irreversible

I don't think being a humanist means that you must be a heart-bleeding over-compassionate liberal who is concerned too much about well-being of criminal thugs. I am all for compassion and humaneness and all that gay stuff (just being sarcastic), but I ain't extending my compassion to low-level life forms like murderers and rapists. So, if I don't oppose DP, does it exclude me from the humanist crowd?

username

No.

It just means you are ignorant.

Several states have placed moratoriums on the death penalty after evidence surfaced that some people had been executed by the state that DNA evidence had proven were not guilty. In other words innocent people were being killed by the government.

The problem with the death penalty isn't that there aren't people deserving of the death penalty. The problem is with who decides a person is or is not worthy of the death penalty.

In the US a jury determines guilt or non guilt (an imperfect judgment) and then a judge determines the punishment. In some cases the jury decides whether the death penalty is an option available to the judge.

From start to finish this is an imperfect process and mistakes are made.

If a jury convicts a person of a crime they did not commit the person remains alive to contest the verdict. If a judge sentences a person to death, once they are dead that pretty much ends any meaningful appeals process.

In my view no government should ever be handed the power to kill anyone by the citizens the government (supposedly) represents.

Mathew Goldstein

The Humanist Manifesto III Humanism and Its Aspirations. It is short, just 1 page, and expresses general principles.

ashe

If you execute a person, you are essentially saying it was too costly to keep that person alive. Therefore, you are putting a price on human life which most people would consider priceless.

Another view I might offer is that no person asks to be without compassion, no person asks to be cold-hearted, no person asks to be psychotic or delusional. Therefore, although we cannot allow such people to walk around freely violating the rights of others, we shouldn't take their lives as they have their own rights. We should violate the rights of ANY human being to the minimum degree possible to guarantee that everyone's rights are preserved.

To my mind, "quarantining" the violator of rights is the best way to ensure that person's rights as well as the rights of others.

ashe

To my mind, yes. You cannot be a humanist without compassion for "low-level life forms".

It just shows you are having difficulty in seeing the plight of the rapist, who is essentially incapable of existing in a rights-based society. Such a person requires jail time to continue to exist.

It's not fair that people are born with criminal minds and weakness of character. No one asks for weakness - but they are born with it or they develop it through their environment. Therefore, when a member of our society demonstrates horrible weakness, we should separate them from society to protect ourselves and them.

Perhaps because you do not understand this point of view, you can only see liberals as "soft" and "bleeding-heart"... actually, our behaviour is quite consistent within a rights-based societal framework.

irreversible

Well, why should taxpayers pay for their comfortable stay in jail with cable TV and ice-cream for desert? I say, let's rid of them to decrease the surplus of population.

Most criminal commit crimes with full awareness of their actions. Being born in a 'bad' environment is not an excuse. Basically, you deny personal responsibility and blame someone else for their crimes. That's very typical of liberals.

Yes, you are mostly soft and bleeding-heart. One of anti-gun web sites argues that it's wrong to defend yourself against armed robber who breaks into your house because the robber might a poor guy looking for food (huh?). When a person invades my house, I view it as imminent threat to my safety and I don't have time to negotiate peace agreements or figure out whether or not the guy is looking for food. I will kill the bastard right where he stands. (Bah, I must be a right-wing Nazi then! ) So, in this case liberals act like moral cowards who are unwilling to defend themselves, but willing to be compassionate towards criminals.

username

Open minded people simply do not believe in 'bad seed'. That is to say we do not believe a person is born bad due to natural circumstances such as genetic transfer. People do bad things due to how they have been conditioned. A rapist most certainly does something wrong, but why? Were they born to be a rapist or were they raised (perhaps unintentionally) to be a rapist?

Trying to understand what makes a person a rapist isn't excusing rape.

Well, there are many reasons for a person to commit a crime. One reason is being an asshole and the other is being poor and not having enough to eat.

You have said that you are comfortable shooting a poor person looking for something to eat simply because they are trespassing on what you regard as private property. While I am reluctantly OK with shooting an intruder, I would really hope that the intruder was a bad person and not just someone looking for a meal for themselves or their spouse/kids.

I would like to believe I live in a world where everyone would feel bad about shooting an intruder who was really just someone looking for food.

Unfortunately I am not that naive.

michael1111

you are not a humanist if you support capital punishment.

a humanist is about understanding life and not destroying it. a humanist seeks to understand all aspects that go into making humanity what it is and then works to improve on our being. there is no understanding in the death penalty and the action is equal to all killing. it says that killing people is sometimes necessary, but it is the desire to see the human life expressed to its full potential that makes the humanist. without understanding what makes us kill, we will just keep on killing, no matter what the reason.

merriam-webster itself says:

"stresses an individual's dignity and worth and capacity for self-realization through reason"

and the death penalty ain't that.

michael

michael1111

and what matters more than what they did, is what you do.

Stacey Melissa

While I disagree with capital punishment, your stance on the matter wouldn't keep me from calling you a humanist. Last I checked, they didn't have any doctrine that human life is sacred.

Mod hat: This topic would better fit in MF&P, so off it goes...