The Death Penalty

Thirty Bills Unpaid

I don't feel it will become problematic.

Call me a trusting fool, but I see the good from such technology.

What kind of concerns me is the fact that police, military and members of government are becoming slightly vilified in the context of these discussions. These people are citizens as well that enjoy their weekends with their families like the other citizens do. They are providing a service and most do so admirably. To my way of thinking, this is not a rogue collection of individuals waiting to pounce on the unsuspecting. They are everyday people as well that will have to live with the good and bad from such technology.

Byrnzie

Thirty Bills Unpaid wrote:

Byrnzie wrote:

Thirty Bills Unpaid wrote:

Yeah. Really fucking cool. Let's pat our indifferent selves on the back while we leave those families to just get over it already.

Who's indifferent? And who's telling the victims families to 'just get over it already'? Nobody is.

Nobody is directly saying it (other than Dudeman who came about as close as you can), but by placing the families through these types of ordeals and ignoring their pleas for a more definitive measure of justice... we act indifferently towards their needs and are essentially telling them they need to move on.

You cannot advocate for a sick mutant and the grieving survivors at the same time.

Nobody is saying it, period. You're simply holding up a paper tiger. How does murdering someone constitute 'acting towards their needs'?

And nobody's 'advocating for a sick mutant'. Again, just a paper tiger.

Byrnzie

Thirty Bills Unpaid wrote:

I don't feel it will become problematic.

Call me a trusting fool, but I see the good from such technology.

What kind of concerns me is the fact that police, military and members of government are becoming slightly vilified in the context of these discussions. These people are citizens as well that enjoy their weekends with their families like the other citizens do. They are providing a service and most do so admirably. To my way of thinking, this is not a rogue collection of individuals waiting to pounce on the unsuspecting. They are everyday people as well that will have to live with the good and bad from such technology.

What? These are people with huge amounts of power, whose job is to serve the people. And what they are doing is abusing that power and lying, and cheating the people, so as to increase their own power.

Fuck these people.

Thirty Bills Unpaid

Byrnzie wrote:

Thirty Bills Unpaid wrote:

I don't feel it will become problematic.

Call me a trusting fool, but I see the good from such technology.

What kind of concerns me is the fact that police, military and members of government are becoming slightly vilified in the context of these discussions. These people are citizens as well that enjoy their weekends with their families like the other citizens do. They are providing a service and most do so admirably. To my way of thinking, this is not a rogue collection of individuals waiting to pounce on the unsuspecting. They are everyday people as well that will have to live with the good and bad from such technology.

What? These are people with huge amounts of power, whose job is to serve the people. And what they are doing is abusing that power and lying, and cheating the people, so as to increase their own power.

Fuck these people.

I'm talking about the everyday joes that serve the public in uniform on the streets of the cities they live or the government agents that serve their country.

When someone says police state... many visions come to mind that are far from reality. I get the fear that the surveillance technology might generate, but I think it is unwarranted.

dudeman

That fear is unwarranted right up to the moment that it isn't.

Thirty Bills Unpaid

Byrnzie wrote:

Nobody is saying it, period. You're simply holding up a paper tiger. How does murdering someone constitute 'acting towards their needs'?

And nobody's 'advocating for a sick mutant'. Again, just a paper tiger.

You use the phrase 'paper tiger', but don't you think the same phrase can apply to your reference of executing some in the name of justice as murdering someone. Capital punishment is an accepted and legal form of punishment for murder, just as imprisonment or community hours is for lesser crimes. You might disagree with it, but don't point to my argument as exaggeration while using the similar techniques yourself to make your points.

You have made great efforts to speak to the level of concern you have for murderers, while at the same time disregarding their victims and their survivors. Do you remember when you said that it would be worse to be on death row than bound, gagged, raped in the back of a pick up truck... hours after watching your family get killed by your captive (the David Shearing example I provided for you)? So, I don't expect you to understand the needs a family might have to see the murderer of their child put to death for his grievous offence- you're too far over the other side to have a perspective that empathizes with them.

