The Death Penalty is a Good Thing

[Gawd]

You can always release someone from life imprisonment if they are subsequently proved innocent...

...which has happened frequently enough to make you wonder just how many innocent people have been executed.

my_wan, you pretty much expressed exactly what I have said elsewhere, except for the fact that i don't approve of people being killed via legal procedures under any circumstances. There are undoubtedly individuals who need to be removed from society for the rest of their lives, for they are incorrigible, but confining them in a prison or lunatic asylum ought to suffice. The alternative is just too barbaric.

Confining someone to a small space for decades on end is the real barbarism here. The death penalty is quick and humane whereas your method is torture.

[Hermit]

You can always release someone from life imprisonment if they are subsequently proved innocent...

...which has happened frequently enough to make you wonder just how many innocent people have been executed.

my_wan, you pretty much expressed exactly what I have said elsewhere, except for the fact that i don't approve of people being killed via legal procedures under any circumstances. There are undoubtedly individuals who need to be removed from society for the rest of their lives, for they are incorrigible, but confining them in a prison or lunatic asylum ought to suffice. The alternative is just too barbaric.

Confining someone to a small space for decades on end is the real barbarism here. The death penalty is quick and humane whereas your method is torture.

There is nothing humane about killing someone for a crime he or she did not commit. Releasing someone wrongfully incarcerated after, say, 18 years is better than the alternative: "Fuck! Killed the wrong one. O well, too bad."

[Gawd]

You can always release someone from life imprisonment if they are subsequently proved innocent...

...which has happened frequently enough to make you wonder just how many innocent people have been executed.

my_wan, you pretty much expressed exactly what I have said elsewhere, except for the fact that i don't approve of people being killed via legal procedures under any circumstances. There are undoubtedly individuals who need to be removed from society for the rest of their lives, for they are incorrigible, but confining them in a prison or lunatic asylum ought to suffice. The alternative is just too barbaric.

Confining someone to a small space for decades on end is the real barbarism here. The death penalty is quick and humane whereas your method is torture.

There is nothing humane about killing someone for a crime he or she did not commit. Releasing someone wrongfully incarcerated after, say, 18 years is better than the alternative: "Fuck! Killed the wrong one. O well, too bad."

There is nothing humane about locking someone into a small closet for 18 years. The death penalty is much more humane even if the person is innocent. After 18 years locked up, you are a fucked up person even if you weren't to begin with. It is torture to lock someone up for decades on end.

[Rum]

Gawd's enthusiasm for administering death with so much relish seems true to character to me.

Any state which is willing to copy the actions of murderers does not deserve to be described as civilised.

[Atheist-Lite]

Mass killing of the criminal element might prove to be good practice for reducing the surplus population in the American middle classes? I don't have a great opinion on this matter since I am not American. But looking in I can see both advantages and disadvantages here depending on your socio-economic group and location. Further down the line as the financial collapse becomes more apparent in America something will have to be done about the expense of keeping millions of human cattle in pens. They will either be loosened to create social chaos or slaughtered and thus feeding the blood lust of the bloodthirsty overseers there. Not a easy choice but I don't see any alternatives given how deep the coming collapse is going to be in the former USA?

[JOZeldenrust]

You can always release someone from life imprisonment if they are subsequently proved innocent...

...which has happened frequently enough to make you wonder just how many innocent people have been executed.

my_wan, you pretty much expressed exactly what I have said elsewhere, except for the fact that i don't approve of people being killed via legal procedures under any circumstances. There are undoubtedly individuals who need to be removed from society for the rest of their lives, for they are incorrigible, but confining them in a prison or lunatic asylum ought to suffice. The alternative is just too barbaric.

Confining someone to a small space for decades on end is the real barbarism here. The death penalty is quick and humane whereas your method is torture.

There is nothing humane about killing someone for a crime he or she did not commit. Releasing someone wrongfully incarcerated after, say, 18 years is better than the alternative: "Fuck! Killed the wrong one. O well, too bad."

There is nothing humane about locking someone into a small closet for 18 years. The death penalty is much more humane even if the person is innocent. After 18 years locked up, you are a fucked up person even if you weren't to begin with. It is torture to lock someone up for decades on end.

Why not let the person being killed/incarcerated be the judge of which method is more humane?

[sandinista]

Why not let the person being killed/incarcerated be the judge of which method is more humane?

Interesting, but I would wonder how to deal with the mentally ill. Which may raise the question; would wanting to die be considered mentally ill?

[Gawd]

That's like George Bush asking the Iraqi's how he should invade them.

[Gawd]

Why not let the person being killed/incarcerated be the judge of which method is more humane?

Interesting, but I would wonder how to deal with the mentally ill. Which may raise the question; would wanting to die be considered mentally ill?

I think it is a crime to kill yourself in the USA. They'll probably lock you up for another 18 years just for that.

[Atheist-Lite]

Why not let the person being killed/incarcerated be the judge of which method is more humane?

Interesting, but I would wonder how to deal with the mentally ill. Which may raise the question; would wanting to die be considered mentally ill?

I think it is a crime to kill yourself in the USA. They'll probably lock you up for another 18 years just for that.

It's a expanding franchise and I understand their working on a monopoly and putting a wall around the entire nutjob nation.

[sandinista]

That's like George Bush asking the Iraqi's how he should invade them.

good analogy.

[sandinista]

Why not let the person being killed/incarcerated be the judge of which method is more humane?

Interesting, but I would wonder how to deal with the mentally ill. Which may raise the question; would wanting to die be considered mentally ill?

I think it is a crime to kill yourself in the USA. They'll probably lock you up for another 18 years just for that.

It's a expanding franchise and I understand their working on a monopoly and putting a wall around the entire nutjob nation.

[Gawd]

Gawd's enthusiasm for administering death with so much relish seems true to character to me.

Any state which is willing to copy the actions of murderers does not deserve to be described as civilised.

Umm, if you haven't noticed, it is
Israel that murdered civilians in international waters. Remember those IDF mother f-ers shot the civilians in the back of the head multiple times at point blank range, execution style?

[my_wan]

I would rather live in a closet than be be killed, so long as I could have access to information about what was happening in the world. The whole punishment idea behind jail tends to breed more crime than it prevents. I don't see the "nothing humane about locking someone into a small closet for 18 years" a valid argument.

People do have value that is worth significant risk to protect. The punishment aspect of jail tends to create more criminals than than it can hope to deter. So as far as I'm concerned incarceration should be about public protection, not punishment. Minor offenses can become a wedge preventing a person from achieving any sort of future for themselves. Many, if not most, people wouldn't have the life, success, career, etc., they have now if they had gotten caught with some dumb act they committed in their youth. Many cops I know have admitted this to me about themselves. This punish through institutionalization approach merely breeds hopelessness due to common mistakes or minor conformist issues in their youth. Jail becomes the expectation, and people lose anything to lose in committing more serious crimes.

If you do a cost benefit like an economist, our incarceration/punish attitude cost a lot more than the benefit. About 12.5% of people in jail now is for marijuana, which has a much less a cost, in both health and social issues, than alcohol or cigarettes. The benefits of the death penalty are paltry in comparison to cost to.

Yet the human value issue, even though I wouldn't say human value is absolute, still trumps the raw cost/benefit to a large degree. It's better to err on the cost/benefit ratio in favor of human value by a significant degree. Yet the present system errs in the opposite direction, including the death penalty.

[Meekychuppet]