Are you against Capital Punishment?

Cmon now, this is the internets!

Sharing knowledge would be great. I would really like to know your viewpoint.

Read Addicted to War by Joel Andreas or A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn and you will have an idea of what mystery nation I am speaking of...

In the words of Matt Damon in Goodwill Hunting, while referring to the second book I mentioned: "that book will f***-n blow your mind."

But yeah, BACK TO CAPITAL PUNISHMENT

imalegend wrote:let me ask you guys a question????

how did you feel when you hear Bin Laden died? were you happy or not? i wasn't....because he was human and we shouldn't be happy when someone died....but a majority of people were.....

doesn't that show that most people do accept CP

did you see how people in US were celebrating.....like it was the 4th of July there......

As I said in a previous post. When you have someone that is unrepentant in the lives they've taken, like Bin Laden, it's only natural to celebrate when his own life is taken from him. That's why so many Americans celebrated.

I did not.

I simply shook my head at the ignorance. We might as well been the bloodthirsty Paris Mob cheering as innocent people had their heads brutally chopped off. It was a bloodlust simply put.

I'm sad at all losses of human life, no matter how heinous they lived their lives. Bin Laden's life was his to take and his only. We should've taken him alive at all costs and made him to answer for his crimes. Instead, we gave him the easy way out. He hid from us for years only to pop up and get killed. He paid not a second for the atrocities he committed.

That's why I am against executions. It lets the condemned off far too lightly. It's simply shallow-minded and one-dimensional to say "He took a life, so we take his life and then everything is settled." Try telling that to the family of both who the killer and his victim.

We don't even know if Osama really died he might be friends with the CIA

death sentences isnt that bad when you give it to someone who has murdered people knowingly and willingly. There is no excuse for murdering someone (unless its involuntary manslaughter of course) and should be dealt with by saving jail space and finishing the guy off.

@imalegend: why was it wrong for people to celebrate osamas death??? do you not know the countless tragedies he has imposed on people all over the world? what were you expecting the victims to do, sit and cry?? No point in bringing him to trial, would have caused the victims to be more nervous anyways.

english_jewel wrote:death sentences isnt that bad when you give it to someone who has murdered people knowingly and willingly. There is no excuse for murdering someone (unless its involuntary manslaughter of course) and should be dealt with by saving jail space and finishing the guy off.

That statement beautifully ignores all the problems of capital punishment, though.

VivaStPauli wrote:

english_jewel wrote:death sentences isnt that bad when you give it to someone who has murdered people knowingly and willingly. There is no excuse for murdering someone (unless its involuntary manslaughter of course) and should be dealt with by saving jail space and finishing the guy off.

That statement beautifully ignores all the problems of capital punishment, though.

Yes I know there will be plenty of problems with capital punishment if it were to be implemented, but what are you thinking of?

I'm pro, but if the judge is unsure, then let the person free. As it's better to make a mistake in forgiving, then a mistake in punishing.

To those who are anti CP, what about mass murderers like Gaddafi? The number of people killed/abducted/raped/fled is beyond horrifying and I can give you those numbers if you like. Don't you think he deserves to be executed?

Killing people is wrong.
He deserves to be executed because he killed people.
Executing him would be killing him.
Killing people is wrong.

Nah, I don't think he should be executed. Just let him rot in jail. Nobody's magically resurrected by murdering murderers.

^ I see...

I am pro-CP, but only for those who deserve it 100%. Like raping and killing a child for example. Or mass murderers like I mentioned above.

7amood11 wrote:^ I see...

I am pro-CP, but only for those who deserve it 100%. Like raping and killing a child for example. Or mass murderers like I mentioned above.

why kill them ? your doing what they did...

an eye for an eye leaves the world blind

Anyone spending more than 20 years in jail should just be killed plain and simple.

We are a plague on this planet and as it is there are way too many humans walking this Earth. Plus economically if you looked at how much it costs to put someone in prison per year in most western countries you would be pretty surprised.

And for those who state what if they are falsely accused blah blah blah. Well too bad who cares.

We need some way of lowering our current population this would be a good start. Then we can go into other areas. I like how people take a moral high ground on matters like this. It's time to look at the overall picture. The human race is like a virus or a plague. We cull rabbits, pigeons and mice for doing the same thing as us (overpopulating). So why not start at the logical place prison.

Did that sound abit heartless? lol

ali8775 wrote:

7amood11 wrote:^ I see...

