Can we talk about capital punishment?

[Moonbeam]

Everybody that murders someone believes they deserve to die. That's why they murder in the first place. It's the same with murders and a murdering state. The murder assumes the authority to kill his victim and so does the state. Who lives and who walks away just depends on how many people they can get to also justify murder. The beauty of living in a state that enjoys murder is that murder becomes a handy tool for self hate. Hate yourself bad enough and end it all by killing, say a cop. Murders of all stripes and thoswe who believe some murder is right aren't too bright.

 

[Commodus]

We shouldn't have a death penalty.

It's not a significant deterrent. Death row inmates frequently spend many years waiting for their execution date after exhausting appeals, negating one of the key points of the death penalty. And why do we believe we're morally superior when we're doing the same thing many of these criminals did (that is, killing in cold blood)?

Demanding revenge like that is simplistic and hypocritical, in my ind. Our goal should be to make sure that someone isn't a threat anymore, not to give family members a brief moment of satisfaction before they realize that their loved one is still dead.

 

[highland145]

Capital punishment is an issue much like abortion, no amount of discussion will ever reach a consensus. Personally,. I believe in capital punishment not, as a deterrent, it's not but, as a clear statement that certain crimes will not be tolerated by our society. I truly believe there are concepts worth killing and dying for. The idea that killing someone who deserves to die is something to be avoided at any cost is abhorrent to me and the worst kind of self deception.

+1 on the 1st

Talks on the 2nd for clarification.

Thanks, Mag.

 

[JSt0rm]

U.S.? links.

I do believe people like Nifong should spend life in jail. He got 1 day.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cameron_Todd_Willingham

 

[JSt0rm]

1 mistake is 1 too many. No death penalty.

 

[Paratus]

Capital punishment is an issue much like abortion, no amount of discussion will ever reach a consensus. Personally,. I believe in capital punishment not, as a deterrent, it's not but, as a clear statement that certain crimes will not be tolerated by our society. I truly believe there are concepts worth killing and dying for. The idea that killing someone who deserves to die is something to be avoided at any cost is abhorrent to me and the worst kind of self deception.

Sure in an ideal world. But this isn't one. We have cases of innocent people being put to death.

So how many innocent people is it acceptable to you to "accidentally " kill so we can keep capital punishment?

1? 10? 1% of cases? Anything less than 50% of cases?

I'm curious.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

Isn't it past time that, as a supposedly advanced first world democratic nation, that we give up capital punishment? It is unevenly applied to the poor and minority groups, occasionally applied to innocents, is expensive to litigate, has little to no effective deterrent value, and is an affront to our moral sensibility as a society.

Has nothing to do with advancement or democracy. It's just that we know certain state governments effectively set up dupes to be killed, and don't give a fair chance of having them prove their innocence.

With modern video technology and DNA sequencing there's really no reason the death penalty shouldn't be cheap and fair. Guy robs a store, shoots the clerk, then attempts to flee in his car, all caught on the store camera and dash cam? Open and shut case, kill the bastard. Only circumstantial evidence? Too bad, the victim should have thought about carrying (or moving to a state where that would be effective).

 

[Pulsar]

I don't think it's a 'companies are ethically against the death penalty and therefore refuse to sell the relevant drugs thing', since 1) companies like money and 2) presumably it's a company that sells the drugs used in the mixture to actually kill people. iirc, it's more of a legal bullshit thing where a doctor would have to be the one to administer the dose, and an executioner doesn't have the qualifications to administer a regulated drug to a "patient", so they come up with a workaround.

I think the death penalty has revealed itself to be too carelessly used to continue existing, but if we're going to have a death penalty, I agree that there are plenty of fast, non-convoluted ways to kill people. Bullet to the head sounds fine to me.

You are quite wrong.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/13/health/pfizer-death-penalty-drugs/

Pfizer spokesman Dean Mastrojohn said Friday that the company is "enhancing the controls on wholesalers and distributors and establishing a surveillance and monitoring system to assess compliance with our policy."
A statement issued by the company said:
"Pfizer makes its products solely to enhance and save the lives of the patients we serve. We strongly object to the use of any of our products in the lethal injection process for capital punishment.

