The Battle Bar, Our Wretched Hive of Scum and Villainy

Started by Red Nemesis3,287 pages

Setting aside the moral and religious objections to the death penalty, at least for a moment, I think that we should look at its social value. After all, DS has argued that it is a necessary part of the law system. As a necessary part, it would have to be effective, no?

Efficacy of Capital Punishment

Sadly (at least for the vengeful "pro-lifers" that support it), the death penalty does not serve as a deterrent for crime. States without the death penalty have had consistently lower murder rates than those with the death penalty.

(I'm sure I've posted these before but facts can never be over used.)

Also, the death penalty if far more expensive than life in prison:
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/costs-death-penalty
This page has a multitude of sources that support this fact.

So: it is expensive and it does not prevent future crimes. The only possible motivation for this practice, then, is revenge. You can harp all you want about 'personal responsibility' but jail is also a means of holding criminals responsible for their actions.

Also, the legal system gets it wrong all the time. There have been lots of people sent to Death Row who ended up being declared innocent, especially since DNA testing became admissible. The idea that we might kill someone who hasn't done anything wrong terrifies me.

There is no indication that casual, restrained usage of hard drugs like heroin causes death.
Point me to a casual, restrained user of heroin who has suffered at most negligible [whatever that means] damage to his health as a result of his drug use [heroin or other] and I'll point you to... something equally unbelievable.

Out of curiosity, are you advocating the legalization of such drugs?

Originally posted by Gideon
I sympathize with some of Darth Sexy's arguments.
I missed this before, but could you tell me which of his arguments you sympathize with?

Originally posted by Eminence
Point me to a casual, restrained user of heroin who has suffered at most negligible [whatever that means] damage to his health as a result of his drug use [heroin or other] and I'll point you to... something equally unbelievable.

Out of curiosity, are you advocating the legalization of such drugs?

The good potheads of the GDF say that LSD isn't addictive and that one cannot overdose on it. Why not legalize it and tax it? Clearly someone is making money off these drugs, why shouldn't it be the US government?

Edit:

I missed this before, but could you tell me which of his arguments you sympathize with?

Those would be the ones that say
[list=a]
[*]There is a god
and
[*]Torture is great

[/list]

does not prevent future crimes.

Except there's no proof of this, because we can never know the numbers of people who actually were deterred, there's no way to measure it.

Originally posted by Master Crimzon
There is no 'indication' we can't get rid of it if we truly ascend beyond conceptions of how mankind always was and move on to thinking how mankind can be. Stop living the past.

Stop living in fairy tale land. Your perceptions aren't based on anything realistic.

Actually I did. Societal glorification of money, wealth and 'power'; if people are raised and are largely exposed to that value, then greed is a possible ramification.

Or the fact that it's easy, almost anyone can do it, and can get away with it. See what I did there? I cut out the middleman(external factors), and placed the responsibility on the person!

The individual who committed the crime is NOT fine. However, by stooping to his standards and thriving on aggression and inhumanity, the system that punishes him is NOT fine, either.

Except we aren't stooping to his standards. He committed premeditated murder. We gave him a trial. He lost under the legal rules of capital murder. So it's a legal kill. And how dare someone who commits a capital murder NOT forfeit his life?

Compassion and justice are not mutually exclusive. An 'eye for an eye' is not justice; it's moral degeneration. Maintaining our values and ethical standards as a society is a far better method of justice.

And our ethical standards and values state that a murderer shouldn't be able to keep his life.

What? Do you think the working class commits more crimes just because they're naturally assholes? Crime paves the way for people to do desperate things in order to attain money or some other method of reward or escapism; in other words, the biological survival instinct. This is simple logic.

No it's not. Because white collar crimes goes against this "simple logic". The "logic" is people do whatever is easy and they know they can get away with.

