The Cellar  

Go Back   The Cellar > Main > Politics

Politics Where we learn not to think less of others who don't share our views

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 06-18-2001, 01:14 PM   #1
verbatim
Vice-President of Resentment
 
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: Pennsultucky
Posts: 199
Lightbulb

This debate has been raging on in the Image of the day about the death penaly and how we should controll/punish/deterr killings. my personal thoughts are that we should be as tough as possible in the beginning, i.e. now, to get the message out that taking someone's life is not the thing to do if you wish to stay alive.


There have been some other ideas about this, including a penal colony to send just theifs and other law-breakers in general, but my favorite alternative to the death penalty has to be lifelong solitary confinement.



Any thoughts?
verbatim is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-18-2001, 03:59 PM   #2
alphageek31337
Enemy Combatant/Evildoer
 
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Pittsburgh, PA
Posts: 263
I Have No Opinion(c), but who wants to start a pool on how many messages it will take before Nazis, Communists, Police States, Dictators, or Satan are mentioned?

Steve

___________
Bomb President White House Death Terror Allah
Chew on that, Carnivore

<i>I Have No Opinion registered (c) Republican National Non-Committee</i>
alphageek31337 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-18-2001, 04:49 PM   #3
Dagnabit
High Propagandist
 
Join Date: Jan 2001
Posts: 115
Makes me sick when someone kills somebody.

Made me sick when they did it at Waco.

Made me sick when they did it in OK City.

Made me sick when they did it at Terre Haute.

Life is everything. Killing is always always wrong.
Dagnabit is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-19-2001, 03:17 AM   #4
jaguar
whig
 
Join Date: Apr 2001
Posts: 5,075
In some cases I feel its just far to light, i think its a tougher punishment to know you'll be locked in a cell for the next 40 odd years than to be put to sleep quickly and painlessly...

(and i'm glad you started this and took my advise verbatim, but in general its not a good idea to take my advise, god knows where you might end up =)

__________________
Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.
- Twain
jaguar is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-19-2001, 06:48 AM   #5
Griff
still says videotape
 
Join Date: Feb 2001
Posts: 26,813
Too late to start the pool. An interesting aspect of the McV situation is the reluctance of anyone to discuss why it occurred. It really is the "Culture of Death" that JP2 talks about. McV joins the army and is trained to kill. Papa Bush sends him off to make the world safe for feudal monachies. He gets decorated for his enthusiasm in killing. He comes home and the BATF is killing civilians while the press fails to criticize actions taken on the shakiest of evidence. McV was a maniac but he was our maniac. We wired that madness into him. Every time we kill as a society we create more of the same hardness in the heart. The Feds are gonna kill another messed up human being this morning... getting used to it?
Griff is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-19-2001, 02:24 PM   #6
Chewbaccus
Freethinker/booter
 
Join Date: Jan 2001
Posts: 523
See, I wouldn't do it painlessly. Lethal injection is a joke, an attempt at compromise between the ACLU and the Right Wing.

Call me crude if you must, but we had it right in medieval times. Public executions, where when someone does wrong, the citizenry see the consequences.

Perusing my library of DM rants, I came across one that had some merit:

"Now, you see, what I would do is put the executions on live, sponsored pay-per-view TV, and give the money to the victim's families. 'Tostitos Presents: The Menendez Bros. Razzle-Dazzle Tag-Team Snuff-A-Rama!'"

~Mike
__________________
Like the wise man said: Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.
Chewbaccus is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-20-2001, 05:29 AM   #7
serge
*
 
Join Date: Apr 2001
Posts: 85
Short reply as I'm hurrying off to work..

Two things.. as a "big fan" of J.S.Mill and Utilitarian thought at large I find it difficult to determing the best off situation for the society as a whole when it comes to criminal execution (case by case basis).

I do tend to think that since we have not yet perfected the way of identifying the truly guilty, we should not have the death penalty.

Another point deals with (gradually) giving too much power to (supposedly) democratic regimes.. what if (for whatever reason) that regime turns more dictatorial or is overthrown by a dictatorial one.. well it would be much easier for "new" regime to point back and say.. well YOU have death penalty.... (you see my point.. read EXPANSION)

On yet another hand.. what punishment should we apply if not the death penalty? Gulags? Again.. since we can't yet truly prove guilt in most "death penalty deserving" cases.... plus there's the earlier expansion point..

