Neo Nazis and the Alt Right

[quote=“Timex, post:520, topic:128049, full:true”][quote=“Juan_Raigada, post:518, topic:128049”]
So if society, through a free and democratic process, determines adultery should be punishable by death, you would be ok with that?
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I would not agree with that decision, but it would be a reflection of the society’s beliefs. I don’t believe it will happen though.[/quote]

It would be a reflection of the society’s beliefs, but that does not make it less barbaric or backwards or ethical, it just reflects on the society at large.

Yet they have children and grandchildren who they visit with. They read books and paint watercolors. They exercise and read religious texts. It sounds like they live a complete life, just in a closed society partially separated from ours.

Yes, that’s why I said I would disagree with it.

[quote=“sillhouette, post:522, topic:128049, full:true”]Yet they have children and grandchildren who they visit with. They read books and paint watercolors. They exercise and read religious texts. It sounds like they live a complete life, just in a closed society partially separated from ours.
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But that has no economic benefit!

/sarcasm

What do I know, my gem has gone red. It’s into the chemical reclamation vat for me!

Why should society pay for them to live that life, when those resources could be dedicated to helping other innocent people live those lives?

Because we are humans and not robots, and we don’t judge human life by spreadsheet. Innocent vs guilt is a necessary part of law enforcement, but we also have to realize these results are wrong a large % of the time. Innocent people plead guilty. Guilty people plea and go free. Different communities exercise different, sometimes predjudicial guilt assignment. This is labeling a whole human life based on one action, the same as referring to “illegals”. The law should reflect our humanity, humility, and respect for the lives of the guilty as well as the “innocent”. As a society we casually splurge on wasteful things but want to scrimp and save by punishing the powerless more, and that is despicable.

You don’t cede any right by committing a crime (you might feel like that, but that’s not how the law works). You are denied those rights as a result of due process. It’s quite a distinction.

Taking away the right to live is a barbaric action. Or at least a backwards one, given that it correlates highly with the degree of democracy and development of a country whether it has death penalty or not. Except in (parts of) the US, that is. Which might be explained by the current state of affairs.

My big problem with capital punishment is that there is no way to redress a mistake made.

I would rather pay the costs of life imprisonment, frankly.

I’ll flip that around on you and suggest that looking at everyone on life sentences isn’t particularly valid either. Yeah we spend a ton of money on incarcerating way-too-many people for too long for shit that shouldn’t be that criminal. Known problem in America, I definitely agree, but somewhat tangential to the debate on whether it’s defensible to kill the most egregious, hardened, and incorrigible of offenders.

But you do. Because that judgement is something which HAS to take place.

Pretending like it’s not there doesn’t make the choice go away. It just means you are less likely to make a correct, rational, ethical choice. Ceding a choice to random chance is not ethical, or moral.

You believe that our criminal justice system gets it wrong a LARGE percentage of the time? I mean, the stuff you describe here isn’t going to result in a situation like we describe here. Innocent people aren’t pleading guilty to get sentenced to life without parole.[quote=“sillhouette, post:527, topic:128049”]
This is labeling a whole human life based on one action, the same as referring to “illegals”. The law should reflect our humanity, humility, and respect for the lives of the guilty as well as the “innocent”.
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In order to be sentenced to life without possibility of parole, you aren’t being judged based on “one action”.

Again, you’re making a strawman here. You’re creating a false narrative where people are being sentenced to capital punishment for lesser crimes.

If someone has no history of such crimes, and no reason to think they’d do it again, they aren’t going to be sentenced to life without parole.

I do not understand your desire to paint people who have literally murdered people, in generally horrific ways, and often multiple people, as “powerless victims”.

No man, they are not the victims.

That’s certainly part of it, but I feel that’s only a piece of the bigger problem. The bigger problem is our collective conscience. To take a life is an offense not only against the person who lost their life, but also and more subtly, an offense against the killer. They have lost some humanity, some ability to integrate properly into society with proper empathy and morals. Taking a life isn’t a zero sum game. Both parties lose, though obviously one loses more.

Considered as an individual scenario, there may be still cases that justify the damage to self from killing. I believe soldiers should be allowed to take life in defense of their country, I think doctors should be able to help terminal patients in great pain to commit assisted suicide, etc. Considered on the level of an entire society deciding to collectively take responsibility for death, the math gets murkier. The damage to collective self is even more subtle but also in a sense multiplied. We are collectively reinforcing to each other a diminished value on human life.

No, you cede those rights by committing the crime. Due process is what determines whether you actually committed it.

No it’s not.

See, I can just as easily make such declarative statements. Ultimately, they don’t constitute a real argument.

If you don’t want to be executed, don’t murder other people.

According to your constitution:

[quote]Fifth Amendment:

No person shall … be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law …

Section One of the Fourteenth Amendment:

[N]or shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law …[/quote]

The person is deprived of the rights, they rights are not ceded away.

[quote=“Timex, post:533, topic:128049, full:true”][quote=“Juan_Raigada, post:528, topic:128049”]
Taking away the right to live is a barbaric action.
[/quote]

No it’s not.

See, I can just as easily make such declarative statements. Ultimately, they don’t constitute a real argument.[/quote]

Ok, it’s an action only taken by societies that either have limited democracy and freedom or lack social and economic development. Except for one single exception.

Better?

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Just because it’s legal in some states to execute someone because of their crimes does not make it more justifiable morally, just technically. Taking someone’s life should have a urgent moral justification, far beyond “it’s inconvenient for me to pay”.

This is a nothing argument. If you’re really that keen on it, go nuts… but it’s semantically meaningless. Committing crimes results in you losing rights under our system of law.

The wording of the constitution is designed to highlight the fact that in order for you to be punished, the government needs to actually prove you committed a crime.

That’s fine, although not particularly impactful.

[quote=“Timex, post:520, topic:128049, full:true”]

No, they are voluntarily CEDING those rights, by committing capital crimes.[/quote]

It was you who got hanged up saying the criminal was ceding his/her rights and not having them being taken away. If it was semantically meaningless, why the insistence?

[quote=“Timex, post:536, topic:128049, full:true”]

No it’s not.

See, I can just as easily make such declarative statements. Ultimately, they don’t constitute a real argument.[/quote]

Definition of barbaric:

Fits quite nicely.

Again, you are just trying to make a strawman where the choice is just “kill this guy or don’t”, rather than acknowledging that the choice is really “keep this guy alive, or keep some other innocent person alive.”

Also, your quoting of the Declaration of Independence is clearly in error, as in addition to “Life”, it suggests that “Liberty” is also an inalienable right. And yet we imprison people who commit crimes.

Because the fact that committing a crime means you don’t benefit from rights you otherwise have is an important factor which matters.

Your original statement incorrectly suggested that this was merely some kind of terrible thing which was “just happening” to these poor individuals, without their control.

That is not the case. These individuals ceded their rights by violating the law. Now, you do not cede your rights merely be being ACCUSED of violating the law, which is why the constitution says what it does… but once due process has proven that you did in fact violate the law, then you face the reduction of rights that are legistlated to fit the crime.

Yup, I am anti-capital punishment on practical rather than purely ethical grounds.

In other words, I can imagine specific scenarios where I think society is ethically justified in using capital punishment. It’s just that those clear-cut scenarios are fairly rare in reality, the possibility of (irreversible) mistakes or misuse is pretty high, and the costs of keeping people imprisoned relatively low when compared to the cost of making sure there are no mistakes or misuse.