With the aforementioned said, when you're suggesting that Death Row is harsher for a murderer than the plight their victims faced at their hands... it's safe to say you are not exactly advocating for the deceased and their surviving family- you're advocating for the 'sick mutant'. You have been doing it the length of this thread.

Thirty Bills Unpaid

dudeman wrote:

That fear is unwarranted right up to the moment that it isn't.

And in this event, Dudeman, you and Byrnzie can slap me and call me silly.

Technology in every field has developed to unbelievable heights. Why should we insist that technology in the crime fighting field should limit itself to a magnifying glass, notepad, and a pencil?

I said it in an earlier post: street cameras brought about the same level of guarded scepticism. They have proven to be very useful and, help me out here if you can... I'm not aware of the abuse of such technology?

Byrnzie

Thirty Bills Unpaid wrote:

Capital punishment is an accepted and legal form of punishment for murder

Is that why the U.S is the only Western country to use it? And as for it being accepted, why are more and more people, and U.S States, becoming opposed to it?

Thirty Bills Unpaid wrote:

I don't expect you to understand the needs a family might have to see the murderer of their child put to death

They have no such needs, beyond a purely emotional response. And Nation States should function above the level of emotional responses. That's what defines them as 'civilized'.

Byrnzie

Thirty Bills Unpaid wrote:

There is contradictory evidence that shows the Death Penalty is indeed a deterrent:

Using a panel data set of over 3,000 counties from 1977 to 1996, Professors Hashem Dezhbakhsh, Paul R. Rubin, and Joanna M. Shepherd of Emory University found that each execution, on average, results in 18 fewer murders.[17] Using state-level panel data from 1960 to 2000, Professors Dezhbakhsh and Shepherd were able to compare the relationship between executions and murder incidents before, during, and after the U.S. Supreme Court's death penalty moratorium.[18] They found that executions had a highly significant negative relationship with murder incidents. Additionally, the implementation of state moratoria is associated with the increased incidence of murders...

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/FaganDeterrence.pdf
'...the problem for them is that the fragility of the new deterrence evidence, a function of the fundamental empirical and theoretical errors in this body of work , raises concerns greater than simply just “doubt”: the conclusions in this body of work are wrong, there is no reliable evidence of deterrence. The only scientifically and ethically acceptable conclusion from the complete body of existing social science literature on deterrence and the death penalty is that it impossible to tell whether deterrent effects are strong or weak, or whether they exist at all.'

Thirty Bills Unpaid

Byrnzie wrote:

Thirty Bills Unpaid wrote:

Capital punishment is an accepted and legal form of punishment for murder

Is that why the U.S is the only Western country to use it? And as for it being accepted, why are more and more people, and U.S States, becoming opposed to it?

Thirty Bills Unpaid wrote:

I don't expect you to understand the needs a family might have to see the murderer of their child put to death

They have no such needs, beyond a purely emotional response. And Nation States should function above the level of emotional responses. That's what defines them as 'civilized'.

I'm not so sure that I would agree with 'more and more people' becoming opposed to it. In Canada, many are becoming increasingly frustrated with our weak wristed penal system. Just like many other facets of life that have seen work to correct something, the pendulum has swung way too far the other way. I will wager it will swing back at some point.

When you say, "They have no such needs, beyond a purely emotional response" this is when I say that essentially you are telling them to 'get over it'. You argued that this was not what you were saying a few posts back. Of course it is an emotional response, but they are certainly entitled to it. This doesn't make them uncivilized and it doesn't make nations and people who lend support to their plight uncivilized as well. Some crimes demand a response that: reflect our level of outrage and lend support to the people who are forced to live the rest of their life in pain

If you can say societies are uncivilized for exercising the death penalty, then I can say societies are indifferent to their murdered and their survivors with their generous treatment offered to their murderers. Given these two camps, I can rest easier in the second.

