they have committed. Furthermore, people can change and whilst stealing, raping and even murdering are terrible acts to perform, it does not preclude them from changing their ways and being a positive influence on society once they have finished their incarceration. The population wouldn't drastically decrease, you need to give a little more credit to your fellow man and his ability to learn. Have you ever jumped off a cliff? Neither have I. Have you ever jumped off a wall? Me too. You see, standing on the edge of the cliff we both weighed our options and their relative consequences, and we both arrived at the same conclusion: I'm not going to jump off because I will probably die and I don't want to die. Standing on the edge of the wall.... we weighed the risks and decided from past experience that we were capable of jumping from that height safely, and lived to tell the tale. This is how the human mind works. I don't care if the punishment is disproportionate, are you saying serial rapists should only be serially raped and not put to death? Of course not, they deserve to die. The punishment doesn't need to fit the crime. Crime is not acceptable. Zero tolerance wherever possible imo. I'm not interested in people changing their ways and being a positive influence on society after being proven guilty of committing a crime against another person with full knowledge and intent, there are plenty people who do not commit such acts and these law abiding individuals deserve not to be tainted by criminal scum being given a second chance they don't deserve. Again, I have committed many criminal acts in my life and fall into the category of "criminal scum" for the purposes of this argument. I would however never have committed any of these acts if the punishment was appropriately severe, and if it was I think we'd live in a much safer and happier world. So say where someone is alleged to have stolen a bar of chocolate from a shop. You would put him to death? Imagine if you do (or any other criminal), what if mistakes were made and he is actually innocent, which has happened. You can release an innocent person from prison, you cannot resurrect an innocent person put to death. You wouldn't put someone to death over wild allegations. If he was proven to have stolen the chocolate bar and he wasn't a kleptomaniac or having a psychotic episode or whatever then yes I would put him to death. The point is it would never happen because who would risk death for a chocolate bar? Crime rates would be so ridiculously low that the number of people wrongfully convicted of crime would be even more so, people die all the time I'm not really worried about 1 in 1,000,000 people being sentenced to death for no reason if the country as a whole is infinitely safer... which would probably result in many many more lives being saved anyway aside from all the other benefits of an almost crime free society. Except the populace would revolt because the government is a bunch of murderers which kills people for stealing fucking chocolate bars. lol who the fuck would be stealing chocolate bars if the penalty was death? get a grip seriously It doesn't matter. Who the fuck would want to support a government which thinks killing people is an acceptable response to petty theft? That's grossly immoral in the minds of virtually everyone, evidenced by the near-universal disdain for your proposal. Like this literally would make the government worse than the actual criminals. Exactly. One of the indicators of a truly civilised country is the lack of a death penalty. Society has moved beyond the barbaric attitude of 'An eye for an eye'. I still can't get my head around this. Every time I revisit the phrase on TL and and IRL etc, I can't see what precisely is wrong with taking an eye for an eye. It is the very embodiment of justice. It only goes wrong when people take more for an eye, and then the original wrongdoers believe the justice exerted was disproportionate, so retaliate and so on. If everyone did actually take an eye for an eye, there probably wouldn't be any trouble. It gets complicated when the crime committed is less simple than murder, for example rape or blackmail...in which case a certain amount of prison time serves as the only reasonable proxy. The people who cared about this beheaded guy have been wronged. The mother and father have seen their baby boy who they raised and loved murdered brutally...with no evidential uncertainty as to who actually did the act. I'm not saying they do, but if the parents DID want the murderers to be executed, I (currently) believe they should have the right to pursue that eventuality through the legal system. The only exceptions I see as valid to the death penalty are evidential uncertainty and cost (and they are very big - unless the murderers are caught standing around the body clearly indicating ownership of the actions, carrying meat cleavers with their hands bloodied). The egregiousness of the method of killing, the lack of retaliatory motivation in the perpetrators and the utter disrespect for the man's dignity should also feature as factors when deciding to allow the wronged people to pursue that penalty. [NB: I am not talking about petty theft, what the fuck is that about lol]
You talk about it not being disproportionate. That's dumb as fuck. An eye for an eye doesn't make much sense when somebody is already blind. The point here is that eye for an eye rarely results in a truly equal trade. Hence why, historically, it never created a crime free society. As long as a person is willing to accept/ignore the consequence of an action, they generally come out on top because their 'eye' is worth less than what they expect to gain.