That's the equivalent of legalizing beer and illegalizing 'hardcore' alcoholic beverages. It's moronic. The fact that the vast majority of smokes and drinkers aren't life-threatening addicts, despite indulging in dangerous and addicting activities, proves that the majority of people are capable of responsibly utilizing potentially harmful substances. There is no indication that casual, restrained usage of hard drugs like heroin causes death. Addiction is an anomaly, and even that anomaly should not be punished; rather, if an individual wants to make up for his past mistakes and faults, then we should create more effective drug rehabilitation center to control dangerous drug addictions.

No, it's NOT the same thing. You don't overdose on beer. You die from hard drugs, so it's NOT the same thing. And where is this "majority" coming from? It's funny, so people are now responsible in utilizing drugs and alcohol, but when they do something evil, it's because of outside influences. And btw, heroin leads to MORE heroin, which leads to an addiction, which leads to death. Welcome to the reality of hard drugs. Here's that word again, rehabilitation. Lets not punish the person for using drugs which are illegal, lets just rehabilitate them! People that abuse drugs end up committing other, more severe crimes.

And even if people don't choose to be rehabilitated, then let them die. It's their life. They own themselves. It's their choice; we have no right to tell another person how to lead their life.

Rofl. Right, this is the last liberal rhetoric I haven't heard which I was waiting for. It's their life? Their choice? So it's their choice to lead their own lives, but when they take someone else's life, it's society's fault. You're racking up the double standards here. We have a right to tell people how to live their lives. It's called laws. It's called the constitution. And those people forfeit their lives when they take someone else's.

The individual's values and traditions are highly influences by societal values and traditions. Excessive, rampant capitalism and materialism leads to greed and corruption.

Oh right. Lets switch to socialism/capitalism. That worked wonders for the Soviet Union.

... what the ****? I've explained the psychology of white collar crime. Most of the wealthy do not do so because they interpret traditional values in a different manner and are capable of employing restraint, both because of their personal choices and their psychology.

Ah right. When it's not a societal factor, it's a misinterpretation. Lets just keep the blame game going. There's NO way you don't believe people are inherently good because this is what you're basically saying. Personal choice comes first. Psychology and societal factors come after.

Except for the fact that states with the death penalty often have a higher crime rate than states that don't. If you perceive the institution as being authoritarian and violent, then this paves the way for urges of rebellion and 'counter-violence'.

Violence does not end violence.


Justice is necessary. Capital Punishment is justice for the victim. You can claim that "it won't bring anyone back", but you'll be hard pressed to find a victim's family that doesn't want the killer dead.

I agree that people choose what they do, but what they choose is based upon socioeconomic factors. One is the alter-able factor and the other is not. What should we focus upon?

No, it's based on personal choices with societal factors maybe playing a small role. Societal factors are NOT substituted for personal choice.

Originally posted by Eminence
I missed this before, but could you tell me which of his arguments you sympathize with?

The ones you choose to ignore, instead electing to troll.

Originally posted by Nephthys
Except there's no proof of this, because we can never know the numbers of people who actually were deterred, there's no way to measure it.

What? Are you cereal?

That was one of the less intelligent things I've read today.

Edit:
DS, you've said several times that capital punishment isn't wrong because it isn't murder. I'm sure that you're aware that murder is simply the unlawful taking of someone's life. (Therefore state killing can never be murder.) It seems foolish to base your estimations of right and wrong by the law- after all, it was legal to own slaves for centuries. That doesn't mean that it was right.

Originally posted by Red Nemesis
Setting aside the moral and religious objections to the death penalty, at least for a moment, I think that we should look at its social value. After all, DS has argued that it is a necessary part of the law system. As a necessary part, it would have to be effective, no?

[b]Efficacy of Capital Punishment

Sadly (at least for the vengeful "pro-lifers" that support it), the death penalty does not serve as a deterrent for crime. States without the death penalty have had consistently lower murder rates than those with the death penalty.

(I'm sure I've posted these before but facts can never be over used.)

Also, the death penalty if far more expensive than life in prison:
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/costs-death-penalty
This page has a multitude of sources that support this fact.

