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  #151  
Old 11-28-2007, 02:25 PM
Money2Burn Money2Burn is offline
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Default Re: This is why I\'m for the death penalty.

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Anyone who has so little value for another human being's life does not deserve to live.

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Anyone?

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Just thought I'd bump this so it could get a little more love. [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

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Thanks.


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Uh, am I being leveled? It was quoted because I'm impressed with how succinctly hypocritical one earnest statement can be.

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Didn't realize you meant it in that way. Do you mind elaborating?

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Person A places such little value on Person B's life that he enables Person B's death. Money2Burn then places such little value on Person A's life that he enables Person A's death. Hilarity ensues.

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You don't think there's a difference between someone intentionally taking another person's life maliciously without provocation and someone's life being taken as a consequence of a heinous murder?
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  #152  
Old 11-28-2007, 02:46 PM
Barcalounger Barcalounger is offline
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Default Re: This is why I\'m for the death penalty.

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Anyone who has so little value for another human being's life does not deserve to live.

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Anyone?

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Just thought I'd bump this so it could get a little more love. [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

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Thanks.


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Uh, am I being leveled? It was quoted because I'm impressed with how succinctly hypocritical one earnest statement can be.

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Didn't realize you meant it in that way. Do you mind elaborating?

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Person A places such little value on Person B's life that he enables Person B's death. Money2Burn then places such little value on Person A's life that he enables Person A's death. Hilarity ensues.

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You don't think there's a difference between someone intentionally taking another person's life maliciously without provocation and someone's life being taken as a consequence of a heinous murder?

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Sure I do. But I'm also not going to pretend that the second version isn't just the same "evaluate value of human life, if value < X then terminate" algorithm that the first one used.
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  #153  
Old 11-28-2007, 02:49 PM
kurto kurto is offline
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Default dblbarrel

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Regardless of that, he'll get his 15 appeals, he'll cost the state several millions just in court costs, and he'll probably still die in prison before his execution comes up.

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You seem to frustrated by the appeals process.

But you also agree that over 100 innocent people were released who had been sentenced to death wrongly. These people may have spent 10-15 years in prison appealing their case.

You say it works because they were released.

So... am I wrong to sense that you think the long and expensive appeals process is wrong? Yet, you seem to think it has saved innocents from being killed, no?

Just curious...
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  #154  
Old 11-28-2007, 03:25 PM
kurto kurto is offline
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Default Re: This is why I\'m for the death penalty.

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It is patently obvious that some people commit acts and would continue to commit acts that are so reprehensible that they dont deserve to live in a civilzed society.

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I'm not necessarily part of the anti-death penalty crowd, but that's what prison is for.

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I would disagree becuase even though they are removed from society, the criminal still gets to live. There are individuals that don't deserve to live out the rest of their days when they so callously denied that right to their victims.

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Personally I think death may be less of a punishment then life in prison. But opinions may vary greatly about this.
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  #155  
Old 11-28-2007, 03:31 PM
tame_deuces tame_deuces is offline
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Default Re: This is why I\'m for the death penalty.

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Personally I think death may be less of a punishment then life in prison. But opinions may vary greatly about this.

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Most of the arguments against death sentences are also arguments against (the majority of) v/ long prison sentences.
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  #156  
Old 11-28-2007, 03:56 PM
John Kilduff John Kilduff is offline
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Default We choose Love or Hatred on a Daily basis

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What's wrong with revenge exactly? Not that I think the criminal justice system should be about "revenge" entirely, but ask yourself what "justice" means in this case...

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I don't think retributive justice (crudely referred to as 'revenge' here) is necessarily something to scoff at. I'm happy when people who do bad things are punished, and I suspect most other people are too.

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I'm generally saddened when people are hurt (even if they may well "deserve" it), and may I say I think God is saddened too.

