Poll: Death Penalty

[Mogif]

I support death penalty but not a big one that will scar you either permanently or longer than 20 minutes. I will also not support the ones that will become a bigger penalty if you died with the penalty and the penalties where you have to kill something to lower the penalty or either remove it.

Death Penalty is needed to remind us be more careful and alert the next time we fight and also it makes sense that your spirit just got extracted and resurrected somewhere else and you feel wobbly and weak.

Sides, which is worst? Death Penalty or Death and no resurrect? I say Hardcore Death is worst.

 

[Zykon TheLich]

There was a criminal just recently (I think it may have been that paedo) who was released because there was no way he could get a fair trial due to public opinion.

Just think about that last sentence for a moment there. There is an individual who is guilty, whom the majority of a nation feels is a danger to 'society' and we let him go? This is the sort of situation I mean we should be using the death penalty in. He can't get a fair trial on, for example, murder/torture charges, serial aggravated sexual assault, or child molestation? Kill him.

I still don't see how that in any way invalidates his argument. You are saying that if you can't convict someone of a crime they should be killed instead? I cannot think of a single Western nation where that would be deemed acceptable.

Review the judicial process to assure that he can be tried as fairly as possible but 'well, the public is too prejudiced to give them a fair trail, lets just kill them instead, fuck determining innocence or guilt, it's just too much bother' is quite frankly ridiculous. It makes detention without trial look positively humane.

 

[stompy]

It's a tough choice, but I'm for the death penalty. Though, they must be proven to be unable to be rehabilitated, repeated offenders, and pretty much the average soulless monster.

Edit: The people whom I'm referring to are those that have relinquished their humanity. The sick people who will never contribute to society, yet demand everything in return. We let these people live, and they drain our economy, something we don't need in our current economic crisis. They people get released, they re offend, meaning we're back to square one. Letting them live mean we lose regardless of what happens to the prisoner.

Of course, you have the sanctity of life argument, but that's a moot point when you stop looking at these people as human. The people who are those that have no chance to contribute to society, but willingly drain from it. These people have no morals, no ethics, no remorse, pretty much no humanity. Why let these people things live? They gave up on their humanity when they decided that would refuse to abide by the rules set by our society, again and again and again.

Note that I don't support the death penalty for those who offend once, the ones who commit crimes of passion. I'm talking about the re offenders, the worst examples of humanity, and those that aren't even human.

Perhaps, instead of locking up those who commit crime in order to feed their families, the government should create work for them, a la relief work in Australia during the Great Depression: government-funded initiatives, getting them to do labour that most citizens won't , meaning they get money for work, and the government gets cheap labour. Think community service, but more demanding. Of course, this work shouldn't branch out into the private sector, just government projects. This would allow those who sincerely want money for family ould be able to provide for them, and those who are just using it for an excuse would be sent to prison.

 

[Anomynous 167]

I personally am against the death penalty. It is inhumane and cruel, no matter who it is directed towards. And if the person gets a life sentence, they have to suffer and think about what they did each day until they die.

I'll argue against your arguament. (This has happened recently)
A woman after preforming euphemasia was charged with murder and sent to life in prison... The women mentioned suffored from cancer and had an ironic punishment. (Scuicidal denied death)

 

[HuCast]

Most of you supporters just think about the victims. What about the relatives of a murderer? Maybe he still has a mother, a wife and kids. Is it ok to kill the father of three kids, turn a woman into a widow and execute a mothers son? In the end the death penality doesnt punish the murderer-it just punishes his family. (And please dont tell me that kids deserve to be punished when their dad did something wrong!)

 

[SenseOfTumour]

I see the old thing of 'cushy' jails has come up, I know after seeing '30 days' where the guy from 'Supersize Me', Morgan Spurlock, spent 30 days in jail, to find out what it was like, and it wasn't 30 days of gourmet meals, king size beds, and free cable and consoles, I know that.

I for one would like to see a UK version, and see what it's like, as if you read the tabloids, you wonder why people pay to go on holiday, when they could just stab one and stay in one of our luxury prisons for a while.

