Stop feeling guilty about the death penalty by abolishing it

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Stop feeling guilty about the death penalty by abolishing it

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Lilmznicoleta
Newbie

Joined: 27 Dec 2006
Posts: 20
Location: New York

Posted: Sun Feb 11, 2007 7:47 pm Post subject: Stop feeling guilty about the death penalty by abolishing it

A Times magazine article Link, discusses recent cases involving the complications of lethal injection, namely how it is not as quick and painless as a death as many assume and how there are no real protocols to follow in making sure the right drugs are injected in the right places at the right times, as well as the fact that the only people really qualified to carry out this whole procedure, doctors, are under oath not to take part because it is considered unethical by the American Medical Association. One doctor, who decided to participate anyway determined whether or not a person was concious by looking in their face, and used no standard amount of each drug each time, nor kept track of how certain amounts of drugs affected each person.

Besides the fact that this is almost criminally sloppy, the real issue ofcourse goes back to the fact that the death penalty should be considered cruel and unusual punishment in all cases.

The death penalty isn't pragmatic because it does nothing to reduce crime, it costs way too much money to keep a person on death row, and overfloods the court system. It often also has the opposite effects it's intended to produce, being that violent crime rates seem to increase in areas that have the death penalty and in cases like the execution of Saddam Hussein, the death penalty can turn criminals into some kind of hero and martyr or at least increase feelings of sympathy in some for the criminal, who would otherwise feel very different.

But besides that, it's morally hypocritical and on some level at least, most people seem to be aware of this, hence the repeated attempts to keep making it as least painful and as short as possible.

"The inability to tolerate a single execution method for very long seems to stem, in part, from the conflicted relationship Americans have with capital punishment. The majority of people continue to support it. But as the untoward executions in Iraq have underscored, we don’t want government-sanctioned killings to look like lynchings, nor do we want those killings to be too brutal or bloody. Further complicating matters, the American public tends to resist engaging with the physical problem of killing people."

"In his 1975 treatise “Discipline and Punish,” the philosopher Michel Foucault observed that in the West, the locus of punishment has shifted away from the body to the soul, and because execution requires an act of violence, it is a task we are almost ashamed to perform. “Foucault was not a fan of the death penalty, but he was right,” Blecker told me, “the twitching, the moaning, we can’t even tolerate that.” Executions, to be ethical, must be transparent, Blecker maintains: “My view it that executions should be public, that we should take responsibility for what we do. If we can’t face it, we should abolish it.”

"Austin Sarat, the Amherst professor who has tracked the history of the death penalty, speculates that states may grow tired of trying to solve the puzzle of a humane execution. “The European path was de facto abolition before de jure abolition,” he told me. “So maybe what happens is we just stop using the death penalty very much, and it gradually withers in ways that make more and more places resemble Pennsylvania — lots of people on death row, very few executions. And at that point, maybe we look around and realize we can live without it.”

~I agree with the last statement, that this is the way it will probably end eventually (I tend to think the same about gay marriage, that slowly more places will accept it and eventually people will realize that it's not going to undermine heterosexual marriages in anyway), but how long must it take for people to come around?

Lester
Forum Elder

Joined: 08 Dec 2006
Posts: 4650

Posted: Mon Feb 12, 2007 10:26 am Post subject:

I personally am against killing people...

chevydriver1123
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 17 Dec 2006
Posts: 975
Location: New York

Posted: Mon Feb 12, 2007 5:33 pm Post subject:

Punishment should fit the crime

Lester
Forum Elder

Joined: 08 Dec 2006
Posts: 4650

Posted: Tue Feb 13, 2007 7:56 am Post subject:

Fit the crime? So someone convicted of rape should be taken from behind?

Nesta13Maldini
Known Associate

Joined: 09 Dec 2006
Posts: 173
Location: My Computer Chair

Posted: Tue Feb 13, 2007 5:53 pm Post subject:

Lester wrote:

Fit the crime? So someone convicted of rape should be taken from behind?

