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Post by: Cheese Elemental
This has been nagging me ever since I heard about executions in Texas.
People say that the death sentence is reasonable because someone bad will be gone from the world and they'll be suffering.
WRONG.
It's much worse to throw someone in a cell for the rest of their life. Can you imagine being locked in a 4x4 room, with the bare minimum to live with, no outside contact, for the rest of your days? Can you imagine the despair and the torment?
Knowing America, once you guys catch Bin Laden you'll ship him off to Texas and kill him. To him (or most other terrorists), that would be letting him win. He'd have martyred himself for his cause. You want to make him pay for his horrible crimes, you throw him in a cell.
End of rant.
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Post by: Mattlov
No, THAT thought is the problem. You did something horrible, evil and wrong. Now you get to sponge off the taxpayers the rest of your life. You will get food, clothing, and shelter, because you killed/raped/danced/became a licensed mime.
The death penalty should be simplified. If a trial by your peers sees fit to give you the death penalty, you have 5 years for your ONE appeal. Still found guilty, the bailiff shoots you. That is how it should be done.
Same with life sentences. Seriously, just kill them. Save the taxpayers DECADES of costs for the price of one clip of ammunition (to make sure the job is done right).
As for Bin Laden, we know not to kill him. Should we catch him, he will be shipped to a very secure HOLE, with no communication and no killing.
Unless he is caught during the current administration, because then Obama might just hug him and let him go, to show the world we aren't evil. 
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Post by: brad3104
I love the death penality. We shoudnt have to wait hand and foot on people that commit horrific crimes. Waisting tax payer dollars keeping them alive for decades. Kill them and move on. And hopefully no1 comes here with the it costs more to kill someone than to keep them alive for the rest of their lives. Come on....who really would believe that....Apparently some people...i saw that BS in a thread here not too long ago.
edit: and if it was up to me...i would do something similar to the post above me. It shouldnt cost more than a dollar to kill someone....1 bullet or 1 piece of rope. Game over.
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Post by: Cheese Elemental
That's what I'm basically saying. Send people to very secure holes.
It won't cost taxpayers much to sustain a life sentence. What about all that money that goes into developing unneccessary things like lethal injections and new guns that can kill more people?
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Post by: brad3104
Huh? a gun from 1902 can can get job done....
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Post by: Cheese Elemental
The gun lobby doesn't seem to think so.
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Post by: Mattlov
Cheese Elemental wrote:That's what I'm basically saying. Send people to very secure holes.
It won't cost taxpayers much to sustain a life sentence. What about all that money that goes into developing unneccessary things like lethal injections and new guns that can kill more people?
The prison costs money. Guards cost money. Staff costs money. No matter WHAT prison you use, it is a waste of money, because you have a building filled with people that you aren't getting anything from.
A quick Google tells me in Florida it averages to more than $19,000 PER YEAR, about $53 PER DAY, per inmate. That is INSANE.
There are a lot of people who don't even make that much money in a year, and we waste it on law breaking citizens.
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Post by: jp400
I feel thats its well past time that the long arm of the law puts a few more in the ground on an almost daily basis.
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Post by: Hordini
Cheese Elemental wrote:The gun lobby doesn't seem to think so.
What are you talking about?
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Post by: jp400
he is trying to bring the gun debate over into this thread.
Dont let him!
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Post by: garret
for once cheese i agree with you
the death penalty is wrong and pointless
i mean its like if someone rapes someone why not get the rape penalty or if you steal you get stolen from
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Post by: jp400
If the Death Penality is wrong then cramming somebody into a tiny hole giveing them bearly enough to survive is down right fethed up.
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Post by: Cheese Elemental
I'm not saying the death penalty is wrong. I'm saying it's a stupid idea because it's letting people off.
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Post by: sexiest_hero
My thing about the Death penaly is a good number of times the person come up innocent. Then you realised that it was a useless murder, and everybody invoved has to live with the fact they killed an innocent man. +1 for life in jail with hard labor making Plates.
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Post by: Cheese Elemental
There you go; stick them in a cell and make them perform hard labor to repay the country for their meager living conditions.
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Post by: Greebynog
http://www.tofreethetruth.com/general/the-financial-myth-debunked/ wrote:The California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice estimated the annual costs of their death penalty system to exceed $130 million annually. To abolish capital punishment and replace death with life without parole, the annual cost projection is only $11.5 million. California could be saving over $100 million each and every year. Yet, this state refuses to fund community policing systems which are proven to reduce crime rates. Why? Government officials claim they have no money for it.
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Post by: spartanghost
jp400 wrote:I feel thats its well past time that the long arm of the law puts a few more in the ground on an almost daily basis.
I see what you did there.
I don't see how killing someone who commits a heinous crime is letting them off. Murder is such a heinous crime BECAUSE they killed someone. If we believe killing someone is "letting them off", then why don't we just kill everyone who is in any form of pain? Life is precious. If someone does something extremely awful, they dont deserve that precious thing. I for one am not religious, but to someone who is: here's another point for it. That person did something fething awful. Kill them and let God/Allah/Cthulhu sort them out. we don't want people like that. if your diety of choice does, cool. he'll give them a nice afterlife, but at least we don't have to worry about them. I agree Appeals need to be made and you have to be sure (REALLY FETHING SURE), just shoot them a couple times. It's a hella lot less expensive then lethal injection, and 6 bullets to the brain is 99.9% assured gonna kill someone. On that 0.1% chance it doesn't, give them another salvo. The cost problem is that it's being done in an inefficient way.
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Post by: LunaHound
Like i said before in another thread. Whoever creates a heinous crime that deserves death penalty for example , pretty much lose
every right to live as human being. They cost tax payers $53 per day? wow thats a horrible thought , while swift execution = too easy on them.
I suggest: Do all the lab / medical tests , use them as the test subjects. Good for humanity , and serves as a good warning to the rest imo.
Yes the human rights group will jump all over this but who are they kidding? the criminals already gave up their rights the moment
they end another's .
This is beyond eye for eye, beyond moral. For the greater good of human kind , punishments NEED TO BE SEVERE EVEN IF EXCESSIVE ,
criminals needs to have fear and have 2nd thoughts before committing the crime.
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Post by: MeanGreenStompa
Whilst if we were 100% certain, totally sure, I'd happily say hang em high to reduce costs to the taxpayer, the margin of error exists, and that's why I can't condone it.
2007
* Dwayne Allen Dail, jailed for 18 years in a child rape case, was released from prison after new DNA testing cleared him of the crime.
* Derrick Bell, who was serving 12 1/2 to 25 years in prison for the robbery and shooting of Brentonol Moriah in Brooklyn in 1996, had his conviction vacated.
* Claude McCollum, convicted for murder and rape in 2005, had his conviction overturned.
* Charles Dubbs, convicted for two sexual assaults, was set free after another inmate confessed to committing the crimes.
* Steven Phillips, sent to prison for a 1982 rape and burglary, was found to be wrongly convicted.
* Richard L. Kittilstad, sentenced to ten years prison sentence in 2001 for soliciting prostitution, had his conviction overturned.
* Ronald Gene Taylor was set free after DNA cleared him in a 1982 gang rape in Dallas County.
* John White was released from prison after a DNA test cleared him of rape.
* Marcus Lyons was cleared of rape by DNA evidence.
* Floyd Brown, held since 1993 in a mental institution without trial for beating Katherine Lynch to death, was released after all charges against him were dropped
* Martin Tankleff was released from prison and his 1990 conviction quashed after new evidence cast doubt on the police tactics and methods used to gather evidence. He was originally convicted of killing his parents, but new, unspecified, evidence cast serious enough doubt on that to cause an Appeal Court to quash the conviction.
* Kennedy Brewer was exonerated of a 1992 rape and murder of a 3-year-old child after spending 15 years behind bars.
2008
* A Colorado judge ordered on January 22, 2008, the immediate release of Tim Masters. DNA research by Richard Eikelenboom from Independent Forensic Services in Nunspeet cast some doubt on his connection with the death of Peggy Hettrick in 1987 in Fort Collins. However, the DNA was that of the victim's boyfriend and may not be indicative of a crime.
* David Scott was released from prison after DNA evidence determined he was not the man who killed 89-year-old Loretta Keith of West Terre Haute.
* Lynn DeJac, convicted of killing her daughter, was exonerated after a judge overturned her conviction based on new DNA evidence implicating her former boyfriend in the killing.
* Rachel Jernigan, convicted of bank robbery in 2001, was released from prison after another woman confessed to the crime.
* Willie Earl Green, sent to prison in 1983 for the murder of a woman, was released after a change in testimony.
* Robert Gonzales, a mentally slowed man who falsely confessed to the slaying of an 11-year-old girl in 2005 was released from jail Friday after a national database matched DNA in the case to another man in custody for another crime.
* Patrick Waller, who was convicted for a robbery in which four people were abducted and a woman was raped, has been exonerated.
* Raymond H. Jonassen spent four months in jail based on information that turned out to be false.
* Dean Cage was exonerated of a rape conviction after 14 years in prison.
* Walter Swift was wrongly convicted of raping a pregnant Detroit woman in 1982.
* Levon Junior "Bo" Jones, sentenced to death for the 1987 murder and robbery of Leamon Grady, was released after nearly 15 years in prison.
* James Lee Woodard was released from prison after DNA tests and changes in witness testimony proved that he did not rape and murder his 21-year-old girlfriend in 1980.
* Cynthia Sommer, convicted of killing her Marine husband with arsenic to pay for breast implants, was cleared after new tests showed no traces of poison.
* Thomas Clifford McGowan was freed after spending nearly 23 years in prison for a rape he did not commit.
* Nathaniel Hatchett, who spent 12 years in prison for rape, was released after prosecutors decided to drop charges based on DNA evidence that shows he was not the rapist.
* Glen Chapman, who spent 14 years on death row, was released after the District Attorney dismissed murder charges against him.
* Guy Randolph was exonerated by a court judge after the district attorney's office acknowledged that he had been wrongly convicted.
* Hattie Douglas's charge of murdering her 11-month-old son by poisoning him with alcohol was dismissed in May 2008. The murder charge was dropped after new tests cast doubt on the theory that the death of her son was caused by alcohol.
* Ada Joanne Taylor, Joseph White, Thomas Winslow, and three others were wrongly convicted in a murder and rape case Ada Joanne Taylor confessed to police of being part of the crime after she was told that she would be the first woman to receive the death penalty in Nebraska.
* Arthur Johnson was exonerated after spending 15½ years in jail.
2009
* Alan Beaman, convicted for the stabbing and strangling to death of his ex-girlfriend, was exonerated.
* Timothy Cole was convicted in 1985 for a rape he did not commit, he was posthumously exonerated in early February 2009 after serving 14 years. He died in prison in 1999.
So that's it from me, won't linger in this thread just wanted to say The Margin For Error Exists, if you give someone a life sentence, you can have some chance to release and compensate someone, no chance of that if you've executed them. For those that will argue that the margin of risk is acceptable, consider your reaction when they get it wrong and come for you or someone you love...
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Post by: brad3104
Just like the other thread...I agree Luna. Nicely said. And whoever posted that it costs 130 milliong per year to have the death penalty....That doesnt mean we should just give it up. It means we should change the way we kill these criminals. What kind of soft princess death are these people getting. Ive seen documentaries on the death penality. One of the reasons it costs so much now...is that they have to make 100% sure its super quick and painless. Now why would a person that commited some kind of horrific crime....deserve to chose how they die....put a 20 cent bullet in them and lets move on.
edit: Meangreenstompa....most of those cases you sited...had nothing to do with the death penality or murder. Alot of those cases however were reversed due to DNA testing coming into play...which wasnt around back then....so this obviously isnt a problem in 2009. The number of cases reversed in this decade....and the ones that will be reversed in the future...is so minimal...due to all the advanced testing we can now do. They are even very very minal back then....
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Post by: MeanGreenStompa
brad3104 wrote:
edit: Meangreenstompa....most of those cases you sited...had nothing to do with the death penality or murder. Alot of those cases however were reversed due to DNA testing coming into play...which wasnt around back then....so this obviously isnt a problem in 2009. The number of cases reversed in this decade....and the ones that will be reversed in the future...is so minimal...due to all the advanced testing we can now do. They are even very very minal back then....
My cousin, who I grew up with, was murdered outside a nightclub, at the age of 22, by the exboyfriend of his gf, who waited outside the club with a large combat knife and stabbed my cousin through the heart a total of 7 times. It's difficult for me not to shout from the rooftops that I want every bastard caught for this sort of thing put to death by the state.
Whilst in that particular case it's difficult to see how the accused could have been innocent, not all cases are like that and I believe that a margin of error in criminality exists, even with DNA testing results can be altered, error can occur...so...
The margin for error exists, the system is therefore flawed and the chance of the state executing ONE innocent life is enough for me to be opposed to it, however much I might endorse the swift death of those who are guilty, the risk of the state conducting a murder of it's own is too great.
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Post by: Kilkrazy
Looking around the world, the more enthusiastic a country is about capital and corporal punishment, generally speaking the less civilised it is in other measures such as democracy, freedom of the press and so on.
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Post by: Mango
This brings up a nice little question that has been asked for years. Is the purpose of the criminal justice system to deter, rehabilitate, or punish?
If it is meant to rehabilitate criminals and turn them back into productive members of society, then the death penalty does not make much sense. However this point of view has a couple of major drawbacks.
1. It rarely works. Studeies done in the US show that most crimes are committed by repeat offeders.
2. It does not provide much justice (revenge) for the victim.
If the criminal justice system is meant to deter, then it also does a poor job of that. Again most crimes being committed by repeat offenders.
If the criminal justice system is meant to punish, then the death penalty does a fine job of that.
What some peole have desribed, such as it is worse to be locked up, or that you should have medical experiments, or what have you done, that is currently defined as cruel or unusual punishment. Which goes against the Costitution.
Yes some people have their convictions overturned on appeal. Yet others are clearly guilty. For example, One man kidnapped his estranged girlfriends daughter, called his estranged girlfriend and threatened to kill the girl. The GF called the police. A police chase ensued. The man was cornered, and then in front of multiple witnesses, killed the little girl. Does that gentleman deserve to live the rest of his life? Did the little girl he killed? What of the pain caused to the little girls mother and grandmother?
In my eyes, the criminal justice system should be used to punish. Not deter, not rehabilitate. Punish. If someone is clearly guilty (beyond any doubt) such as the guy I described. Then immediately take them out back and hang them. If someone is convicted (beyond a reasonable doubt) then by all means let them appeal. Once. If that fails, take them out back and hang them.
If they are a repeat offender (three strikes) Take them out back and hang them.
Rope is much cheaper than bullets or lethal injection. And can be used multiple times.
I live in Virginia. (Second most prolific state in the US for executions). I am a US citizen. If a foreign born non citizen does not like US laws, then don't come here. But don't expect us to change them because they offend your sensibilities.
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Post by: reds8n
Mango wrote:This brings up a nice little question that has been asked for years. Is the purpose of the criminal justice system to deter, rehabilitate, or punish?
All 3.
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Post by: BloodofOrks
If you want an example for how stupid the death penalty is, look no further then the case of Brian Nichols. The guy stole a gun from a security officer in an Atlanta court building and went on a rampage through Atlanta leaving a trail of bodies. When he was tried, his attorneys offered the prosecution a plea deal: spare Nichols' life and he would confess to everything and accept life without parole. The prosecution turned Nichols' attorneys offer down.
Nichols was of course found guilty, however the jury did not reach the unanimous decision necessary for execution. The trial cost Georgia millions of dollars for nothing. Even worse, since Nichols used public attorneys, his case drained the state funds for public representatives resulting in inadequate legal representation for dozens of defendants in other cases. As a result, many of these cases will now be successfully appealed due to the fact that the defendants were not given adequate council the first time around. So the state of Georgia has to try them twice, which will likely result in many guilty parties walking free and will cost the state (which is badly strapped for cash already) even more money.
Now their is talk about trying Nichols again in federal court to try to get a sentence of execution. So great, more money wasted on another trial for some one who is already serving a sentence of somewhere in the area of 500 years. And if Nichols is indeed sentenced to death, he'll no doubt appeal the sentence for the rest of his miserable life costing the justice system even more time and money.
The most obvious problem with the death penalty is that to have execution as a punishment, but to also put in place the necessary precautions to prevent an innocent person from being put to death costs considerably more then it does to just lock someone up for life (which completely removes the risk of accidentally executing an innocent person). Also, let's face it, due to the daunting nature of capital cases, some prosecutors avoid these cases at all costs while others only put execution on the table if they are sure they will get it. The result is that whether someone is sentenced to execution or not is completely arbitrary to the context of the crime which has been committed. In other words, two people could commit almost identical crimes under very similar circumstances and receive vastly different punishments, even if they both committed their crimes in the same state.
Add to that the fact that the death penalty has never been show to work as a deterrent and I find it hard to build any coherent case for the death penalty other then either revenge or "it feels right." And revenge or assuming justification for one's actions based solely on whether or not something "feels right" seems to me to be how many of the people currently on death row got their in the first place.
