The death penalty

Death penalty?

  • For it

    Votes: 53 100.0%

  • Against it

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Only in the most extreme circumstances

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Total voters
    53
R

Rogue Hex

Look, Ma! Two Heads!
Should the ultimate sentence be brought back to our justice systems?

If someone takes a life in cold blood, should he/she not have his life taken in return?

We were having this discussion in one of my IT classes earlier (because we always talk about such matters while working in ICT lessons.) and I was surprised to hear just how many people are for the death penalty!

Most agreed that if someone could be proven to be 101% guilty of a crime such as murder then they should in return lose their life...

Personally, im neither for nor against the death penalty.

I do agree with giving life sentences to people who commit such crimes against others. Is that not as bad, if not worse than being sentenced to death?
Think about it, instead of being killed, you are condemned to rot in some rat infested pit for the rest of your years!

Anyway, I was just curios to see if as many people here agree with the death penalty. if possible, try and justify your answers.



Ciaos
 
I`m against it. Causes more trouble than harm, does not stop crime from going upp, it is very difficult to awake a person from the dead if you suddenly figure out he is wrong.
 
Nah, death penatly is useless. It makes the state look like a murderer and it doesn't help solve the crime problem. Capital punishment just doesn't work - criminals don't consider consequences of their actions before they commit crimes, they consider them after they are caught, so it's silly to assume that a murderer won't kill someone because he's afraid of getting electrocuted. Crime problem is much deeper than criminals not being scared enough of committing crimes. The state should deal with the cause rather than just make the effect seem more terrible.

And yeah, make the murderous bastards rot in some Ratty-infested pit for the rest of their sorry lives. I'll be waiting... :twisted:

Joke of the day:
Convinct: Damn, I got four years!
Kid: That's nothing, I've got five already! :P
 
Good question Rogue. I added a poll to this for those who don't want to post.

Honestly, I am against it.

But what if a democratic government wants it? If a society feels that it wants this punishment, should it get it?


Also does DNA evidence and other state-of-the-art technologies that create higher probabilities of guilt or innocense justify the death penalty?
 
I read good article on this a while back. It basically stated the death penalty should never be shoved away as an "archaic, out-dated means of dispensing justice". Lots of Europeans can be really high-and-mighty about having no death penalties in their respective legal systems, but they forget what happened after WW II.

As the author of the article stated, the validity of the death penalty depends on two things:

1. The development of the country. The more "civilized" a country, the less need they have for the death penalty.

2. The extremity of circumstances. And not personal circumstances, as in "his crimes are so unspeakeably horrible, he deserves the death penalty", but general extreme circumstances, such as after WW II...
 
Ok Kharn, so are you suggesting that countries like the US are less civilized because they believe in the deterrent effect of the death penalty, or that the society has the right to feel a bit of revenge for brutal homicides?

Is that not a case of cultural relativism?

Should we not also consider the circumstances- countries with higher rates of crime might see more justification in more extreme punishments as a rational response to a problem and less a cultural response of some "higher" scale?
 
welsh said:
Ok Kharn, so are you suggesting that countries like the US are less civilized because they believe in the deterrent effect of the death penalty, or that the society has the right to feel a bit of revenge for brutal homicides?
Click to expand...

That point struck me too, however the backing argument seems to stand pretty firm. Wouldn't you agree the death penalty, be it for a feeling of revenge or because crime rates are high, is, together with its motive(s) for existing, a determining factore in whether or not you can stamp a country civilized? If you look at it very simple and purely, if you had two identical societies, one with death penalty and one without, the one with the death penalty would be the less civilized one.

Also, the proof is in history, so to speak, the existance and banishment of European capital punishments walks firmly alongside its development as a civilized continent, with the Neurenbergs as the exception.

welsh said:
Should we not also consider the circumstances- countries with higher rates of crime might see more justification in more extreme punishments as a rational response to a problem and less a cultural response of some "higher" scale?
Click to expand...

Don't you think crime rates are an indication of the level of "civilization" of a country?
 