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Imagine a hypothetical world where we could find some terrible criminal monster like Dennis Rader and give him some kind of ankle bracelet that we could know, with 100% certainty, would prevent him from killing again. Let's say we've also concluded, somehow, that Rader is 100% un-rehabilitatable. And by some magic, we've also managed to conclude that it's completely impossible someone will ever repeat his crimes. Given this, should we allow him to live a free and unencumbered life, sans punishment, despite the fact that he's caused so much pain, suffering, and misery in his community? Our hypothetical has magically addressed the concerns about deterrence and rehabilitation -- but I many people would be comfortable letting Rader go free in such a hypothetical. And I think the answer is clear as to why most people wouldn't be comfortable, and it's because I think a 'just' society would necessarily have to punish someone like Rader, justified by the simple notion that he deserves it. And I would be surprised if many people would disagree with this.

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I happen to disagree with that perspective, and see zero value in adding to the suffering present in an already greatly suffering world. If someone is no longer capable of doing harmful, evil things to others, then in my opinion there is no value in making that person suffer. All that would do, in my view, would be to increase the total amount of suffering in the world.

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That isn't to say I approve of severe forms of physical punishment, but I'm a firm believer that getting what's 'deserved' is part (and probably only a part) of achieving justice.

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"Achieving justice" by concentrating on the negative side of the equation is a seductive mirage, especially since we cannot ensure that good people are rewarded by good things happening for them to balance the scales. Evil things happen routinely to good people, and good people are frequently unrewarded for their good deeds in this world (though they may be rewarded in the hereafter); so by focusing on punishing evil, we tip the scales in the world towards a greater amount of evil than good occurring in the world as a whole. As if evil doesn't already outweigh the good in this world!

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Having said that, I think especially important for a moral society to try to balance desert with fairness. For example, I may think a rapist deserves to sit in prison for 10 years for their crime, but if we've only been punishing other rapists to 1 year in prison, we should probably take that into consideration. There are other factors to take into consideration as well. But I think desert is one of those factors we should take into consideration, and I think we can defend retributive justice once we accept the Rader-type hypothetical and the concept of just desert.

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I see your point about relative justice, but IMO humans should not be trying to play God or the role of Universal Arbiter of Justice by meting out retribution for evil acts.

When humans try to achieve that, in addition to the tainting of results which often occurs due to bias or limited perspective, there is the basic truth that we have far less power to do greatly good things for people than we have the power to do to greatly evil things to them.

Retribution, while admittedly attractive in some fashion, is a lower human emotion which we should strive to suppress and overcome. There is no way to achieve true justice in this world, and by enacting punishments purely for the sake of trying to achieve some abstract sense of justice, the human race descends deeper overall into hatred, pain and misery.

Will not the person upon whom punishment or vengeance is enacted, frequently feel that it is unfairly applied to them? So they will harbor resentment and possibly try to seek vengeance of some sort of their own (which may even be possibly misdirected against innocent targets). Thus the vicious cycle continues.

The Buddha said: "Only by love can hatred be appeased or dissolved; never by hatred can hatred be appeased". What type of a future world do we wish to see? A world in which the cycle of hatred and retribution continues indefinitely, or a world in which humans eventually move beyond that?

I wonder how many among us happened to feel any compassion or sorrow whatsoever for Saddam Hussein, when the tyrant was hanged? As evil as his deeds were, he still probably somehow felt justified with his actions in life, and his death was a personal tragedy on grand scale for him. Even tyrants are deservant of some degree of compassion. As Samuel Clemens wrote: "Who, if anyone, prays for the Devil? Yet what sinner is more in need of our prayers than he?"

Just as Jesus forgave those who tormented him, we should strive to feel and give love even to those who despise and mistreat us. This is the highest human spiritual potential, and pragmatically speaking, it is the only way the human race will be spared on this Earth once the proliferation of technologies of mass destruction become far more developed and proliferated. Even if you disagree with the spiritual points I am hoping to convey, a focus upon retribution and hatred will ultimately destroy the human race if that focus is not widely supplanted by the spirit of compassion and mercy. This is so because the human-focused power to destroy is always greater than the human-focused power to create. So if equal portions of love and hatred are everpresent in the human race, then when the power to destroy grows great and widespread enough, the human race must eventually self-destruct. By focusing upon the retribution motif, the total sum of pain, suffering and resentment in this world is increased. Attempting to achieve "justice" by increasing the amount of suffering and resentment in the world, only pushes the human race a bit closer to this dire precipice which looms so threateningly in the not-so-tremendously-distant future.

