Death sentence : an eye for an eye

[marharth]

But the trouble with that HY is that you have to be completely sure that the criminal actually committed said crime. Giving the criminal a large degree of rights is something that is pretty much required to be sure they are innocent.

 

I do think that if a criminal is proved guilty beyond reasonable doubt, they should have to fund the victim. I have said this before. I think that it will help the victim far more for the criminal to actually do something for the victim and their family, then to get emotional satisfaction from killing said criminal.

 

I am not just concerned about the mortality of killing a person for committing a crime, but I also also concerned on the small off chance that anyone of these people could be innocent. I would be far better off knowing that a convicted person was locked up for life with a chance for redemption then having to wonder if the convicted person was actually innocent.

[HeyYou]

But the trouble with that HY is that you have to be completely sure that the criminal actually committed said crime. Giving the criminal a large degree of rights is something that is pretty much required to be sure they are innocent.

 

I do think that if a criminal is proved guilty beyond reasonable doubt, they should have to fund the victim. I have said this before. I think that it will help the victim far more for the criminal to actually do something for the victim and their family, then to get emotional satisfaction from killing said criminal.

 

I am not just concerned about the mortality of killing a person for committing a crime, but I also also concerned on the small off chance that anyone of these people could be innocent. I would be far better off knowing that a convicted person was locked up for life with a chance for redemption then having to wonder if the convicted person was actually innocent.

 

Had the old man killed her, I would have killed him myself. No trial, no jury, no "humane" lethal injection. He woulda got a bullet in the head for his troubles. He would no longer be a threat to anyone. And, of course, I would go to prison. At that point, I would not have cared. Maybe the state would execute me, as it most certainly would be premeditated murder, and taken me out of my misery. (misery that I would NOT be feeling because I killed someone) I really wouldn't have a problem with that. In fact, I might even go so far as to forgo any number of appeals.

 

Jury trials, by their very nature, have a certain element of chance in being wrong. However, FAR more people get away with murder, for some truly stupid reason, than innocents get executed. (19 proven innocent since 1978, I think it was.... I don't recall if all/any of them were executed, I know at least a couple were.) All depends on who gets the better/more dedicated lawyer.

 

As for the convicted criminal funding the victim in some fashion, I wholeheartedly concur. Too bad that making the convicts do any manner of work has been deemed unconstitutional.... it's a violation of their rights......

 

Personally, I think the convicts have too many rights. The very fact that you ARE in prison should nullify ANY rights they have. They are in prison for a crime they committed. They gave up ALL of their rights at that time.

 

@Ghogiel: So, by your reasoning, no one is responsible for ANY of their actions? If that is the case, why do we have a justice system at all??

[Aurielius]

What does choice have to do with it?

Absolutely nothing.

So no one is responsible for any of their own actions?

Trying to construct a reality where you are the actual concious author of your actions is quite problematic. If you think you can in the next moment choose vanilla and instead of chocolate, and the source of that action stops entirely are your concious self.

Causality argues you can't actually separate cause and effect and random chance from a persons actions.

Stating someone has choice and suggesting that they have made aforethought, doesn't make it so.

1) Man arms himself...choice made..he could have not armed himself.

2) Man breaks into your house....choice made....he could have walked on down the street.

3) Man sees you inside and shoots you...choice made...he could have fled the scene.

No amount of sophistry changes any of those nexus points of decision making. Stating someone is not responsible for their actions does not make it so either but more than two millennia of legal precedent favors the accountability concept.

In either determinism or random event, those options cannot consciously be chosen instead in any case. I don't think anyone can point and say there is a moment where someone is the nexus point of conscious decision making.

 

All of those choices you are saying that the person is consciously the author of those choices, and in the next moment he could have chosen a different path. At the same time disregarding how the entire neuro physiological responses arise on how the unconscious brain actually makes a choice before you are even consciously aware you made it, How thoughts are the product of an unconscious web of neurons and chemicals, which you have no concious influence over, right down to cause and effect and preceding events shaping every facet of the universe.