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Post by: Frazzled
No. Just people who think the death penality is stupid are stupid.
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Post by: namegoeshere
Kilkrazy wrote:Looking around the world, the more enthusiastic a country is about capital and corporal punishment, generally speaking the less civilised it is in other measures such as democracy, freedom of the press and so on.
I don't think so. America has high crime and the death penalty true. But Japan has a Very low crime rate, and the death penalty. England did have it - but removed it after a very public miscarriage of justice - not really a moral dislike for it amongst people.
In response to the risk of killing the innocent. Only kill them if there is incredible proof then.
And WTF with the guy getting 10 years for soliciting prostitutes? Jeebus Cripes
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Post by: BloodofOrks
Frazzled wrote:
No. Just people who think the death penality is stupid are stupid.
Wow. Flame on. 
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Post by: reds8n
Frazzled wrote:
No. Just people who support the death penality are stupid.
fixed ?
This is going to be a fun game... 
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Post by: whatwhat
I still stand by the enforced historectomy, vasectomy argument. Not as bad as death but a harsh punishment all the same.
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Post by: BrookM
I've read a report once that stated that it is cheaper to imprison a man for life than to humanely put him to death. It was CNN or Fox or something.
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Post by: Frazzled
Its the costs of all the mandatory appeals. It goes into the millions.
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Post by: utan
I am pro-LIFE so I am against the DEATH penalty!
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Post by: generalgrog
2 things.
1-Frazzled, whats the point of that picture? I don't see the connection.
2- The governement taking another persons life, even if they are a murderer should never be an easy thing. I'm personally against the death penalty for many of the reasons that have allready been mentioned + it isn't a deterent at all.
GG
p.s. I have an idea! Send them all to this big island called Australia....oh wait nm.
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Post by: efarrer
How is it you can trust the government to put the right person to death but not to take care of your healthcare?
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Post by: Kilkrazy
namegoeshere wrote:Kilkrazy wrote:Looking around the world, the more enthusiastic a country is about capital and corporal punishment, generally speaking the less civilised it is in other measures such as democracy, freedom of the press and so on.
I don't think so. America has high crime and the death penalty true. But Japan has a Very low crime rate, and the death penalty. England did have it - but removed it after a very public miscarriage of justice - not really a moral dislike for it amongst people.
In response to the risk of killing the innocent. Only kill them if there is incredible proof then.
And WTF with the guy getting 10 years for soliciting prostitutes? Jeebus Cripes
I'm not talking about crime levels, I'm talking about correlation with other aspects of civil life such as democracy and freedom of the press like I said. I don't believe the death penalty deters crime. In fact it's completely obvious that it doesn't. It is all kinds of different factors in society that promote or prevent crime.
If you look at the countries with the most death penalty they are often the countries with the worst records on all kinds of human rights including cruel and unusual punishment, trial without jury (includes Japan,) lack of democracy, autocratic regimes, corruption, and so on.
I realise this is a kind of wishy-washy left-wing viewpoint.
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Post by: Frazzled
Kilkrazy wrote:namegoeshere wrote:Kilkrazy wrote:Looking around the world, the more enthusiastic a country is about capital and corporal punishment, generally speaking the less civilised it is in other measures such as democracy, freedom of the press and so on.
I don't think so. America has high crime and the death penalty true. But Japan has a Very low crime rate, and the death penalty. England did have it - but removed it after a very public miscarriage of justice - not really a moral dislike for it amongst people.
In response to the risk of killing the innocent. Only kill them if there is incredible proof then.
And WTF with the guy getting 10 years for soliciting prostitutes? Jeebus Cripes
I'm not talking about crime levels, I'm talking about correlation with other aspects of civil life such as democracy and freedom of the press like I said. I don't believe the death penalty deters crime. In fact it's completely obvious that it doesn't. It is all kinds of different factors in society that promote or prevent crime.
If you look at the countries with the most death penalty they are often the countries with the worst records on all kinds of human rights including cruel and unusual punishment, trial without jury (includes Japan,) lack of democracy, autocratic regimes, corruption, and so on.
I realise this is a kind of wishy-washy left-wing viewpoint.
Respectfully, it deters the crime for that guy.
I used to be anti death penalty until I saw former lifers getting out of prison. Life sentence in the US does not mean life.
1-Frazzled, whats the point of that picture? I don't see the connection.
Point? This is the OT Board We don't need no steenking points...
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Post by: Kilkrazy
Deterrence is supposed to be the discouragement of non-offenders from offending, not the prevention of repeat offending.
It's obvious that killing someone prevents them from committing more crimes, however it would be better to reduce the number of first offences rather than repeat offences. The death penalty has never achieved that goal.
A different solution to the life term problem is to (a) assign a tariff, such as minimum 20 years for murder, (b) good quality rehabilitation and (c) an effective parole service.
In the UK, it is possible for the Home Secretary to set a fixed lifetime tariff -- Life means Life. This is generally used for extremely beastly criminals who are not clinically insane.
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Post by: Frazzled
Thats not generally possible here. Many with the moniker "life sentence with no parole" have been given just that.
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Post by: BrookM
I know, let's implement the Chinese system, that ought to speed things up and empty the death row blocks quite a bit. Best of all, you can hack up the condemned afterwards, salvage their organs and donate them to those in need. Booyah, two birds, one stone.
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Post by: Mattlov
BrookM wrote:I know, let's implement the Chinese system, that ought to speed things up and empty the death row blocks quite a bit. Best of all, you can hack up the condemned afterwards, salvage their organs and donate them to those in need. Booyah, two birds, one stone.
Sad thing is, that isn't the worst plan.
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Post by: utan
BrookM wrote:I know, let's implement the Chinese system, that ought to speed things up and empty the death row blocks quite a bit. Best of all, you can hack up the condemned afterwards, salvage their organs and donate them to those in need. Booyah, two birds, one stone.
You mean, the system wherein you arrest the needy for saying something the government doesn't like, then kill them and harvest their organs for the wealthy.
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Post by: smiling Assassin
Let them rot. It's much more satisfying.
Take away their rights.
How much does Cabbage soup and cold water cost for (estimate) 50 years?
sA
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Post by: namegoeshere
Frazzled wrote:
Bizarrely enough that man looks incredibly like me. Hansom mofo
Though I don't really fish.
I hope it's not somebody on this forum.
generalgrog wrote:
p.s. I have an idea! Send them all to this big island called Australia....oh wait nm.
It's a pity we cant pay another country that needs the cash to take them. Then take away their passport. Some place with lots of random killing, so they can be at home. Darfor (how to spell?)
Kilkrazy wrote: trial without jury (includes Japan,) lack of democracy, autocratic regimes, corruption, and so on.
I realise this is a kind of wishy-washy left-wing viewpoint.
Japan have a legitimate legal system, that has 3+ judges in the place of a jury. Not to railroad the innocent, just to avoid tards in the jury. It's not like Jpn has particularly harsh punishments or something.
Also right or wrong, your view point is hardly wishy washy liberal - it's just clear yank bashing. (Not that that is necessarily bad or anything  )
Kilkrazy wrote:
In the UK, it is possible for the Home Secretary to set a fixed lifetime tariff -- Life means Life. This is generally used for extremely beastly criminals who are not clinically insane.
Too rarely. So many people get pitiful punishments in Eng for kicking people to death etc. Then you read a story in the paper about a women getting charged for sending her child to a school in the next area or whatever
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Post by: smiling Assassin
DOUBLE POST! YES!
Frazzled wrote:
Mongol Hordes or it didn't happen.
sA
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Post by: Kilkrazy
China also has a legitimate legal system, according to their own rules.
Japan's legal system falls well below the standard we expect in the USA and Europe in terms of things like Habeus Corpus, the use of confessions instead of evidence, and the lack of a jury. Interestingly, the Japanese are introducing a jury system, it has just gone into operation. This was due to pressure from the EU or UN HRC, it was because the Japanese government themselves felt there was a deficit in their justice system.
Japan has the death penalty. Once convicted, the prisoner is put into solitary confinement for days, weeks or years. Every morning, the guards walk along the row of cells, and one day they stop at his door. Within 10 minutes he is swinging, and a note is sent to his next of kin to collect the body.
I am afraid that 'tards' are part of society, and if we want society to be democratic and representative, they must have the chance to be on a jury like anyone else.
I know it would be nice to get rid of all the tards. The problem is who decides who the tards are, and on what basis. It has been tried before. It often goes well at the beginning, but it tends to end up with getting rid of everyone who doesn't agree with the minority of borderline crazies who managed to shove themselves into power at the crucial time.
Like Winston Churchill said, Democracy is a terrible form of government whose only advantage was that all the others that had been tried were worse.
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Post by: mcfly
I think the death penalty is more of a fearful thing. Like, if your in jail your sponging off the taxpayers, and stuck in a little room, but your still alive. If you're dead, you're dead, and death scares most people. I would like to see more rapists/murderers/evil people dead. They are a waste of my oxygen.
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Post by: whatwhat
In my opinion. I would rather die than live in a cell for the rest of my life.
But then if that cell had tv, video games, three wholsome meals a day, courses I could get qualifications on, sports teams etc. and a life scentence which didn't mean life. I'd rather have that.
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Post by: Frazzled
Exactly.
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Post by: BrookM
utan wrote:BrookM wrote:I know, let's implement the Chinese system, that ought to speed things up and empty the death row blocks quite a bit. Best of all, you can hack up the condemned afterwards, salvage their organs and donate them to those in need. Booyah, two birds, one stone.
You mean, the system wherein you arrest the needy for saying something the government doesn't like, then kill them and harvest their organs for the wealthy.
Sounds not that far removed from what the US is moving towards in the long run.
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Post by: Mango
Just an aside, how many of the anti death penalty folks posting on this topic are pro-abortion?
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Post by: reds8n
I don't know anyone who is pro abortion.
I know people, and am myself, pro the option being available in certain circumstances however.
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Post by: Mattlov
reds8n wrote:I don't know anyone who is pro abortion.
*Raises hand*
Everyone should be able to choose, regardless of the situation.
And I hate children, so abortions make me a little happy on the inside when I hear about them.
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Post by: Tek
Mattlov wrote:A quick Google tells me in Florida it averages to more than $19,000 PER YEAR, about $53 PER DAY, per inmate. That is INSANE.
There are a lot of people who don't even make that much money in a year, and we waste it on law breaking citizens.
That's a pretty silly opinion right there, because it's not one person who's being asked to pay for it.
A quick Google tells me that roughly 18,328,340 people live in Florida (0), so this works out at 0.001 dollars per taxpayer, per year. That's a tenth of a penny. I think even Florida residents can find a penny in the street and pay for ten prisoners to live for a year.
My opinion os thus: No-one can say someone doesn't deserve to live. The victim certainly didn't deserve to die, but adding to the body count never solved anything.
However my extended opinion is that if you take away someone's human rights, through any violent or heinous act, then you should lose yours. I'd gladly pay my taxes knowing that rapists were being kept at the bottom of a muddy hole and being fed glass.
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Post by: Frazzled
Tek wrote:
My opinion os thus: No-one can say someone doesn't deserve to live.
The we don't. Gutter tripe nonsense.
However my extended opinion is that if you take away someone's human rights, through any violent or heinous act, then you should lose yours.
So I guess all soldiers get the death penalty with you hey?
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Post by: Kilkrazy
mcfly wrote:I think the death penalty is more of a fearful thing. Like, if your in jail your sponging off the taxpayers, and stuck in a little room, but your still alive. If you're dead, you're dead, and death scares most people. I would like to see more rapists/murderers/evil people dead. They are a waste of my oxygen.
Everyone keeps saying this, but there is no evidence that the death penalty in itself deters criminals.
What does deter criminals is a high chance of being caught and convicted. The punishment is secondary -- obviously it has to be reasonably substantial, however if you KNEW you were 100% guaranteed to get a year in prison every single time you burgled a house, would you be a burglar?
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Post by: spartanghost
Frazzled wrote:Tek wrote:
My opinion os thus: No-one can say someone doesn't deserve to live.
The we don't. Gutter tripe nonsense.
However my extended opinion is that if you take away someone's human rights, through any violent or heinous act, then you should lose yours.
So I guess all soldiers get the death penalty with you hey?
Thats different. Soldiers kill Soldiers. Soldiers are prepared to die on the job. it's their job. murderers kill people who arent prepared to die, and who had no reason to be killed.
Some US state (I think it was Texas) had some thing awhile ago that in cases of heinous crimes if there are 2 or more credible eye witnesses then you dont get an appeal, they just mash ya quick. I like that idea. if you have cases where the 85 appeals are moot, it should cost very little to put them under.
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Post by: Frazzled
Thats different. Soldiers kill Soldiers. Soldiers are prepared to die on the job. it's their job. murderers kill people who arent prepared to die, and who had no reason to be killed.
Respectfully, I disagree.
They are still robbing the other person of their human rights. Plus I'd proffer very few are actually prepared to die. How do you prepare to die?
How about cops?
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Post by: generalgrog
Mattlov,
You are absolutely disgusting.
Welcome to the ignore list.
GG
11511
Post by: theocd
Honestly, I am pro death penalty, particularly as the UK doesn't have it any more. We used to, 3 years ago you could still get executed here but hey that moron Brown (or was it Tony) quietly got rid of it without telling anyone. (Seriously in the UK you could, in 2005, still get executed for High Treason and Arson against Her Majestys Ship Yards - that's why our Navy were so great, you touch our ships we kill you) Back to topic, I agree that margin for error exists but I disagree with the huge amount of money spent on prisoners. Us school kids in Britain have an average of £2:50 spent on the quality of our school dinners, prisoners (the scum of the earth - not the exponential future) get double that. This is what sickens me, the fact that the UK government spends so much on caring for people that have done wrong. Also, the politicians are moaning that Britain's prisons are full so clearing a few 1000 out by the death penalty seems not a bad solution to me, two birds one stone and all that.
I apologise if I have caused any offence but i am strongly opinionated person on this subject matter,
The OC-D
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Post by: Frazzled
Two words to solve all problems here:
Penal Companies.
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Post by: reds8n
theocd wrote:Honestly, I am pro death penalty, particularly as the UK doesn't have it any more. We used to, 3 years ago you could still get executed here but hey that moron Brown (or was it Tony) quietly got rid of it without telling anyone. (Seriously in the UK you could, in 2005, still get executed for High Treason and Arson against Her Majestys Ship Yards - that's why our Navy were so great, you touch our ships we kill you)
That's not true I'm afraid.
After abolition of the death penalty for murder, die-hards began a tradition requiring the Commons to hold a free vote on a motion during each Parliament proposing the restoration of capital punishment. This motion was always defeated. However, the death penalty still survived for other crimes:
causing a fire or explosion in a naval dockyard, ship, magazine or warehouse (until 1971);
espionage[5] (until 1981);
piracy with violence (until 1998),
treason (until 1998), and
certain purely military offences under the jurisdiction of the armed forces, such as mutiny[6] (until 1998). Prior to its complete abolition in 1998, it was available for six offences: 1) serious misconduct in action, 2) assisting the enemy, 3) obstructing operations, 4) giving false air signals, 5) mutiny or incitement to mutiny, and 6) failure to suppress a mutiny with intent to assist the enemy.
However, no more executions were carried out.
There was a working gallows at HMP Wandsworth, London, until 1994, which was tested every six months until 1992. This gallows is now housed in the Galleries of Justice in Nottingham.
The Criminal Damage Act 1971 abolished the offence of arson in royal dockyards.
The Naval Discipline Act 1957 reduced the scope of capital espionage from "all spies for the enemy" to spies on naval ships or bases.[9] Later, the Armed Forces Act 1981 abolished the death penalty for espionage.[2] (In 1911 the Official Secrets Act had created another offence of espionage which carried a maximum sentence of fourteen years.)
Under a House of Lords amendment to the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, proposed by Lord Archer of Sandwell, the death penalty was abolished for treason and piracy with violence, replacing it with a discretionary maximum sentence of life imprisonment. These were the last civilian offences punishable by death.
On 20 May 1998 the House of Commons voted to ratify the 6th Protocol of the European Convention on Human Rights prohibiting capital punishment except "in time of war or imminent threat of war." The last remaining provisions for the death penalty under military jurisdiction (including in wartime) were removed when section 21(5) of the Human Rights Act 1998 came into force on 9 November 1998. On 10 October 2003, effective from 1 February 2004[10] the UK acceded to the 13th Protocol, which prohibits the death penalty under all circumstances,[11] so that the UK may no longer legislate to restore the death penalty while it is subject to the Convention. It can only now restore it if it withdraws from the Council of Europe.
As a legacy from colonial times, several islands in the West Indies still had the British Judicial Committee of the Privy Council as the court of final appeal; although the death penalty has been retained in these islands, the Privy Council would sometimes delay or deny executions. Some of these islands severed links with the British court system in 2001 in order to speed up executions.