What I believe to be necessary necessary, if the human race is to survive long-term, is for the higher motif of love and forgiveness to surpass the baser urge for retribution or vengeance.

If we wish the human race to survive, the message of love and forgiveness as embodied and displayed by Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior should become our focus and aspiration. This is true for pragmatic and worldly reasons, so I won't even talk now about potential benefits in the afterlife.

A world in which love overcomes hatred would also be a better place in which to live, wouldn't it? Presently the struggle between love and hatred rages on, as it has for milennia. Which side would you most like to see win that struggle?

Every little thing counts, and I think the human race would be acting very wisely by trying to increase the amount of love and gratitude in the world rather than by increasing the amount of hatred and resentment in the world. When someone feels mistreated or unfairly punished (and who often does not?), it often does not end there. That person goes on and ends up passing that hatred to others by doing something bad to others (even if unawares, or even if those others are not to the actual source of their resentment. On lesser scale, when someone feels cranky due to unpleasant things having happened to them, they often treat others more poorly).

So this is the quandary the human race is in. The choice is open to all of us. I suggest looking at the gift of pure love that Jesus gave us all, but even if you are not religious, we have that choice before us on a daily basis. Do we choose Love, or do we choose Hatred? Whichever we choose, the actual effects of our choices ripple outward endlessly in an interconnected universe.

Well, thanks to everyone for reading.
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  #157  
Old 11-28-2007, 04:23 PM
Copernicus Copernicus is offline
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Default Re: We choose Love or Hatred on a Daily basis

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What's wrong with revenge exactly? Not that I think the criminal justice system should be about "revenge" entirely, but ask yourself what "justice" means in this case...

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I don't think retributive justice (crudely referred to as 'revenge' here) is necessarily something to scoff at. I'm happy when people who do bad things are punished, and I suspect most other people are too.

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I'm generally saddened when people are hurt (even if they may well "deserve" it), and may I say I think God is saddened too. <font color="red"> Why should your God trump someone else's God who may not be saddened? Or an atheists beliefs? I'm not the least bit saddened when a cop killer/serial killer/mass murderer is executed. And isn't your God "an eye for an eye" proponent? </font>

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Imagine a hypothetical world where we could find some terrible criminal monster like Dennis Rader and give him some kind of ankle bracelet that we could know, with 100% certainty, would prevent him from killing again. Let's say we've also concluded, somehow, that Rader is 100% un-rehabilitatable. And by some magic, we've also managed to conclude that it's completely impossible someone will ever repeat his crimes. Given this, should we allow him to live a free and unencumbered life, sans punishment, despite the fact that he's caused so much pain, suffering, and misery in his community? Our hypothetical has magically addressed the concerns about deterrence and rehabilitation -- but I many people would be comfortable letting Rader go free in such a hypothetical. And I think the answer is clear as to why most people wouldn't be comfortable, and it's because I think a 'just' society would necessarily have to punish someone like Rader, justified by the simple notion that he deserves it. And I would be surprised if many people would disagree with this.

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I happen to disagree with that perspective, and see zero value in adding to the suffering present in an already greatly suffering world. If someone is no longer capable of doing harmful, evil things to others, then in my opinion there is no value in making that person suffer. All that would do, in my view, would be to increase the total amount of suffering in the world. <font color="red"> First, you can never guarantee that without death. Second, revenge can be cathartic and decrease the suffering of families of victims so your claim that there is a net increase in suffering is not supported. </font>

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That isn't to say I approve of severe forms of physical punishment, but I'm a firm believer that getting what's 'deserved' is part (and probably only a part) of achieving justice.

