Joined: May 2005 Gender: Male Posts: 1,621 Location: Smalltown, Minnesota Karma: 777
Re: Beauty (a question of aesthetics) « Result #1 on Sept 29, 2009, 5:15pm »
i would not act in such a condescending manner if you weren't to state things as absolutes when you do not truly know what it is that you write. Feel free to ponder with me, but keep absolutes and truths to what they are. Also, consider that you have been throwing a fair share of knives carelessly.
Indeed. Romans 1.
Anyways, this is a rabbit hole from what this thread is really about. Let us return to the question of beauty.
FreeBSD 7.1 BETA 1 C2D T5750@2GHz, 4G RAM, GeForce 9700m GT 512MEG 3.5 terabyte drive space "The rapture, when all the Christians go streaking..." ~ Ben
Joined: May 2005 Gender: Male Posts: 247 Location: home sweet home Karma: 1
Re: Return.... « Result #2 on Sept 12, 2009, 1:55pm »
Well, it's pretty quiet... a lot of discussiony type things have moved to Facebook sometimes. About the only thing happening around here is a post in a debate once a week or so.
Joined: Aug 2006 Gender: Male Posts: 8,534 Karma: 36
Re: Murder of Abortion Doctor Justified? « Result #7 on Sept 10, 2009, 7:50pm »
Without rule of law there is no basis for respecting law. Objection must be funneled through judicial channels. That is government; it is a social contract. Love it, appeal it or leave it.
My point was, why are we to place such a premium on [innocent] prenatal/jewish life to the exclusion of the lives of the larger majority? Why rebel against a superior force, if it amounts in a larger total loss.
Nazi-Germany is not an adequate parallel. Abortion is government sanctioned, not government dictated. If the government required abortion, then you may have an argument for a violent response.
Hey guys! It's been forever! I miss you all so much. I've got a ton more free time since I'm done with school so I thought I would pop back on here and see what's going on with everyone!
Hello!!! I think it has been far too long since I've been on here! Thought I'd pop in and say hello again with a random post! How are things going on here these days?? LOL!
Actually, this is quite a simple proposition. Or, at the very least, non-abstract. It assumes that the state is certain as to who has committed atrocities
Yes. It does. That's the crucial element of the quote, without which nothing else makes sense.
the emphasis of the quote is vividly apparent: "If we fail to execute murderers, and doing so would in fact have deterred other murders, we have allowed the killing of a bunch of innocent victims." It answers the question of whether those atrocities merit death by setting up a strict dichotomy between the murderer's "right to life" and his potential victim's. In that sense, we are obligated to ensure the survival of an innocent over that of a murderer.
But without the assumption, the quote is meaningless. The assumption it makes is a large and foolish one, and anything stemming from it cannot be taken seriously as an argument.
The Bedau-Radlet study was relevant to your proposed criteria. I was meagerly suggesting that the study was a ballpark figure, though personally contested, that could be used on one side of the proverbial scale.
Ah, that was not clear before. I do not accept the Bedau-Radlet study as any kind of ballpark figure, though; it is simply too flawed to be useful to anyone. It is as useful, or less, than a wild guess. Probably less; at least wild guesses haven't been methodically disproven.
To the best of my perception, I see your study as being the irrelevant one. The question is, have more potential murders been deterred through the implementation of the death penalty than innocent lives absorbed by it? Your study hardly relates to that all-important question. To say that our legal system is deeply flawed because 69 inmates have been released from prison post-conviction is a non-sequitur in reference to how many lives have been unjustly taken by the D.P.
"Virtually everyone who escaped wrongful convictions did so thanks to extraordinary circumstances not available to everyone, particularly the poor; outside investigations, retrials, repeated appeals, and so on." I think that, combined with the remainder of the paragraph, explains why the study is meaningful. The fact that people have been released from Death Row regularly means that the system that put them into Death Row is flawed. The fact that the system that releases them from Death Row when they are innocent is biased means that it is also flawed. Thus, the system is flawed on multiple levels, and not something we should trust with the life and death of its users.
