The Death Penalty: Do/would you support it?

[Sean K]

Re: The Death Penalty. Do/would you support it?

Happy, You are on the right track here. This is the logical future of human kind. We need to start seeing things as they truly are. Humans are not a special being, we are just another animal that MUST contribute in some way for the betterment of the planet. Those that do not, should fall away.

 

[visual]

Re: The Death Penalty. Do/would you support it?

having read all these opinions I`m going to trow my in.Death penalty I agree with,however I ask,can anyone assure me that it would be applied without fear or favour?In our society morality comes with a price,if you are poor or weak then obviously you are not going to be able to afford very strong legal advice,and chances are that these will be the first people to swing.On the other hand if you have money or power then you will propably be able to influence whatever decision is made in your case.
Point in case Ramage killed his wife,confessed to the police ,his lawyer came along and said no it was all about passion,not murder, only manslaughter,guess what Julie Ramage reputation was put through the mud and Ramage her former husband was convicted of manslaughter.Same in America or even in Singapore or wherever the death penalty applies its mainly used against the helpless not necessarily the guilty.Look at the muslim countries where sharia law applies who cops the brunt of it,women,the weakest link in that society.

 

[Sean K]

Re: The Death Penalty. Do/would you support it?

Visual, That's my point. The weakest lose, making humans a better species. This is reality.

We only have the emotions we do (compassion etc) in order that we survive. We no longer have to rely on them. Now, lets use logic.

 

[kerosam]

Re: The Death Penalty. Do/would you support it?

i don't think all christians are against death punishment.... i, for one, support it.

 

[pacer]

Re: The Death Penalty. Do/would you support it?

Death is too good for some of those sick b#@#%@s.......all crims should be flogged, especily types like Allan Bond. It's been proven time and again that a good flogging usualy does the trick, most won't reoffend in a hurry.....child rapists should be flogged, castrated, crucified, then tied to a fire ant nest to slowly fade away and thier naked rotten corpses left in public places as a reminder of what happens to Rock spiders.
Varying levels of this for all crimes would be the way to go.

If I caught anyone interfering with my kid's you can guarantee this is what they'd get when they got out of prison.....take a week off and go bush.....let the wild pigs clean up the mess....no evidence.

Sorry if I got carried away and offended anyones sensibilities but the current system just aint working.

 

[bullmarket]

Re: The Death Penalty. Do/would you support it?

Hi porper

So let me get this right.You think people that support the death penalty support cold blooded murder ?

yes that's right porper .......the reason being as I posted earlier.


Imo, those who support the death penalty undeniably support morally blatant, cowardly, cold blooded murder and arguing the death penalty rids society of people we are better of without is blatant BS imo because I assume someone who murders someone else, in the first place, out of vengeance, hate or whatever is in their mind ridding the world of someone they perceive the world would be better off without as well.

I don't see how anyone who deliberately murders, legally or not, someone who has been found guilty of a crime is any different or any less of a coward and murderer than the original person was who committed a murder or whatever in the first place.

I gave my reasons earlier why I thought everyone has a right to life and what my alternative to the death penalty was for serious crimes.......imo the pros of my alternative greatly outweigh the cons

cheers

bullmarket

 

[Sean K]

Re: The Death Penalty. Do/would you support it?

Hi Bull,

Interesting concept 'the right to life'.

This inferrs that, no matter what, every person/foetus/egg/sperm has the unmitigated entitlement to continue to exist. Anyone can act in any way they want but they still have this basic freedom.

On the surface it seems this is a solid foundation for humankind and is certainly a key aspect of international human rights and the 'rights based approach' that many NGOs have. I'm sure the US Bill of Rights has this in there somewhere.

What this approach does however, is absolve peoples responsibilities to be the best human being that they can be. They can exist without ever having to contribute to their own survival. It's this mindset which limits the potential of the human species.

The way we should approach it is to say that everybody has the 'opportunity to live.' This simple shift in paradigm will make people work harder at being humans and not to take everything for granted, including life.

