JPD

Okay. What I would like to see is the justice system operate in such a way that people are absolutely honest. This is probably a pipe dream...however, capital punishment would play a part in this. In a higher quality system it would work as a deterrent. At the moment, because the system is inadequate, it doesn't. It is what I want to see though. I do concede that the system as it stands is dysfunctional, but then I feel that about a great deal of the justice system, in particular the morally bankrupt hawks, I mean lawyers, who defend garbage.

JPD

No - your view (not you) and the regurgitated hackneyed phrases was the logical fallacies aspect. Its a bit like the broken irony meters that people post.

Blackbeard

Whatever. More importantly, are you going to start voting for representatives who oppose the death penalty as it stands today?

JPD

Which definition of whatever are you using? Its the sort of thing I would expect to hear a disgruntled teenager saying on a bus.

Well I'm in the UK. But I would vote for people who would overhaul the judicial system and introduce capital punishment for certain crimes. The system we have at the moment is a poor quality joke. Prisons are skills camps.

Blackbeard

I used "whatever" because your post made no sense whatsoever.

So prisons there actually make an attempt to teach skills to their inmates? Might actually make attempts at rehabilitation? Unlike here? OMG, how horrible! How inhumane! '

And how silly of me to never notice that you are from the UK. I need to look to the left a little more. So what would it take to overhaul the judicial system to make it perfect so that there is no chance that a wrongfully convicted man will ever be put to death? I ask because I maintain, as I said before, that as long as humans are involved, as they necessarily must be, no justice system will ever be perfect and nothing less than perfection is acceptable with regards to capital punishment.

diana

Granted: we are human and make mistakes. We can never be certain we have the right person.

The alternative, as far as I know, is life in prison, which is far more inhumane, IMO, than the death penalty--particularly if the victim is innocent.

One way or another, we will punish the wrong person.

Incidentally, an argument against human fallibility is not an argument against the death penalty; it is an argument against our jury system, if anything.

I support the death penalty at least when it comes to admitted murderers who have proven their guilt. I'm just not sure where I draw the line.

I just found myself wondering: probably, all of the posters on this thread who support the death penalty (or "aren't against it") are white; I'm one of them. However...how would I feel about the death penalty if I were black?

I'm pretty sure I'd be against it--not because I felt it was wrong to put a real criminal to death, but because the judicial process is--still--so influenced by the simple color of a person's skin that they cannot be fair. And I don't know how to make people be more fair.

(Random thoughts brought to you by avoidance of responsibility, boredom, and a nice bottle of red.)

d

arkirk

There was an earlier comment, "What on earth has this person done to deserve to keep on living?" What on earth have we done that licenses us to judge who deserves to live and who to die? Why is this an important license people feel they must have? The psychological roots of this drive to kill are perhaps the same for the original murderer and the later state murderer. Each find some person standing between them and the conditions they want to exist. The solution is to remove the road block. JUST KILL THEM.

The only problem is that goal seeking is the language of some sort of sporting game. It is not a sound basis for universal interaction between human beings. Just kill them comes up when one is frustrated and believes that he is not going to have his way if this other person lives. In all cases it comes out of fear. So the fearful state kills the fearful murderer because it fears the murderer will kill again. This is the result in some measure of 2000 years of very selfish cliquish religious definitions of justice. The fornicator was to be stoned in the old days. Now it is just the murderer, and the terrorist, and God knows what else!

trendkill

I don't think I would consider you a humanist if you support the death penalty due to a dehumanizing attitude towards criminals. I'd be inclined to say that if you would disregard the rights of humans or place a desire for retribution above the welfare of humans, you are not a humanist.

Blackbeard

Are you sure you don't want to reconsider this particular point? The innocent person, if still alive, can still hold out hope for the truth coming out and may regain at least some of his/her life as a free person. That would be worth waiting for, wouldn't it? I can't imagine any wrongly convicted innocent person saying "Just kill me, it's the more humane option".

