Flare Sci-Fi Forums: about death penalty, ethics, western civilisation and right-wing politics..

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Posted by RW (Member # 27) on :

I won't talk about them!

Haha, made you look, didn't it? :]

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Posted by Kosh (Member # 167) on :

LMAO!!! Yeah, you got me.

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WHO ARE YOU?

Posted by Jaresh Inyo on :

*Stands down from battle stations*

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Josh: I think they're getting to know each other a bit too well, if you catch my drift.
Me: Oh, I agree. I think they're spending too much time together, that is of course, if you catch my drift.
Asher: I think he's *ucking her, and he's cheating on his wife, and he's risking his marriage, and if his wife finds out about it she'll leave him and take their son, and his life will be ruined. If you catch my drift...

Posted by First of Two (Member # 16) on :

*disarms the Atomic Logic Wedgie Bomb*

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"When we turn our back on our principles, we stop being human." -- Janeway, "Equinox"

Posted by Baloo (Member # 5) on :

[Belches audibly, scratches self on posterior, and puts away tobacco, booze, and handgun.]

Who, Me?

Besides, I quit smoking how long ago, now?

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I'm not uncouth.
I'm differently mannered.
www.geocities.com/Area51/Shire/8641/

Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :

Well, because I feel like making enemies out of lots of my friends, I'm going to go ahead and post about the subject line.

Why I don't support the death penalty.

Assume for a moment that, as John Lennon once sang, there's no heaven and no hell. No eternal rewards or punishments. No supernatural come-uppances. What does that leave you with?

For starters, it leaves you with death as an irrevocable boundary. (Which it is even if you do believe in one or more of the above.) When you're dead, you're dead. No resurrection via Genesis Device available here.

So, if death is the ultimate in unreversable fact, where does that leave us with death as a punishment?

Fact: No human being is infallible, omniscient, or otherwise immune to that human creation known as the mistake.

Fact: This holds true even for juries.

Fact: Since 1970, 74 people have been released from Death Row after advances in forensic science, or other new evidence, proved them to be innocent. (Source: House Judiciary Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights. Found secondhand by me, though, so don't kill me if the number is off. )

Opinion: How many people innocent of their accused crime have been executed anyway? Fifty? Ten? One, even? Do we live in a nation where we're willing to sacrifice the lives of fifty, ten, or even one person in the name of a punishment which has a very debatable deterrent aspect?

In all likelyhood, there are monsterous killers who deserve to give up their life for their crime. But when levying a punishment which is, for all practical purposes, infinite, how can you demand any level of evidence that is not also infinite?

And now, in the name of equal time, a quote from John Stuart Mill in favor of the death penalty.

"I defend this penalty, when confined to atrocious cases, on the very ground on which it is commonly attacked--on that of humanity to the criminal; as beyond comparison the least cruel mode in which it is possible adequately to deter from the crime."

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"We kid around a lot about people who are cyclopses, but seriously; if you're a mythic figure you've got challenges that no one should have to deal with."
--
John Flansburgh

Posted by The_Tom (Member # 38) on :

Not to mention the cases involving Guy Paul Morin and David Milgaard up here in Canada... First Degree murder charges revoked after they'd spent 20-plus years in jail thanks to new evidence. Two completely seperate cases. And there've been more that I can't recall.

Anyway, if those guys had been in the States, they'd be long dead. God Bless the Death Penalty.

Indeed, one of the most famous executions in US history was performed on an innocent couple. New evidence proved Harry Rosenberg was only an aquantence of the real A-bomb spy and his wife, Ethyl, had nothing to do with it. Oops... we already executed them! Quietly slip a cheque to the family!

Oh, and while we're talking about innocent people dying, how about the 13 innocent people killed every day in the US by firearms.

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"They don�t call it show business for nothing. This is an ugly, ugly, ugly, ugly town in many, many ways. But big f*cking deal. Big business is ugly. The world is ugly. Our job is to make our little piece of it better. Whenever you get into the general, it�s not going to be all beer and Skittles and Christmas trees."
-Ira Stephen Behr on the Moore fiasco

Posted by Jay the Obscure (Member # 19) on :

Jus couldn't leave well enough alone could ya Sol?? No, not you.

