number 9

[dteowner]

Indeed, by comparison "three hots and a cot" with cable TV and full medical is such a harsh life compared to, say, being raped, tied up, and then shot in the head. Die in a quiet little cell or die with your brains splattered on the wall for your kids to discover? Puh-leeeeze.

And let us not lose sight of who made the choice here. The real victim here didn't choose her fate in any way. Her only error was living downstairs from a wacko. And it's not like the guilt was eating this guy up--it took 5 years for his fingerprints to show up in the system (from an unrelated incident). He lived a normal life for 5 years. Strange how he didn't break out a bad case of remorse until he got caught. I wonder what the real victim might have done with 5 extra years. I wonder if her kids would have enjoyed having mom around for 5 extra years.

 

[zahratustra]

Amen. BTW, I think we're related, bn. At a minimum, our dads were scary similar.

"Scary" would be the word I would use too. You have my sympathy dte....

 

[dteowner]

I guess I don't see what's bad about teaching your kids self-reliance and striving for excellence.

 

[curiously undead]

i don't either. though some do well in school because they want to learn not 'achieve'.

i'm not sure why you're continuing to focus on this one guy though dte and his victim. i feel sorrow for all who suffer in life. i mourn and weep when i think about how many hundreds/thousands who die and millions who suffer each day needlessly in a modern world when their is so much potential. and yes like you said the culprit is greed. anyone who suffers a tragic murder, or rape, etc. will just be 'one uped' by someone suffering a worse fate. i'm not moved by sensationalism of the indivial in glory or in suffering, what moves me is the plight of the many. i'm pretty sure society has been incarcerating and putting to death 'criminals' for eons. i'll throw the crowd a bone an offer up a sports analogy that if the crimal system were a pitcher he would have been sent to the showers a few thousand innings ago. do i or anyone have all the answers? hell no. but the path we've been heading has made things worse not better.

 

[zahratustra]

I guess I don't see what's bad about teaching your kids self-reliance and striving for excellence.

Nothing if applayed in moderation. But kids whose parents constantly push them towards excellence and are never satisfied with the results have high chances of growing into adults with complicated personalities.

 

[mudsling3]

"the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed" Those four judges should have been thrown out of court. CU, your igorance on gun control is astounding...guess you would not dare to get close to a gun within 5 feet.

Habeaus Corpus, 5 to 4!!?? Those 4 are traitors, should have thrown into a secret prison for a taste of their own medicine.

 

[Alrik Fassbauer]

The weird decision is pronouncing the death penalty cruel and unusual punishment.

From a European point of view, that's right.

 

[Prime Junta]

Quoting Use of Weapons by Iain M. Banks from memory:

"Once when she was drunk, she told Cheradenine about a planet she visited, where they executed people by strapping them to a chair and running electricity through them. And, get this, this was in a country that had a ban against 'cruel and unusual punishment' in their constitution."

 

[dteowner]

It comes down to comparison, PJ. It's not like they hand out death penalties for jaywalking. There are very specific criteria in the laws. When these animals choose to break the laws, they accept the potentially lethal consequences. That's how life works. If Europe chooses to make their consequences less rigorous, that's completely their option to do so. Maybe they're right, maybe they're wrong. Maybe Euro morality is applicable to American crime, maybe it's not. The beauty of the world is that we can do what we think is right and y'all can continue to frown down your noses at us--everybody's happy.

You're just lucky I'm not running the show. While public hangings still warm the coals of my black heart, I'd prefer to truly make the punishment fit the crime. At a random date of our choosing (since the real victim certainly didn't know which day was her last), this guy gets tied up and shot in the head. None of this humane "go to sleep and don't wake up" crap--hell, the whole world does that to pets when the situation merits. So it's a humane ending for Rover, but "cruel and unusual" for a POS murderer? Fucking hypocritical.