 

[Pulsar]

right so corporations who are ethically against the use of their products being used to administer death are at fault for the administration of death being a poor experience. no, you are an idiot. if the states don't have the means to conduct an execution humanely it is them, and only them, who is at fault for any suffering caused.

I can't help you connect the dots. If you intentionally misunderstand what I'm saying - or intentionally twist it, that's called intellectual dishonesty.

I'll say it slowly.

We know how to humanely execute people. However we are prevented from using any of the drugs that do so specifically because of "ethical objections" by pharmaceutical companies. And the root cause of that objection has nothing to do with ethics. It has to do with public relations, and the fact that dead people don't take medication and are not profitable.

 

[MrSquished]

I can't help you connect the dots. If you intentionally misunderstand what I'm saying - or intentionally twist it, that's called intellectual dishonesty.

I'll say it slowly.

We know how to humanely execute people. However we are prevented from using any of the drugs that do so specifically because of "ethical objections" by pharmaceutical companies. And the root cause of that objection has nothing to do with ethics. It has to do with public relations, and the fact that dead people don't take medication and are not profitable.

You just repeated yourself. You aren't making any new points. My point still stands 100%

 

[Pulsar]

You just repeated yourself. You aren't making any new points. My point still stands 100%

You're absolutely right. I bow to your superior logic.

 

[Moonbeam]

Sure in an ideal world. But this isn't one. We have cases of innocent people being put to death.

So how many innocent people is it acceptable to you to "accidentally " kill so we can keep capital punishment?

1? 10? 1% of cases? Anything less than 50% of cases?

I'm curious.

These pro capital punishment types were all put in their tight moral boxes by terror and threats if they didn't behave as children all of which creates tremendous suppressed rage. They walk around as little time bombs with any liberalization of that suppressing force. They project that pent up violence out there on in the world as psychos that would kill everybody if there wasn't a death penalty to protect them. They know what they would do to others if they could get away with anything, exactly what they do when the death penalty is legal. Kill kill kill!

 

[Sunburn74]

I have to say, this whole issue is overblown. The reality is this. A lot of people have sleep apnea a condition that causes snorting, gasping, and struggling to breath when asleep. A lot of people (something like 30% of men). If you are obese and have high blood pressure, there is a high chance you have it and experience it nightly for years without ever knowing. What basically happens is the airway intermittently collapses under the weight of the neck. Airway tone is related to how conscious you are (if you're awake, you keep it open, if you are sleeping, airway tone can be weak).

The medicines that put people to sleep often unmask it. In hospitals, post-recovery from surgery this is extremely common to see someone sleeping fairly comfortably and intermittently having chest heaving, gasping, snorting, hard snoring, as they are in a deep sleep. We tell them to go get a sleep study to look for sleep apnea.

I'm not a fan of the death penalty (in fact I am against it in almost every situation) but these men are not suffering during these executions. They are not even awake. Doctors will give the exact same medicines and then cut off your leg or remove your appendix, perform major surgery whilst you're asleep. Is that cruel and unusual punishment? Are people undergoing basic surgery suffering? I've had general anesthesia and didn't remember or feel a thing.

 

[fskimospy]

Has nothing to do with advancement or democracy. It's just that we know certain state governments effectively set up dupes to be killed, and don't give a fair chance of having them prove their innocence.

With modern video technology and DNA sequencing there's really no reason the death penalty shouldn't be cheap and fair. Guy robs a store, shoots the clerk, then attempts to flee in his car, all caught on the store camera and dash cam? Open and shut case, kill the bastard. Only circumstantial evidence? Too bad, the victim should have thought about carrying (or moving to a state where that would be effective).

So how do you determine what qualifies as an open and shut case? DNA and evidence handling errors happen all the time. Video identification is often spotty. What if the person was suffering from mental illness? Etc. etc.

These things always sound simple until the real world intervenes.

 

[K1052]

Given the numerous and wide gaps in the justice system I don't see how we can reasonably entrust it with the power of life and death over citizens. The furor which which some people approve of it exposes not a desire for justice but a lust for revenge and other, even less savory, motivations which bring into great question the purported morality of the act.

 

[bshole]

but the state has killed innocent people. Imagine your children burning alive and then being put to death because of bunk evidence that showed you killed them. What a horrible thing for the government to do to a citizen.