Thirty Bills Unpaid

Byrnzie wrote:

Thirty Bills Unpaid wrote:

There is contradictory evidence that shows the Death Penalty is indeed a deterrent:

Using a panel data set of over 3,000 counties from 1977 to 1996, Professors Hashem Dezhbakhsh, Paul R. Rubin, and Joanna M. Shepherd of Emory University found that each execution, on average, results in 18 fewer murders.[17] Using state-level panel data from 1960 to 2000, Professors Dezhbakhsh and Shepherd were able to compare the relationship between executions and murder incidents before, during, and after the U.S. Supreme Court's death penalty moratorium.[18] They found that executions had a highly significant negative relationship with murder incidents. Additionally, the implementation of state moratoria is associated with the increased incidence of murders...

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/FaganDeterrence.pdf
'...the problem for them is that the fragility of the new deterrence evidence, a function of the fundamental empirical and theoretical errors in this body of work , raises concerns greater than simply just “doubt”: the conclusions in this body of work are wrong, there is no reliable evidence of deterrence. The only scientifically and ethically acceptable conclusion from the complete body of existing social science literature on deterrence and the death penalty is that it impossible to tell whether deterrent effects are strong or weak, or whether they exist at all.'

Exactly. This was my point: statistics can be manipulated to say many things. You referred to a set of statistics that stated the DP was not a deterrent. I introduced statistics that said it was a deterrent.

Common sense would tell me that a person might just think about the consequences a bit more if he knew he was going to die for murdering someone. I'm pretty sure that, at a bare minimum, at least one innocent person would not die as a result of more stringent punishment for murder. Given such an understatement, perhaps the DP wouldn't be such a bad idea if it is possible it might have a positive effect?

Should our priorities be trying to protect the innocent from being murdered... or protecting guys like Michael Rafferty after they have raped and murdered an 8 year old girl?

dudeman

Our priorities should absolutely be protecting people from murderers........and rapists............and kidnappers.........etc. The problem with that is the fact that the police and government aren't responsible for that. Their job is to investigate crimes, make arrests, hopefully convict criminals and impose sentencing. That's it. The prevention part has to come from us, as citizens.

Hugh Freaking Dillon

Thirty Bills Unpaid wrote:

Common sense would tell me that a person might just think about the consequences a bit more if he knew he was going to die for murdering someone. I'm pretty sure that, at a bare minimum, at least one innocent person would not die as a result of more stringent punishment for murder. Given such an understatement, perhaps the DP wouldn't be such a bad idea if it is possible it might have a positive effect?

are you really so ingrained in your belief in the death penalty that you actually believe a crazed lunatic might stop himself and think "shit, if I get caught, they might kill me!"? *puts down knife and walks away while apologizing to potential victim*. Jesus Christ.

you think stopping one potential murder from happening as a result of the DP being instituted is worth it. then why isn't one man being put to death in error not enough for you to be against it?

Canada, as a nation, are, as you said, swinging more and more towards revisiting the DP debate. Why? for misguided reasons. they actually believe that this will stop crime. it won't. the problem isn't with stopping crime in Canada. It's keeping people who have committed 18 armed robberies in jail, instead of letting them go for purely political reasons (not enough funds, let the fucker go). our justice system is failing, not because we need to kill inmates; we need to better understand how to rehabilitate the ones who can be, and keep locked up those who can't. cops are getting fucking mind bogglingly frustrated catching the same shitheads doing the same crimes over and over. makes their job seem futile when they are the only line of defense, because our judges keep letting the assholes loose to give them a 37 chance to turn their life around.

Thirty Bills Unpaid

Hugh Freaking Dillon wrote:

Thirty Bills Unpaid wrote:

Common sense would tell me that a person might just think about the consequences a bit more if he knew he was going to die for murdering someone. I'm pretty sure that, at a bare minimum, at least one innocent person would not die as a result of more stringent punishment for murder. Given such an understatement, perhaps the DP wouldn't be such a bad idea if it is possible it might have a positive effect?

are you really so ingrained in your belief in the death penalty that you actually believe a crazed lunatic might stop himself and think "shit, if I get caught, they might kill me!"? *puts down knife and walks away while apologizing to potential victim*. Jesus Christ.

you think stopping one potential murder from happening as a result of the DP being instituted is worth it. then why isn't one man being put to death in error not enough for you to be against it?

