My better judgment tells me to leave this thread be but I'll poke it with a stick anyway.

first
"as most canadians, i'm opposed to capital punishment but there are cases in history that really warrants such a slap in the face of evil doers."
"there is no justification for killing anyone. i firmly believe that."

These two statements are contradictory, which one is it?

Ever hear of defending yourself or your country? Perhaps You don't feel there is anything worth killing somebody over. Say Lecter enters your house and starts eating your wife; your going to wait for the police or are you going put buckshot in his back? I'd choose the latter myself. And somehow I think you would value your life and the life of your family more than that of a criminal.

Another example: For whatever reason another country decides it wants Canada and is just going to roll in and take it. What do you plan on doing? Running away? Asking other people to defend you? Oh wait that might require killing too, guess your only option is to give up; appeasement didn't work in the 30's it's not going to work now. I'm always pleased when an armed civilian perforates a would be carjacker, rapist, or mugger. Makes others think twice about snatching a purse when granny might have a .357 under he shawl. Far as I'm concerned, if somebody gets killed trying to mug/rape/attack somebody, good, they won't be doing that again.

You, outta the gene pool

Also In this case I think a hanging was too quick and painless. I'd've rather seen him skinned alive preferably with 100 grit sandpaper or maybe a cheese grater.

second:
"In my opinion, absolutely nothing warrants the death penalty, since I think that sanctioned murder is murder nonetheless, and thus, we put ourselves on the same level as murderers if we allow it."

Absolutely nothing? If you can't think of anything somebody could do thats that bad then you lack imagination or you live in a bubble. So what do you intend on doing with serial rapists? Or how about people who kidnap children and torture them to death. You think they deserve to live? I'm sorry but this is something I simply cannot fathom. The sad truth is rapists and murderers are being set free on parole earlier every year. I'd like to see a more streamlined death penalty preferably public hangings and firing squads. It helps to make an example of what happens when you do things you shouldn't. Works great as a deterrent and if you don't keep the condemned alive for 10-20 years you can free up resources for those that deserve them instead of wasting them on pieces of sub-human garbage.

Sometimes the gene pool needs a little chlorinating. Though these days I think it needs more than a little.

All I can say to this thread is.

NINNY LOCK IT!

Its going nowhere, and talking about it is stupid.

You are all stupid.

Actually Yoda it has stayed on topic longer that most threads do.

You, outta the gene pool

[ url=http://www.darwinawards.com/darwin/darwin2003-07.html]You, outta the gene pool[/url ]

Get rid of the space at the beginning and end.

PS - I still stick by the high five.

Thanks moldy. I'd hi five ya but for obvious reasons thats impossible.

Look..., let's ignore the two weak arguments in favor of execution as far as a justice-based theory of its necessity goes:

(1) They can still get out on parole--well, not in some cases, and the legal system can be altered to literally lock 'em up forever.

(2) Works great as a deterrent--hard to say, but while it does somewhat, it's not a deterrent to killings in the heat of passion or other hot blooded crimes. Even when deliberating on what crime to commit today, I really don't have to take the possibility of being executed too seriously, given the odds involved. Resolving this by increasing the certainty of punishment is impossible for two reasons: a) the scope of crimes that require execution to acheive justice has narrowed (public consensus, anyway: I still believe anyone arrogant enough to deliberately kill or rape an otherwise innocent human being must be executed to vindicate the basic individual dignity and humanity of the victim, but what the hey), so it cannot be applied often... thus predicting if my contemplated crime is actually going to land me in the chair is a tough call; b) as we balance other important ideals vis-a-vis justice, we cannot eliminate the due process checks and balances on captial issues. Nor can we eliminate the huge burdens of a backlogged docket on the courts. It would be nice if we took a few dozen million a year for a separate, fast-track, capital appeals courts system... but I don't see it happening soon(tm).

Let's stick to the strong argument: Justice, if it is a moral concept with any real force, requires the option to execute those who deliberately choose Evil for purely amoral reasons. As I mentioned above, in some crimes, a fully competent man or woman decides to ignore the rights of another individual and rip from them their life or something so fundamental to their dignity as to be the human rights equlivalent of murder. They do this...not because of a medical or mental defect... not because they must to have a necessary aspect of survival... they do it because they want to, they can, and why not.