- Outside investigations, retrials and repeated appeals are available to everyone.
Not everyone gets an outside investigation. Retrials and repeated appeals are available to everyone with a sufficiently good lawyer, indeed. Refresh my memory - does the state pay all legal bills for both sides, or do the defendants or accusers have to pay some?
- None of these 69 men were executed, they were released after being proven innocent. This line of argumentation could just as easily be used against life sentences.
Except the death penalty sets a cutoff past which justice can't be done to wronged innocents. Innocents in life sentences can always be released when their innocence is discovered.
- "Just a casual review, using the DPIC’s own case descriptions, reveals that of 39 cases reviewed (Sec. A, B, & C, pg. 12-21), that the DPIC offers no evidence of innocence in 29, or 78%, of those cases." (http://www.prodeathpenalty.com/dp.html)
Um, how is this possibly good for you? "The Death Penalty: 78% accurate!" That is entirely unacceptable.
Why is it insane to execute murders? To quote the great 20th century philosopher Anthony Flew, "Justice is not only a matter of getting the right guy, but the punishment must, somehow, be proportional to the crime." Obviously punishment can not be equivalent to all crime (rape, theft, ect.), but that is primarily for 3 reasons (at least, 3 reasons I can discern): - It is impossible to make the punishment exactly proportional to the crime. For example, in the case of assault. The administration of a "beating" would always err in the direction of either extreme. either the beating would be too severe, relative to the crime, or not severe enough. - The affiliation required to administer the punishment is not appropriate to inflict upon the one doing the administration. For example, in the case of rape. - If the perpetrator of the crime is not able to sustain a proportional punishment. For example, a thief who has stolen double his net worth. In such a case, he is unable to repay his debt adequately. Those are three criteria that disqualify certain crimes as being subject to proportional punishment, and, consequently, why prison time must be relegated. However, the death penalty meets all three criteria. It is precise in its retributive quality, there are those willing to administer it, and the third criteria is not relevant.
I think you misunderstand your first reason. While it is indeed all but impossible to make a punishment exactly proportional to the crime, there is absolutely nothing that the death penalty does to allevate this, and a great deal that it does to make it worse. How is killing someone remotely proportionate when there can only be one level of punishment, regardless of the severity of the crime? You can't adjust for how many people were killed or the repentance of the murderer or any other factors; they are either dead or they aren't. With prison, you have a thousand ways to offer more shades of proportionality; how much exercise are they allowed? How social can they be? Do they get a bed? A window? A TV? You have *options* with prison! That preserves proportionality. To say that the death penalty is precise in its retributive quality, and thus more proportional, implies that you don't understand what it means to make punishments proportionate to the crime. In any case, my objections have never been to the hypothetical case of executing thoroughly unrepentant, completely sane, completely guilty, evil murderer scumbag. My objections come from the fact that we never really get to that nice simple decision point in real life...
- A violent uprising in Nazi-Germany may have resulted in the deaths of many more than four million Jews. This would have resulted in a larger "net loss," if you will. The French Revolution was particularity, for example.
A violent uprising, successful or not, would have significantly decreased Germany's ability to fight off the Allies, thus bringing an earlier end to the war and possibly aborting the campaign in Russia. But that isn't really the point - my point is simply that "rule of law" is completely fallible, and not acceptable as a judge of *moral* quandries. Do I really have to find examples for that?
- Our current democracy would collapse into a something like anarchy. The classical example being Mexico. Violence erodes government.
- Also, on a matter of principle, you're undercutting the very rule of law you wish to canonize. Who should respect law if laws are merely determined who has the greatest force at that particular point in time.
I'm not speaking in terms of passive resistance, or even active civil dissobidience, you must understand, but only in respect to violent reactionism.
I'm confused - is this directed at me? I'm not trying to canonize rule of law at all. Yes, laws *are* merely determined by who has the greatest force in a particular area in a particular time. That's sort of my point, and my reasoning for saying that the rule of law must be considered irrelevant when trying to consider what is morally "right".