Also your comment about the parents being allowed to make the choice is hilarious. Why cant they just be the judges? Why stop at execution? Shouldn't all forms of torture be on the board? Eye for an eye is child justice; nothing more than gut reaction.
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Punishing crimes appropriately is a service to the society as a whole, not a service to victims and their families alone.
If my country committed institutionalized murder, it would do so in my name. It would be as if I - along with all my countrymen - have executed somebody. The victims' families have my condolences, but I am not prepared to kill for them, and I most certainly do not wish to give my government a mandate to kill wherever it is not absolutely essential to do so.
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On May 26 2013 00:14 Jormundr wrote:Show nested quote +On May 25 2013 18:54 sc4k wrote:On May 25 2013 03:31 NoxiousNoodles wrote:On May 25 2013 02:52 Shiori wrote:On May 25 2013 02:51 Reason wrote:On May 25 2013 02:47 Shiori wrote:On May 25 2013 02:45 Reason wrote:On May 25 2013 02:33 NoxiousNoodles wrote:On May 25 2013 02:21 Reason wrote:On May 25 2013 02:15 NoxiousNoodles wrote:
[quote]
I fear with you at the helm of a country the population may drastically decrease. To punish many crimes such as stealing would be totally disproportionate to the crime they have committed. Furthermore, people can change and whilst stealing, raping and even murdering are terrible acts to perform, it does not preclude them from changing their ways and being a positive influence on society once they have finished their incarceration. The population wouldn't drastically decrease, you need to give a little more credit to your fellow man and his ability to learn. Have you ever jumped off a cliff? Neither have I. Have you ever jumped off a wall? Me too. You see, standing on the edge of the cliff we both weighed our options and their relative consequences, and we both arrived at the same conclusion: I'm not going to jump off because I will probably die and I don't want to die. Standing on the edge of the wall.... we weighed the risks and decided from past experience that we were capable of jumping from that height safely, and lived to tell the tale. This is how the human mind works. I don't care if the punishment is disproportionate, are you saying serial rapists should only be serially raped and not put to death? Of course not, they deserve to die. The punishment doesn't need to fit the crime. Crime is not acceptable. Zero tolerance wherever possible imo. I'm not interested in people changing their ways and being a positive influence on society after being proven guilty of committing a crime against another person with full knowledge and intent, there are plenty people who do not commit such acts and these law abiding individuals deserve not to be tainted by criminal scum being given a second chance they don't deserve. Again, I have committed many criminal acts in my life and fall into the category of "criminal scum" for the purposes of this argument. I would however never have committed any of these acts if the punishment was appropriately severe, and if it was I think we'd live in a much safer and happier world. So say where someone is alleged to have stolen a bar of chocolate from a shop. You would put him to death? Imagine if you do (or any other criminal), what if mistakes were made and he is actually innocent, which has happened. You can release an innocent person from prison, you cannot resurrect an innocent person put to death. You wouldn't put someone to death over wild allegations. If he was proven to have stolen the chocolate bar and he wasn't a kleptomaniac or having a psychotic episode or whatever then yes I would put him to death. The point is it would never happen because who would risk death for a chocolate bar? Crime rates would be so ridiculously low that the number of people wrongfully convicted of crime would be even more so, people die all the time I'm not really worried about 1 in 1,000,000 people being sentenced to death for no reason if the country as a whole is infinitely safer... which would probably result in many many more lives being saved anyway aside from all the other benefits of an almost crime free society. Except the populace would revolt because the government is a bunch of murderers which kills people for stealing fucking chocolate bars. lol who the fuck would be stealing chocolate bars if the penalty was death? get a grip seriously It doesn't matter. Who the fuck would want to support a government which thinks killing people is an