I thought the entire purpose of punishment, of any kind, was to create reform, usually through fear. Otherwise, what you are talking about is just revenge.

In a perfect world, we'd have capital punishment.

Liberals, both classical and modern, see everyone as a rational agents, including murderers. So if there are murders, it is because our society didn't have the right incentives in our environment to prevent the murders. If murderers aren't rehabilitated, again, it is our fault for not giving them good options.

Imagine if you murdered someone and then got magically rehabed -- you'd still have to live with the monstrous deed you performed. Punishment is a human need, both on the part of the criminal and society. If society is guilty, and it is the criminal that is innocent, then so be it-- the crimes of the guilty will be expiated by the blood of the innocent. Why? We do not know.

Freud was right about aggression-- deep down, someone has to murder part of the self as they proceed to murder another person. A murderer isn't a person who calculates; a murderer is a person who says, fuck it! -- or even worse --fuck it all! In other words, there is such a thing as an act of murder, whatever be the causes that prompted it. It is intrinsically wrong -- anti-Life to its core -- and intrinsically worthy of the dignity of permanent retribution.

Once upon a time, there was a society that had long ago forgotten that it had created machines, as machines had been self-sufficient for a very, very long time. The people of this society began to believe that it was the other way around, that the mighty machines were the gods who had created them. Thus, the rules programmed into the machinery ages ago became the commandments of the people. However, one of these commandments was itself a paradox; it forbade killing upon penalty of death. As it was against the very programming of the machines to act upon the execution, one of the people was selected to do so. This enforcer would be charged to slay the killer, but the rules of the society were absolute. No killing. To obey the law by ending the life of a murderer was to break the law by taking another human life. Letting the killer live was unthinkable, yet to slay them was to become them....and the law required all who took human life to be slain.

O.O;;; Yea.... sounds like a bad syfy channel original movie.... I should pitch it as one lol. I'm just saying absolutism is questionable. Trying to draw a finite line anyplace where raw, intense emotion is involved gets messy. If 1 innocent person in 100 is put to death, is that any more acceptible than 1 guilty person in 100 going free? >< You start to get into the legal system, and suddenly it gets really complicated. We start mixing morals and ethics....and there's a big difference between the 2. As a psychiatrist, it's moral to tell the police that your client confessed to strangling 8 people while in a session....but it's ethically wrong.

Look, the fact of the matter is, as flawed as our system is, it's all we have right now....and technology is getting better. I can't necessarily stand behind capital punishment as long as there's the potential for error....but I'm not wholly against it as long as there are those whose actions have proven them not human enough to deserve human rights.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_debate

Aly--

If we're going to jettison absolutes, we'll hafta jettison everything else that is absolute, including human rights. This is no problem for me-- I'm a conservative that believes in convention anyway.

We're actually in agreement on the prudence of capital punishment-- I don't want it becoming a routine thing either, especially in a place with a reputation for corruption, like the People's Republic of Illinois. Still, all murderers are worthy of capital punishment, even if they do not get their deserts in this world.

I had a job with a contractor for the IDOC in 2007-- we took inbound calls from parolees doing their check-ins, requesting movement and so forth, along with some data entry when the officers would report in. I could look up anybody's file in the system-- John Wayne Gacy, for example: MURDER INTENT TO KILL; MURDER INTENT TO KILL; MURDER INTENT TO KILL -- about two or three dozen. It is chilling when you're actually looking at the file on the computer screen. Most sex offenders are exactly how you would imagine them. The same with murderers. Here is where I discarded my liberal education and began to truly know that, yes, a book should be judged by its cover.

From my experience in the most depressing job evah (I only worked there a few months), it isn't self-interest that makes people do this stuff-- rather, it is despair, perversity, defeat, and futility which leads to a malice toward life, a hatred of being born. I do feel bad for people in the corrections system. One time there was a 14 year-old who robbed a Chinese delivery guy for $50.00. His Uncle lost track of him; his "baby Momma" was working, and his "Baby Daddy" was incarcerated. Statistically, this kid is now probably screwed for life. The people over at CATO cited by Saul don't understand what they're talking about; the existential standpoint is absent. A novel like Dostoyevski's Crime and Punishment has greater insight.