I very much doubt there's a lot of pleasure to be had even in UK prisons, myself.

I will put a vote for no death sentence, but life without parole meaning they're in there for good.

 

[Mogif]

Dude, were talking about game death penalty. =o

 

[Grampy_bone]

One dies to uphold the standards of a system that for once keeps murderers off the streets. No system is perfect, mistakes will be made. Or have you concocted the Jesus serum?
Seriously Gramps, by your logic every soldier, before even going to war is a murderer and should be sentenced to life in prison.

Logical fallacy: false dichotomy. You are presenting two unrealistic extremes: "Either we kill 'em all, or murderers will run amok in our streets." No, they won't. They will be safely behind bars. It's already a travesty to put an innocent person in jail but at least that can be rectified. Killing an innocent person cannot be fixed.

Also, we are talking about capital punishment here; if you would like to debate the merits of going to war, the death toll inflicted on civilians, and the dehumanization of soldiers, please start a new topic.

 

[John Galt]

If you support the death penalty, and the law kills an innocent person, then you support murder; now you are subject to the death penalty.

By that logic, if I support the prison system, which may or may not be the imprisonment of an innocent person, then I support kidnapping, making me subject to going to prison. Yeah, that's not exactly how it works.

But you do acknowledge that innocent people go to prison. Is killing innocent people okay in order for criminals to be "permabanned?" How many innocent people is it okay to sacrifice per dead criminal? 1? 10? 100? Seriously, I'd like to know. What do we tell their familys?

"Sorry, your husband/father/wife/child was innocent, but we also gassed a couple other bad guys today, so it's a fair trade."

In that case, your problem is with the flaws in our judicial system rather than in how we punish people. While there are certainly some people who are falsely imprisoned by the state, you can't just leave a cancerous burden like the large prison population hanging on the taxpayers. With advances in forensics technology, I think we're going to see a sharp decline in the amount of people falsely convicted, especially for crimes that would warrant life sentences such as murder or rape.

Yes, there are holes in the system, but that doesn't mean that they can't be fixed to help the system run better. I think that imposing the death penalty on lifers will yield much greater societal benefits than the occasional false conviction and execution. You've got to look at this on the national scale, not just the individual.

 

[rossatdi]

I'm not even that bothered about the miscarriage of justice, I just don't think a civilised society should legitimise the murder of it's own civilians - murderous child rapists or not. One of the markers of a truly civilised people is mercy, even in the face of barbarism.

It may be a small moral high ground but I believe it is one that is just to take.

 

[Elim Garak]

Heh, I doubt many people read all of these things but what the hell. I think that in some cases people do pretty much forefeet their right to live - better off dead. However, that does not mean that they should be killed. Besides them not being around any longer, there is also a question of what effect killing them has on the society.

I would say that there is very little benefit in actually killing them - there are very few executions in the US, from what I know. However, there is a lot of potential benefit from the moral perspective to keeping them alive. Besides the non-zero probability of them being innocent, there is also the fact that killing them essentially cheapens life. It is better than what they did (murder) but not by that much.

Human life should not be this easy to throw away or destroy for a civilized society. The fact that it is still legal in the US says something about the country and its people.

 

[poleboy]

I don't believe there is ever any excuse for taking the life of another. It happens, and death is a part of life. But the thought of human beings being executed by a faceless system that you cannot hold directly responsible (because governments change) terrifies me.

However, I believe that a lot of Western countries have very unbalanced and mild prison sentences, which are more like a free holiday than a punishment. I would personally like to see a lot more focus on educating prisoners and rewarding them for learning and behaving well (i.e., you don't get a TV in your cell unless you show improvement or interest in something that society would find useful, like a craft of some sort).

 

[Gitsnik]

Review the judicial process to assure that he can be tried as fairly as possible but 'well, the public is too prejudiced to give them a fair trail, lets just kill them instead, fuck determining innocence or guilt, it's just too much bother' is quite frankly ridiculous. It makes detention without trial look positively humane.

