Re: Should capital punishment be reinstated right here?
 

Two. Possibly one. My expectation is that there would be zero. That is the entire point.

Re: Should capital punishment be reinstated right here?
 

I didn't see it Dashie, but saw that it was on. There are many faults in the capital punishment processes that have been used to date.

Re: Should capital punishment be reinstated right here?
 

You expect a perfect, flawless legal system and process to determine criminality that's operated by lawyers? You're funny. ;)

Re: Should capital punishment be reinstated right here?
 

Admittedly it's a tall order. However I wonder if such a system were in place/possible, whether those against CP would change their minds. I think arguments such as lack of deterrence, identify risk, appeals costs are false rationalisation of the fact that some people simply disagree with humans killing humans.

Re: Should capital punishment be reinstated right here?
 

I would remain absolutely against it. Its immoral and illogical at best.

Presumably you would be happy with ditching the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in order to accommodate capital punishment.

Re: Should capital punishment be reinstated right here?
 

The morality is debatable (unless one is Christian).

Protecting society and optimising use of resources is illogical - ok if you say so. ;)

Would you be anti-abortion too?

Re: Should capital punishment be reinstated right here?
 

Feel free to debate the morality then. I wouldnt self identify as a christian, although I guess I have plenty of values in common. Its pretty clear to me that killing in cold blood or as an act of vengance is not a civilized thing to do.

Arguing that killing is a terrible thing that must be discouraged, so we are going to kill some murderers (But only a few hand picked ones). That is illogical.

Continuing to argue that it protects society and is an optimal use of resources in the face of a mountain of evidence to the contrary is illogical.
Locking people up protects society just fine, just dont release them after 6 years because all the prisons are full because some idiots decided it was a good idea to have mandatory sentences for drug crimes with no parole. Occasionally killing innocent people certainly does not protect those members of society it accidentally executes, and there is no evidence that it acts as a deterrent.

Its not an optimal use of resources either. You keep on insisting it will be cheaper, but offer no proof in the face of evidence from an analogous society that its more expensive to execute people than to lock them up.


Views on abortion are not really relevant to capital punishment.

Re: Should capital punishment be reinstated right here?
 

I tend to think being locked up forever is worse than being put to death, so I'm not sure of the logic anyway when it comes to the death penalty.

Plus it costs more because of the endless appeals than locking someone up forever.

So generally I think the death penalty is a bad idea however my resolve was sorely tested by that asshole who killed those G4 security guards in Edmonton.

Also if he'd survived, the ----sucker who killed those four RCMP officers in Mayerthorpe.

Re: Should capital punishment be reinstated right here?
 

Suddenly I have an image of people being executed by being run over by a train...

Re: Should capital punishment be reinstated right here?
 

You mean those endless appeals where every now and then a miscarriage of justice is discovered?

Thats the thing with the death penalty, the results are rather terminal and its hard to repair the damage after the fact if you make a mistake.

But thats OK because Shard is proposing it only be used under conditions of total infalibility....

Re: Should capital punishment be reinstated right here?
 

Killing without a reason (on a whim) or for pleasure is certainly not a civilised thing to do. But that is all. In other cases killing can be justified. There's no god judging you. Ironically it is the extreme murderers that do just this, the one's whose lives you value. To me that is illogical. What is the value (other than providing some decent casework for well paid prison psychologists)?

What is the value of keeping Lee Rigby's killers alive? None. All you can do is present feeble grand theories about why capital punishment doesn't work. Why can't they be put down like horse with a broken leg? In a moral world their actions are significantly worse than that of the horse.

Presumably you would accept that sometimes it is necessary to kill. For example, someone about to blow up a room of hostages, would that be an exception to your no killing morality or are you consistent in your beliefs?

You see killing murderers as illogical because you're not differentiating between the degree of murder nor the effect on society. Effectively you're equating a controlled killing sanctioned by society with, for example, the killing of that young Toronto toddler with a hammer. You're saying those two lives are of equal value, and the fact that the toddler murders could well end up murdering again by dint of our infallible legal system is just an inconvenient truth.

At least if you could appeal to the laws that God made on morality there would be some consistency.

It is correct that abortion is not really relevant here, it's just that you seem to defend the lives of indefensible killers with the same zeal that an anti-abortionist will defend the life of a foetus.

You can shout from the rooftops that it's wrong wrong wrong, but if you analyze without the filter of religion, and with respect to society, you'll find out in certain cases capital punishment makes sense. Just as it does when a sniper takes out a bomb terrorist.

Re: Should capital punishment be reinstated right here?
 

If you see no benefit in a society that prefers to embrace redemption and forgiveness rather than one that chooses to be destructive then I cant help you.

Everyone has the right to life. e v e r y o n e. even despicable killers.

Your room full of hostages scenario is seriously flawed. Of course it makes sense there to take a life in order to save many. But the death penalty is after the fact, its too late to help the victims, its premeditated and cold blooded killing.

How do you propose to justly pick and choose which cases you apply capital punishment to?
Any attempts to select crimes and offenders out of the thousands of murders committed each year will inevitably lead to inconsistencies and errors because people are flawed. Once "society" starts to pick and choose who lives and dies you are on a slippery slope.

By deciding to execute criminals society stoops to the level of those it has chosen to condemn. One value in keeping Lee Rigby killers alive is simply to demonstrate that we are not stooping to their level. Another is that religious zealots can be quite keen on the idea of martyrdom to the cause, so killing them may in fact spur on more extremist loonies in the long run. A third is the possibility that in time they will see that what they did was wrong and work to persuade future potential extremists that violence is not the solution to their concerns. Imagine the situation in Ireland had many of the IRA members that worked towards a peace agreement there been strung up in the name of justice.

Lets not pretend that just because its judicially approved that an execution is anything other than the premeditated cold blooded killing of another human being, and in any other circumstances that is found to be abhorrent and roundly condemned by all.

Re: Should capital punishment be reinstated right here?
 

In most of the extreme cases you keep referring to, mental illness is usually at play. Even where it's not, it's an easy card for a defence lawyer to play. So you're still not really going to reach this level of "guilt" that you're intent on proving.

Re: Should capital punishment be reinstated right here?
 

NOT

Stick me in the "eye for an eye" camp. On this subject, you'll never ever come to any kind of agreement but it always provides for interesting discussion. I always liked the system that the victim(s) get to decide. So, if your iaink, you let them live. If it was me, an eye for an eye and I'd want to pull the switch.

Re: Should capital punishment be reinstated right here?
 

Lets hope its a sound conviction then and you dont live to regret some innocents death later on.

I'm curious, which other bits of the universal declaration of human rights should we take an eraser to?