So: it is expensive and it does not prevent future crimes. The only possible motivation for this practice, then, is revenge. You can harp all you want about 'personal responsibility' but jail is also a means of holding criminals responsible for their actions.

Also, the legal system gets it wrong all the time. There have been lots of people sent to Death Row who ended up being declared innocent, especially since DNA testing became admissible. The idea that we might kill someone who hasn't done anything wrong terrifies me. [/B]

It's not revenge. Revenge would be me killing you for killing someone I Know. Justice would be having a trial and condemning a man to death for his guilt. Justice for the family's victims. And the whole "innocence" thing makes up about 1% of the population. I guess we should abolish the entire system because 1%, or hell even less than 1% are innnocent.

And you fail to understand that jail for criminals is a second home. They have their fun for as long as they're there. I don't know where you get this idea of "jail is hell", because it really isn't for habitual criminals.

Originally posted by Red Nemesis
The good potheads of the GDF say that LSD isn't addictive and that one cannot overdose on it.
I'd love to see the study.

Those would be the ones that say
[list=a]
[*]There is a god
and
[*]Torture is great

[/list]

I can't imagine that Gideon would be as absolute on those as DS has been. I already know his stance on God, it's the rest that I'm curious about.

Originally posted by Eminence
I'd love to see the study.

I can't imagine that Gideon would be as absolute on those as DS has been. I already know his stance on God, it's the rest that I'm curious about.

I don't recall being absolute on torture. When did we even talk about torture? And I am as "absolute" for a G-d as you are against one. Two different ends of the spectrum.

"[I]t is better and more satisfactory to acquit a thousand guilty persons than to put a single innocent one to death."

Edit: did we really not talk about torture yet? I have like a bajillion sources for that- my AP world history teacher supports guantanamo (supported) and the college teacher's assistant says that '[he]'d take' waterboarding.

Yeah. I'd do it.

Originally posted by Red Nemesis
"[I]t is better and more satisfactory to acquit a thousand guilty persons than to put a single innocent one to death."

I'n not aware of that quote as it pertains to death although that's obviously logical. Please give me stats over the past 50 years, how many people executed were innocent, and at what time did their innocence become aware in the criminal justice system. That means not 20 years later when new technology comes out. Not a good argument to abolish the death penalty.

What? Are you cereal?

That was one of the less intelligent things I've read today.

How much have you read today?

*Shrug* It seems logical enough to me. Perhaps the death penalty does prevent alot of crimes, but we have no way of recording it. I might be wrong though, I am just regurgitating here.

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/innocence-and-death-penalty

Since 1973, 130 people in 26 states have been released from death row with evidence of their innocence.

Also:
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/innocence-list-those-freed-death-row
Average number of years between being sentenced to death and exoneration: 9.5 years

Number of cases in which DNA played a substantial factor in establishing innocence: 17

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/06/AR2007070602051.html
(This one is just one case)

That these things happen suggest that the Death Penalty is like a loose cannon: it hurts both the innocent and the guilty. Imagine if these cases hadn't had the necessarily long and drawn out (read: expensive) appeals process! There would be 130 innocent men dead. That isn't justice.

Originally posted by Nephthys
How much have you read today?

*Shrug* It seems logical enough to me. Perhaps the death penalty does prevent alot of crimes, but we have no way of recording it. I might be wrong though, I am just regurgitating here.

By comparing the crime rates of similarly demographically composed (I'm tired. Give me a break) regions with and without the DP we can see its effects. Also, the states with the DP have had higher murder rates. If it was a deterrent wouldn't it be the other way around?

Edit:http://www.truthinjustice.org/922death.htm

Now we should put up the statistics for re-offending murderer's to see if the death penalty would be worth the flaws.

Right now, I'm in the middle of some serious research and study in the Legacy of Kain series.

I'll come back to enlighten you mortals on your moral and legal deficits soon enough.

My breath is baited.

Legacy of Kain the most liberal game series ever. Gideon must hate himself.

Edit: Y'know, that's legitimately tiring. I have no idea how people do it.