seerbrum said:
Again I ask cuddly, and don't avoid the question, can you call a society JUST when it forgets it citizens in favor of it's prisoners?
Which in america, is a very true reality. So true, that people actually commit crimes so they can get the health care they need. When desperation goes as far, as to make some one rob a bank, just so they can live to see 40... Yeah, something's wrong, horribly wrong.
I know this wasn't directed at me, but I'll repeat a previous point, hopefully in more depth and a clearer format (and for once there'll be no hyperbole/over-exaggeration).
This is why the States need (an equvialent, and slightly less mucked up) NHS system, where free healthcare is available when it's needed (not necessarily for cancer treatment just yet, depending on what medication is needed, but the regulations are under governmental debate right now, so that could change). Of course it couldn't be the *same* system used i nthe UK due to the nature of a United
States (ie, with differing internal spending/laws/existing social care)
Advocating that murderers should be killed as the money could go to the suffering is noble, but why should you have to choose between the two? $60,000 a year split down across 303,824,640 people isn't exactly a lot in terms of taxes, and it's not like
every inmate is in max-security isolation (and you'll note the ones that tend to be fall onto my "deserving capital punishment hypocrisy" list).
Why not strip prisons of the 3x full meals a day (some sort of gruel with the basic nutritional requirements added, a bit of fresh fruit - perhaps grown in the prisons own grounds by the inmates themselves), cable TV and PS2s and stuff, and take them back to 'traditional' prisons of a concrete cube, bed and washbasin. There could be a state-funded prison medic, who could then take people to the (if you had the facilities, of course, see earlier paragraphs) local, free, hospital if there was a really serious problem, thus having very little impact on your taxation bills (one inmate taken into A&E once in a while is essentially no extra expense).
People who commit crime to get a "free ride" is wrong, we at least agree on that, and I see that as a problem with the social policies of the American government (with council housing, free healthcare and a welfare system in the UK, AFAIK we don't have these types of offenders) rather than the criminals themselves. If the money, instead of being sent and subsequently squandered on Wall Street (much to the outrage of the American populace, I note), the war (ok, a cliche response, but it is expensive ["Lindsey Predicted Iraq War Would Cost $100 Billion to $200 Billion." from http://money.cnn.com/2008/01/10/news/economy/costofwar.fortune/index.htm ; "$4,681 per household or $1,721 per person or $341.4 million per day" from http://www.nationalpriorities.org/costofwar_home) was used to instigate some sort of advanced welfare system, you would eliminate these factors. The added benefit would be a decrease in local poverty and thus potentially (depending on which study you read) a decrease in habitial drug use, thus also reducing drug-related crimes (less dependant users means less crimes commited for the money to obtain the drugs, less drugs in circulation and also they'd have the ability to hold down jobs, increasing the tax payer-base and thus reducing your taxes more too).
So you could actually ease your burden on taxes by having less "lesser criminals" (theft, assault, etc) in the prisons, then having *cheaper* prisons (as in less perks etc) housing the "normal" (see earlier clarifications) murderers, and the rare option of capital punishment for severe offenders (and remembering permanent incarceration & drug-induced stupour in mental institutions for the clinically psychotic).
THIS is why I don't see the dollar/tax argument to be of any value in the discussion of capital punishment. Having better social care for the "innocents of society" limiting crime in the first place and a reformation of prisons into something that is an actual punishment and thus something to be concerned about, would be a far better/cheaper/morally upstanding option that just shooting murderers (who might be successfully rehabilitated depending on mental stability and nature of their crime).
Hopefully this at least shows my view on why you cannot attach a $ value on the life of anyone, even criminals, simply because a large number of innocent people are suffering.