Acts 20:35- In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: 'It is more blessed to give than to receive'.
Joined: Aug 2006 Gender: Male Posts: 8,534 Karma: 36
Re: Murder of Abortion Doctor Justified? « Result #13 on Aug 27, 2009, 6:03pm »
- A violent uprising in Nazi-Germany may have resulted in the deaths of many more than four million Jews. This would have resulted in a larger "net loss," if you will. The French Revolution was particularity, for example.
- Our current democracy would collapse into a something like anarchy. The classical example being Mexico. Violence erodes government.
- Also, on a matter of principle, you're undercutting the very rule of law you wish to canonize. Who should respect law if laws are merely determined who has the greatest force at that particular point in time.
I'm not speaking in terms of passive resistance, or even active civil dissobidience, you must understand, but only in respect to violent reactionism.
Joined: May 2005 Gender: Male Posts: 247 Location: home sweet home Karma: 1
Re: Murder of Abortion Doctor Justified? « Result #14 on Aug 23, 2009, 2:14pm »
Rule of law can be wrong - Germany example again. Legally, the Jews should have been turned over, so that won't solve this thing so easily. I like this kind of question, and it's good to see someone else thinking about it. Let's start with the generic idea of killing people to save people. Imagine someone who unknowingly carries a terrible plague. If they get out into the world, billions would die. If the only way to stop the person was to kill them, we all would kill that person, yes? Good. So it is, in some situations, just to kill in order to save more lives. You can quibble about how many people would need to die to justify the killing - to save a million? a hundred? ten? - but that is a weak and futile argument. With this in mind, we should now turn to the example of an abortion doctor specifically. Will killing him actually save lives? No, because people who need abortions will simply turn to other doctors - perhaps you make poor people pay more for it in terms of travel fees, but the overall effect is negligible. So killing a single abortion doctor is not justifiable. What if we killed all abortion doctors? Well, aside from the massive cost of lives, people would still turn to back-alley abortions. What if we killed everyone capable of giving abortions? By this point the cost in lives is far too high to even out, particularly because mothers are capable of aborting their own babies. Of course, making abortion *illegal* is also an interesting subject, but for another time.
Joined: Nov 2006 Gender: Male Posts: 1,350 Location: Burnsville Karma: 77
Murder of Abortion Doctor Justified? « Result #18 on Aug 14, 2009, 11:45am »
This isn't necessarily a debate, but it could be. And since this is the only place on here where there is intelligent discussion, I figured this is the place.
This question came about during Dennis Prager's Ultimate Issues hour on "The Ends Don't Justify The Means". The cliche is quite common, and Prager pointed out how its pointless to use because just as often as not, the ends DO justify the means.
This is why it was moral for Germans to lie to the Nazis about not having Jews hidden in their homes. This is why a just war is justified. This is why Hiroshima was justfied. This is why it is just to kill a robber who breaks into your home and threatens your family.
Very few people, unless they are pacifists or complete idealists, would agree these examples are morally admirable, or at least permissible.
My question is this:
If we who are pro-life consider abortion to be murder, why are we not justified in killing abortion doctors or those in power who encourage and support abortion? If its okay to kill a man in war for the greater good and preservation of innocent life, why stop there?
If we are truly consistent in our views, why shouldn't we allow this? Now my instinctive reaction is that of COURSE its wrong to kill abortion doctors or strong pro-choice politicians or what have you. I was disgusted when I heard about the murder of Dr. George Tiller. But WHY? If George Tiller had been murdering hundreds of toddlers and there was no legal way to stop him, would it be justified to end his life so as to save the lives of so many innocent children? If abortion is murder, how is it any different than mutilating small toddlers?
I'm obviously playing devil's advocate-I'm hardly planning or thinking of murdering anyone for the sake of the pro-life movement-, but the cognitive dissonance is bothering me. Can anyone help me out here?