The tragedy is that we can avoid turning people into criminals, and Humpty Dumpty usually cannot be reassembled.  This is a big reason why I think good families are more important than the zealous liberal/libertarian mission to liberate everyone. Family breakdown and drug abuse *do* permanently ruin many lives. I've seen hundreds of instances. The few who can rebuild and establish new beginnings do so with the help of religious traditions; I no longer hate on religion either.

We aren't as rational as we flatter ourselves to be.

Posted By thedeepestblue on 04 Nov 2009 02:18 AM
Regardless of that coralaisly, that doesn't mean I hate people who don't conform to my views. I can understand where you're coming from and why you hold those beliefs, and there's no reason you should be made to feel unpopular because you hold them.

...

Let's assume that the courts have a 100% success rate in sentencing criminals. Let's also assume that punishment of criminals will not influence the likelihood of other criminals commiting a crime. Finally, let's assume any criminal released from prison will recommit, but keeping a prisoner in prison indefinantly under reasonable living conditions will not cost anything. Suppose that under these conditions, a serial murderer is sent to prison. Is it moral to kill this serial murderer rather than let him live out the rest of his natural life?

I don't hate people who disagree with me either. Usually, they give me a fresh perspective, and if their perspective makes more sense than my own, I'm perfectly fine with accepting that, and in some circumstances, I may change my opinion. My view on this topic is usually unpopular (I live in California, otherwise known as liberal country. Any remotely conservative view is typically seen as less valid, so in person, I tend to keep this particular view to myself, that, or be prepared with a list of facts and figures and know that I will need a thick skin to survive the verbal onslaught of negivitity that a pro-deathpenalty viewpoint usually brings onto the speaker. I don't expect that here, or I wouldn't have said anything. If that starts to happen, I most likely won't keep up with the debate because I'll see it as about as useful as trying to argue with a tv screen). That's ok, and I've developed a thick skin because of it. I know I'm coming from a unique set of circumstances and that I had a view of it that most don't, and it made me look at it from a different viewpoint. I would hope that people here wouldn't think less of me for stating and standing by my opinions. If it came to that, I would most likely leave because this site would have nothing for me. However, I'm still here, and am willing to discuss this as long as personal attacks aren't made. Personal attacks take all the fun out of a debate for me.

And let me make it very clear that I don't "like" the death penalty. I don't like the idea of killing people in any capacity. However, my views have nothing to do with likes and dislikes or my emotions. They are a compilation of all of the information I have come into contact with, along with my personal experiences (mentioned above) and my views on not only taxes, the families of the victims, and society in general. They mostly have to do with my view that the families of the victims should have a say in whether or not the accused is put to death, but should also not have to give this person free room and board for the rest of their life (I have my own ideas about how the prison systems should be run, but that's another topic) when their money could stay in their pockets or go to help those who are actually in need. Most (not all) people who land theselves on death row are hopeless cases. Some have been in and out of jail and prison their whole lives, and are beyond help. It is most definately sad and unfortunate, but life isn't always happy.

Wow, don't I sound like an INTJ in this comment?

Posted By JHBowden on 04 Nov 2009 09:02 AM

In a perfect world, we'd have capital punishment.

have? In a perfect world, Marxism would work and we wouldn't need capital punishment, or law enforcement in general, or laws because everyone would love everyone and there would be no fighting.

In a perfect world, Marxism would work and we wouldn't need capital punishment, or law enforcement in general, or laws because everyone would love everyone and there would be no fighting.

Perhaps I can extricate myself by distinguishing between a perfect world and perfect people.

Posted By JHBowden on 04 Nov 2009 04:59 PM

 

In a perfect world, Marxism would work and we wouldn't need capital punishment, or law enforcement in general, or laws because everyone would love everyone and there would be no fighting.

Ha!

 

Perhaps I can extricate myself by distinguishing between a perfect world and perfect people.

XD

How can there be a perfect world without a perfect people? Wouldn't the perfect world require the people populating it perfect? Would a perfect world, governmentally speaking reflect or try to control it's people? I guess that lies in your definition of "world" and "perfect." To me, "world" can be synonymous with "people" and "government" in certain contexts, and yes, this is one of them. And only when people (in and out of government) stop trying to control one another and impose beliefs or themselves on others would the world be perfect. Only in this type of society would Marxism work.