That decision is what requires the death of the criminal if there is any concept of Justice. You can have a criminal law system based off nothing more than control, maintance of order, and rehabilitation versus incapacitation... but if that's ALL you want the criminal laws to do, if you belive punishment and Justice have no role in law, have the balls to admit it.

As usual Lecter you make several good points.

(1) They can still get out on parole--well, not in some cases, and the legal system can be altered to literally lock 'em up forever.

Good point but I'd still prefer to see them hang, seems that we are in agreement here.

2 (part a)
It only works great as a deterrent if it's used a lot, sadly, this isn't the case. Use capitol punishment more and it then becomes more of a threat. Best way I can see to do this is to make it mandatory sentence for murder, rape, and kidnapping. No life in prison, no 40 year prison sentence, simply hang them in the public square or get a firing squad, preferably comprised of the criminals victims.

Unfortunately as you have pointed out, most of the public doesn't have the stomach for it. Perhaps when violent crime becomes enough of a problem they will.

2 (part b)
I agree with you, the accused deserve a fair trial and a proper appeals process. Still something must be done to make the system more efficient.



"So what do you intend on doing with serial rapists? Or how about people who kidnap children and torture them to death. You think they deserve to live?" <<< Thats where I (poorly) show that I do think punishment and justice have a place in law. People who commit these kinds of heinous crimes deserve to be killed, preferably (as stated above) the victims or families of the victims get to deliver justice themselves. I can think of no better way for justice to be served.

Sorry, the latter part of my post wasn't attacking you personally, Look...; the first part was more directed at you.

Overall, I'm just going after those who want to hide their opposition to capital punishment behind a human rights or morals stance, claiming that it lowers us to the same level as criminals who kill the innocent, or is vengeful and thus wrong. As a general rule, most who espouse that view simply haven't rigorously thought through their beliefs and what they mean in broader implication. The remainder know perfectly well what their beliefs are and the implications, and hide the ball in order to gain popular support.

I have no qualms with those who openly claim that all punishment is retributive; that retribution is the residue of a human desire for vengeance against Evil writ large into a social system in the interests of Justice, fairness and order; and that as such, all laws should be 'reformed' to expunge that flawed human element.

If they want to argue for a purely utilitarian system of criminal law, let them fully state their premises. They will always lose--fail to gain any serious public majority--in an argument where they cannot hide the ball or are forced to realize what their 'beliefs' really mean.

Otherwise, realize that (1) the act of killing is irrelevant, when compared to the who/why/how of the act... execution cannot be the equivalent of murder; and (2) the desire to exact vengeance is not an evil, but a basic human desire that is rooted in the concept of respect for individuality and human rights. Those who would deliberately disrespect the most fundamental rights of others have, by their choice, quite rightly evoked the hatered of their fellow creatures: they made a deliberate choice to engage in Evil, and those who understand there is a difference between what is Good and what is Evil wish to punish them for that choice. Not to dissuade them from future choices of that nature, not to secure society from their future threat, not to treat them for a moral deficency that lead them to make the choice. To punish a rational actor who had all the information necessary to make an informed decision and decided to greviously harm the innocent.

The reason the criminal laws exist, and why they developed in the first place, is to properly implement that ideal while preventing the excesses and errors that come with allowing the wronged individuals or those who look out for them from pursuing Justice on their own. Again, the criminal law is part of the social contract: we relinquish the right to exact Justice in exchange for order, fairness and the promise that the system WILL exact Justice.

When the system is 'reformed' to expunge the ideal of Justice and replace it with the idea of 'efficiency' and minimalism (treating all punishment of a human, be it death or prison, as equally bad, regardless of why that act occurs), the system is (1) not meeting a basic need of any human society, and (2) will realize it has erred in determining what 'efficiency' means in the context of criminal law.

[Edit]Above you conflated(1) breadth of application and certainity of application, Look..., and I wanted to clean that up some. The number of crimes for which death is a penalty has nothing to do with its deterrance of any specific crime, obviously. That depends on the certainity of ones execution after committing a capital crime, which is determined by factors separate from those that govern the threshold determination of what will be considered a capital crime at all.