acceptable response to petty theft? That's grossly immoral in the minds of virtually everyone, evidenced by the near-universal disdain for your proposal. Like this literally would make the government worse than the actual criminals. Exactly. One of the indicators of a truly civilised country is the lack of a death penalty. Society has moved beyond the barbaric attitude of 'An eye for an eye'. I still can't get my head around this. Every time I revisit the phrase on TL and and IRL etc, I can't see what precisely is wrong with taking an eye for an eye. It is the very embodiment of justice. It only goes wrong when people take more for an eye, and then the original wrongdoers believe the justice exerted was disproportionate, so retaliate and so on. If everyone did actually take an eye for an eye, there probably wouldn't be any trouble. It gets complicated when the crime committed is less simple than murder, for example rape or blackmail...in which case a certain amount of prison time serves as the only reasonable proxy. The people who cared about this beheaded guy have been wronged. The mother and father have seen their baby boy who they raised and loved murdered brutally...with no evidential uncertainty as to who actually did the act. I'm not saying they do, but if the parents DID want the murderers to be executed, I (currently) believe they should have the right to pursue that eventuality through the legal system. The only exceptions I see as valid to the death penalty are evidential uncertainty and cost (and they are very big - unless the murderers are caught standing around the body clearly indicating ownership of the actions, carrying meat cleavers with their hands bloodied). The egregiousness of the method of killing, the lack of retaliatory motivation in the perpetrators and the utter disrespect for the man's dignity should also feature as factors when deciding to allow the wronged people to pursue that penalty. [NB: I am not talking about petty theft, what the fuck is that about lol] You talk about it not being disproportionate. That's dumb as fuck. An eye for an eye doesn't make much sense when somebody is already blind. The point here is that eye for an eye rarely results in a truly equal trade. Hence why, historically, it never created a crime free society. As long as a person is willing to accept/ignore the consequence of an action, they generally come out on top because their 'eye' is worth less than what they expect to gain. Also your comment about the parents being allowed to make the choice is hilarious. Why cant they just be the judges? Why stop at execution? Shouldn't all forms of torture be on the board? Eye for an eye is child justice; nothing more than gut reaction.
You might be singing a different tune if someone raped and murdered your entire family. Yes it is so childish to execute mass murderers/rapists/pedophiles -_-
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United States43276 Posts
On May 26 2013 01:19 kmillz wrote:Show nested quote +On May 26 2013 00:14 Jormundr wrote:On May 25 2013 18:54 sc4k wrote:On May 25 2013 03:31 NoxiousNoodles wrote:On May 25 2013 02:52 Shiori wrote:On May 25 2013 02:51 Reason wrote:On May 25 2013 02:47 Shiori wrote:On May 25 2013 02:45 Reason wrote:On May 25 2013 02:33 NoxiousNoodles wrote:On May 25 2013 02:21 Reason wrote:
[quote]
The population wouldn't drastically decrease, you need to give a little more credit to your fellow man and his ability to learn.
Have you ever jumped off a cliff? Neither have I.
Have you ever jumped off a wall? Me too.
You see, standing on the edge of the cliff we both weighed our options and their relative consequences, and we both arrived at the same conclusion: I'm not going to jump off because I will probably die and I don't want to die.
Standing on the edge of the wall.... we weighed the risks and decided from past experience that we were capable of jumping from that height safely, and lived to tell the tale.
This is how the human mind works. I don't care if the punishment is disproportionate, are you saying serial rapists should only be serially raped and not put to death? Of course not, they deserve to die. The punishment doesn't need to fit the crime. Crime is not acceptable. Zero tolerance wherever possible imo.
I'm not interested in people changing their ways and being a positive influence on society after being proven guilty of committing a crime against another person with full knowledge and intent, there are plenty people who do not commit such acts and these law abiding individuals deserve not to be tainted by criminal scum being given a second chance they don't deserve.