Kharn, realize that not every part of the United States is Texas. Anyone else remember what happened a few months ago in my home state (Ill)? It is more of an issue here, but look at Europe. Many nations in Europe still have the death penalty (and unless I am mistaken, some EU members or prospective members use it more frequently then we do (Turkey, Tunisia, some of Central/Eastern Europe)). People forget that, unlike France or Britan, America cannot really be cut into three or less subcultures.
 
The jails of some countries are way too overfilled, and some other kind of punishment should be used.. Death penalty isn't really a penalty to some, because all do not fear death...And the matter of executing an innocent... There are always those who do not fit in a civilized society.... There are both pros and cons for the death penalty, but I don't believe it to be such an effective punishment...
 
Kharn- I see your point, but I am worried that the way to approach the issue of whether a country is civilized or not is a bit more tricky.

Take for instance the problem of poverty and crime rates.

For example, in the US you have great differences in income levels and crime rates often correlate with great differences income. If in Europe many of the poor have gone elsewhere to seek out more opportunitites (such as the US during the waves of European immigration) is Europe better because it passed off its poverty problem to another country?

The Swiss for instance have little problem in poverty, high standards of living, great health care, good salaries, little crime. But the Swiss are also rich because they are willing to take money from every brutal dictator that enslaves and represses his people so that they can make a lot of money. Are the Swiss thus more civilized because they allow themselves banking laws that allow brutal dictators to hide their money?

I think it fair to say that Europe does well in part because the rest of the world does poorly. Cheap commodities from foreign countries reduces prices for Europe. As manufactures go up, commodities go down. Thus the Europeans benefit from those cheap goods. But those cheap good also create the circumstances that allow those same brutal dictators to stay in power.

Are the Europeans that much more civilized because they don't have a death penalty but profit from an economic system that leads to great poverty, brutal repression and the use of the death penalty to combat crime elsewhere?

It is I think not ironic that the much of international law recognized only civilized nations based on European standards, and that Japan became civilized only after beating the Russians in the Russo-Japanese war.

This word "civilized" is a word with a great history for self aggrandizement and hypocrisy. I suggest it be used sparingly.
 
CC, welsh, I think you're both catching my point wrong. I wasn't stating "European nations are more civilized than the USA 'cause they don't have death penalties", which would be untrue and unfair.

The point of the article was more to explain the causes and symptoms of the death penalty being present in a country, not to make a general statement about the civilization of a country (measured by death penaly, amongst other things)

I got lured a bit into that argument with my second post, but that wasn't my intention, and welsh makes excellent points, as usual, but it misses my point; I'm not really trying to argue the difference of civilized countries based on crime figures, poverty rates etc.

It boils down to a sentence I wrote down before "If you look at it very simple and purely, if you had two identical societies, one with death penalty and one without, the one with the death penalty would be the less civilized one. "

So let's not let the discussion sidestep too much into the field of "civilization", on which I agree with welsh in that it is a word often used in a hypocritical way, and thus a term that's hard to define, and while a debate of it might be interesting, it's not something I want to get into right now. After all, "civilization" when concerned to that "death penalty"-article is not a matter of higher motives as when concerned with Europe exporting its poor or Swiss incredibly foreign policy, it's only a matter of how far a country is developed in crime rates and the revalidation of criminals. i.e. the "reason" or "motive" some American states and European countries have capital punishment is simply because they have higher crime numbers, coupled with a general feeling amongst the people that capital punishment is necessary, a feeling which could be argued to recede once poverty decreases. I think that was the arguments main point, which makes its statements rather obvious, as opposed to revolutionary... :violent:
 
Personally I think that death penalty is a necessity in third world countries. The state should not have to care for people for the rest of their life (life sentences). Superfast death sentences like in China would work nicely. When the country becomes more civilized and advanced, death penalties for 2 reincidences in the same crime would make the trick. Jail should only be a "regenerating and holding" facility for those who have only been in prison ONCE and thus have any chance of being recovered. Of course jail should be improved to help the criminals improve for the better not for the worse (its sad that some guy robs because he has to feed his family and lands some time in jail. He has no education and upon entering prison, he will receive one...a criminal education that is and thus comes out a worse individual from jail). Also there should be perfectly defined criminal offenses to avoid protestors find themselves facing the gun.
 
CC wrote:
Many nations in Europe still have the death penalty (and unless I am mistaken, some EU members or prospective members use it more frequently then we do (Turkey, Tunisia, some of Central/Eastern Europe)
Click to expand...

