Post #293,548
9/24/07 4:49:17 PM
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Guess I Should Have Said 'Deterrent Effect'
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Post #293,573
9/24/07 11:26:51 PM
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The deterrant effect is questionable.
Even in 'enlightened America'. It's known to have been an open question for a long time. The US at least tries to go through the motions of not executing anyone unnecessarily, but can anyone say that about Iran? :-/
It strikes me that the US is the wrong sort of society, by-and-large, for the deterrent effect of capital punishment to have any distinct effect. People are used to questioning government policy and legal decisions they disagree with, for a start, and the US is not really a society that lives in abject fear of what it's government can do.
Wade.
Is it enough to love
Is it enough to breathe
Somebody rip my heart out
And leave me here to bleed
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Is it enough to die
Somebody save my life
I'd rather be Anything but Ordinary
Please
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-- "Anything but Ordinary" by Avril Lavigne. | · my ·
· [link|http://staticsan.livejournal.com/|blog] ·
· [link|http://yceran.org/|website] · |
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Post #293,579
9/25/07 8:36:30 AM
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Not yet.
...the US is not really a society that lives in abject fear of what it's government can do. It's being worked on. Give 'em time -----------------------------------------
Atheism is a religion in the same sense that not collecting stamps is a hobby.
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Post #293,582
9/25/07 9:21:54 AM
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While I know
this is a semi-light-hearted stab, it really is astounding how much we generally act as the spoiled rich kid. This is not directed simply at your post...but just a general observation that sometimes, as ?bad? as we think it is here...its alot worse for folks in other parts of the world.
[link|http://www.onecountry.org/e172/e17207as_Iran_Arrests_story.htm|http://www.onecountr...Arrests_story.htm]
[link|http://chronicle.com/news/article/2652/iranian-police-beat-up-and-arrest-15-student-activists-on-university-campus|http://chronicle.com...university-campus]
[link|http://www.nysun.com/article/63307|http://www.nysun.com/article/63307]
[link|http://frontpagemagazine.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=293D106D-F66D-4DA9-8B8D-679921680815|http://frontpagemaga...8B8D-679921680815]
Whatever you think of this government...we're not in the habit of sending the army into MIT, Harvard, Yale etc to shoot kids because they happen to be Muslim, or their CD collection contains something other than Ahmadinejad's Greatest Hits. And tacking a "yet" onto that is a bit silly, don't you think?
Mind you, it doesn't stop somebody else from walking in with 6 clips and doing the job for them...but thats a different story :-/
Too much of today's music is fashionable crap dressed as artistry.Adrian Belew
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Post #293,588
9/25/07 9:43:09 AM
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Invalid comparison, perhaps?
The comparison shouldn't be to other countries, but to how the USA used to be. After all, I think the point Silverlock was making was about trends in the US (over time); not comparisons to other countries.
I could be wrong, though. ;-)
Be that as it may, the [link|http://www.hrw.org/doc/?t=usa_antiterror|trends under Bush] don't look especially promising for liberty and the rule of law in the USA.
Cheers,
Scott.
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Post #293,590
9/25/07 9:46:44 AM
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I was going to say
At the rate we're going, we'll be back to public executions - that's a deterrent!
:-O
Smile,
Amy
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Post #293,593
9/25/07 10:06:11 AM
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Friday Night's Fun Night!
Too much of today's music is fashionable crap dressed as artistry.Adrian Belew
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Post #293,592
9/25/07 10:05:30 AM
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From that perspective, yes it is
which is why I tried to qualify it somewhat...there are times when we, collectively, bitch about how bad things are getting...when we really don't know what bad is and haven't in quite some time and most likely won't ever (regardless of what you think of Bush and/or Republicans)
And yes, I agree the trends in the US are not great, but, for example, your link to HRW shows complaints about roughly 3 dozen "terrorists" (I know, quotes are because of the "how do we know if they're kept in secret") captured and detained over several years and Gitmo, folks caught in a theater of operations. The links provided for Iran show that they are targeting kids and taking in those kind of numbers in one night...and in many cases doing so for listening to "non-sanctioned" music, or reading the wrong books, or believing in the wrong deity.
And to add to that, they are politicizing the educational systems so that it will continue indefinitely. What would the left do here if Bush even THOUGHT of replacing the Dean of Harvard with, say, Karl Rove ;-)
Too much of today's music is fashionable crap dressed as artistry.Adrian Belew
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Post #293,611
9/25/07 11:17:48 PM
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There are two arguments here.
The first is how does the US currently compare to how it used to be, and the second is how it compares to other regimes?
The second is perhaps easier to answer. And you don't have to look at Iran: try Burma, or Zimbabwe. Government control over what they approve and disapprove of is considerably greater in those countries than in the US. But the comparison works both ways. The current protests in Burma are because they can see how much comparitively better a society like the US is over their own. If the current Burmese government wants to quell such protests, as they have in the past, they would use far more force against citizens far more afraid of them than in the US. If, has been alleged, Bush et al want a state like that, there is obviously something holding them back from Just Doing It! :-O
The first one becomes a lesson history. Has the US ever been a place where capital punishment was an effective deterrent? I'd say yes, because capital punishment has been around a long long time. The society that founded the US would have believed in that deterrent effect.