Again, I have committed many criminal acts in my life and fall into the category of "criminal scum" for the purposes of this argument. I would however never have committed any of these acts if the punishment was appropriately severe, and if it was I think we'd live in a much safer and happier world. So say where someone is alleged to have stolen a bar of chocolate from a shop. You would put him to death? Imagine if you do (or any other criminal), what if mistakes were made and he is actually innocent, which has happened. You can release an innocent person from prison, you cannot resurrect an innocent person put to death. You wouldn't put someone to death over wild allegations. If he was proven to have stolen the chocolate bar and he wasn't a kleptomaniac or having a psychotic episode or whatever then yes I would put him to death. The point is it would never happen because who would risk death for a chocolate bar? Crime rates would be so ridiculously low that the number of people wrongfully convicted of crime would be even more so, people die all the time I'm not really worried about 1 in 1,000,000 people being sentenced to death for no reason if the country as a whole is infinitely safer... which would probably result in many many more lives being saved anyway aside from all the other benefits of an almost crime free society. Except the populace would revolt because the government is a bunch of murderers which kills people for stealing fucking chocolate bars. lol who the fuck would be stealing chocolate bars if the penalty was death? get a grip seriously It doesn't matter. Who the fuck would want to support a government which thinks killing people is an acceptable response to petty theft? That's grossly immoral in the minds of virtually everyone, evidenced by the near-universal disdain for your proposal. Like this literally would make the government worse than the actual criminals. Exactly. One of the indicators of a truly civilised country is the lack of a death penalty. Society has moved beyond the barbaric attitude of 'An eye for an eye'. I still can't get my head around this. Every time I revisit the phrase on TL and and IRL etc, I can't see what precisely is wrong with taking an eye for an eye. It is the very embodiment of justice. It only goes wrong when people take more for an eye, and then the original wrongdoers believe the justice exerted was disproportionate, so retaliate and so on. If everyone did actually take an eye for an eye, there probably wouldn't be any trouble. It gets complicated when the crime committed is less simple than murder, for example rape or blackmail...in which case a certain amount of prison time serves as the only reasonable proxy. The people who cared about this beheaded guy have been wronged. The mother and father have seen their baby boy who they raised and loved murdered brutally...with no evidential uncertainty as to who actually did the act. I'm not saying they do, but if the parents DID want the murderers to be executed, I (currently) believe they should have the right to pursue that eventuality through the legal system. The only exceptions I see as valid to the death penalty are evidential uncertainty and cost (and they are very big - unless the murderers are caught standing around the body clearly indicating ownership of the actions, carrying meat cleavers with their hands bloodied). The egregiousness of the method of killing, the lack of retaliatory motivation in the perpetrators and the utter disrespect for the man's dignity should also feature as factors when deciding to allow the wronged people to pursue that penalty. [NB: I am not talking about petty theft, what the fuck is that about lol] You talk about it not being disproportionate. That's dumb as fuck. An eye for an eye doesn't make much sense when somebody is already blind. The point here is that eye for an eye rarely results in a truly equal trade. Hence why, historically, it never created a crime free society. As long as a person is willing to accept/ignore the consequence of an action, they generally come out on top because their 'eye' is worth less than what they expect to gain. Also your comment about the parents being allowed to make the choice is hilarious. Why cant they just be the judges? Why stop at execution? Shouldn't all forms of torture be on the board? Eye for an eye is child justice; nothing more than gut reaction. You might be singing a different tune if someone raped and murdered your entire family. Yes it is so childish to execute mass murderers/rapists/pedophiles -_-
Which is why we don't let the wronged party decide what happens to the criminal, because justice is meant to be universal and impartial. Have you not seen the statue with the sword and the scales and the blindfold? Why do you think she's blind.
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Law must be consistend. Therefor everybody (even the sickest criminals) have the right to a trial. That is what we stand for in our society.