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"Achieving justice" by concentrating on the negative side of the equation is a seductive mirage, especially since we cannot ensure that good people are rewarded by good things happening for them to balance the scales. Evil things happen routinely to good people, and good people are frequently unrewarded for their good deeds in this world (though they may be rewarded in the hereafter); so by focusing on punishing evil, we tip the scales in the world towards a greater amount of evil than good occurring in the world as a whole. As if evil doesn't already outweigh the good in this world! <font color="red"> You have subjectively declared revenge to be evil. You have no right to do that for others. </font>

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Having said that, I think especially important for a moral society to try to balance desert with fairness. For example, I may think a rapist deserves to sit in prison for 10 years for their crime, but if we've only been punishing other rapists to 1 year in prison, we should probably take that into consideration. There are other factors to take into consideration as well. But I think desert is one of those factors we should take into consideration, and I think we can defend retributive justice once we accept the Rader-type hypothetical and the concept of just desert.

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I see your point about relative justice, but IMO humans should not be trying to play God or the role of Universal Arbiter of Justice by meting out retribution for evil acts.

When humans try to achieve that, in addition to the tainting of results which often occurs due to bias or limited perspective, there is the basic truth that we have far less power to do greatly good things for people than we have the power to do to greatly evil things to them. <font color="red">how is that a basic truth? </font>

Retribution, while admittedly attractive in some fashion, is a lower human emotion which we should strive to suppress and overcome. <font color="red">All emotions are equal, none is lower than any other. They are all just chemical reactions and electrical impulses. Emotions evolved because they turned out to be beneficial to the species. Your declarative ranking of emotions is subjective. </font> There is no way to achieve true justice in this world, and by enacting punishments purely for the sake of trying to achieve some abstract sense of justice, the human race descends deeper overall into hatred, pain and misery. <font color="red">see "increase in suffering above" </font>

Will not the person upon whom punishment or vengeance is enacted, frequently feel that it is unfairly applied to them? <font color="red"> Of course, and so what? </font> So they will harbor resentment and possibly try to seek vengeance of some sort of their own (which may even be possibly misdirected against innocent targets). Thus the vicious cycle continues. <font color="red">It only continues if you allow it to continue. </font>

The Buddha said: "Only by love can hatred be appeased or dissolved; never by hatred can hatred be appeased". What type of a future world do we wish to see? A world in which the cycle of hatred and retribution continues indefinitely, or a world in which humans eventually move beyond that? <font color="red">Wishing evil away doesnt work, and we will never move beyond the necessity of punishment. </font>

I wonder how many among us happened to feel any compassion or sorrow whatsoever for Saddam Hussein, when the tyrant was hanged? <font color="red">I sure didn't. </font> As evil as his deeds were, he still probably somehow felt justified with his actions in life, <font color="red">His personal justifications are irrelevant in the context of a society. </font> and his death was a personal tragedy on grand scale for him. Even tyrants are deservant of some degree of compassion. <font color="red"> Depends on the tyrant. </font> As Samuel Clemens wrote: "Who, if anyone, prays for the Devil? Yet what sinner is more in need of our prayers than he?"

Just as Jesus forgave those who tormented him, we should strive to feel and give love even to those who despise and mistreat us. <font color="red">No, we shouldnt, and citing one persons opinion (if he was even a real person) is just that, one opinion. It carries far less weight than societies opinion. If society wants to be influenced by his opinions, fine, but others in society can work to change that. </font> This is the highest human spiritual potential, and pragmatically speaking, it is the only way the human race will be spared on this Earth once the proliferation of technologies of mass destruction become far more developed and proliferated. Even if you disagree with the spiritual points I am hoping to convey, a focus upon retribution and hatred will ultimately destroy the human race if that focus is not widely supplanted by the spirit of compassion and mercy. <font color="red">That may well be true, but wishing it away has never worked. Punishing it away has. </font> This is so because the human-focused power to destroy is always greater than the human-focused power to create. <font color="red">So is natures, so what? </font> So if equal portions of love and hatred are everpresent in the human race, then when the power to destroy grows great and widespread enough, the human race must eventually self-destruct. By focusing upon the retribution motif, the total sum of pain, suffering and resentment in this world is increased. <font color="red">see discussion above. </font> Attempting to achieve "justice" by increasing the amount of suffering and resentment in the world, only pushes the human race a bit closer to this dire precipice which looms so threateningly in the not-so-tremendously-distant future.