I apologise if I have caused any offence but i am strongly opinionated person on this subject matter,
Nothing wrong with having strong opinions on the subject IF you are correctly informed upon said matter.
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Post by: theocd
Thanks for the info reds8n, I didn't know mine was wrong. Glad someone was bothered to put some facts down anyway.
Cheers,
The OC-D
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Post by: reds8n
Don't worry about...
when this comes up again....in about 1 week, just after the 15, 675th gun control thread, you'll be better informed.
Hope I didn't come across as snarky, not my intent !
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Post by: theocd
Your intent was to prove my facts wrong and it worked. Nothing more, nothing less, no offence intended or taken.
The OC-D
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Post by: Greebynog
Mango wrote:Just an aside, how many of the anti death penalty folks posting on this topic are pro-abortion?
Apples and oranges. Abortion is an entirely different and highly complex issue. But, if you must know, I'm 'pro-choice' or whatever ridiculous label has been ascribed to that side of the debate.
spartanghost wrote:
Thats different. Soldiers kill Soldiers. Soldiers are prepared to die on the job. it's their job. murderers kill people who arent prepared to die, and who had no reason to be killed.
Some US state (I think it was Texas) had some thing awhile ago that in cases of heinous crimes if there are 2 or more credible eye witnesses then you dont get an appeal, they just mash ya quick. I like that idea. if you have cases where the 85 appeals are moot, it should cost very little to put them under.
That's an absolutely terrible way to run a justice system. The problems with eye-witness testimony are numerous and well documented. Executing people based on such a flimsy pretext is certain to end with innocent lives lost.
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Post by: Mango
Not apples and oranges, In one case you kill and adult human being. In the other you kill an unborn human being.
In both cases a human being was killed.
I am anti abortion because an unborn child has not harmed anyone. They are executed during an abortion for no fault of their own.
At least when you kill an adult who committed a crime, that person had the choice as to wether or not to commit a capital offense.
What is the difference between having the "choice" to execute an unborn child and the "choice" to execute a murderer, traitor, or violent rapist?
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Post by: BrookM
Let's please keep abortion out of this, pwease?
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Post by: Greebynog
Yeah, start a new thread if you fancy discussing it, but I'm with Frazz on this one, the only outcome will be bruised egos and tears on keyboards.
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Post by: barlio
Frazzled wrote:
Whoa I just about made a mess that would not have been cleaned up easily. Much like the suggested picture.
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Post by: Frazzled
On the positive we've hit on most of the big topics in one fell swoop: death penalty, abortion,, even a bit of gun control. Add in Texas uber dominance in Mexican food and we have the unholy trin er Quadrilogy.
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Post by: barlio
Needs more seppuku.
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Post by: JohnHwangDD
Cheese Elemental wrote:It's much worse to throw someone in a cell for the rest of their life. Can you imagine being locked in a 4x4 room, with the bare minimum to live with, no outside contact, for the rest of your days?
Meh, boring.
You Aussies are pussies.
If we were to follow the British example of throwing someone in a crow cage for the rest of their life (N.B. it's not for very long, because you don't feed them while they're hanging up there), I'd be cool with that.
Or even, if we could follow the Islamists and impose mandatory daily beatings...
But really, America has some great geography, so if we were going to implement proper life imprisonment, we ought to take advantage of that. We could shuttle them between metal hotboxes in Death Valley, California, up to frozen Stalags in Alaska, then over into water cages in the mosquito-infested swamps of South Carolina.
Yeah.
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Post by: FITZZ
Frazzled wrote:
Hmmm,I wonder if the returning sensi will be given the death sentence?
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Post by: yani
For me the death penalty is a barbaric reminant from a less enlightened society. It is my belife that everyone has a chance of redemption and can atone for what they have done.
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Post by: mcfly
Frazzled wrote:On the positive we've hit on most of the big topics in one fell swoop: death penalty, abortion,, even a bit of gun control. Add in Texas uber dominance in Mexican food and we have the unholy trin er Quadrilogy.
I had Mexican food for lunch today...
For me the death penalty is a barbaric reminant from a less enlightened society. It is my belife that everyone has a chance of redemption and can atone for what they have done.
When I read that I feel like Braveheart...Go barbarians!!! woo!!! Also, I feel like humanity is made of stupid people, and most of them never change their minds about anything...even when they're wrong. I am included in that of course.
(posting stupid comments because I feel like it)
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Post by: Nofasse 'Eadhunta
Seems to work well in the 41st Millennium...
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Post by: Miguelsan
Frazzled wrote:
Thats different. Soldiers kill Soldiers. Soldiers are prepared to die on the job. it's their job. murderers kill people who arent prepared to die, and who had no reason to be killed.
Respectfully, I disagree.
They are still robbing the other person of their human rights. Plus I'd proffer very few are actually prepared to die. How do you prepare to die?
How about cops?
Woah woah Frazz! you won the Fallacy Price of the day. You know as well as the rest that when soldiers and cops are acting as such they are an embodiment of the State so they are not private citizens. The guys responsible for ordering this soldiers to kill on the other hand... Politicians  .
M.
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Post by: Cheese Elemental
I have nothing against soldiers killing soldiers, but if I were a soldier, I'd personally prefer to disable them until they can be captured and hauled back to base.
That's what comes from being Christian. I'd only kill if it was the only possible solution.
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Post by: brad3104
I know this is off topic...and sounds a bit horrible. But wars are needed every so often. I know it hurts to hear but the population problem in this world has gotten out of control. If there were no wars could you image how crowded it would be. Man I think families should be limited to 2 kids. But thats another topic.
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Post by: spartanghost
Frazzled wrote:
Thats different. Soldiers kill Soldiers. Soldiers are prepared to die on the job. it's their job. murderers kill people who arent prepared to die, and who had no reason to be killed.
Respectfully, I disagree.
They are still robbing the other person of their human rights. Plus I'd proffer very few are actually prepared to die. How do you prepare to die?
How about cops?
Allow me to rephrase. In most cases, if a soldier doesn't kill the other soldier, he's going to end up dead. And if a soldier is in a warzone and isn't prepared to die, they're in the wrong place. Put another way, By robbing the enemy soldier of his human rights, the first soldier has defended his own. Wouldn't you agree that someone's own human rights are more important to him than an enemy soldiers? Obviously if everyone on the planet put everyone else's life above their own that would solve the problem, and we wouldnt be having this conversation.
Cops are another situation as well. Cops are not necessarily trained to kill, and their job is not to go out and have a decent chance of dying every day they're on the job. Yes, Police officers die on the job, but again, they know the risks. Cops (usually) only kill if they absolutely have to. And again, it's usually the criminal, or them, or innocents.
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Post by: dogma
Mango wrote:Not apples and oranges, In one case you kill and adult human being. In the other you kill an unborn human being.
An unborn human being is not a human being any more than a single sperm cell is a potential zygote. So yes, apples and oranges.
Mango wrote:
In both cases a human being was killed.
In both cases something is being killed, what that thing actually is can be debated.
Mango wrote:
What is the difference between having the "choice" to execute an unborn child and the "choice" to execute a murderer, traitor, or violent rapist?
The fact that one is born, and the other is not. This is an incredibly important distinction.
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Post by: spartanghost
Greebynog wrote:Mango wrote:Just an aside, how many of the anti death penalty folks posting on this topic are pro-abortion?
Apples and oranges. Abortion is an entirely different and highly complex issue. But, if you must know, I'm 'pro-choice' or whatever ridiculous label has been ascribed to that side of the debate.
spartanghost wrote:
Thats different. Soldiers kill Soldiers. Soldiers are prepared to die on the job. it's their job. murderers kill people who arent prepared to die, and who had no reason to be killed.
Some US state (I think it was Texas) had some thing awhile ago that in cases of heinous crimes if there are 2 or more credible eye witnesses then you dont get an appeal, they just mash ya quick. I like that idea. if you have cases where the 85 appeals are moot, it should cost very little to put them under.
That's an absolutely terrible way to run a justice system. The problems with eye-witness testimony are numerous and well documented. Executing people based on such a flimsy pretext is certain to end with innocent lives lost.
I agree that eyewitnesses alone isn't enough to convict with death sentance, I was just repeating the wording i heard it (A Ron White stand up comedy thing). The idea however stands. If it's unbelievably obvious that a person did something that awful (the were found by credible police officers actively stabbing someone to death for instance) they get nerfed real quick.
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Post by: Kilkrazy
What does "pro-abortion" mean?
I think it is a necessary evil, something that always has and always will happen so it is better to perform it under legal control than push it into the back streets.
No-one gets an abortion for a laugh.
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Post by: Mango
Killkrazy pro abortion is supporting the right of a person to have an abortion or actually having an abortion.
Dogma,
If an unborn human being is not a human being in your book, then please define for me what a human being is.
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Post by: namegoeshere
brad3104 wrote:I know this is off topic...and sounds a bit horrible. But wars are needed every so often. I know it hurts to hear but the population problem in this world has gotten out of control. If there were no wars could you image how crowded it would be. Man I think families should be limited to 2 kids. But thats another topic.
Wars aren't for population control - unless they are genocidal wars. Which I hope we don't do in the developed world.
Supposedly we only engage in wars to halt other nations from terrible actions, or other governments/ armies for terrible actions. Though perhaps we engage in wars for our own benifit... though I'm not sure the argument for that is really ok...
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Post by: Kilkrazy
Then I am pro abortion.
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Post by: theocd
spartanghost wrote:Frazzled wrote:
Thats different. Soldiers kill Soldiers. Soldiers are prepared to die on the job. it's their job. murderers kill people who arent prepared to die, and who had no reason to be killed.
Respectfully, I disagree.
They are still robbing the other person of their human rights. Plus I'd proffer very few are actually prepared to die. How do you prepare to die?
How about cops?
Allow me to rephrase. In most cases, if a soldier doesn't kill the other soldier, he's going to end up dead. And if a soldier is in a warzone and isn't prepared to die, they're in the wrong place. Put another way, By robbing the enemy soldier of his human rights, the first soldier has defended his own. Wouldn't you agree that someone's own human rights are more important to him than an enemy soldiers? Obviously if everyone on the planet put everyone else's life above their own that would solve the problem, and we wouldnt be having this conversation.
Cops are another situation as well. Cops are not necessarily trained to kill, and their job is not to go out and have a decent chance of dying every day they're on the job. Yes, Police officers die on the job, but again, they know the risks. Cops (usually) only kill if they absolutely have to. And again, it's usually the criminal, or them, or innocents.
It's not a case of who is prepared to die, i'm not prepared to die but if I run across the M4 there is a high probability that I might. I'm not trained to kill but I still watch my back because in this modern age, no one knows what the hells going to happen.
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Post by: jp400
Cheese Elemental wrote:I have nothing against soldiers killing soldiers, but if I were a soldier, I'd personally prefer to disable them until they can be captured and hauled back to base.
That's what comes from being Christian. I'd only kill if it was the only possible solution.
Gitmo.
We arrest them..... everybody complains...... the guy that tried to blow you up with a 500lb dumb bomb or the guy that threw a HMX bomb and killed your friend will soon walking around free cause people outside the US bitched and complained hard enough and the current care bare US president caved from political pressure. And I dare anyone to compare US policies at Gitmo when compared with what Insurgents would do to a captured US Soldier...
http://www.truthout.org/imgs.art_01/3.us.dead.soldier.2.jpg
(Pic not shown outright due to graphic nature/respect)
For those that dont want to click the above link, here is a little hint........
This is why on both my tours I aimed to disable the enemy..... with 5.56 or 12 guage to the FACE!
Nothing says the enemy is no longer a threat to my life like him without his.
Its a fact, war is war. First and Foremost a soldiers jobs is to kill the enemy. Those of you that have never set foot in Iraq or spent 25 months of your life in a no gak combat situation never seem to understand this. You all preach about how you would just take it all in stride and only shoot to wound your fellow man as if nothing happened. Or how you would treat the man that was just trying to kill you like he is your brother.
Nobody fighting this was (minus the flipping sucide bombers) wants to die an often slow and painful death. Each soldier is prepared to do his duty to the best of his abilities and if the need arises he will sell his life dearly for what he believes in.... either god or country.
Now how would you feel if your enemy used coward tactics against you? Used women and children as meat shields and human bombs? Maimed and tortured thousands and thousands of people on a yearly basis regardless of age, race, or gender just because they didnt belong to a certain religious sect? Beheaded independant journalists and captured soldiers LIVE on national television? How about paying children to plant IED's along major routes cause they themselfs are afraid of being shot?
How would you feel? Would you still consider your enemies life to be worth anything?
I know I didnt and still dont.
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Post by: spartanghost
jp400 wrote:Cheese Elemental wrote:I have nothing against soldiers killing soldiers, but if I were a soldier, I'd personally prefer to disable them until they can be captured and hauled back to base.
That's what comes from being Christian. I'd only kill if it was the only possible solution.
Gitmo.
We arrest them..... everybody complains...... the guy that tried to blow you up with a 500lb dumb bomb or the guy that threw a HMX bomb and killed your friend will soon walking around free cause people outside the US bitched and complained hard enough and the current care bare US president caved from political pressure. And I dare anyone to compare US policies at Gitmo when compared with what Insurgents would do to a captured US Soldier...
http://www.truthout.org/imgs.art_01/3.us.dead.soldier.2.jpg
(Pic not shown outright due to graphic nature/respect)
For those that dont want to click the above link, here is a little hint........
This is why on both my tours I aimed to disable the enemy..... with 5.56 or 12 guage to the FACE!
Nothing says the enemy is no longer a threat to my life like him without his.
Its a fact, war is war. First and Foremost a soldiers jobs is to kill the enemy. Those of you that have never set foot in Iraq or spent 25 months of your life in a no gak combat situation never seem to understand this. You all preach about how you would just take it all in stride and only shoot to wound your fellow man as if nothing happened. Or how you would treat the man that was just trying to kill you like he is your brother.
Nobody fighting this was (minus the flipping sucide bombers) wants to die an often slow and painful death. Each soldier is prepared to do his duty to the best of his abilities and if the need arises he will sell his life dearly for what he believes in.... either god or country.
Now how would you feel if your enemy used coward tactics against you? Used women and children as meat shields and human bombs? Maimed and tortured thousands and thousands of people on a yearly basis regardless of age, race, or gender just because they didnt belong to a certain religious sect? Beheaded independant journalists and captured soldiers LIVE on national television? How about paying children to plant IED's along major routes cause they themselfs are afraid of being shot?
How would you feel? Would you still consider your enemies life to be worth anything?
I know I didnt and still dont.
You'd make a good space marine!
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Post by: BloodofOrks
The US is held to a double standard in regards to detainee treatment. This is nothing new. Our values (and the treaties we signed) say we treat captured combatants humanely regardless of how they would treat ours. I like Jon Stewart's comment on American values: 'If when your values are tested, you choose to no longer follow them, then you don't have values. You have hobbies.'
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Post by: Frazzled
Thats fine by me. Put em on a ship to free them and then put two torpedoes into the ship. Life is good.
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Post by: BloodofOrks
Frazzled wrote:Thats fine by me. Put em on a ship to free them and then put two torpedoes into the ship. Life is good.
Enjoy your hobbies then.
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Post by: Frazzled
You misperceive my values. I follow them strictly.
Protect US citizens. All other considerations rescinded.
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Post by: namegoeshere
Frazzled wrote:You misperceive my values. I follow them strictly.
Protect US citizens. All other considerations rescinded.
That's fething terrifying. Seriously.
Also isn't this thread about the death penalty. Not your willingness to kill people in other nations - your derailing the thread - you're pretty crap at being a mod.
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Post by: Frazzled
namegoeshere wrote:Frazzled wrote:You misperceive my values. I follow them strictly.
Protect US citizens. All other considerations rescinded.
That's fething terrifying. Seriously.
Also isn't this thread about the death penalty. Not your willingness to kill people in other nations - your derailing the thread - you're pretty crap at being a mod.
A. I didn't start it.
B. I am not writing as a mod. If I were I would say so. You are free to complain, I could survive without the exorbitant salary I'm getting ($0).
C. I am just stating what is the policy of every government on the planet. To be otherwise violates their fiduciary to their clients (citizens).
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Post by: reds8n
I don't think every other govt. on the planet thinks
Protect US citizens. All other considerations rescinded.
And, to an extent anyway, I don't think that every other govt puts the protection of their citizens above every single other moral consideration. A lot of the problems that the USA has with other nations is caused precisely by the application of this "principle" in the first place.
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Post by: Frazzled
Please name one that doesn't put the interest of its citizens above those of other nations.
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Post by: reds8n
... you've never lived in the UK have you ? 
On a more serious note....
I'm saying there's a difference between "protecting" and "interests".
Especially with regards to how far you can or even should go in this regard.
For example it would be safer to simply slaughter the inhabitants of country X through poison gas, nuclear weapons, etc etc etc. But you don't. It's ridiculous to say that moral concerns towards others outside of your borders are never a concern when a govt or indeed any group of people act.