 

If you can actually describe a reality where the choices you make are entirely formed and arise in your concious mind, and that process is self contained and stops in your conscious mind, then have at it. And come on, distracting with accusations of sophistry, is a rhetoric that seems very sophist.. when you are still merely asserting something is so, you haven't yet made any sort of argument for the case of free will. How droll. :thumbsup:

By your rationale no one is accountable for anything that they do. You have not refuted any of the three possible choices but just relied on the unconscious mind as the operating culprit. I cannot answer for you but I am certain that no act of violence that I have ever implemented was ever done unconsciously, I clearly had a choice and made it. That you feel that your unconscious mind is the governing force in your reality is intellectual sophistry and hardly moves the droll meter a degree. I assure you, if you broke into my home with deadly intent I would consciously shoot you to the best of my ability and then consciously call the police while you lay unconscious on the floor bleeding out.

[Ghogiel]

Aurelius, you are still just asserting. you have yet to demonstrate anything.

 

science is sophism. :psyduck:

 

 

@Ghogiel: So, by your reasoning, no one is responsible for ANY of their actions? If that is the case, why do we have a justice system at all??

It's not my reasoning. I'm not that old or that smart.

 

Determinism isn't fatalism. What it might do is promote compassion and decrease hatred. But it wouldn't stop you fearing a deranged killer. You can clearly see that having a judicial system that promotes safety and security for the majority is a good thing, even if you think there is more to free will than meets the eye and we might all fundementally just be at the whim of universal soap.

Edited April 23, 2012 by Ghogiel

[HeyYou]

Aurelius, you are still just asserting. you have yet to demonstrate anything.

 

science is sophism. :psyduck:

 

@Ghogiel: So, by your reasoning, no one is responsible for ANY of their actions? If that is the case, why do we have a justice system at all??

It's not my reasoning. I'm not that old or that smart.

 

Determinism isn't fatalism. What it might do is promote compassion and decrease hatred. But it wouldn't stop you fearing a deranged killer. You can clearly see that having a judicial system that promotes safety and security for the majority is a good thing, even if you think there is more to free will than meets the eye and we might all fundementally just be at the whim of universal soap.

 

See, that's the trouble with arguing human behavior. There really isn't any way to PROVE anything. Sure, A might just be 'asserting', but then, so are the folks that put forth the theory that you apparently buy into. If that theory were ever widely accepted, then it would become pointless to have trials for any particular crime, as no one could be found guilty, as it was pre-determined that they were going to take the action in question. I don't find that very comforting. (nor do I buy it.) I am sure if I tried to explain to the cop that I was speeding, because it was predetermined that I do so..... he would laugh all the harder as he wrote me the ticket......

 

In any event, as a society, we MUST hold folks accountable for their actions. (unless, of course, their action was taken as a part of their course of work as some elected official...........:D) Do the crime, do the time. Unfortunate that we seem to be getting away from that the last couple decades...... (and look where it has gotten us.... but, that's a debate for another thread. :D)

[Ghogiel]

Aurelius, you are still just asserting. you have yet to demonstrate anything.

 

science is sophism. :psyduck:

 

@Ghogiel: So, by your reasoning, no one is responsible for ANY of their actions? If that is the case, why do we have a justice system at all??

It's not my reasoning. I'm not that old or that smart.

 

Determinism isn't fatalism. What it might do is promote compassion and decrease hatred. But it wouldn't stop you fearing a deranged killer. You can clearly see that having a judicial system that promotes safety and security for the majority is a good thing, even if you think there is more to free will than meets the eye and we might all fundementally just be at the whim of universal soap.

 

See, that's the trouble with arguing human behavior. There really isn't any way to PROVE anything. Sure, A might just be 'asserting', but then, so are the folks that put forth the theory that you apparently buy into. If that theory were ever widely accepted, then it would become pointless to have trials for any particular crime, as no one could be found guilty, as it was pre-determined that they were going to take the action in question. I don't find that very comforting. (nor do I buy it.) I am sure if I tried to explain to the cop that I was speeding, because it was predetermined that I do so..... he would laugh all the harder as he wrote me the ticket......

 

In any event, as a society, we MUST hold folks accountable for their actions. (unless, of course, their action was taken as a part of their course of work as some elected official...........:D) Do the crime, do the time. Unfortunate that we seem to be getting away from that the last couple decades...... (and look where it has gotten us.... but, that's a debate for another thread. :D)

I am willing to hear anything that on the subject of free will. I have only come across scientific evidence that makes the concept of free will rather broken to various degrees, it's been debated since Marcus Aurelius, and science has made some great strides recently.. with demonstrable evidence to boot. In both the fields of physics and neuro science.

