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The death penalty. Are you against it or for it?

Death penalty

  • For it

    Votes: 11 32.4%
  • Against it

    Votes: 23 67.6%

  • Total voters
    34

Estro Felino

Believer in free will
Premium Member
Against it.
Two American students in Rome stabbed an Italian policeman.
It is the evidence that drugs destroys people's soul.
But nobody deserves to die. As Beccaria said, the state cannot commit the same crime as the perpetrator. Because we won't turn the perpetrators into a victim.
They were sentenced to a life sentence.
So they can meditate. So they can be helped.

Mario Cerciello Rega: US students found guilty of killing Italian policeman
 

Heyo

Veteran Member
A lot of murderers aren't bad people. They were in wrong places at wrong times. They were in moments where emotions and tensions were heightened. They blackout. They intend to hurt, but not kill.
It's call manslaughter when it's out of emotion and without intend to kill.
But yes, more killings are manslaughter than there are murders.
 

Kooky

Freedom from Sanity
I have also heard school children bemoan that education is forced upon them.

And by "the state," i assume you mean "we."
No, not "we". "We" do not collectively judge people, and "we" do not collectively decide on punishments.
Those are enshrined in law and executed by an independent judiciary branch. This is a process that does not require anybody's consent or agreement, apart from the few decisionmakers who fulfill specific roles within the bureaucracy to move along said process.
 

Shadow Wolf

Certified People sTabber
Do you think it is the Bible culture?
In the Bible there is "an eye for an eye".
Yes, but it's abit more than just that. The Bible says both "an eye for an eye" and "let he who is without sin cast the first stone."
Some look to one, some look to the other.
Such inconsistencies and contradictions are not good for social and legal policy.
 

Curious George

Veteran Member
No, not "we". "We" do not collectively judge people, and "we" do not collectively decide on punishments.
Those are enshrined in law and executed by an independent judiciary branch. This is a process that does not require anybody's consent or agreement, apart from the few decisionmakers who fulfill specific roles within the bureaucracy to move along said process.

And apart from the elected legislators who create the laws or who have not changed the laws.
 

metis

aged ecumenical anthropologist
In the Bible there is "an eye for an eye".
In Judaism, the commentaries have it that this is the maximum punishment, thus not necessarily the required punishment, as many of the prophets appealed to us having more mercy.
 

Trailblazer

Veteran Member
In Judaism, the commentaries have it that this is the maximum punishment, thus not necessarily the required punishment, as many of the prophets appealed to us having more mercy.
That is true in the Baha'i Faith as well.

“In the Aqdas Bahá’u’lláh has given death as the penalty for murder. However, He has permitted life imprisonment as an alternative. Both practices would be in accordance with His Laws. Some of us may not be able to grasp the wisdom of this when it disagrees with our own limited vision; but we must accept it, knowing His Wisdom, His Mercy and His Justice are perfect and for the salvation of the entire world.” The Kitáb-i-Aqdas, p. 204
 

We Never Know

No Slack
That's not correct.
Let me explain a little more. From my experiences....
It seems many people who believe in a god are against abortion but are for the death penalty.
It also seems many people who don't believe in a god are against the death penalty but are for abortion.

There are some like me who don't believe in god, support the death penalty and appose abortion.

In my opinion a baby in the womb is a life. It has a brain, a heart, etc just like you and I.
It has to have oxygen, it has to have nutrition to survive. It moves, it feels, it experiences different things, etc just like you and I. It just isn't out of the womb yet.

Also a child out of the womb is a helpless as a baby in the womb.
 
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Heyo

Veteran Member
In my opinion a baby in the womb is a life. It has a brain, a heart, etc just like you and I.
It has to have oxygen, it has to have nutrition to survive. It moves, it feels, it experiences different things, etc just like you and I.
Except from you having fallen to the appeal to emotion of the anti choicers and now are using that rhetoric yourself, what of those qualities does a murderer not have?
 

metis

aged ecumenical anthropologist
It seems many people who believe in a god are against abortion but are for the death penalty.
It also seems many people who don't believe in a god are against the death penalty but are for abortion.
I agree, but if you check back that's not what you wrote.