And that's ignoring the possible affect of signed treaties or similar. To use a recent example, does the relaxation on the ban on importing USA beef benefit the citizens of the EU more than maintaining said ban ? Sure we might get cheaper beef. Or we might lose our own beef industries. Or.... etc etc etc
And that's ignoring any argument "we" might have to do with issues like the EU and sovereignty.
And then there's decisions made by a country for enviromental considerations.
There's loads of things that govts. do that on occassion aren't, in the short term at least, for the benefit of their own citziens as opposed to those of other countries or the world.
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Post by: Frazzled
I'm not ignoring any of that. I'm merely sayign the interests of a particular nation's citizens are its highest priority. Everything else is tree hugger can't we all get along rose colored glass nonsense.
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Post by: dietrich
jp400 wrote:Its a fact, war is war. First and Foremost a soldiers jobs is to kill the enemy.
As Patton said to his troops, "Your job isn't to die for your country. It's to make the other poor s.o.b. die for his."
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Post by: Kilkrazy
The fundamental point about a democracy is that only registered voters can vote for the PM/President or whatever. Therefore every rational democratic government DOES care about its citizens.
Plenty of non-democracies don't give a monkey's, of course.
Naturall, it is possible to take a more nuanced view of things. If one country isn't strong enough to defend all of its interests everywhere all the time, it needs friendly allies. Then it becomes sensible to consider the interests of ones' allies' citizens as well as ones' own.
I would like to think that an Israeli strike force, sent to free a group of assorted western citizens from (let's imagine) Ugandan captivity, would bring out the US and French citizens along with the Israelis, rather than leave them to rot.
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Post by: Ratbarf
Knowing America, once you guys catch Bin Laden you'll ship him off to Texas and kill him. To him (or most other terrorists), that would be letting him win. He'd have martyred himself for his cause. You want to make him pay for his horrible crimes, you throw him in a cell.
Or you could take a note from the British in Pakistan during the 18th/19th century and kill him while he was trapped inside of a pigskin thus blocking his path to heaven.
Its a fact, war is war. First and Foremost a soldiers jobs is to kill the enemy.
Nope, a soldiers job is to enforce the policies of government whatever they be to the extent they deem necessary.
jp400 wrote:
This is something that really pisses me off as well. They don't even bother to condemn the terrorists acts, they simply condemn the US's response to them regardless of what that response is. The same thing happens to Israel, they are always getting told off being condemned for killing innocent civillians. Well, the Israelis government shoots those civillians not intentionaly, but generally because the militants they are going after are hiding behind said civillians. The Palestinians and other terrorist organizations in the region fire hundreds of rockets a day into Israel, yet people barely mention this as those rockets don't kill many Israelis. These rockets are like gifts, its the thought that counts, not what you got them.
As for Capital Punishment, yes it should be done. The whole point of a justice system is to take the meeting out of revenge away from the hands of people who might do something extreme, but to fairly discover the crime that was committed and meet out a punishment that is equal to the crime committed. If you killed my cat, I should be able to seek restitution in the form of something that is of equal value (taking in emotional value as well) and either take it from you or destroy it. If you take the life of someone, the state/their family should be allowed to take yours. Personnally I think that once guilt has been ascertained in a murder or rape case, sentencing should belong to the victim/the victims kin.
All of that however has to be backed up by an efficient police force and institutions devoted to the detterent and prevention of crime. The justice system is there for exactly that, justice. And justice is revenge.
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Post by: BloodofOrks
isn't this thread about the death penalty.
Yes, but since all the facts and research favor one side, the other feels the need to sidetrack us because "Well I think they ought to kill the bastards" can only be phrased in so many ways.
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Post by: Ratbarf
Yes, but since all the facts and research favor one side, the other feels the need to sidetrack us because "Well I think they ought to kill the bastards" can only be phrased in so many ways.
In a philisophical argument facts don't matter.
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Post by: JohnHwangDD
@Ratbarf: In Intarwebz argument, facts don't matter.
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Post by: BloodofOrks
Ratbarf wrote:Yes, but since all the facts and research favor one side, the other feels the need to sidetrack us because "Well I think they ought to kill the bastards" can only be phrased in so many ways.
In a philisophical argument where their is measurable financial impact and in which one either creates or negates real risk (executing the innocent or releasing a still dangerous criminal) it is very important to get one's facts correct.
Fixed your quote.
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Post by: JohnHwangDD
@Blood: If Facts mattered in that way, we wouldn't have politicians.
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Post by: Cryonicleech
Never kill a man for one crime, IMHO.
Give 'em some years in jail, and when they're done, move on.
Preform a crime twice (I.E. 2 counts of Murder/ Rape or other serious offense (NOT stealing)) and stand right on the firing line.
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Post by: BloodofOrks
JohnHwangDD wrote:@Blood: If Facts mattered in that way, we wouldn't have politicians.
QFT
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Post by: Ratbarf
Fixed your quote.
Thank you for being a douche, I would rather you not use the quote system to write things in my username that I did not say. If you are going to refute an argument of mine please do so by all means. Just don't do it while using my username.
Thank you.
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Post by: JohnHwangDD
@Ratbarf: In that case, you should fix your sig.
The "malfred wrote" isn't even quoted - it's just me & Iorek...
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Post by: Cheese Elemental
Now, I've alerted a mod to the childish personal attacks flying around in this thread, and if it continues, I'm going to drop the hammer and dispense some indiscriminate justice.
I've always wanted to say that.
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Post by: Ratbarf
@ John
Sure thing.
PS: sigh, what a waste of my 1000th post...
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Post by: dogma
Frazzled wrote:Please name one that doesn't put the interest of its citizens above those of other nations.
This statement is entirely different from, and far more sane than, this one:
Protect US citizens. All other considerations rescinded.
The interests of the citizenry are distinct from the security of the citizenry. Otherwise any and all trial of US citizens in foreign courts would be invitation to war.
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Post by: dogma
Mango wrote:
Dogma,
If an unborn human being is not a human being in your book, then please define for me what a human being is.
A biologically autonomous, organic body possessing the human genetic code. So, basically, a human being that is not unborn. I thought the distinction would have been fairly obvious.
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Post by: Lorek
Ratbarf wrote:Fixed your quote.
Thank you for being a douche, I would rather you not use the quote system to write things in my username that I did not say. If you are going to refute an argument of mine please do so by all means. Just don't do it while using my username.
Thank you.
Ratbarf, personal attacks are not allowed on Dakka. The "fixed your quote" or "fixed your typo" meme has been around quite a while, and it's obvious to all who read it that the content is not really attributed to you (indeed, that's the entire point of the exercise). So don't take offense at it, and don't let Malfred anywhere near your posts.
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Post by: Alpharius
The Off-Topic forum...
While it may mean many things, it doesn't really mean the No-Rules-Have-To-Be-Followed-Forum...
I think I'll have a stamp made up, something along the lines of...
Attack the argument, not the individual?
I'm sure I'll settle upon something eventually.
Anyway, I guess the Eye of Sauron is now upon you, the posters in this thread?
EDIT
Oops! I guess both of Sauron's eyes are upon you now!
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Post by: Mango
dogma wrote:Mango wrote:
Dogma,
If an unborn human being is not a human being in your book, then please define for me what a human being is.
A biologically autonomous, organic body possessing the human genetic code. So, basically, a human being that is not unborn. I thought the distinction would have been fairly obvious.
Your definition of a human being does not hold water. A newborn is completely helpless for the first year of it's life, and completely dependant upon another for survival until at least 7 or 8 years of age (and then only in relatively benign circumstances). Which means they are not autonomous. So by your definiton, it would be ok to kill a child until it was physically capable of being self sufficient.
definition of autonomous: existing and functioning as an independent organism.
definition of independent: 4. not dependent; not depending or contingent upon something else for existence, operation, etc.
5. not relying on another or others for aid or support
An embryo has a seperate, distinct, and complete genetic code. It is a distinct organism that if left to it's own devices, without taking specific actions to the contrary, will survive.
So the distinction is only obvious if you are intellectually disengenuous.
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Post by: mcfly
Mango wrote:dogma wrote:Mango wrote:
Dogma,
If an unborn human being is not a human being in your book, then please define for me what a human being is.
A biologically autonomous, organic body possessing the human genetic code. So, basically, a human being that is not unborn. I thought the distinction would have been fairly obvious.
Your definition of a human being does not hold water. A newborn is completely helpless for the first year of it's life, and completely dependant upon another for survival until at least 7 or 8 years of age (and then only in relatively benign circumstances). Which means they are not autonomous. So by your definiton, it would be ok to kill a child until it was physically capable of being self sufficient.
Just to make this clear, I am anti-abortion, however, from that definition (e.g. helpless, dependent upon another and take food from them before birth) wouldn't that make them a parasite?
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Post by: Orkeosaurus
I think a parasite traditionally feeds off of another species, doesn't it?
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Post by: mcfly
Orkeosaurus wrote:I think a parasite traditionally feeds off of another species, doesn't it?
Yeah, I think you're right, but the similarities are there. It's just kinda strange I think.
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Post by: Orkeosaurus
Well, the young of every organism requires the parent to provide it with resources, usually with no gain for the parent aside from the evolutionary benefit of producing offspring.
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Post by: LunaHound
yani wrote:For me the death penalty is a barbaric reminant from a less enlightened society. It is my belife that everyone has a chance of redemption and can atone for what they have done.
By all means we are nowhere an enlightened society . and such leniency is what the true murderers are depending on ( sure how many can they kill before or if they are caught
ok it adds up to 300 year life sentence? that doesnt really help spell justice does it ) .
Therefore prevention IS*A*MUST the punishment must be so horrid that no one will ever consider murder an OPTION OR CHOICE.
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Post by: Orkeosaurus
yani wrote:For me the death penalty is a barbaric reminant from a less enlightened society. It is my belife that everyone has a chance of redemption and can atone for what they have done.
Problem is, how is the government supposed to judge whether or not someone has "atoned" for their mistakes? Some sort of soul camera?
Unless you mean atone on a personal level. While in jail, being fed bread and water, for the rest of your life. I could respect that wish, I suppose. Allow people to have a chance to prove something to themselves, even if they've gone beyond their chance to prove it to others?
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Post by: spartanghost
A fetus is not a human being. It may become one, but it is not one. an Autonomous Organism is one that can survive on it's own. not necessarily in the long run, but if you take a baby and leave it somewhere for let's say, a couple hours. it's won't be happy but it's probably not going to die. therefor it is biologically viable. a fetus, on the other hand (for the most part of it's gestation period) is in no way biologically viable. you take it out of the womb, it dies pretty quick. The moment it becomes a human being is when it becomes biologically viable. Mistakes happen, sometimes girls/women get pregnant without intending to. Sure, they probably weren't being responsible, but sticking them with the pregnancy and raising a child because of a moment's mistake (in which they probably weren't in their right mind) is like punishing a theft as if it was murder. WAAAYYY overkill. Besides, if you force someone who isn't ready to have a kid have one, that kid isn't going to have a very good childhood.
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Post by: mcfly
Orkeosaurus wrote:yani wrote:For me the death penalty is a barbaric reminant from a less enlightened society. It is my belife that everyone has a chance of redemption and can atone for what they have done.
Problem is, how is the government supposed to judge whether or not someone has "atoned" for their mistakes? Some sort of soul camera?
Didn't you know? Japan already has one.
On topic. It doesn't really matter if you can atone for what you've done, what's done is done, and there's nothing you can do to change that, no matter how bad you feel about it.
The guy that stole millions from a whole bunch of people a while back, I can't remember his name, but the victims wanted him to have a tv in his cell playing videos of how he ruined all these families and stuff. But no matter what he did, should he have 24/7 tv viewings of sad people for the rest of his life, or save the taxpayers the hassel and just kill him? What I'm saying is, it doesn't matter how bad you feel, the government shouldn't have to pay to keep you alive after a mass murder or whatever, its just a burden on the overly burdened taxpayers.
@spartanghost
Lance Armstrong's mother was 17 when she had him, and he turned out great. Should she of not had him then?
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Post by: spartanghost
mcfly wrote:Orkeosaurus wrote:yani wrote:For me the death penalty is a barbaric reminant from a less enlightened society. It is my belife that everyone has a chance of redemption and can atone for what they have done.
Problem is, how is the government supposed to judge whether or not someone has "atoned" for their mistakes? Some sort of soul camera?
Didn't you know? Japan already has one.
On topic. It doesn't really matter if you can atone for what you've done, what's done is done, and there's nothing you can do to change that, no matter how bad you feel about it.
The guy that stole millions from a whole bunch of people a while back, I can't remember his name, but the victims wanted him to have a tv in his cell playing videos of how he ruined all these families and stuff. But no matter what he did, should he have 24/7 tv viewings of sad people for the rest of his life, or save the taxpayers the hassel and just kill him? What I'm saying is, it doesn't matter how bad you feel, the government shouldn't have to pay to keep you alive after a mass murder or whatever, its just a burden on the overly burdened taxpayers.
@spartanghost
Lance Armstrong's mother was 17 when she had him, and he turned out great. Should she of not had him then?
Oh no that's not quite what I meant. I mean if someone gets pregnant and isn't ready/it was a big mistake, they should ahve the choice to terminate. I'm not saying abourt all teenage pregnancies, i just think the choice should be there. Sure the child could turn out to be the next Lance Armstrong, but if the unprepared parent does a crappy job they could end up as the next charles manson just as easily. Obviously some teenage parents do a great job and the kids turn out great and they go on to lead fulfilling, productive lives. Hey! Thats's great! Kudos to them. They took what I see as a risk and it paid off great! But historically having a child before you're out of high school/ready for it tends to have rather detrimental effects to both parent and child. Ironically I had almost this exact same conversation with someone who's mother was 17 when she had her about 25 hours ago lol.
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Post by: dogma
Mango wrote:
Your definition of a human being does not hold water. A newborn is completely helpless for the first year of it's life, and completely dependant upon another for survival until at least 7 or 8 years of age (and then only in relatively benign circumstances). Which means they are not autonomous. So by your definiton, it would be ok to kill a child until it was physically capable of being self sufficient.
Hence the word 'biologically' ahead of autonomous. A newborn is biologically autonomous because it can breath, process nutrients, and go about the fundamental processes of life without assistance. Note that this definition would be inclusive of the later fetal stages during which premature birth is viable.
Also, in no way is a child fully dependent upon its parents until 7 or 8 years of age. It is unlikely such a child would survive, but it is not impossible. Children are capable of elementary self-sufficiency once they can walk with reasonable stability.
Mango wrote:
definition of autonomous: existing and functioning as an independent organism.
Autonomous does not necessarily include 'functioning' in its definition. Many sources close the matter at existence. Merriam-Webster's, for example.
Mango wrote:
definition of independent: 4. not dependent; not depending or contingent upon something else for existence, operation, etc.
5. not relying on another or others for aid or support
4 is consistent with my use of the word, and 5 does not relate at all because no organism depends on others for aid or support in the maintenance of its status as a organism. If it did, it would not be an organism at all as an organism is intrinsically self-contained.
Mango wrote:
An embryo has a seperate, distinct, and complete genetic code. It is a distinct organism that if left to it's own devices, without taking specific actions to the contrary, will survive.
Not precisely. Many embryos (between 1/4 and 1/3) fail in miscarriage without any notably discreet action being taken.
This is where the use of the word autonomous comes into play. If an embryo is miscarried it will die. There is no way, currently, to preserve it. Regardless of its status as a genetically distinct collection of cells it is not a human being.
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Post by: Kilkrazy
mcfly wrote:Orkeosaurus wrote:I think a parasite traditionally feeds off of another species, doesn't it?
Yeah, I think you're right, but the similarities are there. It's just kinda strange I think.
Any mammalian embryo is a parasite in the sense that it drains the mother of resources in order to feed its own growth. The embryo has a separate genetic code and there are sometimes pernicious interactions of immune response between the embryo and mother.
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Post by: Mango
dogma wrote:Mango wrote:
Your definition of a human being does not hold water. A newborn is completely helpless for the first year of it's life, and completely dependant upon another for survival until at least 7 or 8 years of age (and then only in relatively benign circumstances). Which means they are not autonomous. So by your definiton, it would be ok to kill a child until it was physically capable of being self sufficient.
Hence the word 'biologically' ahead of autonomous. A newborn is biologically autonomous because it can breath, process nutrients, and go about the fundamental processes of life without assistance. Note that this definition would be inclusive of the later fetal stages during which premature birth is viable.
Also, in no way is a child fully dependent upon its parents until 7 or 8 years of age. It is unlikely such a child would survive, but it is not impossible. Children are capable of elementary self-sufficiency once they can walk with reasonable stability.
Mango wrote:
definition of autonomous: existing and functioning as an independent organism.
Autonomous does not necessarily include 'functioning' in its definition. Many sources close the matter at existence. Merriam-Webster's, for example.
Mango wrote:
definition of independent: 4. not dependent; not depending or contingent upon something else for existence, operation, etc.