 

[curiously undead]

actually dte if you want to know my opinion i've thought it was cruel even to own pets if they are kept indoors. of course this mostly applies to mammals, though i'm not to fond of caged birds either.

and i'm for punishment fitting the crime in a way. thieves should have the skin dyed red for varying lengths to fit the severity of their theft. they'd have a hard time stealing anything when people can pick them out of a crowd of thousands. molesters would be forced to where moster outfits during their sentence. drug dealers and to a lesser extent users, well i'll think of something. and of course then theres violent criminals, these folks require a whole different brand of punishment, and ones who can't be so easily changed of their ways. still their are plently of ways to punish, confine an individual without the empty justice and 'cost' of putting them to death.

maybe australia won't notice if we ship them down there. they have lots of room

 

[curiously undead]

mudsling i'm not sure what you are talking about. from what you posted it looks like you haven't read my posts in this thread or others. i obviously am 'pleased' with the habeaus corpus ruling but thought it was 'odd' though upon further examination not so much since it was consistant with their earlier rulings though still strange when you compare it to the others. whatever the case it seems like they are ruling in favour of more 'rights' for the individual/corporation and unlikely to rule in favour of something even it makes sense or goes with other court ruling. the good thing is using that logic it means they would almost certainly not overturn roe vs. rade.

your comment on gun control is beyond nebulous to me. care to spend a moment and offer more insight.

 

[magerette]

From a European point of view, that's right.

Just to clarify, Alrik--I was being sarcastic, wondering how a liberal decision got to be included in the other batch of very conservative decisions c.u. had listed. I do actually agree with this decision. Having been in the victim's shoes, I don't believe in the old 'fate worse than death.' argument. There aren't many fates that are worse than death. Rape is terrible, evil and devastating, but death is irrevocable.

 

[zahratustra]

Death IS irevocable. And "Europe chooses to make their consequences less rigorous" not because of "morality" but because we acknowledge that our system of justice isn't perfect and that miscarriages of justice can and do happen. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birmingham_Six
We also know that death penalty is not a deterrent because, if it was, USA would have lower capital crime rates than EU and we know that this isn't the case. And so it has nothing to do with justice and everything to do with retribution.
BUT dte is at least consistent. Wrong but consistent. Death penalty is cruel and unusual and search for "humane means of execution" is just a bare face hypocrysy!

 

[dteowner]

We also know that death penalty is not a deterrent because, if it was, USA would have lower capital crime rates than EU and we know that this isn't the case.

You are assuming that the capital crime rate in the US wouldn't be even worse without the death penalty. Since that assumption cannot be supported (nor, in your defense, refuted), there's no point in bringing it into the argument.

 

[curiously undead]

dte come on man where did you learn to debate/discuss/argue?
if capital punishment is in place and it hasn't lowered capital crime then the opposite is irrelevent. if a solution to a problem doesn't solve a problem, its useless arguing by how much. a new solution needs to be tried. do you really think that a lack of fear of being putting death is going to motivate more crime. hell no its not part of the equation as crime is not logical/rational behavio in the first place. unless of course we're talking about greed and theft which are motivated much more out of a desire than a disturbed/deranged mentality that perpetuates violent crime.

you know the expressions.
i'm so crazy/angry/upset i could hit someone, smash something, etc.
violence rage, is something everyone has even at 'safe levels' but just like other mental illnesses, some people are 'sick' and need help in that department.

no one says i'm so pissed i'm going to go steal some shit.

theft is a simple right and wrong issue most of the time. those who justify theft of anything that isn't theirs have bad morals. punishment in this case needs to be higher, i think, to flick the switch on in some folks thats its not acceptable.
stealing from someone you know can sometimes dance around borrowing since it can always be payed back. 'borrowing' a beverage, a shirt etc. are all fine as long as the intent is to return/repay the favour. some though push this to the extreme, as in when free things are put out for many they take more than a fair share. it still boils down to greed, which as i stated with corporations, they set the worst example by their greed and their lack of punishment is the largest excuse people can use to justify their own 'five finger' discounts.

 

[zahratustra]

I suppose I could try and compare capital crime rates in US states with comparable populations and with and without death penalty but than you will tell me that those could be just regional differences dte?