I am pro-CP, but only for those who deserve it 100%. Like raping and killing a child for example. Or mass murderers like I mentioned above.

why kill them ? your doing what they did...

an eye for an eye leaves the world blind

Well ultimately humans are always in wars, killing people and animals for their own reasons.

Now if we can translate that to killing people who deserv to be killed then bring it on.

Peter Hitchens argues better than his brother.

I did not realise scrapping capital punishment installs a rational motive for killing witnesses and victims. But actually it's entirely logical. Unintended consequences.

I'm against CP for several reasons.
1. It makes you no better than the person you kill
2. You cannot resurrect a killed person if you discover s/he was innocent after all.
3. To let a criminal stay in jail is more punishment than killing hir. After all, rapists and paedophiles are pretty much on the bottom of the food chain there and will suffer more and longer than if they were simply killed. ^^

I don't think paedophiles are necessarily the bottom of the food chain. Unpopular opinion but I don't see how you can equate sexual proclivity to those under the age of 16 as broad-stroke worse than, say serial killers, who you interestingly left out of your list.. I would agree that some paedophiles who have committed an act can be just as bad if not worse than a serial killer.

I think its fair to say its conceivable that paedophiles can be rehabilitated (despite current evidence indicating that its bloody well difficult) - so then it becomes a question of appropriate punishment of their actual crime. If some loser is caught with child images I don't think they should be put to death but would agree he or she should be locked up until such a time qualified professionals are satisfied that he/she is no longer a threat.

There is a double standard in saying that on the one hand punishment by death is immoral only to then go on and say that we should make them suffer a pain worse than death instead.

I agree with point 2 but think the standard of "reasonable doubt" must be lifted to "any doubt whatsoever" in order to sentence to death.

I personally see no issue with it - in clear cut crimes where there is no doubt and providing it fulfills very clear criteria I have no issue. The truth is more often than not it will be hard to prove beyond doubt. But then you have people like Anders Breivik.

As for the argument that it does not prove to be a deterrent - I agree, choice of life in prison or put to death are of little consequence to most. But what about the cost to the tax payer and for the family of the victims?

rwo power wrote:I'm against CP for several reasons.
1. It makes you no better than the person you kill
2. You cannot resurrect a killed person if you discover s/he was innocent after all.
3. To let a criminal stay in jail is more punishment than killing hir. After all, rapists and paedophiles are pretty much on the bottom of the food chain there and will suffer more and longer than if they were simply killed. ^^

Killing someone for killing someone is not equivalent to killing someone for their wallet, or for no reason, or for sex, etc etc.
So no it certainly does not make you as bad.

As far as the potential of killing innocent people is concerned, first prove the penalty has no utility. As Hitchens articulately said it, to be against the death penalty on the grounds that innocent people will be killed (regardless of its utility) you have to be a pacifist completely, or you are just talking nonsense. In any war innocent people are guaranteed to die.

On the last point let's not paint with a broad brush. The severity of prison punishment varies from country to country, I'm sure Thimmy can describe to us how Anders Breivik is being treated. Did he get his new playstation yet btw?

And In fact in prisons where the prisoners run things the weakest and gentlest prisoners are usually at the bottom of the prison food chain and the meanest and brutish are the ones raping them. So I have no faith that the prison systems generally are effective at punishing prisoners in proportion to the severity of their crimes.

I've never subscribed to the 'killing them makes you no better' argument. It baffles me how killing/raping innocent people can be seen on the same level as killing said person. If something is a massive threat to society you remove it. Likewise with people.


And whilst yes a lifetime of jail is probably worse than getting executed, it costs stupendous amounts of money to keep these people alive for absolutely no point.

If it was up to me the people who are convicted of crimes such as paedophiles and don't even bother denying it would be killed via 1 bullet to the head within Weeks of sentencing. Nice & cheap, humane enough and over & done with.

There's no way i could ever be better than Chris Benoit anyway.

In over populated countries where Government can't give individual attention to the social and mental needs of the citizens Capital punishment is a great way to scare off potential crimes.

Obviously cp is just treating the symptoms instead of the disease but what if treating disease is impossible?

Absolutely against the idea of conducting cp after few months/years after the sentene. Most sensible governments only conducts cp after like 10+ years after the sentence for a reason... That is them giving time to see if any new evidence is popping up in the duration which might reduce his death sentence. Governments are far smarter than common People.

They usually wait 10+ years because the system is clogged up though, not because they're waiting for evidence to surface, in fact in most CP states, the systems work actively against the trial being re-opened.