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Well, art is art, isn't it? Still, on the other hand, water is water! And east is east and west is west and if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does. Now, uh... Now you tell me what you know.
~Groucho Marx, "Animal Crackers"

Posted by Orion Syndicate (Member # 25) on :

...and he puts in a John Stuart Mill quote to boot. Grrr.

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Do business with us, or we'll ruin you.

Posted by Saiyanman Benjita (Member # 122) on :

I approve of the death penalty. It takes a lot of evidence to commit someone of capital murder. The conviction takes twelve out of twelve jurors. I believe the system we have is mostly infalliable. The innocent are unfortunate losses, but 99% of the innocent are found to be that way. The death penalty takes away the lifetime of suffering a family feels knowing that the killer of their kin is still alive. It is unfortunate that our society has to come to this, but the punishment definitely fits the crime is is made for.

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Nurse: Can I help you?
Stan: We're here to commit our friend, Kyle.
Nurse: Reason?
Kyle: I'm a clinically depressed fecalpheliac on Prozac.
Nurse: JACKET!!

Posted by RW (Member # 27) on :

Er..I never meant this to turn into a real death penalty discussion...

Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :

Don't worry RW, I don't think anyone is going to hold you responsible.

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"We kid around a lot about people who are cyclopses, but seriously; if you're a mythic figure you've got challenges that no one should have to deal with."
--
John Flansburgh

Posted by Elim Garak (Member # 14) on :

Yes, Sol is responsible for his own actions.

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Elim Garak: "Oh, it's just Garak. Plain, simple Garak. Now, good day to you, Doctor. I'm so glad to have made such an... interesting new friend today." (DS9: "Past Prologue")

Posted by Baloo (Member # 5) on :

...And mine!

Sol is responsible for my actions as well.

...

Well someone is, and I don't want it to be me.

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I'm not uncouth.
I'm differently mannered.
www.geocities.com/Area51/Shire/8641/

Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :

Why not?

If anyone else wants me to take responsibility for their actions, just let me know. I do have a strong messianic streak, after all.

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"We kid around a lot about people who are cyclopses, but seriously; if you're a mythic figure you've got challenges that no one should have to deal with."
--
John Flansburgh

Posted by Cargile (Member # 45) on :

I appose the death pently, because, hell, what if it is me! Of course, the movie Dead Man Walking changed my attitude from pro to con.

US justice system infallable?! As infallable as the twelve humans serving jury duty. I have been starting to think that if the courts didn't make money of of criminals, a lot of them wouldn't be returned to the streets. But that's something different all together.

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"What is that? A tank?"
--Our Lord and Savior David Koresh, the Second Coming snuffed out before He could any good.

Posted by RW (Member # 27) on :

I don't trust a court in which every simpleton can do jury duty. I don't trust juries anyway, I'm glad we don't have them.

Posted by RW (Member # 27) on :

And now, let's have fun instead of moaning :]

Posted by Saiyanman Benjita (Member # 122) on :

Is anyone else Pro as to the Death Penalty?????????
I feel like an outsider.

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Nurse: Can I help you?
Stan: We're here to commit our friend, Kyle.
Nurse: Reason?
Kyle: I'm a clinically depressed fecalpheliac on Prozac.
Nurse: JACKET!!

Posted by Jaresh Inyo on :

I'm pro.

Posted by First of Two (Member # 16) on :

Ditto.

I'm not in favor of the death penalty for cases based on circumstantial evidence.

However, sometimes guilt is bloody frickin' OBVIOUS, and that's when it should be used.

When the jury convicts a guy who was found standing over the corpse, bloody knife in hand, grinning and muttering "kill...kill...kill..." I don't think you can chalk that up to fallibility.

Of course, by extension of the "flawed jury" belief, we might as well assume ALL juries are fallible, and let EVERYONE they convict go.

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"When we turn our back on our principles, we stop being human." -- Janeway, "Equinox"

Posted by RW (Member # 27) on :

Okay. As much as I despise you pro people, and as much as I like to have a good argument, I said, no more death penalty talk. Start your own thread, or this one will be closed.

Posted by Saiyanman Benjita (Member # 122) on :

I apologize, RW.

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Right, cheers, thanks a lot-Patsy Stone "Ab-Fab"