Canada, as a nation, are, as you said, swinging more and more towards revisiting the DP debate. Why? for misguided reasons. they actually believe that this will stop crime. it won't. the problem isn't with stopping crime in Canada. It's keeping people who have committed 18 armed robberies in jail, instead of letting them go for purely political reasons (not enough funds, let the fucker go). our justice system is failing, not because we need to kill inmates; we need to better understand how to rehabilitate the ones who can be, and keep locked up those who can't. cops are getting fucking mind bogglingly frustrated catching the same shitheads doing the same crimes over and over. makes their job seem futile when they are the only line of defense, because our judges keep letting the assholes loose to give them a 37 chance to turn their life around.

Get serious. The comment in blue would suggest that you think that the Death Penalty is in no way whatsoever a deterrent. This might be your belief, but it is in contrast to many others who feel it is- including people smarter than you and I. There is no way you can dismiss the notion.

Not all potential murderers would consider the DP as a deterrent, but some would. Period. To suggest otherwise is exactly as you put it to me: so ingrained in your belief that you refuse to acknowledge the mathematical and even practical (for that matter) certainty of the DP acting as a deterrent in some instances.

I can relate to much of your last paragraph regarding our turnstile penal system. The only thing we truly differ on is the height of consequences we would like to see applied to our worst offenders. I would like to see Michael Rafferty be executed for his obscenity (the rape and murder of 8 year old Victoria Stafford). You would like to see him locked up for life with no opportunity at parole... correct?

Thirty Bills Unpaid

dudeman wrote:

Our priorities should absolutely be protecting people from murderers........and rapists............and kidnappers.........etc. The problem with that is the fact that the police and government aren't responsible for that. Their job is to investigate crimes, make arrests, hopefully convict criminals and impose sentencing. That's it. The prevention part has to come from us, as citizens.

For clarity's sake, explain further, please. In particular your last sentence.

dudeman

Sure.

As parents, teachers and community leaders we need to make sure that young people have the opportunities they need to live as productive members of a society. That means no more kids slipping through the cracks in school, the opportunity for higher education, meaningful employment and a sense of belonging in the world. Also, it means establishing solid moral values in our children. That starts at home and should be supported in school, business, government, media and culture.

The idea here is to prevent people from turning to a life of crime and/or desperation in the first place.

This obviously won't stop violence and animosity toward each other altogether. In those instances, and I know you don't want to hear this, we need to be willing and able to defend ourselves and our loved ones from violent attackers.......with deadly force, if necessary. If a criminal makes a conscious effort to break into your home with the intentions of harming those innocent people inside, they need to be stopped before they can harm the ones you love.

your move now

dudeman wrote:

Sure.

As parents, teachers and community leaders we need to make sure that young people have the opportunities they need to live as productive members of a society. That means no more kids slipping through the cracks in school, the opportunity for higher education, meaningful employment and a sense of belonging in the world. Also, it means establishing solid moral values in our children. That starts at home and should be supported in school, business, government, media and culture.

The idea here is to prevent people from turning to a life of crime and/or desperation in the first place.

This obviously won't stop violence and animosity toward each other altogether. In those instances, and I know you don't want to hear this, we need to be willing and able to defend ourselves and our loved ones from violent attackers.......with deadly force, if necessary. If a criminal makes a conscious effort to break into your home with the intentions of harming those innocent people inside, they need to be stopped before they can harm the ones you love.

I could be wrong but I get the impression you mean defend your family or loved ones with firearms, the problem being that that also puts them at greater risk.
I also think the idea of defending oneself veers away from the topic of the death penalty

dudeman

With or without firearms, so long as people take an active interest in the safety and security of themselves and their loved ones.

As it relates to the death penalty, the idea is that potential death row inmates be stopped before ending up on death row. Whether it be by moral conditioning and social acceptance as a young, developing person or physically, by someone standing between them and their potential victim.

