My issue with the death penalty(rant)

[PoBoy321]

First of all:

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SHIFTING THE ONUS OF PROOF: This is when your opponent makes a claim, provides no evidence for it, and then expects you to find evidence of it. Your opponent is making the claim, so he should logically have to provide evidence. Shifting the onus (or burden) of proof to you is a fallacy and a very low tactic to engage in. Often, a Creationist will make phantom claims and, then, act like they are common knowledge and he shouldn't have to back them up.

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Second of all, you have still refused to answer my question. What purpose, if any, does that picture have in this discussion?

As far as I can tell, all you've proven is that a heinous crime happened to innocent people, no one's debating that fact. What you have done, however, has been to show us evidence of what we already know, expect us to draw YOUR conclusion, then defend our position when you disagree with it.

[whiskeytown]

except then we end up executing innocent people.

I have a friend who got a guy off death row, in part because he was able to take some time to get his story written. (He was an investigative journalist)

Your idea would have killed an innocent man before he got a new trial. I find that obscene and your ideas repungant.

The death penalty is ancient history - it belongs with child labor and slavery as the product of an age when sleeping with one's own sister was legal and a black man could be lynched for looking at a white woman. It lumps us in with Islamic States and 3rd world countries instead of putting us in with the rest of civilized society.

Stanley Willams did some bad [censored]....he's paid for his crime for 20 years. Now he can't keep repaying society, which is too bad - cause he really was repaying society back by taking his anti-gang message to the inmates in prison and members on the outside

RB

[Exsubmariner]

I haven't disagreed with myself at all. I really don't understand where you came up with that one. But, it's pretty funny.

I get the impression, though, that you have a vested interest in proving here that these pictures have no relevance, when they plainly do. Another tactic you learn in debate class is to discredit presented evidence as irrelevant, especially if it undermines your position, and I believe that is what you are trying desparately to do here.

[coffeecrazy1]

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except then we end up executing innocent people.

I have a friend who got a guy off death row, in part because he was able to take some time to get his story written. (He was an investigative journalist)

Your idea would have killed an innocent man before he got a new trial.

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1)I defy you to tell me where I prescribed executing innocent people.
2)I also never said I thought the appeals process should be less thorough...I was saying I thought it should either be more efficient, or keep it the same way, but have the politicians be upfront and honest about the fact that long years of thinking about your impending death is part of the punishment.

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I find that obscene and your ideas repungant.

[/ QUOTE ] That's fine. You and I tend to disagree about most things.

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The death penalty is ancient history - it belongs with child labor and slavery as the product of an age when sleeping with one's own sister was legal and a black man could be lynched for looking at a white woman.

[/ QUOTE ] Again, I disagree that the death penalty is in that same category.

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It lumps us in with Islamic States and 3rd world countries instead of putting us in with the rest of civilized society.

[/ QUOTE ] By and large, yes...but haven't we already showed that we're not exactly the ONLY civilized place with the death penalty? Isn't Japan civilized, for one? Regardless...you're essentially making the "everyone's doing it, so why can't we?" argument...which is probably not the best strategy for public policy.

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Stanley Willams did some bad [censored]....he's paid for his crime for 20 years. Now he can't keep repaying society, which is too bad - cause he really was repaying society back by taking his anti-gang message to the inmates in prison and members on the outside

[/ QUOTE ] Yes...but the time Stanley Williams did was not the punishment. As horrible as it is, the time he spent on death row was ancillary and irrelevant to the nature of his actual punishment. A jury decided that he was guilty of the most heinous type of murder(special circumstance), and that his punishment was the forfeiture of his life. If he was innocent, or the jury committed some error of law, that's one thing. But not even Tookie's supporters have provided any hard evidence that he did not deserve what he got(the death part, anyway).

And...let's be upfront about something else. We don't send people to jail because they need to "repay society." We send them to jail because they violated a law, and must be punished for that violation. Stanley Williams' actions on death row, while noble, are irrelevant to the completion of his sentence.

Stanley Williams brutally murdered four people. From the way it sounds, you think that each of them deserved five years of his time. Surely you don't mean that...

[PoBoy321]

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I haven't disagreed with myself at all.

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I never said you did.

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I get the impression, though, that you have a vested interest in proving here that these pictures have no relevance, when they plainly do. Another tactic you learn in debate class is to discredit presented evidence as irrelevant, especially if it undermines your position, and I believe that is what you are trying desparately to do here.

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OK, for the umpteenth time because you're clearly too dense to understand this question, what, exactly, are those pictures meant to be evidence of? I know that a horrible crime was commited. Everyone knows that. How are those pictures proof of the justness of the death penalty?

Hopefully you'll just answer the question because I'm not responding to anything else you have to say in this thread because you are just too much of an idiot troll to have any kind of intelligent debate.

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

Stanley Willams did some bad [censored]....he's paid for his crime for 20 years. Now he can't keep repaying society, which is too bad - cause he really was repaying society back by taking his anti-gang message to the inmates in prison and members on the outside

But if you are against the death penalty for moral reasons (and i have no problem with you if you are), then the above is irrelevant. It doesn't matter if Tookie was doing good or if he was bragging about how much fun he had killing people. If you think it's wrong for the state to kill, then what the convicted killers do after sentencing should have zero impact on that.


I have a friend who got a guy off death row, in part because he was able to take some time to get his story written.

As an aside, how many investigative journalists currently expend herculean efforts to exonerate people who have been sentenced to life?

It lumps us in with Islamic States and 3rd world countries instead of putting us in with the rest of civilized society.

Don't forget China. However, I disagree with this despite my amivalence about capital punishment. Our process of jurisprudence is what differentiates us from all other nations. The lengthy appeal process and the other freedoms that allow citizens groups to dig up exonerating evidence to get people off Death Row clearly show we are NOT in the same league as the countries you mention.

Philosophically, I have a problem with granting the State the power to execute. Personally, I have no sympathy with the likes of Stanley Williams, and while I would not protest if the US eliminated capital punishment, Tookie got precisely what he deserved.

[etgryphon]

Well, here is your chance...

Get all the people that think like you and petition your state government to stop executing criminals and convert it to life w/out parole.

But if the citizens of the state want to have the death penalty, then they should have it.

If you believe in the increadable arrogant "evolving levels of decency" argument as it pertains to the judical system, you should be ashamed because we have a system to do that. Its called the legislature. We have the legislature as the means to "evolve" or "devolve" what society wants...

-Gryph

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

Its called the legislature. We have the legislature as the means to "evolve" or "devolve" what society wants...

Not necessarily. As a libertarian, I do not believe everything should be left up to the whim of 50% + 1. 3 wolves and a sheep should not have the right to vote on what's for dinner.

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But if the citizens of the state want to have the death penalty, then they should have it.

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So if the citizens of my state want to have a ritual stoning like in "The Lottery", they should have it?

[Borodog]

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Its called the legislature. We have the legislature as the means to "evolve" or "devolve" what society wants...

Not necessarily. As a libertarian, I do not believe everything should be left up to the whim of 50% + 1. 3 wolves and a sheep should not have the right to vote on what's for dinner.

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Someday you'll come to the realization that there is nothing, at least nothing of importance, that should be left up to majority vote.

Democracy is a wonderful thing--if you're voting on something of no importance, like what to have for dinner or what movie to see, and compliance is voluntary. E.g. you can choose to go to a different restaurant than what the majority chooses, or go to a different film.

Democracy is a terrible thing when compliance is compulsory and you're voting on anything important. When you're voting on who gets to keep their property, or who get lynched, democracy sucks.