Against the Death Penalty

[TSwizzle]

Whether you give a shit or not, the act of taking someone life is brutal regardless of how clinically or 'gently' the act may be carried out.

In your opinion but I disagree.

Killing someone, the nature of taking a life, is an act that has its own conditions. The nature of the act of killing someone is not subject to my opinion or yours,

Everything is subject to someone’s opinion.

The act of killing someone, how it is carried out, the finality of death, is what it is regardless of anyone's opinion. Opinion doesn't alter the facts of execution.

True that but the death penalty for monsters is my preferred outcome for them.

 

[Lion IRC]

The point would be expediency and economics.

It's a good deal cheaper and easier to keep a person in prison for life without parole than it is to execute them.

Largely because of the very rigourous appeals process in death penalty cases.

Despite which, innocent people do get executed. So clearly, it's not rigorous enough.

The appeal process takes so long that in some/many cases, older convicts on death row develop Alzheimers / dementia.

There's been several cases where the inmate literally doesn't know why they are being lead to the gas chamber...given Last Rites...etc.

79 year old James Frazier.

Case of 79-Year-Old Ohio Death-Row Prisoner With Dementia Highlights Legal Issues Exacerbated by the Aging of Death Row

Seventy-nine-year-old James Frazier (pictured) is Ohio ’s oldest death-row prisoner. He has dementia, he cannot walk, and he requires the assistance of…

deathpenaltyinfo.org

67 year old Wesley Ira Purkey

Lawyers say federal death row prisoner has Alzheimer’s

WASHINGTON (AP) — Lawyers for a federal death row inmate convicted of rape and murder have asked a federal judge to halt his scheduled execution next month because the prisoner has Alzheimer’s disease and schizophrenia.

apnews.com

68 year old Vernon Madison

www. npr. org/2019/02/28/698831666/executing-someone-with-dementia-might-violate-the-constitution-court-says

 

[DBT]

Whether you give a shit or not, the act of taking someone life is brutal regardless of how clinically or 'gently' the act may be carried out.

In your opinion but I disagree.

Killing someone, the nature of taking a life, is an act that has its own conditions. The nature of the act of killing someone is not subject to my opinion or yours,

Everything is subject to someone’s opinion.

The act of killing someone, how it is carried out, the finality of death, is what it is regardless of anyone's opinion. Opinion doesn't alter the facts of execution.

True that but the death penalty for monsters is my preferred outcome for them.

Fine, good for you, but it's a good thing that you don't have the power to have things your way. Not because monsters necessarily deserve compassion, but that when it comes to morality, we are better than them, we don't do what the monster does.

 

[TSwizzle]

Fine, good for you, but it's a good thing that you don't have the power to have things your way. Not because monsters necessarily deserve compassion, but that when it comes to morality, we are better than them, we don't do what the monster does.

Morality be damned when it comes to dispatching monsters. I have no use for morality in these situations, I don’t have the need to feel I am better than a monster.

 

[TomC]

Morality be damned when it comes to dispatching monsters. I have no use for morality in these situations, I don’t have the need to feel I am better than a monster.

Maybe that's the difference between us. I don't see morality as something to dispense when I prefer to ignore it.
Tom

 

[bilby]

True that but the death penalty for monsters is my preferred outcome for them.

You perhaps fail to recognise that this preference defines you, for many people, as a monster.

Perhaps you should be cautious in what you advocate.

 

[DBT]

Fine, good for you, but it's a good thing that you don't have the power to have things your way. Not because monsters necessarily deserve compassion, but that when it comes to morality, we are better than them, we don't do what the monster does.

Morality be damned when it comes to dispatching monsters. I have no use for morality in these situations, I don’t have the need to feel I am better than a monster.

That's precisely how monsters think. That is what permits them to act as they do, to kill and to do it without remorse or regret.

 

[TSwizzle]

Fine, good for you, but it's a good thing that you don't have the power to have things your way. Not because monsters necessarily deserve compassion, but that when it comes to morality, we are better than them, we don't do what the monster does.

Morality be damned when it comes to dispatching monsters. I have no use for morality in these situations, I don’t have the need to feel I am better than a monster.

That's precisely how monsters think. That is what permits them to act as they do, to kill and to do it without remorse or regret.

How uninteresting.

 

[Swammerdami]

The death penalty is of course intolerable in the U.S.A. where there is at least one documented case of an indigent black being convicted of murder because his public defender budget did not afford interviewing a single alibi witness.

As a theoretical question, for countries with competent justice systems, my position may get me booed off the stage.