In my opinion a baby in the womb is a life. It has a brain, a heart, etc just like you and I.
It has to have oxygen, it has to have nutrition to survive. It moves, it feels, it experiences different things, etc just like you and I. It just isn't out of the womb yet.

Also a child out of the womb is a helpless as a baby in the womb.
Totally agree.
 

Curious George

Veteran Member
Let me explain a little more. From my experiences....
It seems many people who believe in a god are against abortion but are for the death penalty.
It also seems many people who don't believe in a god are against the death penalty but are for abortion.

There are some like me who don't believe in god, support the death penalty and appose abortion.

In my opinion a baby in the womb is a life. It has a brain, a heart, etc just like you and I.
It has to have oxygen, it has to have nutrition to survive. It moves, it feels, it experiences different things, etc just like you and I. It just isn't out of the womb yet.

Also a child out of the womb is a helpless as a baby in the womb.
For the record: i believe no god exists, I do not oppose either the death penalty or abortion.

I think the instances where you perceive contradictions stick out in your mind. There may be a correlation with those three beliefs, but I think you should be careful making generalizations about them.

I have definitely met individuals with every possible permutation of those three beliefs.
 

We Never Know

No Slack
Except from you having fallen to the appeal to emotion of the anti choicers and now are using that rhetoric yourself, what of those qualities does a murderer not have?

Along with the ultrasounds, feeling and seeing my children kick and move when my wife was pregnant is all I needed. I make my decisions based on me, not what others think or want.
 

Kooky

Freedom from Sanity
And apart from the elected legislators who create the laws or who have not changed the laws.
In most constitutional systems the legislative - by design - has no input on how any particular case is being judged.
At best, they can limit from what punishments a judge or jury would be allowed to select from.
 

Curious George

Veteran Member
In most constitutional systems the legislative - by design - has no input on how any particular case is being judged.
At best, they can limit from what punishments a judge or jury would be allowed to select from.
Stepping back a second, you do agree that the legislative branch creates the laws by which these individuals are judged?

So, when you say "has no input on how any particular case is being judged," you are correct but intentionally misleading.
 

Kooky

Freedom from Sanity
Stepping back a second, you do agree that the legislative branch creates the laws by which these individuals are judged?

So, when you say "has no input on how any particular case is being judged," you are correct but intentionally misleading.
For the sake of the argument, most criminal law codes have remained largely unchanged for decades, if not centuries. They are expressions of popular will only in a very abstract, conceptual manner - many of them predate modern democracy, even.

My fundamental point is that speaking judgement over people is not a consensual act. It is a form of violence - accepted, targeted, perhaps even necessary violence, but violence nonetheless. And, further, it is not an act of the community, but an act of bureaucracy, of an impersonal set of rules that governs behavior regardless of popular sentiment. Framing it as an expression of group consensus is, in my opinion, a mischaracterization of what is happening when judgement is rendered.
 

Curious George

Veteran Member
For the sake of the argument, most criminal law codes have remained largely unchanged for decades, if not centuries. They are expressions of popular will only in a very abstract, conceptual manner - many of them predate modern democracy, even.
Please share with me the long list of criminal acts that you believe are not expressions of popular will.

My fundamental point is that speaking judgement over people is not a consensual act. It is a form of violence - accepted, targeted, perhaps even necessary violence, but violence nonetheless.
This seems tangential.
And, further, it is not an act of the community, but an act of bureaucracy, of an impersonal set of rules that governs behavior regardless of popular sentiment. Framing it as an expression of group consensus is, in my opinion, a mischaracterization of what is happening when judgement is rendered.
Thos seems wholly inaccurate.

In a democracy, that bureaucracy can only act with the authority given by the people. To try to point at "the state" or "the bureaucracy" as some evil boogeyman acting with its own will is very much to shift blame from where it truly belongs, with the people.
 
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