And I feel that an argument against human fallibility IS a very valid argument against the death penalty, in fact I think it is the best. Human's are involved in the process, they are not perfect, they will make mistakes. Mistakes are unconscienable when a person's life is on the line. The next best argument, IMHO, is the racial bias issue which you brought up. You say you support the DP partly because you are white, but that you probably would feel differently if you were black. That reeks of racism, sorry to say. I know, it seems a stretch, but not really. Here's why: Imagine you said "I don't care about racial discrimination in the workplace because I am white, if I were black I may feel differently". So you admit that discrimination is a problem, yet you don't care because you are white and it doesn't affect you, or it may even work in your favor. Sure, it is a more passive form of racism, I do not believe that you are burning crosses on anyone's lawn, but still it is an attitude that perpetuates rathers than works towards eradicating racism. If you truly believed that "all men are created equal" and all deserve equal rights under the law, you would not support any discriminatory practices regardless of the color of your skin.

diana

You mistake me. I am considering this particular point. As a matter of fact, I am always considering the possibility that I am wrong.

Ever been incarcerated? YMMV.

Then that isn't life in prison, I guess. You're banking on the notion that "life in prison" doesn't really mean life, I suppose. I wasn't.

Depends how long I have to wait, to be honest.

I can.

Where does that leave us?

I also think it's the best. Sad, really, that we don't have a better reason.

Wasn't this thread about whether you can be humanist and still be in favor of the death penalty? Here we are, agreeing that the fact that we can't be sure whether a person is guilty or not is the best reason we can think of to not gas him. The irony.

I agree with your ideals while disagreeing with their practicality, I'm afraid. Yes. We make mistakes. Should we therefore never put anyone to death out of fear that we can never be absolutely certain? Um...probably not. I think we are sometimes certain as we need to be, such as in the cases of John Wayne Gacey and Jeffrey Dahmer.

My question is, where should we draw the line?

Why, thank you. I thought it was insightful, myself. That's why I mentioned it.

First, of course...you sound very sorry. Thanks for commiserating. I suspect you understand my realization.

Second--and more seriously--yes. My realization feels racist to me. That's why it disturbed me, and why I decided to share my insight, as uncomfortable as it made me. I'd never looked at this particular issue from that angle before, which (of course) makes me "racist" (in your eyes)--for not being black, essentially. (Unless you expect all whites to pretend they're black in every given possible scenario in order to avoid being labeled a racist, which is what it sounds like.)

Unless you're simply pointing out that we're all racist at some level, even if we strive not to be, at which point, I agree wholeheartedly with you. We cannot imagine every possible scenario from every possible angle no matter how much we may try.

No.

Of course, I've looked at the issue from this particular perspective, though. In case you're wondering, I reached the conclusion that racial discrimination is wrong.

Am I still racist? Oh. Ok. Whatever.

I don't. I'm not sure where you inferred that I did.

Quite the contrary.

I was under the impression that I said I have never been against the death penalty, but if I were black I would feel differently. I presume we agree on this point. I pointed out that the death penalty seems like a reasonable punishment in the cut-and-dried cases, but beyond that, I question its "rightness." Then, I pointed out something I'd heretofore never considered: how would I feel about the DP if I were black? I'd probably be against it (because the predominately white folk in power tend to give a lot of black folk the death penalty).

I did, in all fairness, list these as random thoughts. But to put them together: if (as a black person) I could be assured that only those people who were repeatedly guilty beyond the shadow of a doubt (confession and evidence combined to make an airtight case) got the death penalty, I would probably still be for it.

I acknowledge we can't make people be less racist or more rational; they must choose to be both. Thus, we cannot guarantee only the guilty are convicted, no matter the crime or the proposed sentence. Should this keep us from punishing anyone? Of course not. We must punish them somehow. But how? Incarceration for life or death? Admittedly, this depends upon the person, but I'm quite sure I'd consider an early death more merciful than a life in prison.

If you feel you can speak with authority on this subject, I'm curious concerning your experience being locked up for any length of time, and why you consider it humane.

d