(1)It only works great as a deterrent if it's used a lot, sadly, this isn't the case. [/Edit]

[Edit Part Two]I'll deal with Gavan's and Jex's (implied in Jex's case) issues here. First, what is to be gained is fairly obvious: killing someone who deliberately chose to harm the innocent for amoral reasons. Why that is different from life in prison is quite simple: life in prison is necessarily (since a life of torture is considered an inhumane punishment) pleasant for the criminal. Not as pleasant as being free, of course, but the greatness of life frequently consists of simple pleasures that come from the very act of being alive. Prison, as has been stated elsewhere and more eloquently, is a state of mind rather than a cell with bars. Why should someone who has deprived others of their lives or the moral equilivent thereof (violent rape, etc.) be permitted to continue to enjoy the most precious thing a man can have: the feeling of drawing in a breath, pushing it back out, and thinking 'I am'.

Second, the red herring of Gavan: marytrdom. Fallen symbols are symbols regardless of what you do with them, as you can see in the cases of ETA, IRA and Palestinian history. Jail them for life and the cry is 'Free our wrongly jailed brothers!'; execute them and the cry is 'Avenge our wrongly killed brothers!'. Six of one, half-dozen of the other. Perhaps the drive is worse with life imprisonment, as there is the problem of abuse occuring, and the continued, fresh greviance: a lifetime of 'waving the bloody shirt', rather than a brief outrage. Memory is shorter for the dead. Since this issue is, at best, a draw for your side, Gavan... we revert to point one and the argument in the bulk of my post here.[/Edit Part Two]

uc quote: "as most canadians, i'm opposed to capital punishment but there are cases in history that really warrants such a slap in the face of evil doers."

uc quote: "there is no justification for killing anyone. i firmly believe that."

yeah. i'm bipolar.

what i mean is that if your life is directly in danger, then you counter attack if if loss of life occurs well, you were defending yourself.

had hussein been killed in battle ("a slap on the face of evil doers"), i'd be first in line to piss on his tomb. on the other hand, these men of "justice" (let's not be fooled here but we'll call them as such anyhow) were never in direct danger from hussein--he had been arrested (and thus neutralized). the men who killed him were never in any danger.

the way he died was pure murder. vengeful murder. and it will only make him a martyr or an icon for the number of people that still followed him. that made him more dangerous i think.

he had been arrested (and thus neutralized)

So your belief, uc, is that all the law should do to criminals is prevent them from causing further harm, by incarceration for as long as necessary to achieve that goal?

there's always a slight chance that incarceration might prove useful in time.

what if he had said, say 5 years from now after having been "soap-dropped" a few times that in all, he would have done somethings different? what if whatever statement might have moved deterministic for some would-be follower wich altered his course and ended up saving a few lives?

it's too easy to terminate a life. you can't undo that.

i say, if there's a god, let him deal with him. and if there's none, either way, we'd have had the chance to use his incarceration for something good.

better to try and to give up.

(1) You would, I think, have to concede that in an ideal prison... "soap-dropping" would not occur. Amusing you require ill-treatment of prisoners as part of your hypothesis.

(2) On to its merits, such as they are. There's always the chance that the man who--I have to give him credit here, too, as he went through the trap quite bravely and without remorse; I respect that sort of determined conviction--died telling those who had deposed him to 'go to Hell' would later become a force for peace and justice. That chance is so small as to be irrelevant; men such as Saddam do not become the powerful dictators that they are (were:) without having a single-minded dedication to their purpose.

Far more likely is that he would never cease his pontifications against those who drove him from power and that his supporters would use his statements and the ever-present fact of his captivity in their recruiting and motivation of those who would kill the innocent.

From a purely utilitarian perspective, then, better to kill him and let his memory fade. The justice of his execution has already been established by an as yet unrebutted argument in favor of the systematic state-conducted killing of those who murder innocents. That's common-sense and ethics on my side.

Better to try again, or give up the debate.

it's the circumstances around his death that are not right.

would have been better that he died on the field rather than by a shoddy trial from a shoddy juge and jury and a shoddy sentence.