What I believe to be necessary necessary, if the human race is to survive long-term, is for the higher motif of love and forgiveness to surpass the baser urge for retribution or vengeance.

If we wish the human race to survive, the message of love and forgiveness as embodied and displayed by Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior should become our focus and aspiration. This is true for pragmatic and worldly reasons, so I won't even talk now about potential benefits in the afterlife. <font color="red">take it to SMP </font>

A world in which love overcomes hatred would also be a better place in which to live, wouldn't it? Presently the struggle between love and hatred rages on, as it has for milennia. Which side would you most like to see win that struggle?

Every little thing counts, and I think the human race would be acting very wisely by trying to increase the amount of love and gratitude in the world rather than by increasing the amount of hatred and resentment in the world. When someone feels mistreated or unfairly punished (and who often does not?), it often does not end there. That person goes on and ends up passing that hatred to others by doing something bad to others (even if unawares, or even if those others are not to the actual source of their resentment. On lesser scale, when someone feels cranky due to unpleasant things having happened to them, they often treat others more poorly). <font color="red"> I like the Beatles too, but its songs, not the real world. </font>

So this is the quandary the human race is in. The choice is open to all of us. I suggest looking at the gift of pure love that Jesus gave us all, but even if you are not religious, we have that choice before us on a daily basis. Do we choose Love, or do we choose Hatred? Whichever we choose, the actual effects of our choices ripple outward endlessly in an interconnected universe.

Well, thanks to everyone for reading.

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  #158  
Old 11-28-2007, 06:13 PM
John Kilduff John Kilduff is offline
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Posts: 1,903
Default Re: We choose Love or Hatred on a Daily basis

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What's wrong with revenge exactly? Not that I think the criminal justice system should be about "revenge" entirely, but ask yourself what "justice" means in this case...

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I don't think retributive justice (crudely referred to as 'revenge' here) is necessarily something to scoff at. I'm happy when people who do bad things are punished, and I suspect most other people are too.

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I'm generally saddened when people are hurt (even if they may well "deserve" it), and may I say I think God is saddened too. <font color="red"> Why should your God trump someone else's God who may not be saddened? Or an atheists beliefs? I'm not the least bit saddened when a cop killer/serial killer/mass murderer is executed. And isn't your God "an eye for an eye" proponent? </font>

<font color="blue"> I'm not saying my belief of God should trump soimeone else's belief, yet regardless of God, I am saddened when I see another human suffering, as I feel it is often needless and have some degree of empathy for that person. Theye for an Eye" motif was replaced with Jesus' instructins and example. The Christian paradigm is forgiveness not retribution ("eye for an eye" comes from the old Judaic religion, before the advent of Jesus Christ). </font>

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Imagine a hypothetical world where we could find some terrible criminal monster like Dennis Rader and give him some kind of ankle bracelet that we could know, with 100% certainty, would prevent him from killing again. Let's say we've also concluded, somehow, that Rader is 100% un-rehabilitatable. And by some magic, we've also managed to conclude that it's completely impossible someone will ever repeat his crimes. Given this, should we allow him to live a free and unencumbered life, sans punishment, despite the fact that he's caused so much pain, suffering, and misery in his community? Our hypothetical has magically addressed the concerns about deterrence and rehabilitation -- but I many people would be comfortable letting Rader go free in such a hypothetical. And I think the answer is clear as to why most people wouldn't be comfortable, and it's because I think a 'just' society would necessarily have to punish someone like Rader, justified by the simple notion that he deserves it. And I would be surprised if many people would disagree with this.