What message do we want to give adolescents? (1) Every human life is sacred, or (2) Some deeds deserve extreme punishment. I regard the murderer's life as irrelevant; the issue is which of these messages does society want to transmit. And a society's proper choice of message depends on other aspects of that society.

 

[Jarhyn]

Fine, good for you, but it's a good thing that you don't have the power to have things your way. Not because monsters necessarily deserve compassion, but that when it comes to morality, we are better than them, we don't do what the monster does.

Morality be damned when it comes to dispatching monsters. I have no use for morality in these situations, I don’t have the need to feel I am better than a monster.

That's precisely how monsters think. That is what permits them to act as they do, to kill and to do it without remorse or regret.

How uninteresting.

Your disinterest in being a moral person explains much about you.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

Am I doing something wrong? I'm not used to agreement.

Keep up the good, but indeed suprising, work.

It is a pleasant surprise to see IIDB defending human life. My work here is not in vain.

 

[TomC]

Am I doing something wrong? I'm not used to agreement.

Keep up the good, but indeed suprising, work.

It is a pleasant surprise to see IIDB defending human life. My work here is not in vain.

I've read a lot of posts on this thread. None were a surprise to me.

Most of us are, and have long been, pro-life with regards to death penalty issues.
Nothing to do with you.
Tom

 

[Unknown Soldier]

The death penalty is of course intolerable in the U.S.A. where there is at least one documented case of an indigent black being convicted of murder because his public defender budget did not afford interviewing a single alibi witness.

As a theoretical question, for countries with competent justice systems, my position may get me booed off the stage.

What message do we want to give adolescents? (1) Every human life is sacred, or (2) Some deeds deserve extreme punishment. I regard the murderer's life as irrelevant; the issue is which of these messages does society want to transmit. And a society's proper choice of message depends on other aspects of that society.

Every human life is sacred is my vote. Note that "every human life" does not exclude the elderly or the disabled--the forgotten minority.

By the way. I just read of a woman who was experiencing pain so bad she just couldn't sleep, and she spent her nights crying and pacing the floor. She didn't trash her life, though. She kept working with her doctors, and eventually they found a way to to alleviate her pain. What scares me is that most of the people here would have seen her dead insisting she had the right to die.

So let's respect human life. Consistently.

 

[DBT]

Perhaps she should have both the right to life, and the right to die had she felt the struggle against pain was too much. It's not for someone else to judge or determine.

 

[pood]

Am I doing something wrong? I'm not used to agreement.

Keep up the good, but indeed suprising, work.

It is a pleasant surprise to see IIDB defending human life. My work here is not in vain.

With a few obvious exceptions, one of whom is currently posting in this thread, no one here has ever needed lessons from you on defending human life. Nor have you ever offered any, for that matter.

 

[abaddon]

Am I doing something wrong? I'm not used to agreement.

Keep up the good, but indeed suprising, work.

It is a pleasant surprise to see IIDB defending human life. My work here is not in vain.

With a few obvious exceptions, one of whom is currently posting in this thread, no one here has ever needed lessons from you on defending human life. Nor have you ever offered any, for that matter.

But then the poster that he congratulated for "defending human life" is one of the two pro-death-penalty posters. I think he didn't recognize the "keep up the good work" phrase as referring to his own (Unknown Soldier's) apparent improvement in behavior.

 

[abaddon]

But then the poster that he congratulated for "defending human life" is one of the two pro-death-penalty posters. I think he didn't recognize the "keep up the good work" phrase as referring to his own (Unknown Soldier's) apparent improvement in behavior.

Oops, I boo-boo'd. I'll correct my error: He's expressing surprise that persons in general at IIDB have said something in defense of human life.

 

[Rhea]

Am I doing something wrong? I'm not used to agreement.

Keep up the good, but indeed suprising, work.

It is a pleasant surprise to see IIDB defending human life.

It is an unpleasant surprise that you are suprised by the values that we have all held since long before you arrived.

It is as if you have no respect at all for those with whom you converse, that you could be “surprised” by what we have always said.

My work here is not in vain.

Ideed it is in vain, if you have managed to learn nothing about the community while you talked and talked without listening.

How disappointing that you came to this place of conversation and discussion, with no open heart, no open mind, merely a bullhorn to preach your gospel.

There are many thoughtful and complex people here, who have shared their histories, feelings and opinions.

You have responded by treating them badly and with no respect for the exchange of ideas. Your “work” is in vain because that work is shallow and unexamined.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Interesting idea. Maybe that could work...give them the choice of life in prison or death. Would be interesting to see what people prefer.

I would be afraid of the system being even worse at taking care of prisoners to drive them to "choose" death.

 

[DBT]

We already hear about 'assisted suicides' in prison.