Last by not least.. we're really showing our value for human life when we take life of X in order to say that x taking Y's life was wrong. (Some will say.. Utilitarianism.. eye for an eye.. well not quite.. there's the "overall," "general" good.. not just what happends "to" Y's relatives, etc..

Hrm.. it's too early
__________________
Patriotism is for Losers
serge is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-20-2001, 08:11 AM   #8
jaguar
whig
 
Join Date: Apr 2001
Posts: 5,075
hey Chewbaccus, while were at it why not establish a full on unreal-ournament/deathmatch arena, give em all guns and let them run loose, in america it'd make billions!
__________________
Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.
- Twain
jaguar is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-20-2001, 08:38 AM   #9
elSicomoro
Person who doesn't update the user title
 
Join Date: Jan 2001
Posts: 12,486
The prisons in this country are already death arenas...

Since being out of work, I've had WAY too much time on my hands to watch Court TV and The Learning Channel. Court TV had a great story on the Marion State Prison--the first Supermax prison in this country. (Driving by it on I-57 in southern Illinois gives you that queasy feeling.) When the Federal Government first made it a Supermax, things inside were incredibly lax. Then two guards were killed in one day in 1983 (not to mention, the prison was the site of an infamous attempted jailbreak--that's another story). A man convicted of killing one of the guards was sent to Leavenworth, where a special cell was created in the lower levels of the prison. The man is not allowed any human contact (other than a guard bringing his meal I assume), has his lights on 24 hours a day, and has not been heard from in 10 years! Marion then went to lockup 23 hours a day...it is generally considered the toughest prison in America.

As a whole, I do not support the death penalty; however, I make an exception for Mr. McVeigh. The man killed 168 absolutely innocent people as a form of government protest. That's just wrong. There are far better things he could have done. And continuing to insist that the victims' deaths were justifiable...for me, that man was begging to be killed. But in general, the whole "eye for an eye" b.s. is just that--b.s. Leave that sorta thing to the fundamentalist Bible thumpers. To me, being locked up for the rest of your life, particularly at Marion, serves well. Think about it...you are by yourself 23 hours a day, and under intense surveillance by guards...little contact with others. That right there is enough to drive you insane. Works for me. :-)

[Edited by sycamore on 06-20-2001 at 09:42 AM]
elSicomoro is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-20-2001, 09:28 AM   #10
verbatim
Vice-President of Resentment
 
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: Pennsultucky
Posts: 199
i frankly dont care what the hell the bible says. its a story book with a bunch of hippie followers. what it says is based on the wrong fact that everybody holds everything to their hearts like they might need it to save their life. it does not apply in some instances like stealing merchandise. being in jail overnight and in court the next day would be enough of a hassel, but some people just dont see the light.

killings are another story. they should make you NOT want to kill again. they should be a detterrent. the more you put a person in contact with other people the less they will think about what they did. hence solitary confinement. but the problem is that they not only think about what they did, they think about everything else, and go insane. which makes them not suitable to be a functioning member of society.


but this is no way a cut-and-dry case. it has its ins and outs that make the whole thing get spun wildly off kilter. like school killings-are they old enough to fully understand what they did? do we want to ruin their life? they could be a perfectly happy and stable human being but get pushed to the point where they snap.


and i have to put in a few words about school killings while i am at it. i think that they are just a few kids that were pressured into acting in a position that they normally do not act under, and profiling the kids that are going to hurt themselves and others is a bad idea. and i think that part of this school violence is the nation's attitude. we are a split country due to the presidential race and the senate numbers. and i have noticed a grassroots 'soccer mom' type movement. these people raise their kids to the highest expectations and want laws past that make other parents care for their children. they are the people that want abortions to be illegal. but this is not all the soccer moms and it is some other groups too.

just my $0.02
verbatim is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-20-2001, 11:00 AM   #11
Griff
still says videotape
 