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Re: Death Penalty « Result #19 on Aug 12, 2009, 4:11pm »
Actually, this is quite a simple proposition. Or, at the very least, non-abstract. It assumes that the state is certain as to who has committed atrocities, the emphasis of the quote is vividly apparent: "If we fail to execute murderers, and doing so would in fact have deterred other murders, we have allowed the killing of a bunch of innocent victims." It answers the question of whether those atrocities merit death by setting up a strict dichotomy between the murderer's "right to life" and his potential victim's. In that sense, we are obligated to ensure the survival of an innocent over that of a murderer.
The Bedau-Radlet study was relevant to your proposed criteria. I was meagerly suggesting that the study was a ballpark figure, though personally contested, that could be used on one side of the proverbial scale. To the best of my perception, I see your study as being the irrelevant one. The question is, have more potential murders been deterred through the implementation of the death penalty than innocent lives absorbed by it? Your study hardly relates to that all-important question. To say that our legal system is deeply flawed because 69 inmates have been released from prison post-conviction is a non-sequitur in reference to how many lives have been unjustly taken by the D.P. Also:
- Outside investigations, retrials and repeated appeals are available to everyone. - None of these 69 men were executed, they were released after being proven innocent. This line of argumentation could just as easily be used against life sentences. - "Just a casual review, using the DPIC’s own case descriptions, reveals that of 39 cases reviewed (Sec. A, B, & C, pg. 12-21), that the DPIC offers no evidence of innocence in 29, or 78%, of those cases." (http://www.prodeathpenalty.com/dp.html) - This study appears to demonstrate another fail-safe mechanism present in our legal system and it seems it's more congruent with my argument. - Criminal prosecutors are state appointed as well. How would you go about installing a plan to privatize defense attorneys for little to no money?
---
Your evidence is better. I'll ignore deterrence for now.
---
Why is it insane to execute murders? To quote the great 20th century philosopher Anthony Flew, "Justice is not only a matter of getting the right guy, but the punishment must, somehow, be proportional to the crime." Obviously punishment can not be equivalent to all crime (rape, theft, ect.), but that is primarily for 3 reasons (at least, 3 reasons I can discern): - It is impossible to make the punishment exactly proportional to the crime. For example, in the case of assault. The administration of a "beating" would always err in the direction of either extreme. either the beating would be too severe, relative to the crime, or not severe enough. - The affiliation required to administer the punishment is not appropriate to inflict upon the one doing the administration. For example, in the case of rape. - If the perpetrator of the crime is not able to sustain a proportional punishment. For example, a thief who has stolen double his net worth. In such a case, he is unable to repay his debt adequately. Those are three criteria that disqualify certain crimes as being subject to proportional punishment, and, consequently, why prison time must be relegated. However, the death penalty meets all three criteria. It is precise in its retributive quality, there are those willing to administer it, and the third criteria is not relevant.
"If we execute murderers and there is in fact no deterrent effect, we have killed a bunch of murderers. If we fail to execute murderers, and doing so would in fact have deterred other murders, we have allowed the killing of a bunch of innocent victims. I would much rather risk the former. This, to me, is not a tough call."
John McAdams - Marquette University/Department of Political Science
The key to this quote is "murderers". If "murderers" were replaced with "people who deserve death", this statement would be true. But we can't do that in real life - instead, we must replace it with "people who have been sentenced to death" or even "people who have done things that society has decided deserve death". Those are entirely different issues, with serious problems. Attempting to apply the same logic assumes the complete success of the justice system at determining *both* who committed atrocities and whether those atrocities "deserve" death. It assumes that those who have committed atrocities cannot do good in the future - or at least that the evil they do will *always* outweigh the good. Plus, there are moral issues that I won't get into. Essentially, this quote lives in a world of philosophical ideals and has no place in reality.