Uuuuh... since *when* did Tunisia or Bielorussia enter the EU? As far as I know, Poland, the Czech republic and Hungary are the principal candidates to join the EU. Tunisia is in Africa, and 99% of Turkey is in Asia.
Again, as far as I know, the Death penalty has been rejected since the fall of the Soviet dictatorship and its "vassal" governments in eastern Europe. The fact that Lukaszenko (Bielorussia) and his fascist dicatorship still enforce the capital punishment and broadly speaking, spread terror all over their country doesn't represent eastern Europe's point of view on the subject. Most of the death penalty fans, in Poland (which is BTW the most "old-fashioned "country of the EU candiadates when it comes to mentality, traditions, religion) are either right-wing extremists or the equivalent of a post-communist national-socialist party ("samoobrona"). And no, our crime rates aren't the lowest in Europe.

But (!!!), don't get me wrong. I know that all of the US isn't Texas nor Arkansas, and a country that big can't possibly have ONE point of view and ONE legislation on the subject. I think it's all relevant to the *majority* that votes and chooses the law they tink is the better for their state, and I'm sure there are many people in the US that are far more open-minded and "civilized" than many people in Europe.

My point is that when you have a government that (supposedly) acts according to what the majority of people ask for, to the *number* of people demanding some law, not attaching any value to the choice's contents, there will always be a "minority",) affected and opressed by the decision that took place. Next thing you see is some dumb fuck trying to justify war by "convincing" a nation that the actions that take place are merely to defend world peace or some shit like that.
Anyways, to any politician/ruler that wants to stay in his position, the goal is to minimize the effects of such opression to make the most people possible "happy" about the choice that took place in order to avoid mass riots.

The tricky part in Death sentences is that the opressed minority is often reduced to a single individual, which past and actions can be completely made up, not attracting any compassion from society at all.
It's always the easy way to exterminate the ones that don't seem too comfortable to you. IMO, the "civilized" approach is to take the hard way in order to make both sides reach the best arrangement possible.
 
There is the legal possibility of death penalty in France, but it has been abandoned for over twenty years now, it was the last country in the now EU to do it.

By the way these are the countries on the EU and the new members, Turkey has to remove definitely the death penalty to be able to join (it has taken almost all the steps for it already).
 
I'm for deportation to artic islands, let them sort it out over there.

And to quote from Vietnam "Kill 'em all, let God sort 'em out later"

Death penalty is expensive and way too long.
Shoot them on the spot.
Asks questions later

I haven't read all you posts above (too tired and too long) and i probably won't be following this thread afterward my two cents.
 
I'm against death penalty. The artic island deportation is a deathpenalty, so.. let's discover Australia over again in stead.
 
In my eyes, the only crime punishable for death is child rape, or child murder. Perhaps geonocide too :wink:

I choose the third option.
 
At first I was going to vote yes, but then chose to vote "no."

I think dangerous criminals would be put to better use in hard labor camps.

Its better than leeching off of society in a Max Security Penitentiary.
 
Heres what I think.

Only use it when there is NO doubt about guilt
Ex, he shot the kid behind the counter at a mcdonalds on camera
Otherwise, put them in jail for LIFE with NO parole. Murders should do some kind of forced labor. Nothing cruel, but dont lat them enjoy jail. In the US many prisons are so nice that convicts WANT to go back because they enjoy iy (I think those are ugly old farts that dont need 2 worry bout rape, lol.)

Basicly, only use death when guilt is not in doubt. When the murder was caught on camera, Etc.
 
When guilt is not in doubt? Guilt is always in doubt, basically. And because not being in doubt has to be established by a jury(in the US) or judge, their sentence about guilt is considered to be "without a doubt", and thus, it would be absolutely impossible to ever define a clear line. Which would then cause problems again.

Now, here are my thoughts:
First off all, I think that the death penalty is an immoral thing, simply because you are killing people because they killed. It shows a double standard(I wonder if you could sue the US government for killing and get the death penalty? Ehe....). Furthermore, if something goes wrong, the consequences are much graver than when something wuld go wrong for someone with a prison sentence.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top