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I happen to disagree with that perspective, and see zero value in adding to the suffering present in an already greatly suffering world. If someone is no longer capable of doing harmful, evil things to others, then in my opinion there is no value in making that person suffer. All that would do, in my view, would be to increase the total amount of suffering in the world. <font color="red"> First, you can never guarantee that without death.</font>

<font color="blue"> True, but you can reduce the risk greatly. Also, you can guatrantee that by inflicting misery on another you increase the suffering in the world[/i] </font> <font color="red"> </font>

Second, revenge can be cathartic and decrease the suffering of families of victims so your claim that there is a net increase in suffering is not supported. </font>

<font color="blue"> Such catharsis is minimal compared to the real and greater pain of the loss of their loved one, who can never be replaced. It is like putting a single ice cube on a ravaged limb. Further, if they ever look deeper, they will probably eventually come to realize that all that really happened was the amount of suffering went up because their actual loss was in no way restituted, not even by one iota.</font>

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That isn't to say I approve of severe forms of physical punishment, but I'm a firm believer that getting what's 'deserved' is part (and probably only a part) of achieving justice.

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"Achieving justice" by concentrating on the negative side of the equation is a seductive mirage, especially since we cannot ensure that good people are rewarded by good things happening for them to balance the scales. Evil things happen routinely to good people, and good people are frequently unrewarded for their good deeds in this world (though they may be rewarded in the hereafter); so by focusing on punishing evil, we tip the scales in the world towards a greater amount of evil than good occurring in the world as a whole. As if evil doesn't already outweigh the good in this world! <font color="red"> You have subjectively declared revenge to be evil. You have no right to do that for others. </font> <font color="blue"> I think it is a spiritual truth. You disagree. OK </font>

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Having said that, I think especially important for a moral society to try to balance desert with fairness. For example, I may think a rapist deserves to sit in prison for 10 years for their crime, but if we've only been punishing other rapists to 1 year in prison, we should probably take that into consideration. There are other factors to take into consideration as well. But I think desert is one of those factors we should take into consideration, and I think we can defend retributive justice once we accept the Rader-type hypothetical and the concept of just desert.

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I see your point about relative justice, but IMO humans should not be trying to play God or the role of Universal Arbiter of Justice by meting out retribution for evil acts.

When humans try to achieve that, in addition to the tainting of results which often occurs due to bias or limited perspective, there is the basic truth that we have far less power to do greatly good things for people than we have the power to do to greatly evil things to them. <font color="red">how is that a basic truth? </font> <font color="blue"> I'm trying to say that we have greater power to harm than help others. The followup to that is that if we were to always do the maximum we could actually do to reward others (for good deeds) or punish them (for bad deeds), we would end up meting out far more punishment than reward due to the fact that we have more power to easily harm or destroy than heal or help, e.g. it is easy to kill someone but hard to save their life; it is easier to destroy someone's house than to build them a new house. So we would be effecting unbalanced justice if we always tried to produce just results, because of the constraints we must operate under and our limited (and skewed) powers.</font>

Retribution, while admittedly attractive in some fashion, is a lower human emotion which we should strive to suppress and overcome. <font color="red">All emotions are equal, none is lower than any other. They are all just chemical reactions and electrical impulses. Emotions evolved because they turned out to be beneficial to the species. Your declarative ranking of emotions is subjective. </font> <font color="blue"> I don't think so. I think there is a hierarchy of emotions, of intellectual accomplishments, of spiritual matters. I think a human being's emotions are more complex and evolved than an animal's emotions. Some human emotions are not available to animals. Some human emotions are not even available to some humans because the emotional development of those humans is not as high as that of others humans.</font> There is no way to achieve true justice in this world, and by enacting punishments purely for the sake of trying to achieve some abstract sense of justice, the human race descends deeper overall into hatred, pain and misery. <font color="red">see "increase in suffering above" </font> <font color="blue"> Even if the cathartic value equals the extra suffering caused by punishment, the suffering continues in transmuted form, and is passed along to other sentient beings of the universe. Its journey never ends because nothing exists in complete isolation. <font color="blue"> </font> </font>