5. not relying on another or others for aid or support
4 is consistent with my use of the word, and 5 does not relate at all because no organism depends on others for aid or support in the maintenance of its status as a organism. If it did, it would not be an organism at all as an organism is intrinsically self-contained.
Mango wrote:
An embryo has a seperate, distinct, and complete genetic code. It is a distinct organism that if left to it's own devices, without taking specific actions to the contrary, will survive.
Not precisely. Many embryos (between 1/4 and 1/3) fail in miscarriage without any notably discreet action being taken.
This is where the use of the word autonomous comes into play. If an embryo is miscarried it will die. There is no way, currently, to preserve it. Regardless of its status as a genetically distinct collection of cells it is not a human being.
Your first point, so now you are saying that a person that has to use a dialysis machine is not a human being. Or has to use any mechanical device to breath, proces nutrients etc. Basically, anyone that has a surgery, until they heal completely, is not a human being. A newborn is completely unable to care for itself. A 3 year old child might be able to feed itself, or drink unassissted. however a three year old has no idea how to provide the food in the first place. So again, is dependent upon another for survival. Also, apparently walking is a precondition for being a human being by your definition. Since you clearly state that once a child is able to walk it becomes self sufficient. Are amputees and parapalegics now no longer human beings? (I know that the walking part is not what you meant, but I was using that point to illustrate how arbitrary your definition is or can become)
As for miscarriage, that is not the same as deliberately killing something. If a person dies from a heart attack, society doesn't generally put anyone on trial for murder. If someone shoots a person in the heart, society does try them for murder. "natural causes" compared to "murder."
An embryo is an immature human being. It is undergoing cell division, cell differentiation, it has it's own distinct biological boundary, either a cell membrane, or later skin. It is capable or becoming capable of respiration, either through absorbing the oxygen fed to it, or later unassisted. If removed from the womb, yes it will die. But the key is how it is removed. If the woman's body spontaneously removes it, that is "natural". If someone shoves a needle into it first, that is unnatural. if someone takes hormones for the express purpose of "spontaneously" aborting the fetus, that is deliberate.
If abortion is not killing something, then why have an abortion? If it is not really a living being, and is instead a choice, then no actions would be needed to terminate its existence. When a choice is made to terminate somethings life, you are killing something. What exactly are you killing if not an immature human being?
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Post by: Frazzled
Orkeosaurus wrote:I think a parasite traditionally feeds off of another species, doesn't it?
Stay up for a month, and yea the little buggers are cute but you'll be tyhinking PARASITE!!! about three in the morning. Later they will draw smiley faces and give them to you and give you a hug. You will keep these because even later they revert to OBNOXIOUS parasites (aka teenagers). Its the cycle of life. 
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Post by: Kilkrazy
I would have said psychological development and cognitive capability is important in the definition of human being.
Of course this leads us to difficult ground when we look at cases of people with severe cognitive disfunction. A person who has a serious brain injury is still considered a human being until they are shown to be brain dead.
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Post by: Frazzled
Now thats a slippery slope KK. You're basically saying children are not human beings, as they are not cognitively developed. Yikes!
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Post by: Kilkrazy
No, I'm saying that cognitive development is taken into account in the definition of human. We don't call dogs humans. Lots of people want to grant human rights to dolphins and chimpanzees.
There was an amusing Philip K Dick story in which abortion was legal up to the age of 12, because that is when the ability to understand algebra develops. Obviously it was a satire along the lines of Jonathan Swift's 'modest proposal'.
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Post by: Frazzled
Kilkrazy wrote:No, I'm saying that cognitive development is taken into account in the definition of human. We don't call dogs humans. Lots of people want to grant human rights to dolphins and chimpanzees.
There was an amusing Philip K Dick story in which abortion was legal up to the age of 12, because that is when the ability to understand algebra develops. Obviously it was a satire along the lines of Jonathan Swift's 'modest proposal'.
Obviously Phillip K Dick never had a teenager. That abortion age would have gone up to the point the door hits their butts on the way out the house.
Teenagers-why amnesia is under rated.
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Post by: Kilkrazy
If we are to argue about the definition of human as a means of condemning abortion as a form of murder, it is clearly necessary to define the starting point of when a foetus becomes human.
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Post by: mcfly
Kilkrazy wrote:If we are to argue about the definition of human as a means of condemning abortion as a form of murder, it is clearly necessary to define the starting point of when a foetus becomes human.
And that's the problem that both sides of the argument runs into. No one can define it so everyone is happy. Christians believe that it is human instantly, and evolutions depend upon other factors, like what you're saying. Nobody's ever going to figure out the exact moment when a child is human.
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Post by: Frazzled
Ay and there's the rub matey! Argghh
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Post by: Kilkrazy
Has International Speak Like A Pirate Day come around early this year?
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Post by: Frazzled
Argh you know it arghhh...
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Post by: Kilkrazy
mcfly wrote:Kilkrazy wrote:If we are to argue about the definition of human as a means of condemning abortion as a form of murder, it is clearly necessary to define the starting point of when a foetus becomes human.
And that's the problem that both sides of the argument runs into. No one can define it so everyone is happy. Christians believe that it is human instantly, and evolutions depend upon other factors, like what you're saying. Nobody's ever going to figure out the exact moment when a child is human.
In my view the argument is pointless.
Clearly people who agree with abortion do not view a foetus as human or they would agree it was murder.
Lots of people do agree with abortion , or at least they accept that abortion of unwanted foetuses is an unfortunate, undesireable but necessary thing. The purpose of legalized abortion is to set sensible limits and protections on what otherwise happens illegally.
In the UK, the legality of abortion is set according to the age of the foetus compared to normal term of pregancy. It's 24 weeks except in special circumstances. That's about the time that a foetus can have a good chance of survival if born prematurely and given modern life support.
The number of abortions that take place outside the limit is very small and depends on medical agreement for them to take place.
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Post by: mcfly
Hey KillKrazy, off topic here, but what time is it there?
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Post by: Greebynog
Ratbarf wrote:
As for Capital Punishment, yes it should be done. The whole point of a justice system is to take the meeting out of revenge away from the hands of people who might do something extreme, but to fairly discover the crime that was committed and meet out a punishment that is equal to the crime committed. If you killed my cat, I should be able to seek restitution in the form of something that is of equal value (taking in emotional value as well) and either take it from you or destroy it. If you take the life of someone, the state/their family should be allowed to take yours. Personnally I think that once guilt has been ascertained in a murder or rape case, sentencing should belong to the victim/the victims kin.
Ahh, so two wrongs do make a right.
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Post by: Kilkrazy
mcfly wrote:Hey KillKrazy, off topic here, but what time is it there?
Right now it is 3:47 in the afternoon.
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Post by: Thanatos_elNyx
Greebynog wrote:Ratbarf wrote:
As for Capital Punishment, yes it should be done. The whole point of a justice system is to take the meeting out of revenge away from the hands of people who might do something extreme, but to fairly discover the crime that was committed and meet out a punishment that is equal to the crime committed. If you killed my cat, I should be able to seek restitution in the form of something that is of equal value (taking in emotional value as well) and either take it from you or destroy it. If you take the life of someone, the state/their family should be allowed to take yours. Personnally I think that once guilt has been ascertained in a murder or rape case, sentencing should belong to the victim/the victims kin.
Ahh, so two wrongs do make a right.
Not quite.
You kill someone = Wrong
Society kills You =/= Wrong
The Death Penalty is Society protecting itself from those that would harm it.
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Post by: dietrich
The Death Penalty and Abortion in the same thread! Someone needs to bring up Gun Control, and that'd be the triangle for American politics.
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Post by: Frazzled
Too late! I already said that hahahhah I win! What do I get?
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Post by: mcfly
Kilkrazy wrote:mcfly wrote:Hey KillKrazy, off topic here, but what time is it there?
Right now it is 3:47 in the afternoon.
So that makes you like 4 hours later than me...Crazy stuff this time zone thing.
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Post by: reds8n
Frazzled wrote:Too late! I already said that hahahhah I win! What do I get?
Mr. Dietrich is getting slow in his old age.
... have we brought up the Nazis yet or is the thread too young for that ?
.... now if fetus' were armed and someone tried to abort them and they fought back would that count as murder ?
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Post by: Frazzled
1. Alright I finally win something. hurray!!!
2. No Nazis yet, not enough Nazi surf zombies. frankly i am disappointed in that aspect of this thread.
3. No that would be self defense, unless the feti formed an armed vigilante group meeting out justice from the end of a bottle. Which would be cool. Sci Fi Channel sounds like another of your winner movies.
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Post by: dietrich
Sorry, Fraz, I missed the gun control reference.
For bringing up the American trifecta of political hot-button issues (gun control, abortion, and the death penalty), assuming you're a US citizen, you win the ability to run for political office.
That's right, now you too can spout off propaganda that makes no sense, make commitments that aren't practical, and become even more hated than lawyers!
Now, personally, I think you're overqualified - you know more than a fifth grader. But, fortunately for you, there is no limit to how smart (or dumb) you can be and still be a politician.
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Post by: Frazzled
I'm pleased to announce my candidacy for Emperor for life, er um, State Senator...
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Post by: Kilkrazy
dietrich wrote:The Death Penalty and Abortion in the same thread! Someone needs to bring up Gun Control, and that'd be the triangle for American politics.
We can also add anti-abortionists who blow up clinics, thus bringing domestic terrorism into the mix!
We need to find a drugs angle.
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Post by: Mango
We haven't mentioned immigration, social security, torture, or TARP yet. We have barely scratched the surface yet. You Nazis. (If I offended the sensitivities of anyone who considers themselves a Nazi, I meant no offense. In an era of moral and cultural relativism, with no good or evil, then a nazi is not evil. just misunderstood.)
On gun control, I am a firm believer that more gun control is always better. But my definition of gun control is hitting what you aim at.
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Post by: spartanghost
Your first point, so now you are saying that a person that has to use a dialysis machine is not a human being. Or has to use any mechanical device to breath, proces nutrients etc. Basically, anyone that has a surgery, until they heal completely, is not a human being. A newborn is completely unable to care for itself. A 3 year old child might be able to feed itself, or drink unassissted. however a three year old has no idea how to provide the food in the first place. So again, is dependent upon another for survival. Also, apparently walking is a precondition for being a human being by your definition. Since you clearly state that once a child is able to walk it becomes self sufficient. Are amputees and parapalegics now no longer human beings? (I know that the walking part is not what you meant, but I was using that point to illustrate how arbitrary your definition is or can become)
That's not the same thing. Yes, those people would die without the machines, and yes, in the strictest use of that definition they aren't human beings, but they were before (And that makes a big difference i.e. they've most likely contributed to society in some way), and they will most likely become one after. A fetus has never been a human being. I suppose if you wanted to be overly mechanical and follow my definition to the letter, someone making medical decisions for someone on life support could choose to end that persons life. Hey! wait a minute we have a name for that Euthanasia. Wow, thats 4 moral controversies we've brought up now. Aren't we talented!
As for miscarriage, that is not the same as deliberately killing something. If a person dies from a heart attack, society doesn't generally put anyone on trial for murder. If someone shoots a person in the heart, society does try them for murder. "natural causes" compared to "murder."
Agreed. but that doesn't mean we should just allow nature to control everything. Contracting the flu and dying of it is "natural cause", but we stop that before anyone dies, dont we? (or at least try our best)
An embryo is an immature human being. It is undergoing cell division, cell differentiation, it has it's own distinct biological boundary, either a cell membrane, or later skin. It is capable or becoming capable of respiration, either through absorbing the oxygen fed to it, or later unassisted. If removed from the womb, yes it will die. But the key is how it is removed. If the woman's body spontaneously removes it, that is "natural". If someone shoves a needle into it first, that is unnatural. if someone takes hormones for the express purpose of "spontaneously" aborting the fetus, that is deliberate.
It's not an immature human being any more than a sperm or egg cell is. Sure it can become one, and the union of a sperm and ova greatly increases that chance, but it's ny no means a sure thing, so we cannot classify an embryo as a immature human being. Think of it this way: a sprue of model parts isn't a model. there's a decent chance of it becoming a model, but it could get lost in the mail, crushed underfoot by mistake, etc. To call something an immature something else, you need to know that barring outside action, it will become that something else in maturity. Obviousy the sprue analogy doesnt quite hold there, but if you suspend disbelief and accept that it getting lost or destroyed and being build and painted are 'natural' parts of it's life cycle, then the sprue, much like the embryo, isn;t quite and immature model/human. Now if the sprue makes it to it's new owner and he/she starts building it, we can safely say it's an immature model, and barring incompetance and catastrophe, it will become a model.
If abortion is not killing something, then why have an abortion? If it is not really a living being, and is instead a choice, then no actions would be needed to terminate its existence. When a choice is made to terminate somethings life, you are killing something. What exactly are you killing if not an immature human being?
what? It seems to me that you're implying that if a fetus is not a living thing then we just have to think it out of existence? Firstly, yes it IS alive. It's just not biologically viable. the most basic tenement of life is that (I'm 99.99999999999999999% of cases) life can only come from other life. therefor, for something to become a distinct, biological organism, it must have been alive while growing into that organism. Abortion is killing something, but my belief is that it's unfortunate that something has to be killed, but it's not a human and it's threatening to do serious damage to a woman/girl's and man/boy's lives. I know a number of people that have been the result of or been involved in a teenage pregnancy and in most cases it ruined the parents lives. Thats not fair to them. It's not fair to the fetus either but frankly, I don't care. it's not a distinct, viable human being, therefor it doesn't have human rights yet. If you start building a model and decide you don;t want it any more, why shouldn't you be allowed to just throw it out? Yeah, it's unfortunate that the potential for a nice model has been lost, but it wouldn't be fair to you to have to spend all the time carefully building it and painting it to become a good model if you don't intend to keep/use it. It's the same with a fetus. IF a procedure is ever developed to remove an embryo around abortion time and either implant it in a surrogate mother that wants it or test-tube baby it, I'll be all for developing that technology and replacing abortion with it, but thats just not doable. right now, it's either have the baby and put it up for adoptions (which in many cases doesn't lead to a much better life), keep it and care for it throughout it's life (which again can have some pretty detrimental effects), or abort it and save oneself, and in many cases the potential child a hard life. I believe people should have that choice, and to take it away from them isn't fair to them.
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Post by: spartanghost
Kilkrazy wrote:dietrich wrote:The Death Penalty and Abortion in the same thread! Someone needs to bring up Gun Control, and that'd be the triangle for American politics.
We can also add anti-abortionists who blow up clinics, thus bringing domestic terrorism into the mix!
We need to find a drugs angle.
Legalize marijuana! Smoke weed! get high! babies!
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Post by: Frazzled
Mango wrote:We haven't mentioned immigration, social security, torture, or TARP yet. We have barely scratched the surface yet. You Nazis. (If I offended the sensitivities of anyone who considers themselves a Nazi, I meant no offense. In an era of moral and cultural relativism, with no good or evil, then a nazi is not evil. just misunderstood.)
On gun control, I am a firm believer that more gun control is always better. But my definition of gun control is hitting what you aim at.
*Well, many people on death row are there for crimes related to drugs: drug use or the furtherance of drug criminal activity. drugs-check
*There are several illegal immigrants who are on death row. There are no immigrants from Leichtenstein on death row. immigration-check
*If they get out from death row after 30 years, are they eligible for social security and medicare? SS-check.
*Prison movies are always a torture to watch. Torture-check.
*No TARP funds were used in the making of this commercial, although Geitner did just negatively impact my bonus. THANKS A hole!!!TARP and Geitner check.
All topics checked. We can turn the intranets off now. Viva me.
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Post by: JohnHwangDD
Woot. I'm unsubscribing here.
Thanks, Fraz - you've got my vote!
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Post by: generalgrog
We haven't talked about health care reform either.
GG
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Post by: Frazzled
Health reform is for chumps!
I'm not going to do everything GG, oh wait we're talking abortion, thats health care reform right there. Wee ha. Seriously, I pwon
(somewhere a 14 year old boy is sighing and chanting shutupdadyouremabarrassingmeagain shutupdadyouremabarrassingmeagain
shutupdadyouremabarrassingmeagain...)
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Post by: mcfly
I say we abort everyone, like in the day the earth stood still.
Then everyone will be dead and not argueing anymore.
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Post by: spartanghost
Frazzled wrote:
*There are several illegal immigrants who are on death row. There are no immigrants from Leichtenstein on death row. immigration-check
Thats because like, 35 people live in leichtenstein.
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Post by: Mango
Spartanghost,
1, Your first rebuttal, A fetus has always been a human being. It has the complete genetic make up of a human being. It is a seperate and distinct organism. It is capable of cellular division. It is capable of all the functions of a living organism. How is that not a human being? Is it to small? Does it not look like other human eing? Does its location determine if it is a human being?
2. Your second point. Yes we try to cure a person who has the flu to prevent them from dying, even though the flu is natural. The key difference is in one case you are acting to prevent death. In the other you are inflicting it.