Wade.
Is it enough to love
Is it enough to breathe
Somebody rip my heart out
And leave me here to bleed
| |
Is it enough to die
Somebody save my life
I'd rather be Anything but Ordinary
Please
|
-- "Anything but Ordinary" by Avril Lavigne. | · my ·
· [link|http://staticsan.livejournal.com/|blog] ·
· [link|http://yceran.org/|website] · |
|
Post #293,616
9/25/07 11:40:14 PM
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See #293615. :-)
[link|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=293615|#293615].
The Supreme Court opinion in Furman v. Georgia addresses some of those issues. I think we have the death penalty because we (always?) had the death penalty - it was part of the American fabric like having firearms [link|http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?did=199|from the beginning].
Cheers,
Scott.
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Post #293,615
9/25/07 11:33:59 PM
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Most death sentences in the US are for murder, etc.
Federal death sentences are very rare. There have only been [link|http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:tHZ4pUDeERMJ:www.bop.gov/about/history/execchart.jsp+federal+executions&hl=en&client=firefox-a&gl=us&strip=1|37 Federal Executions] since 1927.
The sales job for the death penalty as a deterrent often points to the Bible (in covert ways if necessary), and the protection of innocents. Those who advocate it often are distrustful of the federal government, believe it or not.
Murder is quite often a crime of passion. Someone gets angry and does something in the spur of the moment. In that moment, they're only thinking about their anger. They're not thinking about 10 minutes in the future or next week. They're certainly not thinking about a death penalty versus life in prison or whatever. In that respect, there is no deterrent. For premeditated murder, there is probably only limited deterrent effect as the murderer is most likely concentrating on not getting caught. IOW, more and better investigators is probably a better deterrent than the needle.
Justice White discussed the obvious limitations in deterrence when punishments are rarely applied in his [link|http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0408_0238_ZC3.html|concurring opinion in Furman v. Georgia] (which outlawed the death penalty in the US (for a time)).
I'm ambivalent about the death penalty myself. I think a strong case can be made that civilized societies have many good reasons to give it up. But I could be persuaded that in some cases (e.g. [link|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pol_Pot|Pol Pot], [link|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Stalin|Stalin], and those responsible for the [link|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwandan_Genocide|Rwandan Genocide]), the ultimate punishment may appropriate. How to apply it fairly, if it is applied, is the issue.
Cheers,
Scott.
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Post #293,635
9/26/07 8:19:06 AM
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Killing is wrong. So let's kill those who kill.
Hmm, may be a slight disconnect there.
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Atheism is a religion in the same sense that not collecting stamps is a hobby.
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Post #293,644
9/26/07 10:20:15 AM
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murder is wrong so lets kill those who murder
Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?
Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free american and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 51 years. meep
reach me at [link|mailto:bill.oxley@cox.net|mailto:bill.oxley@cox.net]
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Post #293,645
9/26/07 11:03:01 AM
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State sanctioned killing is still killing.
If it's wrong for one, it's wrong for all.
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Atheism is a religion in the same sense that not collecting stamps is a hobby.
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Post #293,647
9/26/07 11:26:44 AM
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Appoint murderers to kill the murderers?
"Forgive them Lord. They know not what they do."
Smile,
Amy
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Post #293,650
9/26/07 11:49:52 AM
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homicide is identical to manslaughter? /me dont think so
Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?
Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free american and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 51 years. meep
reach me at [link|mailto:bill.oxley@cox.net|mailto:bill.oxley@cox.net]
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Post #293,653
9/26/07 12:04:19 PM
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Huh?
How does that relate at all to what I said?
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Atheism is a religion in the same sense that not collecting stamps is a hobby.
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Post #293,654
9/26/07 12:09:33 PM
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you claim murder and killing is the same
from that supposition you must think homicide and manslaughter is the same, which is why I posted that I dont think so.
thanx,
bill
Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?
Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free american and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 51 years. meep
reach me at [link|mailto:bill.oxley@cox.net|mailto:bill.oxley@cox.net]
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Post #293,656
9/26/07 12:23:27 PM
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Where did I claim that?
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Atheism is a religion in the same sense that not collecting stamps is a hobby.
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Post #293,659
9/26/07 12:29:45 PM
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in answer to 293644
Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?
Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free american and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 51 years. meep
reach me at [link|mailto:bill.oxley@cox.net|mailto:bill.oxley@cox.net]
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Post #293,636
9/26/07 8:31:59 AM
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I know what you mean about the ambivalence
Part of the problem with the criminal justice system is that it doesn't do much to rehabilitate criminals. Even if such a system did exist, there would still be those who are beyond rehabilitation (child molesters and serial rapists come to mind). Sometimes I feel that people like that are better off dead. (God forgive me.)
What made capital punishment a deterrent in the first place was the swiftness with which it was carried out, and the public spectacle. Besides, if one is going to commit a heinous act, it is irrational - nothing is going to be a deterrent anyway.
Just my thoughts on the matter.
Smile,
Amy
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