 

[Prime Junta]

You are assuming that the capital crime rate in the US wouldn't be even worse without the death penalty. Since that assumption cannot be supported (nor, in your defense, refuted), there's no point in bringing it into the argument.

You're right, it wasn't a good argument.

However, it's not that hard to examine whether the death penalty has a deterrent effect on crime. There are plenty of states and countries that have abolished or (re)instituted it. If there is a deterrent effect, you should see a correlation between capital crime rate and the institution or abolition of the death penalty.

Sociologists and criminologists have made studies like this 'til they're blue in the face. The overall result is that if there is a deterrent effect, it's so small that it tends to get lost in the overall noise of data.

(For an example of a serious, fairly recent study, see here: [ http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=928649 ]. As with any contentious political issue, be careful when sifting through the data -- you'll find plenty of tendentious studies from both sides of the spectrum.)

Edit: Full disclosure -- I'm opposed to the death penalty on ethical and political grounds, with one exception. Namely, war crimes. War represents a unique situation where the state is not only permitted but expected to do its best to kill people. Therefore, I believe it's only logical that the people engaged in warfare should be subject to the same risk when considering the possibility of committing war crimes.

 

[V7]

It comes down to comparison, PJ. It's not like they hand out death penalties for jaywalking. There are very specific criteria in the laws. When these animals choose to break the laws, they accept the potentially lethal consequences.

Of course most of the studies I saw when I wrote my thesis suggested that American states with the death penalty were executing non-trivial numbers of innocent people.

 

[zahratustra]

Better than few innocents get executed than one guilty gets away?

 

[blatantninja]

I think guns in homes to protect oneself from an armed robber is not a good argument. How many times in your life will you get robbed, while at home?

I've been home twice when someone tried to break into my home, and I lived in about as nice an upper middle class neighborhood as you will find growing up.

The possibility of someone having a gun for the robbery is greatly increased if owning a gun is legal. If both of you have a gun, how does that help you, you shoot him and if he still manages to get a shot you die too. Or imagine, your son comes home late after he drank too much. You think it's a robber, since your son was grounded and you believe him to be in his room and you shoot him.
So many other things...

The first part of that is hogwash. Criminals will always find ways to get guns, so legal gun ownership isn't going to affect that. The second is the typical hypothetical argument. It's called training. I don't think anyone should just go and buy a gun, I think you need to learn how to use it safely. As for escalating it, it's a risk I'd rather take than the risk of being at someone's mercy, and thankfully, it is my right to do so.

Protect your home by :
- Taking a guard dog

Very good measure, but not everyone can have a dog (allergies, being in an apartment, housing restrictions etc.). And not all criminals are stopped by dogs.

- putting a fence

Pretty much a worthless endevour for guarding a home unless its electrified or something.

- Put an alarm

given police response times in most areas, pretty worthless.

- letting the robber take whatever he wants, while you get money back from the insurance. you keep your life and you keep your loved ones save.

I'm not saying go out and hunt someone down. If they are downstairs and my family is upstairs, they can take what they want (assuming my dog hasn't ripped our their throat) and I'll wait for the police, but if they come upstairs and put my family in danger, they are going down.

I would never, ever, be able to forgive myself if I hurt a loved one.

Nor would I, hence be trained and don't be trigger happy.

The death penalty is something so idiotic, in my very humble opinion. First of all, who are you to decide if someone deserves to die?

I'm not the person, our jury system is. 12 people make that decision (or the judge in some states)

Second and more importantly, dieing would be so easy compared to staying your whole life in a closed box .... Leave the murderers in the 2 by 2 meters cell and let them rot till they die, giving them scraps of food to survive on...

Ohh, but we can't do that. It's unconstitutional to not give them cable TV, and decent meals, etc. Unfortunately, it is expensive to keep someone locked up for their whole life. In many cases, (though not all with some of the changes made in Texas) it is more expensive to execute them. In the cases it is cheaper, I say fry them (not my decision, just my opinion).

Of course, if we brought back hard labor, I'd be all for making them work 14 hours of hard labor until the day they died instead of the death penalty.