3. Your third point. An embryo is most definitely different than a sperm or an egg. A sperm or egg each only have half the genetic material that an embryo has. A sperm or an egg by themselves can do nothing. An embryo, while it may not survive is still human, albeit immature. It might grow into a mature adult, or it might die anywhere along the way. Probability of survival does not make someone human. Since we are using analogies think of it this way. If you decide to bake a cake, you gather the ingredients. Seperately they are unique entities. Eggs. Flour. Sugar. Milk. (and whatever else goes in a cake). Because each is distinct and seperate, they cannot be called a cake. Think of the ingredients as the sperm and the egg. When the ingredients are mixed together. As soon as they are mixed you now have an immature cake. You place it in the oven. It comes out of the oven as a cake. After you have mixed the ingredients together, if someone were to ask what you are doing would you reply "nothing until it comes out of the oven" or would you say, "I am baking a cake"
4. Your last point. Yes it is alive. As soon as it starts cell division, it is biologically viable. Is it capable of living outside of the mother? No. Not unaided. That does not make it any less alive or less human. Killing another human being because it might have a perceived negative impact on the parent's quality of life is the height of selfishness. Aborting a pregnancy that would result in the death of the mother is different. For example if the fertilized egg implants in the fallopian tubes. That is the concept of killing one to preserve another. If The pregnancy was not terminated the mother and the child would die. If the abortion takes place, then the mother survives. Triage. Ties in with the concept of justifiable homicide. Killing a person for convenience is not justifiable homicide.
You agree that the embryo is alive. If it is alive, then what is it if not an immature human being?
Point 5. How do you do sub quotes?
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Post by: Kilkrazy
Most people don't agree with you. They don't judge things according to a scientific checklist, they judge by often emotional factors.
By your definition, a blastula is a human being, yet it can't be seen without a microscope and would need to be analysed genetically to know it had a human genome, which you couldn't do without an invasive procedure which might damage the blastula.
There's no way a typical person is going to connect emotionally with a blastula.
Women don't even know they are pregnant for several weeks following conception. The idea that they contain a human being during those weeks is essentially theoretical.
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Post by: Mango
So emotional connections are now how we base a decision on who lives or dies? I guess autistic people are out.
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Post by: Ratbarf
In the UK, the legality of abortion is set according to the age of the foetus compared to normal term of pregancy. It's 24 weeks except in special circumstances. That's about the time that a foetus can have a good chance of survival if born prematurely and given modern life support.
In Canada I beleive we do not have any kind of abortion law. You can do whatever you want to an unborn child right up until the embilical cord is cut.
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Post by: greenskin lynn
ok, time to make my hippy friends sad
I support the death penalty, i feel that some people need to no longer be.
I believe women should have the option of an abortion, crap happens, and they should have options.
As for the prison system. Put them to work, like they do with the local one around here. They send them out in teams to clean up public property, and roadsides, and use them as cheap labor to for things like building churches.
Gun control-um, i'm not letting anyone have mine, and i support a person being able to get one. Maybe give out a stamp card- for every so many purchases, you get a free flak vest or something.
health care- i would need to read up before i felt comfortable presenting a supportable opinion.
now back to resetting mouse traps, for i am become mousy death, the destroyer of mousy worlds
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Post by: spartanghost
greenskin lynn wrote:ok, time to make my hippy friends sad
I support the death penalty, i feel that some people need to no longer be.
I believe women should have the option of an abortion, crap happens, and they should have options.
As for the prison system. Put them to work, like they do with the local one around here. They send them out in teams to clean up public property, and roadsides, and use them as cheap labor to for things like building churches.
Gun control-um, i'm not letting anyone have mine, and i support a person being able to get one. Maybe give out a stamp card- for every so many purchases, you get a free flak vest or something.
health care- i would need to read up before i felt comfortable presenting a supportable opinion.
now back to resetting mouse traps, for i am become mousy death, the destroyer of mousy worlds
I like your thinking, sir! I you pretty much stated all of my opinions. QFT.
Also, i see what you did there, xzar.
Mango wrote:Spartanghost,
1, Your first rebuttal, A fetus has always been a human being. It has the complete genetic make up of a human being. It is a seperate and distinct organism. It is capable of cellular division. It is capable of all the functions of a living organism. How is that not a human being? Is it to small? Does it not look like other human eing? Does its location determine if it is a human being?
I think this is where our main disagreement is. I don't believe a fetus is a human being until it can survive outside the womb. You believe it becomes a human at the moment of conception. I don't think we'll ever know which one of us is right. But in the interest of a good debate (and this is), I'll offer rebuttal anyways. Firstly nothing has "always" been anything but whatever the universe is made of. Everything has a beginning and end. Secondly, all three of those reasons are reason enough to deny something the label of human. Too small means it doesnt have the requisite parts to be human, to be something you have to look at least remotely like it (which, i admit a fetus tends to do after some time), and it's location is one of preparation to become a human being.
Mango wrote:
2. Your second point. Yes we try to cure a person who has the flu to prevent them from dying, even though the flu is natural. The key difference is in one case you are acting to prevent death. In the other you are inflicting it.
Yes we are inflicting death, but the point there was that "It's not natural therefor it's bad" is an invalid point.
Mango wrote:
3. Your third point. An embryo is most definitely different than a sperm or an egg. A sperm or egg each only have half the genetic material that an embryo has. A sperm or an egg by themselves can do nothing. An embryo, while it may not survive is still human, albeit immature. It might grow into a mature adult, or it might die anywhere along the way. Probability of survival does not make someone human. Since we are using analogies think of it this way. If you decide to bake a cake, you gather the ingredients. Seperately they are unique entities. Eggs. Flour. Sugar. Milk. (and whatever else goes in a cake). Because each is distinct and seperate, they cannot be called a cake. Think of the ingredients as the sperm and the egg. When the ingredients are mixed together. As soon as they are mixed you now have an immature cake. You place it in the oven. It comes out of the oven as a cake. After you have mixed the ingredients together, if someone were to ask what you are doing would you reply "nothing until it comes out of the oven" or would you say, "I am baking a cake"
Yes, it is different, but this isn't black an white here. It's closer to being human yes, but it's still not all the way there. Agreed probability of survival a human does not make, but that's not really what i was trying to say. The cake analogy is a good one. But my conclusion of it is different. If someone asks me what i'm doing i'll say "I'm baking a cake". If they ask me if it is a cake, i'll say "No, it's batter right now, but it will probably be a cake in a few minutes. would you like a piece?" similar situation as far as I see it.
Mango wrote:
4. Your last point. Yes it is alive. As soon as it starts cell division, it is biologically viable. Is it capable of living outside of the mother? No. Not unaided. That does not make it any less alive or less human. Killing another human being because it might have a perceived negative impact on the parent's quality of life is the height of selfishness. Aborting a pregnancy that would result in the death of the mother is different. For example if the fertilized egg implants in the fallopian tubes. That is the concept of killing one to preserve another. If The pregnancy was not terminated the mother and the child would die. If the abortion takes place, then the mother survives. Triage. Ties in with the concept of justifiable homicide. Killing a person for convenience is not justifiable homicide.
You agree that the embryo is alive. If it is alive, then what is it if not an immature human being?
Respectfully, no. It's not viable. Viable means it can survive for a short period on it's own. for the most part a fetus can't. If you remove a fetus at say, 3 weeks and plop it on the table, it's probably dead by the time it hits the table. therefor it;s not viable. I can see why you might call that selfish, but I believe it's justified. Think of it this way: A girl wants to have a baby, but soemtime in the future, when she's ready so she can provide for it well. But she gets pregnant because the condom broke! she's not ready at all. if she keeps it, she'll have the baby, and probably love it just the same, but it's life won't be quite as full as if she had waited.. but if she aborts it, and has another one a few years down the road when she's ready, this baby has a much fuller, well provided for life. I really think that that's worth it. I really do think it's a shame that a potential human is lost, but i feel it's a necessary evil to do well by our children. I've said it before and i'll say it again. If theres ever a way that fetus can be saved without the woman having to go through with the pregnancy, it's awesome and i support it 500%. but we just can't do that now, so we have to settle for the next best thing.
Mango wrote:
Point 5. How do you do sub quotes?
like I did in this post? What i did was quote your post and copy and past the [ quote=Mango] and [ /quote] tags around the different parts of your post, so I can interject my comments between the different sections.
Theres one more point i'd like to add. Laws about abortion aren't necessarily about right and wrong, they're about choice. Some people believe as I do, that it's a viable and often good option, and others believe it's wrong. The laws would never under any circumstances FORCE anyone to have an abortion. It would always be that person's choice. It feels kind of oppressive(sorry for the harsh word, i don't have a better one) that people would seek to take away that choice; that freedom. It just doesn't seem fair that a complete accident could result in someones life being messed up so badly. Even if there was some kind of control on it like you're only allowed to get 1 or 2 (that weren't beyond your control) before they cut you off. I believe that anyone who keeps getting pregnant like that simply isn't taking the necessary precautions to prevent it, and in that case they're just being stupid (although one could argue that these are the last people who should be having children). If it was controlled like that, I believe it would relax some of the controversy about it, but since we're talking about a human life (or potential human life, depending on what you believe), i don't think the controversy will ever end completely.
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Post by: Kilkrazy
Mango wrote:So emotional connections are now how we base a decision on who lives or dies? I guess autistic people are out.
I don't understand your point.
Are you saying that autistic people aren't human?
Life or death decisions are often made on emotional grounds. There are frequent cases of people drowning while trying to save their dogs, or other people's children, for example. These decisions are not made on rational grounds.
Many supporters of the death penalty are on emotional grounds, such as revenge.
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Post by: mcfly
spartanghost wrote:
The laws would never under any circumstances FORCE anyone to have an abortion.
YET
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Post by: Kilkrazy
They do in China.
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Post by: Mango
Kilkrazy wrote:Mango wrote:So emotional connections are now how we base a decision on who lives or dies? I guess autistic people are out.
I don't understand your point.
Are you saying that autistic people aren't human?
Life or death decisions are often made on emotional grounds. There are frequent cases of people drowning while trying to save their dogs, or other people's children, for example. These decisions are not made on rational grounds.
Many supporters of the death penalty are on emotional grounds, such as revenge.
Killkrazy.
My point was that emotional considerations are a poor proxy for making rational decisions. That is why our legal system does whatever it can to take emotions out of the equation. Emotions are often wrong.
People do make decisions based on emotion. Those decisions are frequently wrong. A man loses his job and his finances are in a wreck. He comes home and kills his entire family. That is making an emotional decision. A woman suffers from post partum depression. (an emotional state) and drowns all of her children because she is trying to save them. That is an emotional decision. Attempting to save a drowning child, even if you are a poor swimmer, is not. Emotions would certainly play a role in the decision, but most adults rationally know that they have a much better chance of survival than the child does unaided.
I should more accurately have said “autistic spectrum disorders”. Specifically Asperger’s Syndrome. It is very difficult to connect with them on an emotional level. If emotional connection and empathy are requisites for the definition of what a human is, then anyone that is hard to relate to would be non-human.
Many supporters of the death penalty are also making a decision on how to best protect society and allocate societies resources. A murderer has already shown that they will flout the strongest of society’s rules. People also know that criminal typically have a very high recidivism rate. The death penalty is a sure fire way of preventing that individual from harming others in the society. People can and have escaped from prison. Hollywood notwithstanding, people rarely come back after you kill them. Now if you would prefer that prisoner’s be incarcerated, and the cost of maintaining the incarceration for lots of criminals prevents the society from performing other vital tasks (like building roads, police forces, militaries, fire departments et al.) what do you do then? Release the predator’s back into society? Or purge them?
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Post by: Mango
Spartanghost,
1. If someone is missing a limb, they no longer have the requisite parts. Can we kill them? So number of parts does not a human make. Appearance is also a poor method. A white person looks different than a yellow looks different than a black, yet except for racial supremacists who tend to make those judgments based off of emotion rather than reason, most people would agree that all of the disparate ethnic groups are still humans. Making a judgment based off of appearance tends to lead to genocide. Location does not determine if something is human. If you use location, say inside the womb instead outside, you could easily define it as inside a prison or outside it. Dwarfs are also much smaller than normal, yet they are still human.
2. My point was not that if it is not natural therefore it is bad. My point was that Society does not assign blame to individuals for results outside of their control, for example dyeing from a heart attack, versus being murdered. One is a “natural cause” meaning no person is to blame. In murder, one person took a deliberate action that a reasonable person would know would result in the death of another person.
3. Hence why I said immature human. Maturity (and here I am using the term as it relates to physical maturity rather than emotional maturity). Is also a poor measure on deciding what is human. A human typically does not reach full maturity until 25 or so. Would it be permissible to kill anyone under 25 without penalty?
4 and 5. This is incorrect. You are changing the fetus’ environment artificially, and then saying it was not viable because it did not survive. If I took you and place you naked on the moon, you would die. Does that mean you are not a viable organism?
“Quality of life” is a very relative term. Would the fetus rather live a mediocre life or not live at all. No one asked the fetus. The decision was made for it. People talk about choice in this matter. Bt they rarely mention the fact they are taking the choice from another. Did the embryo “choose” to be conceived? No. Does the embryo get to “choose” to live or die? No. That choice is taken from it. In cases of rape, (I am talking in cases where the rape could potentially result in a pregnancy, so am excluding male on male rape) you have a wrong committed. A man forces himself on a woman. He takes away from her her choice. Then later the woman finds out that the rape resulted in a pregnancy. Is the resulting embryo guilty of the crime committed by the rapist? Or is the embryo blameless? Yet for no actions of its own, the embryo is aborted by the mother, who does not want to carry the child to term, and be reminded every day for nine months of the original crime. Is that not another wrong? Killing something that is blameless, does not correct the original crime. Should instead the woman be forced again to carry the child to term, even if she gives it up for adoption at birth? That is a much tougher question to answer than whether or not the embryo should be killed so that the parents can go off to college, party until 3:00 in the morning, and live a life unencumbered by a child, until they are “ready” to settle down and have a child. Even if by “ready’ you define it as emotionally or financially able to better care for the child.
Yes my opinion is that the human life does indeed begin at conception. Scientifically, that is the most valid view point. Other definitions would exclude too many segments of the population to be valid.
Are there instances where is justified to take a life? Yes. Is to preserve the life of another one? Yes. Is to protect others? Yes. Is to prevent another from harming people in the future, one? (That goes back to the original topic of this post.) Yes. Is doing it for convenience? No. Is it justified for “quality of life” of another? No. That way of thinking leads to eugenics and euthanasia.
This is not just an American topic by the way. This is a topic at least as old as the ancient Greeks. The original Hippocratic Oath included verbiage about not performing abortions.
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Post by: smiling Assassin
spartanghost wrote:Yes, it is different, but this isn't black an white here. It's closer to being human yes, but it's still not all the way there. Agreed probability of survival a human does not make, but that's not really what i was trying to say. The cake analogy is a good one. But my conclusion of it is different. If someone asks me what i'm doing i'll say "I'm baking a cake". If they ask me if it is a cake, i'll say "No, it's batter right now, but it will probably be a cake in a few minutes. would you like a piece?" similar situation as far as I see it.
Not particularly. So, you're saying that when the Child-Cake comes out of the toasty Womb-Oven, then it's alive? That moment? A cake is a very poor example to use. How about 10 minutes earlier? The cake won't be good to eat, but the child will survive with proper care.
spartanghost wrote:Respectfully, no. It's not viable. Viable means it can survive for a short period on it's own. for the most part a fetus can't. If you remove a fetus at say, 3 weeks and plop it on the table, it's probably dead by the time it hits the table. therefor it;s not viable. I can see why you might call that selfish, but I believe it's justified. Think of it this way: A girl wants to have a baby, but soemtime in the future, when she's ready so she can provide for it well. But she gets pregnant because the condom broke! she's not ready at all. if she keeps it, she'll have the baby, and probably love it just the same, but it's life won't be quite as full as if she had waited.. but if she aborts it, and has another one a few years down the road when she's ready, this baby has a much fuller, well provided for life. I really think that that's worth it. I really do think it's a shame that a potential human is lost, but i feel it's a necessary evil to do well by our children. I've said it before and i'll say it again. If theres ever a way that fetus can be saved without the woman having to go through with the pregnancy, it's awesome and i support it 500%. but we just can't do that now, so we have to settle for the next best thing.
Where do you draw the line, sir? And anyway, that's not a foetus, that's called an embryo. Actually, it's not even a fully developed embryo. That's like saying, "Oh yeah, let's rip out these 100 cells." I might be exagerating somewhat, but that's all that is there at the "3 week" stage of pregnancy. And why do you discount the Adoption stage in all these affairs, how about giving the child away to a foster carer?
spartanghost wrote:Theres one more point i'd like to add. Laws about abortion aren't necessarily about right and wrong, they're about choice. Some people believe as I do, that it's a viable and often good option, and others believe it's wrong. The laws would never under any circumstances FORCE anyone to have an abortion. It would always be that person's choice. It feels kind of oppressive(sorry for the harsh word, i don't have a better one) that people would seek to take away that choice; that freedom. It just doesn't seem fair that a complete accident could result in someones life being messed up so badly. Even if there was some kind of control on it like you're only allowed to get 1 or 2 (that weren't beyond your control) before they cut you off. I believe that anyone who keeps getting pregnant like that simply isn't taking the necessary precautions to prevent it, and in that case they're just being stupid (although one could argue that these are the last people who should be having children). If it was controlled like that, I believe it would relax some of the controversy about it, but since we're talking about a human life (or potential human life, depending on what you believe), i don't think the controversy will ever end completely.