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On May 26 2013 01:21 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On May 26 2013 01:19 kmillz wrote:On May 26 2013 00:14 Jormundr wrote:On May 25 2013 18:54 sc4k wrote:On May 25 2013 03:31 NoxiousNoodles wrote:On May 25 2013 02:52 Shiori wrote:On May 25 2013 02:51 Reason wrote:On May 25 2013 02:47 Shiori wrote:On May 25 2013 02:45 Reason wrote:On May 25 2013 02:33 NoxiousNoodles wrote:
[quote]
So say where someone is alleged to have stolen a bar of chocolate from a shop. You would put him to death? Imagine if you do (or any other criminal), what if mistakes were made and he is actually innocent, which has happened. You can release an innocent person from prison, you cannot resurrect an innocent person put to death.
You wouldn't put someone to death over wild allegations. If he was proven to have stolen the chocolate bar and he wasn't a kleptomaniac or having a psychotic episode or whatever then yes I would put him to death. The point is it would never happen because who would risk death for a chocolate bar? Crime rates would be so ridiculously low that the number of people wrongfully convicted of crime would be even more so, people die all the time I'm not really worried about 1 in 1,000,000 people being sentenced to death for no reason if the country as a whole is infinitely safer... which would probably result in many many more lives being saved anyway aside from all the other benefits of an almost crime free society. Except the populace would revolt because the government is a bunch of murderers which kills people for stealing fucking chocolate bars. lol who the fuck would be stealing chocolate bars if the penalty was death? get a grip seriously It doesn't matter. Who the fuck would want to support a government which thinks killing people is an acceptable response to petty theft? That's grossly immoral in the minds of virtually everyone, evidenced by the near-universal disdain for your proposal. Like this literally would make the government worse than the actual criminals. Exactly. One of the indicators of a truly civilised country is the lack of a death penalty. Society has moved beyond the barbaric attitude of 'An eye for an eye'. I still can't get my head around this. Every time I revisit the phrase on TL and and IRL etc, I can't see what precisely is wrong with taking an eye for an eye. It is the very embodiment of justice. It only goes wrong when people take more for an eye, and then the original wrongdoers believe the justice exerted was disproportionate, so retaliate and so on. If everyone did actually take an eye for an eye, there probably wouldn't be any trouble. It gets complicated when the crime committed is less simple than murder, for example rape or blackmail...in which case a certain amount of prison time serves as the only reasonable proxy. The people who cared about this beheaded guy have been wronged. The mother and father have seen their baby boy who they raised and loved murdered brutally...with no evidential uncertainty as to who actually did the act. I'm not saying they do, but if the parents DID want the murderers to be executed, I (currently) believe they should have the right to pursue that eventuality through the legal system. The only exceptions I see as valid to the death penalty are evidential uncertainty and cost (and they are very big - unless the murderers are caught standing around the body clearly indicating ownership of the actions, carrying meat cleavers with their hands bloodied). The egregiousness of the method of killing, the lack of retaliatory motivation in the perpetrators and the utter disrespect for the man's dignity should also feature as factors when deciding to allow the wronged people to pursue that penalty. [NB: I am not talking about petty theft, what the fuck is that about lol] You talk about it not being disproportionate. That's dumb as fuck. An eye for an eye doesn't make much sense when somebody is already blind. The point here is that eye for an eye rarely results in a truly equal trade. Hence why, historically, it never created a crime free society. As long as a person is willing to accept/ignore the consequence of an action, they generally come out on top because their 'eye' is worth less than what they expect to gain. Also your comment about the parents being allowed to make the choice is hilarious. Why cant they just be the judges? Why stop at execution? Shouldn't all forms of torture be on the board? Eye for an eye is child justice; nothing more than gut reaction. You might be singing a different tune if someone raped and murdered your entire family. Yes it is so childish to execute mass murderers/rapists/pedophiles -_- Which is why we don't let the wronged party decide what happens to the criminal, because justice is meant to be universal and impartial. Have you not seen the statue with the sword and the scales and the blindfold? Why do you think she's blind.