Hugh Freaking Dillon

Thirty Bills Unpaid wrote:

Get serious. The comment in blue would suggest that you think that the Death Penalty is in no way whatsoever a deterrent. This might be your belief, but it is in contrast to many others who feel it is- including people smarter than you and I. There is no way you can dismiss the notion.

Not all potential murderers would consider the DP as a deterrent, but some would. Period. To suggest otherwise is exactly as you put it to me: so ingrained in your belief that you refuse to acknowledge the mathematical and even practical (for that matter) certainty of the DP acting as a deterrent in some instances.

I can relate to much of your last paragraph regarding our turnstile penal system. The only thing we truly differ on is the height of consequences we would like to see applied to our worst offenders. I would like to see Michael Rafferty be executed for his obscenity (the rape and murder of 8 year old Victoria Stafford). You would like to see him locked up for life with no opportunity at parole... correct?

the comment you blued does not suggest any absolute, but you always must go to the extreme, don't you? I never said it would never be a deterrent, but in almost 0 cases that would be the case. the only cases that it would possibly, POSSIBLY, act as a deterrent is murders that were premeditated. Most murders are an act of the moment, so to believe that any, ANY of those people might stop to think of their potential to be executed is laughable. they don't stop to think "hey, I might go to jail for the rest of my natural life and get raped 6 times a day" and stop what they are doing. So the death penalty would do nothing to stop the act either.

Hugh Freaking Dillon

Thirty Bills Unpaid wrote:

Hugh Freaking Dillon wrote:

Thirty Bills Unpaid wrote:

Common sense would tell me that a person might just think about the consequences a bit more if he knew he was going to die for murdering someone. I'm pretty sure that, at a bare minimum, at least one innocent person would not die as a result of more stringent punishment for murder. Given such an understatement, perhaps the DP wouldn't be such a bad idea if it is possible it might have a positive effect?

are you really so ingrained in your belief in the death penalty that you actually believe a crazed lunatic might stop himself and think "shit, if I get caught, they might kill me!"? *puts down knife and walks away while apologizing to potential victim*. Jesus Christ.

you think stopping one potential murder from happening as a result of the DP being instituted is worth it. then why isn't one man being put to death in error not enough for you to be against it?

Canada, as a nation, are, as you said, swinging more and more towards revisiting the DP debate. Why? for misguided reasons. they actually believe that this will stop crime. it won't. the problem isn't with stopping crime in Canada. It's keeping people who have committed 18 armed robberies in jail, instead of letting them go for purely political reasons (not enough funds, let the fucker go). our justice system is failing, not because we need to kill inmates; we need to better understand how to rehabilitate the ones who can be, and keep locked up those who can't. cops are getting fucking mind bogglingly frustrated catching the same shitheads doing the same crimes over and over. makes their job seem futile when they are the only line of defense, because our judges keep letting the assholes loose to give them a 37 chance to turn their life around.

Get serious. The comment in blue would suggest that you think that the Death Penalty is in no way whatsoever a deterrent. This might be your belief, but it is in contrast to many others who feel it is- including people smarter than you and I. There is no way you can dismiss the notion.

Not all potential murderers would consider the DP as a deterrent, but some would. Period. To suggest otherwise is exactly as you put it to me: so ingrained in your belief that you refuse to acknowledge the mathematical and even practical (for that matter) certainty of the DP acting as a deterrent in some instances.

I can relate to much of your last paragraph regarding our turnstile penal system. The only thing we truly differ on is the height of consequences we would like to see applied to our worst offenders. I would like to see Michael Rafferty be executed for his obscenity (the rape and murder of 8 year old Victoria Stafford). You would like to see him locked up for life with no opportunity at parole... correct?

I see you also completely ignored what I now put in red. Why is that?

yes, life in prison to me should be LIFE in prison, not this garbage of 25 years, getting out in 10 for good fucking behaviour and double pre-trial custody credit. that's bullshit.