This is all very true, you make a good argument.
For the books, I'm erring on the side of Anti-Abortion, but you make a very good case.
sA
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Post by: Kilkrazy
Mango wrote:Kilkrazy wrote:Mango wrote:So emotional connections are now how we base a decision on who lives or dies? I guess autistic people are out.
I don't understand your point.
Are you saying that autistic people aren't human?
Life or death decisions are often made on emotional grounds. There are frequent cases of people drowning while trying to save their dogs, or other people's children, for example. These decisions are not made on rational grounds.
Many supporters of the death penalty are on emotional grounds, such as revenge.
Killkrazy.
My point was that emotional considerations are a poor proxy for making rational decisions. That is why our legal system does whatever it can to take emotions out of the equation. Emotions are often wrong.
People do make decisions based on emotion. Those decisions are frequently wrong. A man loses his job and his finances are in a wreck. He comes home and kills his entire family. That is making an emotional decision. A woman suffers from post partum depression. (an emotional state) and drowns all of her children because she is trying to save them. That is an emotional decision. Attempting to save a drowning child, even if you are a poor swimmer, is not. Emotions would certainly play a role in the decision, but most adults rationally know that they have a much better chance of survival than the child does unaided.
I should more accurately have said “autistic spectrum disorders”. Specifically Asperger’s Syndrome. It is very difficult to connect with them on an emotional level. If emotional connection and empathy are requisites for the definition of what a human is, then anyone that is hard to relate to would be non-human.
Many supporters of the death penalty are also making a decision on how to best protect society and allocate societies resources. A murderer has already shown that they will flout the strongest of society’s rules. People also know that criminal typically have a very high recidivism rate. The death penalty is a sure fire way of preventing that individual from harming others in the society. People can and have escaped from prison. Hollywood notwithstanding, people rarely come back after you kill them. Now if you would prefer that prisoner’s be incarcerated, and the cost of maintaining the incarceration for lots of criminals prevents the society from performing other vital tasks (like building roads, police forces, militaries, fire departments et al.) what do you do then? Release the predator’s back into society? Or purge them?
Okay, I understand now.
My argument is broadly speaking that we don't need a legal definition of a human being for the following reasons:
1. As has been shown in this thread, it is very hard to create a legal definition of human being which doesn't have some kind of flaws.
2. It doesn't matter, because everyone instinctively recognises fellow humans without reference to a checklist.
3. In a few exceptional cases, such as psychopaths and possibly autistic people, psychology recognises a deficit in their ability to recognise fellow humans, yet, we 'normal' people still regard them as humans with a disability, not animals.
As I explained in a previous post, the UK law on abortion sets sensible time limits and leaves the judgement of whether to allow an abortion to medical doctors. Since the majority of the population accept this system, they do not regard early embryos as fully human and do not regard abortion as murder.
If you want to create a definition of human which manages to include early embryos, in order to class abortion as murder, you have got two problems. Firstly, that most of the population don't agree. This is why the anti-abortion activists depend on the shock tactic of so-called "partial birth" abortion. It let's them create a shocking, emotionally impactfull image which they hope will sway peoples' opinions. In rational terms, very few abortions take place after the 24 week limit, and can't really be described as partial birth.
Secondly, you need to define the start of the human being and this is where my point about classing a blastula as human is relevant. You'll have to end up putting a time limit (start point) on human-ness, say 12 weeks -- this still would allow legal abortion before the limit.
Now turning to murder and the death penalty.
Many murders are committed as crime passionelle, and are unlikely to be repeated. That is one reason why serial killers are so shocking. In fact, murder has a low rate of recidivism, especially when it carries a long sentence. Therefore the argument about prevention of re-offending is not valid.
We have already disposed of the argument about cost, on the basis that the long appeals process is actually more expensive than a straight life sentence. Any first world society can afford to keep its small number of murderers in prison.
Prison time is also rationally justified by the arguments that two wrongs don't make a right, that many miscarriages of justice would condemn innocent people to death, who can actually be saved even if they have to spend time unjustly in prison. Also there is always the chance of rehabilitation and the return to society of the murderer.
Prison provides punishment, while the death penalty is not as strong a deterrent as may be imagined, since deterrence depends more on the detection and conviction rate rather than the actual punishment.
Looked at from a rational viewpoint, there doesn't seem to be a strong case for the death penalty over imprisonment.
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Post by: Mango
Killrazy,
I would disagree with you on why we do not need a definition of what a human being is.
1. Difficulty is not a reason for not doing something.
2. It does matter. Until fairly recently, (1864 or thereabouts in this country) Black people in the US were not recognized as human. They were considered partial humans. It took a fairly bloody war to stop argument on that question (among other questions at the time). If you cannot define a person, then you cannot define a crime committed against that person. If, to use my example, blacks had been defined as humans from the get go in US history, then it would have been much easy to say slavery was illegal.
3. Which is why I say using “emotionally relate too” is a poor reason to define humanity.
Setting a time limit on when someone becomes human is what allows abortions to take place. If it is not a human, you did not murder, so abortion is acceptable. If that arbitrary time limit is not there, then it is human and it is murder. How was the 12 week time frame determined? Because supporters of abortion wanted a way to allow it without calling it murder.
Again, having most of the population agree with something does not make it right or reasonable. It makes it popular. There is a difference. Using the logic of “most people agree with it”, we would still have segregation and jim crow laws in the US. Sometimes it takes a minority willing to stand up to the majority to defend the rights of those that cannot defend themselves.
Back to the death penalty,
The cost of keeping them in prison while we go through the lengthy appeals process is why it costs more to have the death penalty. So no, cost is not a settled issue.
If the recidivism rate for murder committed by a crime of passion is low, why punish the person who committed it at all? A firm talking to should drive the point home that they made a mistake and shouldn’t do it again.
That is why I in a previous post I brought up what the purpose of a criminal justice system is for.
Is it for rehabilitation, punishment, or deterrence? Someone said it is all three. Which is what we currently have. A system that tries to do all three and does poorly at all three.
Rehabilitation works poorly or haphazardly.
Deterrence cannot be proven
Punishment, now that we can do.
When you defend everything, you defend nothing. A system that tries to do all three, functions very poorly. The system should pick one of the methods and work from there. Either focus on rehabilitation or focus on punishment. Focusing on deterrence is in my opinion, the least plausible method, because it is nebulous to try and measure the impact of a negative.
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Post by: Kilkrazy
Mango wrote:...
Setting a time limit on when someone becomes human is what allows abortions to take place. If it is not a human, you did not murder, so abortion is acceptable. If that arbitrary time limit is not there, then it is human and it is murder. How was the 12 week time frame determined? Because supporters of abortion wanted a way to allow it without calling it murder.
...
Can we separate the discussion of human from the discussion of abortion? The attitude of 1860s Americans to black people (British of the time obviously did regard them as human...) is irrelevant to abortion or the death penalty.
This one point goes to the crucial difference on attitude towards abortion.
The UK law does not bother to define a foetus or embryo as human. It allows medical practitioners to perform abortions within time limits which are legally defined, and are principally in reference to viability of the embryo. In the 60s, when the law was framed, 24 weeks was a good limit as it was almost impossible for a baby born earlier to survive, while babies born later had a better chance. Modern science allows babies as young as 21 weeks to survive, though long-term disabilities of various types are common in such prematurely born individuals. The people who framed the law also took into account social attitudes to abortion, the necessity to prevent the evils of backstreet abortion, and the social effects of unwanted children on their parents and themselves.
This law is regarded as one of the better ones the UK Government has made. It has lasted 40 years without needing amendment and there is not much supprot for changing it now. As such, it seems to be a popular piece of legislation. You may say that does not make it "right", but in terms of social conformance with law, pure "rightness" is meaningless without the popular support of the majority of the population.
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Post by: dogma
Mango wrote:
Your first point, so now you are saying that a person that has to use a dialysis machine is not a human being. Or has to use any mechanical device to breath, proces nutrients etc. Basically, anyone that has a surgery, until they heal completely, is not a human being.
The first two are moderately intriguing cases, the last is simply absurd. Surgery leaves a person biologically autonomous, it does not relate at all. Dialysis and 'iron lung' patients would be included in the same way as premature infants. Both are biologically autonomous, but require mechanical support. Just as a normal term infant is biologically autonomous with mechanical dependencies.
Mango wrote:
A newborn is completely unable to care for itself. A 3 year old child might be able to feed itself, or drink unassissted.
Obviously.
Mango wrote:
however a three year old has no idea how to provide the food in the first place.
Ideas are irrelevant to this discussion. We are discussing the physical capacity to survive.
Mango wrote:
So again, is dependent upon another for survival.
But not biologically.
Mango wrote:
Also, apparently walking is a precondition for being a human being by your definition. Since you clearly state that once a child is able to walk it becomes self sufficient. Are amputees and parapalegics now no longer human beings? (I know that the walking part is not what you meant, but I was using that point to illustrate how arbitrary your definition is or can become)
Self=sufficiency does not define one as a human being, biological autonomy does. Walking is a form of mechanical autonomy.
Mango wrote:
As for miscarriage, that is not the same as deliberately killing something. If a person dies from a heart attack, society doesn't generally put anyone on trial for murder. If someone shoots a person in the heart, society does try them for murder. "natural causes" compared to "murder."
Of course murder is also a natural cause, as human action is quite natural. Your distinction is no more arbitrary than mine.
Mango wrote:
An embryo is an immature human being. It is undergoing cell division, cell differentiation, it has it's own distinct biological boundary, either a cell membrane, or later skin. It is capable or becoming capable of respiration, either through absorbing the oxygen fed to it, or later unassisted. If removed from the womb, yes it will die. But the key is how it is removed. If the woman's body spontaneously removes it, that is "natural". If someone shoves a needle into it first, that is unnatural. if someone takes hormones for the express purpose of "spontaneously" aborting the fetus, that is deliberate.
Nope, still natural. Unless you believe man exists outside of nature, which would be a ridiculously arbitrary belief.
Mango wrote:
If abortion is not killing something, then why have an abortion? If it is not really a living being, and is instead a choice, then no actions would be needed to terminate its existence. When a choice is made to terminate somethings life, you are killing something. What exactly are you killing if not an immature human being?
I clearly stated abortion necessarily involved killing something. The debate is over what that thing is. But, to answer your question, a cell collection nominally referred to as blastocyst.
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Post by: Mango
Killkrazy,
You can't seperate the question of what is human and what is not from the discussion of abortion. It is the very crux of the question. If it is human, it is murder. if it is not human, it is not.
You can sepeerate the question from the death penalty. Then you are arguing if it is justifiable to end the life of a human being for an offense against society.
11608
Post by: Mango
dogma wrote:Mango wrote:
Your first point, so now you are saying that a person that has to use a dialysis machine is not a human being. Or has to use any mechanical device to breath, proces nutrients etc. Basically, anyone that has a surgery, until they heal completely, is not a human being.
The first two are moderately intriguing cases, the last is simply absurd. Surgery leaves a person biologically autonomous, it does not relate at all. Dialysis and 'iron lung' patients would be included in the same way as premature infants. Both are biologically autonomous, but require mechanical support. Just as a normal term infant is biologically autonomous with mechanical dependencies.
Mango wrote:
A newborn is completely unable to care for itself. A 3 year old child might be able to feed itself, or drink unassissted.
Obviously.
Mango wrote:
however a three year old has no idea how to provide the food in the first place.
Ideas are irrelevant to this discussion. We are discussing the physical capacity to survive.
Mango wrote:
So again, is dependent upon another for survival.
But not biologically.
Mango wrote:
Also, apparently walking is a precondition for being a human being by your definition. Since you clearly state that once a child is able to walk it becomes self sufficient. Are amputees and parapalegics now no longer human beings? (I know that the walking part is not what you meant, but I was using that point to illustrate how arbitrary your definition is or can become)
Self=sufficiency does not define one as a human being, biological autonomy does. Walking is a form of mechanical autonomy.
Mango wrote:
As for miscarriage, that is not the same as deliberately killing something. If a person dies from a heart attack, society doesn't generally put anyone on trial for murder. If someone shoots a person in the heart, society does try them for murder. "natural causes" compared to "murder."
Of course murder is also a natural cause, as human action is quite natural. Your distinction is no more arbitrary than mine.
Mango wrote:
An embryo is an immature human being. It is undergoing cell division, cell differentiation, it has it's own distinct biological boundary, either a cell membrane, or later skin. It is capable or becoming capable of respiration, either through absorbing the oxygen fed to it, or later unassisted. If removed from the womb, yes it will die. But the key is how it is removed. If the woman's body spontaneously removes it, that is "natural". If someone shoves a needle into it first, that is unnatural. if someone takes hormones for the express purpose of "spontaneously" aborting the fetus, that is deliberate.
Nope, still natural. Unless you believe man exists outside of nature, which would be a ridiculously arbitrary belief.
Mango wrote:
If abortion is not killing something, then why have an abortion? If it is not really a living being, and is instead a choice, then no actions would be needed to terminate its existence. When a choice is made to terminate somethings life, you are killing something. What exactly are you killing if not an immature human being?
I clearly stated abortion necessarily involved killing something. The debate is over what that thing is. But, to answer your question, a cell collection nominally referred to as blastocyst.
Dogma,
Ordinarily you arguments are thought out and reasoned, even if I don't agree with the reasoning. However this last post of yours borders on the chilish and absurd.
Your last point however does deserve a response. You are nothing more than a bunch of cells. You just happen to have more than a blastomere. So are you still human?
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Post by: Kilkrazy
Mango wrote:Killkrazy,
You can't seperate the question of what is human and what is not from the discussion of abortion. It is the very crux of the question. If it is human, it is murder. if it is not human, it is not.
....
All instances of killing a human being are not murder, e.g lawful war, termination of life support, etc.
Abortion is not considered murder by the Law.
Neither in the UK nor the USA has abortion ever been considered a crime of murder, though in one statute it was defined as manslaughter. Most penalties have been much less stiff. (As far as I have been able to determine based on a short period of research.)
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Post by: Frazzled
Very interesting discussion and am intentionally staying out of it.
However, to make a correction KK.
Multiple states in the US did indeed count abortion as murder or lesser charge.
UK considered abortion a criminally prosecutable murder or lesser charge after "quickening."
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Post by: Kilkrazy
Frazzled wrote:Very interesting discussion and am intentionally staying out of it.
However, to make a correction KK.
Multiple states in the US did indeed count abortion as murder or lesser charge.
UK considered abortion a criminally prosecutable murder or lesser charge after "quickening."
But not before quickening (see the whole argument about the timing of abortion) plus, until the 1850s there were none or few anti-abortion laws in the USA. They were gradually tightened up after that, often with suitable modifications such as avoiding the use of quickening as a definition of an abortion time limit. Roe vs Wade was a few years after the 1967 Abortion Act but clearly shows the influence of a more liberal attitude as perhaps the legislation of the late 1800s (similar to some extent in the UK and USA) was obviously influenced by more conservative social attitudes.
As a lawyer, perhaps you are aware of cases where a mother was prosecuted for murder for procuring an abortion.
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Post by: Frazzled
There were multiple cases. However you are correct in your trend analysis. There has been much written about the harm caused by SCOTUS in RvW as US society was already addressing the issue through the ballot moving to change the requisite laws after consensus had been reached via voting, where all social changes should be wrought.
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Post by: Polonius
wow, I stay away from the OT forum for a while and this doozy appears. So many tangents and opinions.
First, on the death penalty itself. Well, calling it stupid out of the gate isn't the most diplomatic way of starting a discussion, but I get your point. The death penalty is a morally neutral thing for me. Killing a person is wrong, but the state has the duty to protect itself and it's citizens and the monopoly on force to enable executions. For most of human history, executions were really the only good alternative to simply letting a person go, as prisons were expensive and a drain on resources.
That all said, as a government initiative in the modern era, the Death Penalty does nothing it claims to, and costs more than a less intrusive alternative. Normally, as a liberal, I'm on the pro-government boondoggle side of things, but from a pragmatic view it seems that the death penalty costs a lot of money and accomplishes very little, aside from making people feel better. Throw in the procedural concerns, ranging from the disproportionate usage against poor and minority defendants or, more strikingly, the disproportionate use when the victim was white, female, or middle class; all the way to the high rate of wrongful convictions, and I think there are some valid concerns.