I'm not saying every crime should be an eye for an eye, I'm saying that there are certain crimes that are so cruel/barbaric/inflict such immense amounts of pain that the people who commit them have no place in society and don't deserve to be fed in a jail for the rest of their life (or until their life sentence expires, in which case they are free to do it again). If somebody murders somebody else, executing them should only be considered when all facts that had to do with that murder are in place, as well as mitigating factors for the crime. I think a unanimous decision for execution should be come to by the jury. It's not just "oh he murdered somebody I guess we execute him". It's more like "oh he murdered somebody, fucked their corpse, then dragged their entrails down the street....maybe we should consider executing them". Especially cruel and heinous crimes are what I am talking about. Crimes that severely affect the victims family. In the case of Jodi Arias, she murdered her boyfriend and subsequently her boyfriends family suffered severe hardship. One of his brothers got a divorce largely due to him being unable to cope with his brothers death among many other things, just as an example. I think those things should be put in consideration as well.
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United States43276 Posts
Other people disagree with you about what the justice system is for I'm afraid. I believe that it should mainly be to serve the community by preventing crime and preventing criminals from committing further crimes. So of the four, punishment, deterrence, prevention, rehabilitation, I focus mainly on the last three. There are some quite interesting philosophical questions regarding the morality of punishment for the sake of punishment.
Say the punishment for murder is a life of isolation and torture. This guy has definitely murdered someone so clearly the deterrent didn't stop him in that case. Does it really serve any purpose to torture him rather than just not torturing him, he is in isolation, it won't have any impact upon the deterrence factor of the "if you murder you get tortured rule" because nobody will know (hypothetically) that he's not actually being tortured. He's still locked up so it doesn't change the prevention of crime and if he is locked up forever then rehabilitation is irrelevant. At this point it's just torture for the sake of punishment to make ourselves feel better which, even he deserves it, is still some pretty shitty ground to be standing on in my opinion.
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There's a very good reason we have one word for "justice" and a different word for "revenge".
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On May 26 2013 01:43 KwarK wrote:
Other people disagree with you about what the justice system is for I'm afraid. I believe that it should mainly be to serve the community by preventing crime and preventing criminals from committing further crimes. So of the four, punishment, deterrence, prevention, rehabilitation, I focus mainly on the last three. There are some quite interesting philosophical questions regarding the morality of punishment for the sake of punishment.
Say the punishment for murder is a life of isolation and torture. This guy has definitely murdered someone so clearly the deterrent didn't stop him in that case. Does it really serve any purpose to torture him rather than just not torturing him, he is in isolation, it won't have any impact upon the deterrence factor of the "if you murder you get tortured rule" because nobody will know (hypothetically) that he's not actually being tortured. He's still locked up so it doesn't change the prevention of crime and if he is locked up forever then rehabilitation is irrelevant. At this point it's just torture for the sake of punishment to make ourselves feel better which, even he deserves it, is still some pretty shitty ground to be standing on in my opinion.
I agree with most of what you are saying our justice system is for, I just think that the death penalty is an acceptable form of prevention/deterrence. Our legal system says the death penalty is ok in some states. How does a life sentence stop them from committing more crimes when their sentence is over? I never said anything about torture, so I'm not sure why you went there. I agree with you on prevention and deterrence. Rehabilitation becomes less of a concern when the crime reaches a certain level (in my opinion). Maybe we can agree to disagree on this, but I personally am not very concerned about making someone who rapes children a better person for society. Once it gets to something like that I am more interested in prioritizing forceful prevention (whether it be death penalty or life in jail) and deterrence because of the punishment (so others are less inclined to commit the same crime).
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I don't think the particulars of the United States justice system are relevant to this discussion. Putting side the fact that law and morality and entirely different things, the inability of underfunded, overcrowded jails to properly rehabilitate criminals isn't an argument for the harshest possible penalties.
If you want my opinion, I think people who commit heinous crimes are so far beyond the point of caring about the consequences that trying to make the debate about consequences is almost a game of empty sophistry.
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United States43276 Posts
The reason I just put it as others disagree with you is because this area comes down to beliefs and arguments rather than an objective truth. I believe that people aren't born criminals and that even the worst criminals are, in part, victims of their circumstances. If they cannot be fixed then indefinite confinement is fine, I believe that's how it generally works with life sentences anyway, they try and work out if the guy is going to reoffend and if they are then they don't release him. I don't believe there is anything intrinsic or special within me that makes me not a criminal, I believe that the people I grew up with, the influence of my parents and so forth are responsible for that. Had I been switched with another infant in the hospital I could have ended up in a very different place and if that were the case I would want society to try and help me back on track.