Will not the person upon whom punishment or vengeance is enacted, frequently feel that it is unfairly applied to them? <font color="red"> Of course, and so what? </font> So they will harbor resentment and possibly try to seek vengeance of some sort of their own (which may even be possibly misdirected against innocent targets). Thus the vicious cycle continues. <font color="red">It only continues if you allow it to continue. </font> <font color="blue"> No, I mean, if you punish someone and he feels mistreated or unfairly punished, his misery and resentment will manifest itself by his taking it out on others. That suffering continues, although transformed, and is passed along: its journey does not end where it is initially applied to a sentient being. Even a dog who is severely mistreated or brutally punished may end up biting others, even strangers.</font>

The Buddha said: "Only by love can hatred be appeased or dissolved; never by hatred can hatred be appeased". What type of a future world do we wish to see? A world in which the cycle of hatred and retribution continues indefinitely, or a world in which humans eventually move beyond that? <font color="red">Wishing evil away doesnt work, and we will never move beyond the necessity of punishment. </font> <font color="blue"> I think we may never move away from having to take some preventative or restrictive measures in order to protect ourselves from aggressive rogue beings among us. I don't think punishment as retribution per se need figure into the formula. </font>

I wonder how many among us happened to feel any compassion or sorrow whatsoever for Saddam Hussein, when the tyrant was hanged? <font color="red">I sure didn't. </font> <font color="blue"> I had mixed emotions but could not avoid feeling some sorrow and compassion. All human beings suffer and have feelings. As greatly evil as his acts were, he still probably felt justified, and his world ended most tragically for him.</font> As evil as his deeds were, he still probably somehow felt justified with his actions in life, <font color="red">His personal justifications are irrelevant in the context of a society. </font>
<font color="blue"> no human's life or feelings are entirely meaningless

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and his death was a personal tragedy on grand scale for him. Even tyrants are deservant of some degree of compassion. <font color="red"> Depends on the tyrant. </font> <font color="blue">Merely a matter of degree.</font>

As Samuel Clemens wrote: "Who, if anyone, prays for the Devil? Yet what sinner is more in need of our prayers than he?"

Just as Jesus forgave those who tormented him, we should strive to feel and give love even to those who despise and mistreat us. <font color="red">No, we shouldnt, and citing one persons opinion (if he was even a real person) is just that, one opinion. It carries far less weight than societies opinion. If society wants to be influenced by his opinions, fine, but others in society can work to change that. </font>
<font color="blue">Ok, we disagree. I am leaning to what I see as the most advanced spirituality. </font>

This is the highest human spiritual potential, and pragmatically speaking, it is the only way the human race will be spared on this Earth once the proliferation of technologies of mass destruction become far more developed and proliferated. Even if you disagree with the spiritual points I am hoping to convey, a focus upon retribution and hatred will ultimately destroy the human race if that focus is not widely supplanted by the spirit of compassion and mercy. <font color="red">That may well be true, but wishing it away has never worked. Punishing it away has. </font>
<font color="blue"> I agree wishing doesn't work, but I don't think punishing usually works either. Forcing someone to be responsible (and perhaps make restitution) for their actions may work, but that is different than pure retribution.</font>
This is so because the human-focused power to destroy is always greater than the human-focused power to create. <font color="red">So is natures, so what? </font> So if equal portions of love and hatred are everpresent in the human race, then when the power to destroy grows great and widespread enough, the human race must eventually self-destruct. By focusing upon the retribution motif, the total sum of pain, suffering and resentment in this world is increased. <font color="red">see discussion above. </font>
<font color="blue"> Yes.</font>
Attempting to achieve "justice" by increasing the amount of suffering and resentment in the world, only pushes the human race a bit closer to this dire precipice which looms so threateningly in the not-so-tremendously-distant future.

What I believe to be necessary necessary, if the human race is to survive long-term, is for the higher motif of love and forgiveness to surpass the baser urge for retribution or vengeance.