 

But it in any case it wouldn't render criminal proceedings defunct.

 

On that subject, yes in any event society must hold people accountable for their actions. It doesn't matter where the intent comes from. If someone is running around killing innocent people, it is worth rectifying that situation. The source of the intent is only a question of better understanding of where the intent comes from, and nothing more.

Edited April 23, 2012 by Ghogiel

[myrmaad]

....:D) Do the crime, do the time. Unfortunate that we seem to be getting away from that the last couple decades...... (and look where it has gotten us.... but, that's a debate for another thread. :D)

In what world have we "gotten away from" that?

 

 

In the real world, the fact is we have the largest and most expensive prison system in the world because we are herding them in at unprecedented levels.

 

I've had crimes committed against me too, not my "girlfriend", me. And yet in order to have a sensible, thoughtful, rational discussion I can't focus on that, though I can certainly include what I learned from those incidents in my thought process.

 

The reason why the perp in your case is running around loose, is that we've filled the jails up with young mostly black or minority drug abusers, so there's no room for real criminals. Plus a lot of drug offenders are real criminals but they are now treated just like innocuous drug offenders. A young single man who has fathered no children is much less a danger to society when he smokes dope than the one who sells/distributes, less a danger than the one who has fathered children and is now a deadbeat dad on drugs, less dangerous than the single mother who for some reason keeps custody of her kids while repeatedly going to jail for drug offenses and tricking for a living, less of a danger then the old white guy who doesn't do drugs but killed someone while he was drunk driving, less a danger than a Bernie Madoff, less a danger than Michael Milken..

 

I understand your anger but I think it's misdirected and not going to get us anywhere we want to go.

 

 

How about we take the Free Will debate to a new thread, it's just too deep and I think muddies this one.

[HeyYou]

....:D) Do the crime, do the time. Unfortunate that we seem to be getting away from that the last couple decades...... (and look where it has gotten us.... but, that's a debate for another thread. :D)

In what world have we "gotten away from" that?

 

 

In the real world, the fact is we have the largest and most expensive prison system in the world because we are herding them in at unprecedented levels.

 

I've had crimes committed against me too, not my "girlfriend", me. And yet in order to have a sensible, thoughtful, rational discussion I can't focus on that, though I can certainly include what I learned from those incidents in my thought process.

 

The reason why the perp in your case is running around loose, is that we've filled the jails up with young mostly black or minority drug abusers, so there's no room for real criminals. Plus a lot of drug offenders are real criminals but they are now treated just like innocuous drug offenders. A young single man who has fathered no children is much less a danger to society when he smokes dope than the one who sells/distributes, less a danger than the one who has fathered children and is now a deadbeat dad on drugs, less dangerous than the single mother who for some reason keeps custody of her kids while repeatedly going to jail for drug offenses and tricking for a living, less of a danger then the old white guy who doesn't do drugs but killed someone while he was drunk driving, less a danger than a Bernie Madoff, less a danger than Michael Milken..

 

I understand your anger but I think it's misdirected and not going to get us anywhere we want to go.

 

 

How about we take the Free Will debate to a new thread, it's just too deep and I think muddies this one.

 

Around here, (and other places I have been to....) Personal Responsibility seems to have gone by the wayside. I see it in schools, I see it in the court system. Criminals here, are more likely to be offered a plea bargain, than they are to go to trial. Just recently, a man charged with multiple accounts of soliciting underage girls for sex, (and hitting one with a taser.....) and a selection of other charges..... was plea-bargained down to a single misdemeanor charge, that would NOT require him to register as a sex offender....... He did the crime, but, it would appear that he isn't going to do any time for it..... even though he so richly deserves it.

 

This is probably a debate for another thread though too. :D

 

I too have been a direct victim of various crimes, I just used the quick example of my girlfriend, as that one was foremost in my mind.......

[marharth]

Let me ask you this. Would you rather have 20 murderers get away without a execution, or have 5 innocent people killed?

[HeyYou]

Let me ask you this. Would you rather have 20 murderers get away without a execution, or have 5 innocent people killed?

 

I doubt that ratio is that good. it's more like 50 to 1......

 

I would rather that NO innocent folks were executed.... however..... I know for a fact that if we have the death penalty, it's gonna happen, just like innocent folks are convicted of assorted other crimes every day.