Close. I'm saying that we have a system that is corrupt. Jury works... most of the time, but if a case is so high profile that the jury is influenced, then the system falls down. We have situations where we know someone is guilty (see lethal force reference earlier), but we can't convict because we know they're guilty.

See how I'm seeing it?

Also, UltraJoe, when I say "Kill Him." I mean "execute", but it was a quick type out.

Of course it should be noted that you're dealing with someone who mocks people who use products that are not tested on animals (if they weren't tested on animals who does that leave...)

 

[Falconus]

honestly people, there's nothing wrong with the death penalty as long as it's only used when no other viable option exists (e.g. serial offenders with no hope of rehabilitation). you can talk about letting them rot in prison forever but there are people who can't be fixed and are a danger to everyone around them, and that includes other prisoners. why should a prisoner who is repentant and serving their time be forced to live with the risk of being shanked or whatever by someone who will never change?. tough luck for them because we're not prepared to kill if necessary?

 

[Unknower]

I oppose it because executing even one innocent in mistake is one too many.

 

[Falconus]

I oppose it because executing even one innocent in mistake is one too many.

which is why it should be reserved for repeat offenders of capital crimes. you can't honestly say they're innocent.

 

[rossatdi]

honestly people, there's nothing wrong with the death penalty as long as it's only used when no other viable option exists (e.g. serial offenders with no hope of rehabilitation). you can talk about letting them rot in prison forever but there are people who can't be fixed and are a danger to everyone around them, and that includes other prisoners. why should a prisoner who is repentant and serving their time be forced to live with the risk of being shanked or whatever by someone who will never change?. tough luck for them because we're not prepared to kill if necessary?

There's no macho-ness attached at being willing to kill your own citizenry. Willingness to kill is not strength. Mercy and justice, even in the wake of unspeakable evil, is by far the harder but more worthy route. Yes it may be more expensive but it's not exactly like serial rapists are released to the freedom of the country with no monitoring.

I'm fairly sure that the recidivism rates for crimes with long sentences are low because demographically speaking people commit more violent crimes when they are young, outside of rare cases it is unlikely a man locked away for 15 years will come out and behave the same.

 

[Falconus]

honestly people, there's nothing wrong with the death penalty as long as it's only used when no other viable option exists (e.g. serial offenders with no hope of rehabilitation). you can talk about letting them rot in prison forever but there are people who can't be fixed and are a danger to everyone around them, and that includes other prisoners. why should a prisoner who is repentant and serving their time be forced to live with the risk of being shanked or whatever by someone who will never change?. tough luck for them because we're not prepared to kill if necessary?

There's no macho-ness attached at being willing to kill your own citizenry. Willingness to kill is not strength. Mercy and justice, even in the wake of unspeakable evil, is by far the harder but more worthy route. Yes it may be more expensive but it's not exactly like serial rapists are released to the freedom of the country with no monitoring.

I'm fairly sure that the recidivism rates for crimes with long sentences are low because demographically speaking people commit more violent crimes when they are young, outside of rare cases it is unlikely a man locked away for 15 years will come out and behave the same.

I think you ignored my point. I'm not saying we should just kill whenever we feel like it and I damned well didn't say it was macho. you say outside of rare cases people locked away for fifteen years don't re-offend. right well that's why I said there should still be life sentences.(oops, forgot to say in my other post there should still be life sentences as well) but what do you do with the one's that DO re-offend?. what your saying is that it's ok if people who don't deserve to die, people who there is hope for, get killed by someone who there is no hope for. just so you can keep your hands clean. don't you dare go on about worthiness.

and I want to say this again just so the message is clear, the death penalty should NOT BE TAKEN LIGHTLY. if it's put in place again it has to be reserved for people who have PROVEN THAT THEY HAVE NO WISH OR CAPACITY TO CHANGE FOR THE BETTER.

 

[Unknower]

I oppose it because executing even one innocent in mistake is one too many.

which is why it should be reserved for repeat offenders of capital crimes. you can't honestly say they're innocent.

Fine by me.