If we wish the human race to survive, the message of love and forgiveness as embodied and displayed by Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior should become our focus and aspiration. This is true for pragmatic and worldly reasons, so I won't even talk now about potential benefits in the afterlife. <font color="red">take it to SMP </font> <font color="blue"> If the future survival of the human race may be predicated on shifting from a hatred/retribution motif, to a love/forgiveness motif, then I think crime and punishment is an area where public policy is germane to the discussion. I happen to perceive a religious aspect in this as well, but that aspect needn't concern you deeply for purposes of this discussion. </font>

A world in which love overcomes hatred would also be a better place in which to live, wouldn't it? Presently the struggle between love and hatred rages on, as it has for milennia. Which side would you most like to see win that struggle?

Every little thing counts, and I think the human race would be acting very wisely by trying to increase the amount of love and gratitude in the world rather than by increasing the amount of hatred and resentment in the world. When someone feels mistreated or unfairly punished (and who often does not?), it often does not end there. That person goes on and ends up passing that hatred to others by doing something bad to others (even if unawares, or even if those others are not to the actual source of their resentment. On lesser scale, when someone feels cranky due to unpleasant things having happened to them, they often treat others more poorly). <font color="red"> I like the Beatles too, but its songs, not the real world. </font> <font color="blue"> I'm afraid I don't know to which song you might be referring.</font>

So this is the quandary the human race is in. The choice is open to all of us. I suggest looking at the gift of pure love that Jesus gave us all, but even if you are not religious, we have that choice before us on a daily basis. Do we choose Love, or do we choose Hatred? Whichever we choose, the actual effects of our choices ripple outward endlessly in an interconnected universe.

Well, thanks to everyone for reading.

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P.S. The use of colors in replying to embedded quoted material is very convenient and saves much juggling of quotes. I am finding it to be a great time-saver.

Thanks for your thoughtful responses.
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  #159  
Old 11-28-2007, 07:37 PM
DblBarrelJ DblBarrelJ is offline
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Sep 2007
Posts: 1,044
Default Re: dblbarrel

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Regardless of that, he'll get his 15 appeals, he'll cost the state several millions just in court costs, and he'll probably still die in prison before his execution comes up.

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You seem to frustrated by the appeals process.

But you also agree that over 100 innocent people were released who had been sentenced to death wrongly. These people may have spent 10-15 years in prison appealing their case.

You say it works because they were released.

So... am I wrong to sense that you think the long and expensive appeals process is wrong? Yet, you seem to think it has saved innocents from being killed, no?

Just curious...

[/ QUOTE ]

You should carefully read every post I've posted in this thread, then get back to me.

Have a nice day.
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  #160  
Old 11-28-2007, 07:41 PM
blufish blufish is offline
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Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: wandering
Posts: 258
Default Re: This is why I\'m for the death penalty.

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I hope this guy frys.

Basicly this past weekend a guy got shot in the head and later died after the UF/FSU football game. He was shot in the head because he asked a couple guys to hurry up who were talking to some people in a car in front of them that was blocking the path when they were trying to leave a parking garage downtown. It's [censored] senseless. Anyone who has so little value for another human being's life does not deserve to live. Leathal injection is too humane for this prick.

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The kid should spend the rest of his days in an 8X8, in my opinion.

The incident happened at 2something am in the morning. Good chance there was some drinkin' going on.

Maybe some hellraising. I went to college, too.

Anyways, maybe the kid in the car didn't say "hurry up". Maybe he said, "Get your n*** black ass out of the F'n way, bitch!".

The black kid, wants to scare the white punk and saw a movie once or twice, fires into the car, gun sideways, barely paying attention to what he is pointing at. Because I'm fairly sure most people, let alone posers, know how to handle a firearm correctly.

Bullet rips thru white kid skull, black kid sh!ts himself and runs.

Change anything at all? And just for the record again, for all you trolling for an argument, I will repeat that the shooter should spend his days in an 8x8.
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