My point is that while 'the right to life' is something that many people unquestioningly cling to as a freedom we should all have, this mindset is limiting our development, and allowing those who are degenerating humankind to continue on. And thus, holding human development in a mindless timewarp.

The way forward is to get rid of the bad eggs. Unfortuntely for humans at the moment, they seem to be breeding faster than the more highly developed specimens. This doesn't sound very 'compassionate' but I'm taking the purely scientific, pragmatic, non spiritual approach to this, which is the only way to ultimately see 'the truth'.

 

[Happy]

Re: The Death Penalty. Do/would you support it?

'everyone has a right to life'

That’s all well said, and sounds fantastic and feels great, but what about those who were raped and killed, or only killed or just robbed and killed?

Didn’t they have equal right to live till natural death, or euthanasia if they wish and use RU486 if they think it is what they wish to do too?



So much for our eternal right to life.

 

[bullmarket]

Re: The Death Penalty. Do/would you support it?

Hi Happy

Yes of course the victims also had a right to life.

But if someone for whatever reason decides to take a victim's life by committing murder then the offender still has a right to life for the reasons I expressed earlier

If someone says that they then have the right to take the life of the offender as punishment or whatever then imo the 'executioners' are no less cowards and blatant murderers (in at least the moral sense) than the original offender because both offender and executioner are deliberately taking the life of another human being for their own personal reasons/justifications........the original offender could easily argue they were ridding society of someone they believe society is better off without just as supporters of the death penalty can argue

As I posted earlier, imo the pros of my suggested alternative to the death penalty greatly outweigh the cons......but that's just me...

If you read through my original post you will see the reason behind my views.....some will agree with me, some will obviously not.

cheers

bullmarket

 

[Happy]

Re: The Death Penalty. Do/would you support it?

It’s only innocently honest debt repayment

 

[bullmarket]

Re: The Death Penalty. Do/would you support it?

no problem Happy

re your comment:

It’s only innocently honest debt repayment

but I don't see it that way because as I posted earlier, the original murderer could use the same argument to justify his/her taking of another person's life ......and imo that excuse is nowhere near valid for the original murderer or for those supporting the death penalty.......and hence in my eyes there is no difference between those that commit the original crime and those who support, and would execute, the death penalty as in a way, they are all using the same excuse to try to justify the taking of another life (legally or not)


cheers

bullmarket

 

[Sean K]

Re: The Death Penalty. Do/would you support it?

Bull, I think your point misses the mark because it does not consider the justice/injustice aspect of the act of killing.

There is always just killing, for eg self defence and war. The murderer has committed an unjust act while the executioner is committing a just act.

I suppose there lies the difference. You believe it would be unjust (because the Book says so) while I believe the punishment is just for some crimes.

My case has a hole in it because defining what is a crime punishable by death is very very subjective. Every case will be slightly different.

 

[bullmarket]

Re: The Death Penalty. Do/would you support it?

Hi kennas

I don't believe I have missed the point at all.

In my original post in the RU486 thread I clearly said that killing another human being in self defence, be it a war or whatever, is totally justifiable........and so goes without saying as it applies equally here.

Yes I agree that a murderer commits an unjust act but I disagree that an excutioner supporting the death penalty is committing a just act, as you call it, for the reasons and logic I posted earlier ....and imo therein lies our differences and so be it......so we'll just have to agree to disagree because I doubt very much either one of us will the change the view of the other

cheers

bullmarket

 

[Happy]

Re: The Death Penalty. Do/would you support it?

Let’s have deeper look into our moral obligation to preserve life dark-matter.

We are told that 1 max security in-mate costs circa $60,000 pa, we are also told that 1$ can save one child per day from hunger death.

All of the sudden our pro-life stunt makes us mass murderers.

Also I bet, many bed-ridden nursing home in-mates would love the 24-hours security and nice nutritious meals and even 24-hours suicide watch, which could double up as room service should they soil the bed in early hours of the morning.

Selective morality at its best

 

[bullmarket]

Re: The Death Penalty. Do/would you support it?