(hey... that reminds me of something...)

and as you say, he went out triomphant in the circumstances with his staying cool-headed despite the taunting. instant hero for some. wich doesn't help.

soap-dropping is more of an analogy... i doubt he, of all, would have had to suffer that treatment. he would surely have obtained some security by fellow followers inside.

i stand by my beliefs. i think no one has the right to murder someone. murder as in gratuitously killing someone in circumstances other than defending yourself or others in direct arms way. state execution is murder given (presumably) the victim was detained and thus controlled.

and yes, you can shut someone up and have him forgotten by everyone even if he's alive in a cell.

"and yes, you can shut someone up and have him forgotten by everyone even if he's alive in a cell."

Would you please elaborate on that.

Especially given the tendancy of uc's flavor of ilk to whine constantly about prisoner's rights... which tend to include some form of contact with the outside world, such as lawyers, aid workers, amnesty international swine, etc ad nauseam.

Not to mention uc's own internal contradiction: he can get inside followers to keep from getting assraped, but we could prevent him from any form of communication? As for the forgotten bit, that's so facially false I won't even bother.

Though you're correct, it would have been better had that cell phone video not made it out. Oh well, shit happens.

But hey, I'm all for us just shooting him and those like him in the field. Even if they surrender. And are unarmed at the time. No judge, no Iraqi court system (his trial was actually quite liberal by their standards; see what happens to any common defendant who tries what Saddam routinely got away with), and no formal sentence. What's that? We can't do that? Well, shit. That's too bad.

having someone forgotten in cell doesn't mean permanent "cell block" (or whatever it's called in english: the closed reclusive cell that no one gets to see the light of day in).

it means to stick him down in some prison somewhere and make his location unknown so media stops talking about him. basically, make him a nobody. it would have been a humbling experience for hussein to be treated as a commoner for a long while. to make him forget his super-start dictator status. make him die a common man rather than as a convicted dictator.

heck, gitmo comes to mind. but there are legal prisons that can achieve the same thing.

most prisoners on death row in the us prisons tend to stay there for 10 years or so. most are forgotten until the time comes for them to go.

though, sadam did get a better deal than coucescu did. in terms of "fair" trial. aka, at least he got more than 10 hours from capture to execution.

I'll say one thing on this... if it comes to either locking me in a cell forever and forgetting about me or hanging me... please do me the mercy of stretching my spine.

Honestly I think Mr. Hussein would have said the same. (If not in those words.)

Yes he would have spoken in Arabic. Heh.

In all seriousness, I have absolutely no problem whatsoever with sending convicted criminals to their early deaths for such crimes as murder, rape, or repeat child molesters.

Everyone always complains about "Oh no, the criminal's rights were violated." Fuck that. What about their victims? Where's the outrage for the violation of THEIR rights?

Now, I've never killed anybody personally, and I hope I never have to. But I'm 100% behind the death penalty. Not for it's deterrent value, but for the punishment statement aspect: the public statement, in effect, saying "the world is better off without you, cyas."

In the specific case of Saddam Hussein, he's definitely deserving of death due to his past actions. He's the ultimate bully. However, the hanging was hijacked by some idiot Shiite militia who screamed things like "Muqtada Al-Sadr has his revenge!" and crap like that. That should not have been allowed... BUT, Shiite Iraq has quite a bit of pent-up anger at this man, and it's hard to argue with the sentence.

Mistah Hussein... he dead.
A penny for the Old Guy!

Do not forget Saddam had Muqtada's father killed... an eye for an eye... blood for blood. It's the way of these people (and most.)

Vengeance is valid. If ugly.

EDIT: I should say the Ba'athists killed Muqtada's father and Saddam was the obvious head... and thus his was forfeit when the tables turned. The Ba'ath Party will, I am sure, continue on regardless of the "decapitation." And the Su'uni/Shi'ite conflict will surely continue for another few hundred years or so. It's been tit for tat between these groups for centuries... These things have nothing to do with the US or the occupation (though obviously it provides a convenient opportunity), and they will continue long after the occupiers are gone.

And, why do you think they allowed the filming and release of that video anyways? Muqtada wants conflict, he knows that the Iraqi civil war is what will force the US out. And bring him to power...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/6224173.stm

I want to beat these people with big, dirty sticks.

(the ones who are against the death penilty. I mean, god, why waste food and stuff on these people who have killed other people?! Why let them enjoy life (yes, it is still more enjoyable to be alive in prison then dead) with out money?!)
Bloody annoying peoplez.