And that exact case happened in Texas.

Here is the list of 156 innocent people on death row that were exonerated. I look at that list and I say no fucking way.

Average number of years between being sentenced to death and exoneration: 11.3 years

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/innocence-list-those-freed-death-row

 

[MajinCry]

The way I see it, no, the Government shouldn't have executions. Not because rapists and such don't deserve to die, but because I've no faith in a bunch of child-raping corporate puppets to implement it without bias.

If a woman is raped, and the populace take the rapist out, some community service wouldn't be amiss. But I'd rather not have the powers that be dictate who lives and who dies. That being said, vigilante justice is all sorts of crazy. Got the wrong guy, crime was blown out of proportion, the vigilantes fabricated, 'n' such and so.

It's kinda murky, but if the state decides to slowly slay Jeffrey Epstein with an exceedingly dull machete, I'll donate some dosh to the BBC for broadcasting it.


Curiously, for those of you who are against capital punishment, what are your opinions of soldiers, the military, and veterans? The contrast between the "Life is sacred" and "He's a hero who served his country" views, that Americans seem to hold, is rather odd.

 

[bshole]

Curiously, for those of you who are against capital punishment, what are your opinions of soldiers, the military, and veterans? The contrast between the "Life is sacred" and "He's a hero who served his country" views, that Americans seem to hold, is rather odd.

Well I am anti-war as well as anti-capital punishment. I oppose vehemently America's nefarious bloodletting in the Middle East.

That being said, the peons that risk their lives because their government put them in places where their lives are at risk, are deserving of compensation from the government that put them in that situation in the first place.

I would never support the state torturing a criminal to death and neither should you. In addition, the broadcasting of such an act should be repugnant to you. We have supposedly evolved past the level of ISIS.

 

[Darwin333]

I have to say, this whole issue is overblown. The reality is this. A lot of people have sleep apnea a condition that causes snorting, gasping, and struggling to breath when asleep. A lot of people (something like 30% of men). If you are obese and have high blood pressure, there is a high chance you have it and experience it nightly for years without ever knowing. What basically happens is the airway intermittently collapses under the weight of the neck. Airway tone is related to how conscious you are (if you're awake, you keep it open, if you are sleeping, airway tone can be weak).

The medicines that put people to sleep often unmask it. In hospitals, post-recovery from surgery this is extremely common to see someone sleeping fairly comfortably and intermittently having chest heaving, gasping, snorting, hard snoring, as they are in a deep sleep. We tell them to go get a sleep study to look for sleep apnea.

I'm not a fan of the death penalty (in fact I am against it in almost every situation) but these men are not suffering during these executions. They are not even awake. Doctors will give the exact same medicines and then cut off your leg or remove your appendix, perform major surgery whilst you're asleep. Is that cruel and unusual punishment? Are people undergoing basic surgery suffering? I've had general anesthesia and didn't remember or feel a thing.

I personally don't think the argument is that they are suffering because like you I don't think that a person pumped with that much valium is suffering much. The issue is 1. There is always a chance that we execute an innocent person and it is a fact that we have executed innocent people. Our justice system is based on "it's better to let 10 guilty men go free than to imprison one innocent man" but at least we can eventually free a man that was wrongfully imprisoned. 2. The state killing an innocent person quite literally makes it a murderer that is held completely unaccountable. Who do we put on trial for that innocent man's murder? 3. It is more expensive to execute someone than it is to imprison them for life. 4. Given all of the above, the state killing its own citizens should not be compatible with modern first world societies. I could maybe accept it under very severe circumstances like true acts of terror where there is absolutely zero question of his guilt but killing a man under the standard of "beyond a reasonable doubt" just isn't good enough for me.

Also consider the company we are keeping, the likes of (in order):

China
Iran
Pakistan
Saudi Arabia
U.S.
North Korea
Somalia
Egypt

Not great company if you ask me. Yes, some industrialized countries have the death penalty but they use it far far less than us. Frankly, our entire justice system on a whole is messed up which is why we have by far the highest number of inmates both by number and per capita.

 

[MajinCry]

Well I am anti-war as well as anti-capital punishment. I oppose vehemently America's nefarious bloodletting in the Middle East.

