talkpolitics | (no subject)

I'm going to attempt to argue a theory here; many may jump on me for the real-world practice that goes on, but this is not about that.

In theory, I support the death penalty. This is an eye-for-an-eye sort of justice.
If you take anothers life, delibrately, in cold blood, in a pre-meditated fashion, you have lost your right to live, IMO.

Now, since this penalty is to be administered by the govt, there ought be some strict guidelines. Here is what I propose:

Either:
A) You are caught in the act by the authorities (but the person dies before he/she can be rushed to the hospital)
B) There is overwhelming evidence against you--personally I feel that four criteria would be met for this:

fingerprint
DNA
eye-witness
video of event (audio is a plus, but I feel these four are sufficient to ensure that the guilty party is the one being punished)

These strict requirements, are, to my knowledge, not required anyplace where the death penalty is enacted. Thus my theoretical support of the death penalty does not support the real-world way in which the death penalty is applied in the US (or elsewhere)

I recognize that in the US (and prolly elsewhere too) the death penalty is applied in a biased manner and that in too many cases the wrong person is executed. I feel that the criteria I laid out are sufficient to ensure no wrongful executions -- though, of course, I am open to hear contrary views on that.

Let us put aside issues of economic cost (which vary) and issues of how to execute (which vary) and focus on the question of: "Is execution for murder an acceptable punishment?"

I feel that it is; I feel that one forfits their right to live when they steal that right from another. I believe in human rights that are inherent but not absolute--the human rights that we all have are what we start with, but we do not necessarily retain them forever. We can lose them.

Thoughts?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

No killing people. You know what I meant, you're just trying to score points despite reasoned argument now and I'm not interested.

So you don't make the distinction between the mob ordered hit of a witness and the execution of Saddam Hussein?

I'm not trying to score points; I'm trying to figure out if you equate the mob ordered hit with the execution of a man who clearly has lots of innocent blood on his hands.

Go ahead and don't respond, but don't act like I'm playing some game here; I'm trying to determine if you can appreciate the difference between executing Saddam Hussein and Ted Bundy's killings.

Morality comes from the fabric of our society. Our society is between humans, not inter-species.

(deleted comment)

It's killing a fellow man, which is entirely different on the moral scale than killing an animal.

Killing is natural-its an act of nature. Killing your own species is against the morality imposed by society. And that's why it's different.

Why?

Because of the explanation that directly follows the sentence. :P

You're opening yourself up to moral subjectivity

I'm not 'opening myself up to it', I'm recognizing it. You're illustrating false situations. Morality has a basis on the reality of being human first, that imposes a certain basis framework. After that, it has a common thread from culture. Realizing that morals don't have some fundamental astral law doesn't automatically mean its arbitrary.

The morality I'm talking about is the morality that is common to our condition as Americans, not as spartans, not as Japanese. When you start trying to generalize morality like that, you have to take into account all the other situational issues which you are currently trying to ignore. Apples and Oranges.

And as I said somewhere else, the variability of morality is exactly why you should be against the death penalty. It's like free speech: we protect the free speech of others in case some day we realize that people have come into power who want to restrict our own.

The thing about free speech is that we recognize its always a compromise: you can't have absolute freedom: and that's why its important to have groups like the ACLU, and heck, the supreme court, to keep us in check when we go too far one way. We can push back the other way.

Well with the death penalty, you can't 'push back the other way', the guy is dead. It doesn't allow for error.

So because of that: we cannot make conditions on killing, it should not be negotiable, it should not be up to interpretation. We should not have conditional allowances, because you can't just go back and fix it. The people are dead.