I'm not saying that we should be soft and allow people who are going to reoffend to reoffend or that the people shouldn't be protected, rather that criminals, especially once they've been caught, are often the biggest victims of their crimes and the way we structure our society should be for the good of the people. If you were told that you would be reborn as a random child born tomorrow would you keep the rules of society the same? I got lucky last time I was born but luck is a poor foundation for a moral society.
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On May 26 2013 02:01 lolmlg wrote:
I don't think the particulars of the United States justice system are relevant to this discussion. Putting side the fact that law and morality and entirely different things, the inability of underfunded, overcrowded jails to properly rehabilitate criminals isn't an argument for the harshest possible penalties.
If you want my opinion, I think people who commit heinous crimes are so far beyond the point of caring about the consequences that trying to make the debate about consequences is almost a game of empty sophistry.
Empty sophistry? We can't even have the discussion about how to keep them from doing it again? Surely you agree that they belong in jail at least?
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On May 26 2013 02:03 KwarK wrote:
The reason I just put it as others disagree with you is because this area comes down to beliefs and arguments rather than an objective truth. I believe that people aren't born criminals and that even the worst criminals are, in part, victims of their circumstances. If they cannot be fixed then indefinite confinement is fine, I believe that's how it generally works with life sentences anyway, they try and work out if the guy is going to reoffend and if they are then they don't release him. I don't believe there is anything intrinsic or special within me that makes me not a criminal, I believe that the people I grew up with, the influence of my parents and so forth are responsible for that. Had I been switched with another infant in the hospital I could have ended up in a very different place and if that were the case I would want society to try and help me back on track.
I'm not saying that we should be soft and allow people who are going to reoffend to reoffend or that the people shouldn't be protected, rather that criminals, especially once they've been caught, are often the biggest victims of their crimes and the way we structure our society should be for the good of the people. If you were told that you would be reborn as a random child born tomorrow would you keep the rules of society the same? I got lucky last time I was born but luck is a poor foundation for a moral society.
That sounds fair to me.
edit: (sorry for double post)
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On May 26 2013 02:03 KwarK wrote:
The reason I just put it as others disagree with you is because this area comes down to beliefs and arguments rather than an objective truth. I believe that people aren't born criminals and that even the worst criminals are, in part, victims of their circumstances. If they cannot be fixed then indefinite confinement is fine, I believe that's how it generally works with life sentences anyway, they try and work out if the guy is going to reoffend and if they are then they don't release him. I don't believe there is anything intrinsic or special within me that makes me not a criminal, I believe that the people I grew up with, the influence of my parents and so forth are responsible for that. Had I been switched with another infant in the hospital I could have ended up in a very different place and if that were the case I would want society to try and help me back on track.
I'm not saying that we should be soft and allow people who are going to reoffend to reoffend or that the people shouldn't be protected, rather that criminals, especially once they've been caught, are often the biggest victims of their crimes and the way we structure our society should be for the good of the people. If you were told that you would be reborn as a random child born tomorrow would you keep the rules of society the same? I got lucky last time I was born but luck is a poor foundation for a moral society.
Very solid opinion.
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I believe that people aren't born criminals and that even the worst criminals are, in part, victims of their circumstances.
Not too derail too much I hope, but whether criminals are products of their environments or not has been very controversial ever since scientific study of criminals and criminal behavior began in Victorian England... The sociological evidence has consistently shown that the primary motivator for the majority of crimes (across all income and education levels) is greed, not need. And there's a simple reason for that: contrary to what adults told us all the time we were growing up, crime pays.
But "circumstances" does not have to be exclusive to the socioeconomic environment a person was raised in or lives in as an adult. There's a very interesting discussion to be had maybe I'll make a thread on it since it would end up being a pretty big derail to continue it further here.