Join Date: Feb 2001
Posts: 26,813
I think I see where you're coming from, Verbatim. The guys that perpetrate these kinds of acts don't seem to feel it inside. The point I'm trying to make is that those of us in the broader society need to make sure we up hold a standard of conduct and continue to feel it as Dag expressed it. To me, it doesn't matter what philosophy you adhere to to understand that perpetuating violence drags the whole society down. I'm not talking about some hippy-dippy Koombyah singing new agey circle of love take yer prozac twice a day book burning internet censoring feel good jazz. I'm talking about the UTILITY of not flippin off the disengaged yuppie on the car phone in traffic. As individuals we must be accountable for our negative impact on society. We have to embrace our personal responsibility unlike those soccer moms you astutely mentioned.

As far as student violence goes, we need to consider what we as adults "model" (remembering with some amusement a particularly lame educational theory indoctrinaton) to young people. We kill the McVs when they get in the way. We kill the Iraqis when they get in the way. We jail pot heads for not fitting in. We, through government, use force to solve our problems. We force kids into schools they don't fit in. We force their parents to pay for it. The soccer mom forces the school to counsel lil' Timmy, when she doesn't want to deal with him personally across kitchen table.
Griff is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-20-2001, 12:53 PM   #12
Dagnabit
High Propagandist
 
Join Date: Jan 2001
Posts: 115
They have once-a-week Prozac now, Griff. Which amazes me since I have been on one of those similar class of drugs, and I can't see having an extended-use drug affecting your brain chemistry.

I think I'm in the hippie class although I don't look like one. My own approach to life is to try to find the good in people. I used to hate all the suburban tank-driving soccer moms, now I think, well hell, they're just trying to make a life for themselves and their kids. And chances are, even if they're mean one minute, if you sat down and talked with them they would be more like us than unlike us. They might not be as well informed and may have some wrong ideas, but don't we all have wrong ideas?

Finding the good in the Waco people or in McVeigh is harder but it strikes me right in the heart that the bad in both of them is identical. Both of them killed innocents with a larger cause in mind. The question is, where did they get the idea that killing was a solution? That is the evil we have to fight, that's my two cents.

This whole thread is awesome!
Dagnabit is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-20-2001, 01:35 PM   #13
Chewbaccus
Freethinker/booter
 
Join Date: Jan 2001
Posts: 523
jag, I had that thought, but in regards to easing the overcrowdedness in the prison system.

Here's the plan: Take all the hard criminals - lifers and above on down to say...20-50 years, and put them in a giant gladiator-style tournament to the death. The winner gets a life on a tropical island or something.

~Mike
__________________
Like the wise man said: Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.
Chewbaccus is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-20-2001, 05:17 PM   #14
serge
*
 
Join Date: Apr 2001
Posts: 85
Chewbaccus: can we add Arnold to that group? Without him it's just not the same..
__________________
Patriotism is for Losers
serge is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-20-2001, 06:58 PM   #15
verbatim
Vice-President of Resentment
 
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: Pennsultucky
Posts: 199
e

i personally know the benefits of looking for the good in people, but it is hard and human nature makes us get pissed and hate people. but that is part of the challenge of creating a higher society. you have to take the time not to stereotype criminals and treat every case different. that is part of the media's problem. they stereotype like hell, and they do it from everyone from McV to Bush and Monica. BUT that is also also the problem of the school board members and principles that suspend kids for saving another kids life and drawing pictures of guns and using sign language on a bus.

thats not teh point. explained best, its like a little kid behaving badly. you either treat them like little kids and give them easy to administer punishment or treat them older and just talk to them and do something that will be more humane. you have to know if the killer is going to kill again out of prison you give him/her/it/they/we/us/y'all a harsh penalty that will teach them not to do it again (death or solitary confinement) or treat them humanely (maybe a couple of years in prison) and know that they would have learned their leason. hence another human nature problem--people decieve. they take advantage of the legal system to get an easy penalty just to get out of jail or avoid the death penalty. and the whole temporary insanity plea is the biggest load of BULLSH1T.



to anyone that thinks i make sense: go get your head checked, your insane.
verbatim is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply


Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)
 
Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump

All times are GMT -5. The time now is 12:13 AM.


Powered by: vBulletin Version 3.8.1
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.