DNA testing has proven that 14 inmates awaiting execution on death row were innocent. (http://www.religioustolerance.org/execut3.htm) A study by Bedau-Radlet claimed there were 22 cases where the defendant have been wrongly executed. However, this study is very controversial. Studies like Markman and Cassell find that the methodology was flawed in l2 cases. (http://www.prodeathpenalty.com/OrnellasPaper.htm) The most charitable studies place the number of wrongfully executed between 22-10. (http://www.scribd.com/doc/7214408/Pierrepiont)
That Bedau-Radlet study is unrelated to what I said, so I don't know why you bring it up only to tear it down... I said that people had been released from death row after being wrongfully convicted. This is a list of people whose convictions were overturned. It includes people who made it out through the appeals system in addition to those who actually stayed in death row. Similarly, this is a list of people released from death row based on evidence of their innocence. Without going too deeply into it, I agree that the Bedau-Radlet study is indeed highly suspicious (too nonsensical to provide support for either side), but also irrelevant to the greater issue of wrongful executions. Virtually everyone who escaped wrongful convictions did so thanks to extraordinary circumstances not available to everyone, particularly the poor; outside investigations, retrials, repeated appeals, and so on. Likewise, from the same site you cited in your post, "The vast majority of those executed were poor. About 90% could not afford a lawyer when they went to trial. They had to rely upon a court-appointed lawyer." It is utter foolishness to assume that all of those executed would have still been executed if they had access to the same defences the richer or luckier ones had. Yes, it is impossible to know exactly how many innocents have been executed, and unwise to attempt a true count. But we know the number is not only nonzero, but substantial.
"The rates for unlawful killings in Britain have more than doubled since abolition of capital punishment in 1964 from 0.68 per 100,000 of the population to 1 .42 per 100,000. The murder rate in the U.S. dropped from 24,562 in 1993 to 18,209 in 1997, the lowest for years - during a period of increased use of the death penalty." The murder rate experience a 26% reduction during increased use of the death penalty.
Those are utterly circumstancial, silly figures that should never be used. I could show you a dozen like them that prove just as much for anything I wanted - heck, how about connecting Wicca and Firefox? Let's look at Britan first. Does "unlawful murder" have anything to do with the crimes that would actually have been punished by the death penalty? Why in the name of Spock are you trying to compare today's murder rates to those 45 years ago and saying it's because of something that happened 45 years ago? Comparing the murder rates, say, 40-44 years ago to the rates 45-49 years ago is much more reasonable as a measure of the efficacy of the death penalty. Now let's look at the US stats. Ignoring the vague term "increased use of the death penalty", we can reasonably assume that if the decrease had anything to do with the death penalthy, there would be some difference between the rates in death penalty states and non-death penalty states, right? The table at the top shows that murder rates declined more in states without the death penalty than it did in states with the death penalty. That should be enough right there to prove that it was other factors. Futhermore, the decline started several years before this "increased use of the death penalty" and continued afterwards before levelling out after around 2000. There is no pattern corresponding to death penalty use.
In addition, "criminals on probation commit a murder every week, official figures show." That is a total of 121 murders in the last two years alone. (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1081841/Criminals-probation-committed-120-murders-years.html)
So... your argument is that we should kill everyone on probation? This is irrelevant to the death penalty, it's a problem with the probation system. People who could possibly get the death penalty do not go on probation. They get life in prison.
During 2002, the latest year in which such data was gather, 48 homicides were committed by convicted murders while in (prision.http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/press/shspljpr.htm)
So... your argument is that we should kill all murders? This is irrelevant to the death penalty, it's a problem with the security in the prison system (and its inefficacy as a method of rehabilitating prisoners...).
Quite frankly, you cannot have 1. without the 11 year appeal system paid for by 3. Which is it? Are we to execute defendants without their constitutional right to an appeal, shall we refuse to pay their legal fees, or should we discount the "cost" as excessive but necessary?
Right now, we have the worst possible situation: When the defendent doesn't have enough money to make it expensive, it's quite fallible. When the defendent has enough money to make it expensive, it's somewhat less fallible. If we gave defendents no right to appeal, we would save about enough money to feed, clothe, and educate to some degree a small third-world nation annually. I'm not saying that's the preferable option, obviously, but the death penalty is broken as it is.
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