That being said, the peons that risk their lives because their government put them in places where their lives are at risk, are deserving of compensation from the government that put them in that situation in the first place.

I would never support the state torturing a criminal to death and neither should you. In addition, the broadcasting of such an act should be repugnant to you. We have supposedly evolved past the level of ISIS.

The men who became soldiers signed up. If they were uneducated Hungarian peasants stricken with poverty, aye fine, they probably didn't know full well what they were getting into. But a first world American? No chance; they're not the tragic victim. The citizens that they raped and slaughtered (a la Vietnam) are the ones who should be given that compensation, rather than being given the finger as they suffer the aftermath.

Hell, there are still children being born that are all kinds of messed up, due to soldiers spraying Agent Orange all over the place.

The problem with ISIS, is that they're the ones doing the raping, the sex slavery, the molestation, the slaughter, the genocide. Quite happy for them to be offed in rather brutal fashion. In case you did not know, Jeffrey Epstein is that billionaire pedophile sex slaver, with his own wee sex slave island off the coast of the US.

I've nae compassion for those who do evil. They're better off dead.

 

[Fenixgoon]

while i would probably be ok with capital punishment for mass murderers and people of like that, where they are generally apprehended at the scene of the crime and there is literally no doubt as to whether the crime were committed or not, for everyone else, our system has proven to execute too many innocents, and the evidence on which people have convicted has often been paper thin at best. for those reasons, i am opposed to capital punishment.

 

[theeedude]

We need to get rid of the death penalty, and the eye for an eye mentality in general. It's not healthy for a society.

 

[Ackmed]

I have zero problems with capital punishment. As long as every avenue has been taken to make sure the person is guilty and they have had their reasonable appeals. When significant evidence has been brought to the table that a child rapist/murderer is guilty, they admit to it, they laugh at the family, that person shouldn't be on my dime for the rest of their life. The results are that pedophiles can never rehabilitate either. At that point someone like that does not deserve to live. Getting better benefits than the homeless veterans. It shouldn't take 20 years to come to the conclusion either. The defendant is guaranteed a speedy trial. Sentencing and the carrying out of the sentence needs to be much faster. If someone of sound mind willingly takes another persons life, they have forfeited their own right to live in my opinion.

There are plenty of other ways to make sure the poor rapist don't suffer either. Bullets are very cheap.

 

[JSt0rm]

I have zero problems with capital punishment. As long as every avenue has been taken to make sure the person is guilty and they have had their reasonable appeals. When significant evidence has been brought to the table that a child rapist/murderer is guilty, they admit to it, they laugh at the family, that person shouldn't be on my dime for the rest of their life. The results are that pedophiles can never rehabilitate either. At that point someone like that does not deserve to live. Getting better benefits than the homeless veterans. It shouldn't take 20 years to come to the conclusion either. The defendant is guaranteed a speedy trial. Sentencing and the carrying out of the sentence needs to be much faster. If someone of sound mind willingly takes another persons life, they have forfeited their own right to live in my opinion.

There are plenty of other ways to make sure the poor rapist don't suffer either. Bullets are very cheap.

all of your arguments are tired and old.

 

[K1052]

I have zero problems with capital punishment. As long as every avenue has been taken to make sure the person is guilty and they have had their reasonable appeals. When significant evidence has been brought to the table that a child rapist/murderer is guilty, they admit to it, they laugh at the family, that person shouldn't be on my dime for the rest of their life. The results are that pedophiles can never rehabilitate either. At that point someone like that does not deserve to live. Getting better benefits than the homeless veterans. It shouldn't take 20 years to come to the conclusion either. The defendant is guaranteed a speedy trial. Sentencing and the carrying out of the sentence needs to be much faster. If someone of sound mind willingly takes another persons life, they have forfeited their own right to live in my opinion.

There are plenty of other ways to make sure the poor rapist don't suffer either. Bullets are very cheap.

Even with the existing system of appeals it seems that a not inconsequential number of innocent people wind up on death row. The fact remains that you are going to have the state murder some people who did not commit the crimes they were accused of. You essentially have to morally compromise yourself into becoming what you are trying to destroy in order to support capital punishment.