That made me laugh!

Lester
Forum Elder

Joined: 08 Dec 2006
Posts: 4650

Posted: Wed Feb 14, 2007 12:03 pm Post subject:

Nesta13Maldini wrote:

Lester wrote:

Fit the crime? So someone convicted of rape should be taken from behind?

That made me laugh!

Not exactly my purpose, but I'll take what I can get Razz

Anym
Forum Elder

Joined: 07 Dec 2006
Posts: 2562
Location: Jersey

Posted: Thu Feb 15, 2007 2:39 am Post subject:

chevydriver1123 wrote:

Punishment should fit the crime

1.If you kill someone you die;
2.If you beat up someone you get beat up;
3.If you rape someone you get raped;
and if you steal from someone you get robbed.

some questions.
On #3 what if they like it.
And
What happens if somebody is caught selling drugs?
Do they have to buy some?

Nesta13Maldini
Known Associate

Joined: 09 Dec 2006
Posts: 173
Location: My Computer Chair

Posted: Thu Feb 15, 2007 6:03 pm Post subject:

Anym wrote:

chevydriver1123 wrote:

Punishment should fit the crime

What happens if somebody is caught selling drugs?
Do they have to buy some?

This made me laugh as well.

Laughing

cornopean
Forum Elder

Joined: 20 Dec 2006
Posts: 3534

Posted: Sat Feb 24, 2007 6:42 pm Post subject:

Lester wrote:

I personally am against killing people...

are you ever for killing people? e.g. if someone was threatening your wife, children, you?

Lester
Forum Elder

Joined: 08 Dec 2006
Posts: 4650

Posted: Sun Feb 25, 2007 8:44 am Post subject:

cornopean wrote:

Lester wrote:

I personally am against killing people...

are you ever for killing people? e.g. if someone was threatening your wife, children, you?

Talk them out of it, offer them money, sign them the deed to my house, knock them out with saucepan, but kill them? Not even if I had a gun trained on their head.

cornopean
Forum Elder

Joined: 20 Dec 2006
Posts: 3534

Posted: Tue Feb 27, 2007 10:54 pm Post subject:

Lester wrote:

cornopean wrote:

Lester wrote:

I personally am against killing people...

are you ever for killing people? e.g. if someone was threatening your wife, children, you?

Talk them out of it, offer them money, sign them the deed to my house, knock them out with saucepan, but kill them? Not even if I had a gun trained on their head.

with all due respect, if this is true, i.e. that you wouldn't defend your children by killing their attacker, then you are a miserable failure of a parent and even a human.

Anym
Forum Elder

Joined: 07 Dec 2006
Posts: 2562
Location: Jersey

Posted: Wed Feb 28, 2007 11:31 am Post subject:

cornopean wrote:

with all due respect, if this is true, i.e. that you wouldn't defend your children by killing their attacker, then you are a miserable failure of a parent and even a human.

least he's not a murderer.

cornopean
Forum Elder

Joined: 20 Dec 2006
Posts: 3534

Posted: Thu Mar 01, 2007 2:15 am Post subject:

Anym wrote:

cornopean wrote:

with all due respect, if this is true, i.e. that you wouldn't defend your children by killing their attacker, then you are a miserable failure of a parent and even a human.

least he's not a murderer.

are you able to distinguish between murder and killing?

Lester
Forum Elder

Joined: 08 Dec 2006
Posts: 4650

Posted: Thu Mar 01, 2007 9:26 am Post subject:

cornopean wrote:

Anym wrote:

cornopean wrote:

with all due respect, if this is true, i.e. that you wouldn't defend your children by killing their attacker, then you are a miserable failure of a parent and even a human.

least he's not a murderer.

are you able to distinguish between murder and killing?

Yes, I think murder is when you mean to cause them damage, killing to me covers both murder and manslaughter. Why is the ability to destroy life a quality you need to not be a failure as a human?