Hi Happy

I don't believe it is selective morality at all because :

1) I would much rather be in a nursing home, with all its pros and cons, than a maximum security prison and its associated environment.....it's certainly no picnic in a max security prison

2) I fail to see how you can put a $ value on a human life.....some will obviously try using similar arguments as yours but at the end of the day, no matter how you try to justify coming up with a $ value, the bottom line is that it is only your opnion on the value of a human life and nothing more.....it's very possible that others might see 'value' in a very much different way as we are all entitled to do.

Imo you cannot put a definitive $ value on a human life as every human life is sacrosant other than in cases of self defence.

So whether someone supports the death penalty or not to some extent boils down to whether you agree with 2) above or not.

cheers

bullmarket

 

[Sean K]

Re: The Death Penalty. Do/would you support it?

Bull, Philosophically your argument fails when you use the 'except in self defence' clause.

'Thou shall not kill' does not say 'Thou shall not kill, except in self defence'. You are making an exception which means your premise is contradicted.

You can either kill another human or you can't.

If you really believe life is sacrosanct then you wouldn't even kill someone else in self defence!

 

[Julia]

Re: The Death Penalty. Do/would you support it?

Visual, That's my point. The weakest lose, making humans a better species. This is reality.

We only have the emotions we do (compassion etc) in order that we survive. We no longer have to rely on them. Now, lets use logic.

Hello Kennas

I'm finding your arguments in this thread logical and persuasive, but have a problem with the post above where you use the term "better species".
In Visual's example, it seemed to me that the person who was able to "buy" himself a better result obviously had access to power and money which a poor and non-connected person wouldn't, but I'd dispute that this makes him a "better" person.

It brings up the whole fraught question of what qualities should we be looking for in the citizens of our "best" society.

Further down the track, it seems entirely possible that we could be selectively breeding, i.e. only allowing people to procreate if they fulfil the criteria set by some authority which will determine what a future society needs. What do you think?

Of course it sounds purely the stuff of fantasy right now, but is it possible? Would it be desirable?

Apologies if I've gone too far off topic here, but it seems a natural extension of the discussion of who should live or die.

Julia

 

[visual]

Re: The Death Penalty. Do/would you support it?

I really dont know what the answers are to all these scenarios,but again selective breeding for want of a better word isnt going to change things in the least.The people who will afford all the good qualities arent going to be necessarily the kind of people who make much of a difference to our society anyway.Even as we speak crims are using TAFE to learn how to grow better drugs.
What I think would be good is for the community is to have strong judges,onces who dont get sidetracked by dogooders.Lawyrers who arent confused about whats right and wrong.The lawyer who defended the death row drug dealer in Singapore is now defending the Mokbel woman who is in danger of losing her house.A house that she bought with drug money,which wouldnt be difficult to prove if the government really wanted to.

We need less excuses of woe for the crims and better applying of community starndards,not necessarily designer babies.

 

[Sean K]

Re: The Death Penalty. Do/would you support it?

Julia, I think there's a couple of issues with human development related to this topic.

Have you ever played the management/learning game where there is a boat full of people and you have to choose someone to go so the boat stays afloat? One person is old, one a doctor, one a young female, one a military person etc. Each person brings something to the table but a decision has to be made about who is going to be the best for their survival. Certain people will bring prosperity to the rest of the world, some do not.

Those that are natuarally intelligent, moral, ethical beings and are not physically flawed are probably the ones we want in order that the human race continues to progress. If we continue to allow the weakest genes to spread then we will not develop any further, or our condition may actually degenerate.

So, I think that's what I'm alluding to.

We are not perfect specimens by a long shot. Who knows where we are going, but maybe gene therapy will fix all our flaws and develop a more ethical race of beings who will be happier to live side by side.

 

[visual]

Re: The Death Penalty. Do/would you support it?

flaws,ethics
Who decides whats flawed and whats ethical,someone flaws could be someone elses positives again ,ethics,who decides?

The nazis thought they were on the road to the perfect race all they nedeed was blonde hair and blue eyes.They thought using people who didnt fit this criteria was ethical.Only when the nazis threathened the rest of the world were they stopped.Maybe off topic but there you go.