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The perpetrator might be a right-wing radical angry at the legalization of gay marriage in France and deciding to do a copycat attack, emotions in the French far-right are running very high over that right now.
Or he could be a Muslim. But I'd be willing to bet a lot that this is ideologically driven no matter what the ideology, I think the "it's crazies" argument needs to be put to rest. It seems like it's never people who are actually mentally ill.
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On May 26 2013 02:03 KwarK wrote:
The reason I just put it as others disagree with you is because this area comes down to beliefs and arguments rather than an objective truth. I believe that people aren't born criminals and that even the worst criminals are, in part, victims of their circumstances. If they cannot be fixed then indefinite confinement is fine, I believe that's how it generally works with life sentences anyway, they try and work out if the guy is going to reoffend and if they are then they don't release him. I don't believe there is anything intrinsic or special within me that makes me not a criminal, I believe that the people I grew up with, the influence of my parents and so forth are responsible for that. Had I been switched with another infant in the hospital I could have ended up in a very different place and if that were the case I would want society to try and help me back on track.
I'm not saying that we should be soft and allow people who are going to reoffend to reoffend or that the people shouldn't be protected, rather that criminals, especially once they've been caught, are often the biggest victims of their crimes and the way we structure our society should be for the good of the people. If you were told that you would be reborn as a random child born tomorrow would you keep the rules of society the same? I got lucky last time I was born but luck is a poor foundation for a moral society.
I'm pretty sure that "victim of circumstance" doesn't hold much weight when trying to explain why you just beheaded a random person in the street... It certainly would define the person who got beheaded, though. Do you honestly think these individual's parents influenced them to behead strangers? Saying that criminals (especially violent, murderous ones) are often the biggest victims of their crimes is horribly naive and insensitive. That's like saying that a virus or parasite is the real victim because it can no longer live once the host body dies.
I'd say the real argument at hand here is if lifetime incarceration at the cost of public taxpayers is worth the "moral cost" of the death penalty.
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On May 26 2013 03:26 AimForTheBushes wrote:Show nested quote +On May 26 2013 02:03 KwarK wrote:
The reason I just put it as others disagree with you is because this area comes down to beliefs and arguments rather than an objective truth. I believe that people aren't born criminals and that even the worst criminals are, in part, victims of their circumstances. If they cannot be fixed then indefinite confinement is fine, I believe that's how it generally works with life sentences anyway, they try and work out if the guy is going to reoffend and if they are then they don't release him. I don't believe there is anything intrinsic or special within me that makes me not a criminal, I believe that the people I grew up with, the influence of my parents and so forth are responsible for that. Had I been switched with another infant in the hospital I could have ended up in a very different place and if that were the case I would want society to try and help me back on track.
I'm not saying that we should be soft and allow people who are going to reoffend to reoffend or that the people shouldn't be protected, rather that criminals, especially once they've been caught, are often the biggest victims of their crimes and the way we structure our society should be for the good of the people. If you were told that you would be reborn as a random child born tomorrow would you keep the rules of society the same? I got lucky last time I was born but luck is a poor foundation for a moral society. I'm pretty sure that "victim of circumstance" doesn't hold much weight when trying to explain why you just beheaded a random person in the street... It certainly would define the person who got beheaded, though. Do you honestly think these individual's parents influenced them to behead strangers? Saying that criminals (especially violent, murderous ones) are often the biggest victims of their crimes is horribly naive and insensitive. That's like saying that a virus or parasite is the real victim because it can no longer live once the host body dies. I'd say the real argument at hand here is if lifetime incarceration at the cost of public taxpayers is worth the "moral cost" of the death penalty.
Your view of circumstance is incredibly narrow and shortsighted. While I definitely think this sort of thinking does not deny the assignment of culpability, I think you are really shortchanging the effects of environment, upbringing, and experience insofar as "circumstance" is concerned. While parental influence is definitely a large factor, so are encounters with other people, religious experiences, financial difficulties, socioeconomic background, and, in a basic sense, who one spends time with. In many situations in which radical Islam is implicated, there are almost always accompanying factors that feed into the fruition of violent ideology.
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EPT