Most of the ideas for death penalty reform seem to fixate on limiting appeals, which sounds good but ignores the fact that this country has a constitution which garuntees due process. The right to appeal is part of that due process, and while judicial reform in streamlining the process is possible, a death penalty case has the highest possible stakes, and every possible litigation technique is going to be used, regardless of cost. You can't deny them a lawyer, as that makes the process grotesquely unfair.
As frazz points out, the primary purpose of the state is the security of it's citizens. I take security to mean a bit more than he does, as I think that the power of the state over the citizens is just as real a threat to security as criminals and terrorists. When a justice system cuts corners on due process for some people, it's easier to slowly expand that, particularly when the criteria is so amorphous. I'm sure many of the people in this thread feel that they can tell the real monsters from the wrongly accused, the evil from the desperate, but I don't have a lot of faith in that sort of discernment.
As for abortion, asking when a being becomes human is a fine example of a heap paradox:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heap_paradox
I'm pro-choice, although I think that a nationwide effort to encourage and condone proper contraceptive use would help to reduce the number of abortions organically. That an embryo or fetus should have some rights seems natural, there's a high probability that the fetus at least will become a person. The problem is that those rights are entirely dependent on another person, the mother, to come to fruition. Unlike an infant or a preemature birth or a person on life support or a dialysis patient, a fetus depends not just on another person, but on one specific person and no other for survival. At some point in any serious discussion, the rights of a person to control her body, and to decide what it can be used for have to come up. The rights, clearly, are in conflict. Not to be flip, but I think tie go to the person who is actually there. While the Fetus has some rights, it simply doesn't have enough to be able to control entirely what a person can do. To tie the two topics together, Abortion rights are cheap and effective, reducing demand for education, health and human services, welfare benefits, and according to at least some studies resulting in lower crime rates.
As for why abortion is legal and infanticide is not, you can simply give the infant up. A pregnant woman in the second trimester cannot simply give up her fetus.
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Post by: Kilkrazy
I agree with that.
The idea of allowing abortion as a privacy rights issue (that's how I understand the RvW decision frmo my meagre reading) seems a little... expedient.
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Post by: Polonius
Frazzled wrote:There were multiple cases. However you are correct in your trend analysis. There has been much written about the harm caused by SCOTUS in RvW as US society was already addressing the issue through the ballot moving to change the requisite laws after consensus had been reached via voting, where all social changes should be wrought.
I agree, although given the line of cases preceding it in Substantive Due Process RvW would have been shocking to go the other way. It's hard to reconcile the holdings in Yoder, Pierce v. Society of Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary, and Griswold with a refusal to strike down abortion laws. Given the court at the time and the momentum of the precedent, I can't see Roe going any other way.
And social change should be wrought through the people, but it's the job of the Courts to strike down laws that are unconstitutional. And, for better or worse, SCOTUS gets to determine what constitutional means. Keep in mind that for 50 years of the lochner era it was conservative judges regularly striking down laws that were passed, things that today we take for granted (workplace safety, minimum wages, etc.).
In a perfect world, the court would have simply refused Cert on Roe, and side stepped the issue to give the states more time to liberalize, but the Burger Court was not exactly the high water mark for SCOTUS competency.
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Post by: Polonius
Kilkrazy wrote:I agree with that.
The idea of allowing abortion as a privacy rights issue (that's how I understand the RvW decision frmo my meagre reading) seems a little... expedient.
Well, it's called privacy, but really it's about a right to autonomy: the idea that every person has the right to do what they want, when they want. The central tenet of autonomy is the right to use ones body as one wishes. I can give a kidney to my brother, or refuse: no law can stop or coerce me. I can give blood, get a tattoo, gain weight, lose weight, or whatever I wish with my body. From that perspective, the rights of non-autonomous person, which are dependent on an autonomous person, aren't enough to compel a person to remain pregnant against their will.
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Post by: Mango
Polonius,
Good to hear from you again. Nice bit about the heap paradox, but for one thing. You are starting the argument from the assumption that you have a pile of sand to begin with, and then start removing one grain at a time. It is different if you go the other route, and start with one grain and add one grain at a time. A heap of sand is not a discreet organism. While a living cell that splits and grows, is.
Your point about which has more rights, the mother or the fetus is a good one. But think of it this way, especially since you are a self professed liberal. Isn't the point of being a liberal ostensibly to ensure that everyone is treated equally? So if the mother has more rights than the child, isn't that unequal protection?
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Post by: Polonius
Mango wrote:Polonius,
Good to hear from you again. Nice bit about the heap paradox, but for one thing. You are starting the argument from the assumption that you have a pile of sand to begin with, and then start removing one grain at a time. It is different if you go the other route, and start with one grain and add one grain at a time. A heap of sand is not a discreet organism. While a living cell that splits and grows, is.
Hehe, I suppose that's technically true. My point was that we have term we're comfortable with (person) that is hard to judge. We know it happens somewhere along the way, but we don't know where. I wasn't saying that an embryo isn't alive, but rather that an embryo would fail most definitions of person, while a fetus at 30 months probably would. It's hard to judge exactly when a few grains of sand become a heap, and it's hard to tell when an embryo becomes a person.
Your point about which has more rights, the mother or the fetus is a good one. But think of it this way, especially since you are a self professed liberal. Isn't the point of being a liberal ostensibly to ensure that everyone is treated equally? So if the mother has more rights than the child, isn't that unequal protection?
Well, classic Liberalism began the process of seeking equality under the law. As a social liberal, I think that government should encourage practical equality, as well as equality under the law. Yes, legal abortions treat the fetus differently than they do the mother, but that's not a paradox, because not allowing abortions treats women differently from men. Now, there's a natural difference between men and women that allows such a gap, but there is simply no time the government ever denies forces men to incubate a child. While it's true we don't draft women, that's by choice, not be necessity.
By law, rights are extended in many ways to non living, or non-natural persons. Corporations have rights against search and seizure, the deceased still have rights to be undisturbed. Other natural persons have abbreviated rights: the incarcerated, minor children, the incompetent, the contagious. Virtually all definitions of human rights assume that a person is alive, adult, and competent. Everybody else gets a sliding scale of rights. Children enjoy far fewer rights than adults, why wouldn't the unborn have even fewer?
Now, if you want an interesting analysis of the rights of the mother vs. the rights of a child, compare the reasoning and anlysis in Casey v. Planned Parenthood to the reasoning in both Lochner v. New York and Dred Scott v. Sandford. Scalia points it out in his disssent in Casey, that Dred Scott and Lochner were both decided on the grounds that fundamental rights (the right of a slave owner to his property, the right of bakers to freely contract their services) that overrode the rights of an aggreived party (the right of the Slave Dred Scott, the rights of the New York Legislature to govern for the general welfare). The argument is that much like those two cases were overturned (although lochner was a genuine case of judicial activism, and a far worse legal decision than dred scot) so should Casey be overturned.
The problem is that Casey is distinguishable on two grounds. 1) the right in Casey is one of autonomy and the ability to control ones body, a far more central right than the property and contract rights in Scot and Lochner, and 2) While Dred Scot was a person that was aggreieved, in Lochner it wasn't the bakers whose rights were impeded, it was the legislature of New York. In Casey, it wasn't unborn children that were infringed upon by the court, it was the legislature of Pennsylvania. Unborn children have no standing to sue, so any rights granted would be unenforceable. Casey is a legally sound ruling based on the precedent, because it's the job of the Court to tell governments their laws infringe on a person's rights. In Lochner, they went too far and substituted their own judgment for the Legislatures.
Anyway, it's also important to always keep in mind the difference between the legal and the moral arguments against abortion. while I would wholeheartedly agree that fetuses have moral rights, there is no real precedent for giving them legal rights.
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Post by: Mango
Polonius,
Oddly enough I am reading a book that talks about two of those cases. The third might be mentioned later in the book, I will have to look it up.
But dredd scott is a prime case of why the supreme court is fallible. The biggest mistake the court made was in determiing that Mr scott was not elligible to bring a suit because he was not a person. The same holds true for for an embryo from a legal standpoint. That is why I believe we need a definition of what it is to be human.
As for your legal theory, that law needs to provide practical equality as well as legal equality, that leads itself to all sorts of abuses, primarily, it allows for the same law to be applied to two people dependant upon the whim of the judge. That is called rule by man, not rule by law.
Legal and just are two different things. It is legal to have an abortion. That does not make it right or just. Much the same as it was legal 40 or 50 years ago to segregate mionorities and have miscegnation laws. Because it was legal, did it make it right?
A person has rights. When one persons rights infringe on anothers, we have a problem. I would say that the right to life trumps all others in this case. If a woman will die as a result of continuing a pregnancy, then yes her rights would trump the childs. This is because if they do not, both the mother and the child will die. But if the mother will not die as a result of the pregnancy, then in my opinion, the childs right to life would trump the mother's right to privacy. In legal cases, a greater right is a legitimate concern. Take for example secured vs unsecured creditors during bankruptcy.
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Post by: Polonius
Mango wrote:Polonius,
Oddly enough I am reading a book that talks about two of those cases. The third might be mentioned later in the book, I will have to look it up.
But dredd scott is a prime case of why the supreme court is fallible. The biggest mistake the court made was in determiing that Mr scott was not elligible to bring a suit because he was not a person. The same holds true for for an embryo from a legal standpoint. That is why I believe we need a definition of what it is to be human.
And that was actually a legal error even then. There was no precedent for that decision, and at the time many black men were considered citizens and could vote in northern states.
There is extensive precendent in the common law that an embryo is not a person, and does not have legal rights.
As for your legal theory, that law needs to provide practical equality as well as legal equality, that leads itself to all sorts of abuses, primarily, it allows for the same law to be applied to two people dependant upon the whim of the judge. That is called rule by man, not rule by law.
Whoa, whoa. The law is not interested in practical equality, I said merely that government should be. Things like good public education, health care, enforcement of civil rights laws, etc. Everybody is the same in the eyes of the law, white/black, man/woman, rich/poor.
Legal and just are two different things. It is legal to have an abortion. That does not make it right or just. Much the same as it was legal 40 or 50 years ago to segregate mionorities and have miscegnation laws. Because it was legal, did it make it right?
You're confusing just with fair, or even right. It is just to allow abortions, as long as they are all allowed or denied equally. Justice is precision, not accuracy. A just system provides the same result every time, regardless of who is involved. A fair system, well, that's getting into another area all together.
A person has rights. When one persons rights infringe on anothers, we have a problem. I would say that the right to life trumps all others in this case. If a woman will die as a result of continuing a pregnancy, then yes her rights would trump the childs. This is because if they do not, both the mother and the child will die. But if the mother will not die as a result of the pregnancy, then in my opinion, the childs right to life would trump the mother's right to privacy. In legal cases, a greater right is a legitimate concern. Take for example secured vs unsecured creditors during bankruptcy.
I agree, I just think that your argument rest on granting an embryo, which is not a legal person, the same rights as a person. You've clearly made up your mind about the issue, and it's one that can operate fairly consistently, but there's just no real precedent for it. It's one that to claim that a person isn't a person just because he's African (even though the Taney court really just held that he couldn't be a citizen), as that's utterly preposterous to our sensibilities. It's possible that as time moves forward, earlier and earlier fetuses and even embryos can be viable outside of the womb, but right now I'm not comfortable calling a fetus that's utterly reliant on being in utero for survival a legal person. It's human, sure, but in terms of biology it's pretty indistinguishable from the mother.
You said that abortions are ok when the mother could die, what about a woman that is 8 months pregnant, but the pregnancy is now life threatening? The child might be able to live, but an abortion would be safer than a C-section. Would the child's rights still outweight the mothers?
What about victims of rape or incest? If the discussion becomes one of moral rights, how is it remotely fair to force a woman to carry her rapist's child to term?
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Post by: Ratbarf
If emotional connection and empathy are requisites for the definition of what a human is, then anyone that is hard to relate to would be non-human.
For example murderer/rapists. You cannot exactly seriously see yourselves committing a murder other than in self defence, and almost no one can reasonably see themselves actually commiting aggraveted sexual assault. I can't relate to that, you probably cannot relate to that. What we can relate to is the fear of getting killed/violently raped. Thats why mnay people are so indifferent about the death penalty. As for whether the death penalty is for punishment or detterent; its in the name. A penalty is a punishment for a broken rule. It may help you not to break that rule, but that is its secondary function not its primary one. It does matter. Until fairly recently, (1864 or thereabouts in this country) Black people in the US were not recognized as human. They were considered partial humans. It took a fairly bloody war to stop argument on that question (among other questions at the time). If you cannot define a person, then you cannot define a crime committed against that person. If, to use my example, blacks had been defined as humans from the get go in US history, then it would have been much easy to say slavery was illegal.
For a rather long time in Canada women were not considered persons under the North American Act until the 1900's.
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Post by: Kilkrazy
The point of punishment is to deter potential offenders, not to punish.
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Post by: Polonius
Kilkrazy wrote:The point of punishment is to deter potential offenders, not to punish.
Criminal sanctions have many purposes. The actual philosophical underpinnings to criminal law are complex and fundamentally unsatisfying. Most sanctions are a combination of punishment, rehabilitation, deterrence, and simply removing the person from circulation. While the death penalty doesn't accomplish the second, it does a really good job of the first and the last.
5559
Post by: Ratbarf
Not so much the last. But if I steal a cookie and my grandma slaps me for it. Thats a punishment. She could have sat me in the corner and had a discussion with me on the reasons of why I stole the cookie and the reprecussions of my actions. Or she can just slap me and do it quick. Ill either learn eventually or I won't be allowed near cookies for the rest of my life. (A punishment worse than death.) But some crimes are so bad that they do not deserve that second chance to get slapped. Say I stole that cookie from my brother and he dies of starvation as it was the last cookie on earth and thats all he eats. My Grandma should then kill me and make an awsome ratbarf stew to feed more people.
PS: Though admittedly eating deathrow inmates may not be that appetizing.
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Post by: Polonius
Ratbarf wrote:Not so much the last. But if I steal a cookie and my grandma slaps me for it. Thats a punishment. She could have sat me in the corner and had a discussion with me on the reasons of why I stole the cookie and the reprecussions of my actions. Or she can just slap me and do it quick. Ill either learn eventually or I won't be allowed near cookies for the rest of my life. (A punishment worse than death.) But some crimes are so bad that they do not deserve that second chance to get slapped. Say I stole that cookie from my brother and he dies of starvation as it was the last cookie on earth and thats all he eats. My Grandma should then kill me and make an awsome ratbarf stew to feed more people.
PS: Though admittedly eating deathrow inmates may not be that appetizing.
Ok. I still don't see why she needs to kill you when she can send you away to a place where you can't steal anymore cookies.
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Post by: Ratbarf
Because if we are starving (hence my brother dying from lack of cookies) it would be a waste of needed resources.
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Post by: Polonius
Ratbarf wrote:Because if we are starving (hence my brother dying from lack of cookies) it would be a waste of needed resources.
But, to continue your tortured analogy, killing you actually costs more resources than merely sending you to the corner until you die, eliminating that as a valid reason.
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Post by: Ratbarf
how so? simply beating my brains in with her foot and then consuming my carcass would be a positvie calorie situation. And I don't consume any more food plus I provide some with my death.
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Post by: Polonius
Ratbarf wrote:how so? simply beating my brains in with her foot and then consuming my carcass would be a positvie calorie situation. And I don't consume any more food plus I provide some with my death.
Well, you're using your example as a metaphor for our current society. In the US, due to federal case law, you simply can't execute a person cheaply. There are mandatory appeals, which cost time for the judges, the prosecutor, and the defense (often court appointed). There are almost always appeals to the state supreme courts and at least an attempt to get the SCOTUS to grant cert. There's no way to eliminate these without violating all kinds of due process. Add in the increased cost of housing and guarding death row, and it's not cheaper.
My point was, if there was not tangible benefit to killing you, would it still be wise for your grandmother to do so?
That's my whole point: if there was a government program that cost money and produced no tangible benefit, why wouldn't we shut it down? It's a bit of a dispassionate view of the matter, to be sure, but that's not always a bad thing.
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Post by: Ratbarf
Well, you're using your example as a metaphor for our current society.
Not entirely, it was more of a metaphor as to why we should have the death penalty. We have already debunked the whole "its more expensive to kill people" thing because that is a problem with its application. If they wanted to kix that maybe they should have all death penalty cases reviewed by an enlarged Supreme court. That would cut down the cost of multiple appeals and save time. Though it may be a misallocation of Supreme Court resources it would certainly speed things up and as long as they spend less each year on the new process than the old one its viable.
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Post by: Mango
Damn power outages to hell!! I had a nice little post finished and then the power went out right before I hit submit. Oh well, it gave me an reason to go jogging.
Ok, second rant. Until I figure out how to do the sub quotes, I have to make do with this method. My apologies.
Polonius,
Your quote:
"And that was actually a legal error even then. There was no precedent for that decision, and at the time many black men were considered citizens and could vote in northern states.
There is extensive precendent in the common law that an embryo is not a person, and does not have legal rights."
Unfortunately, a bad precedent is just as legally binding as a good precedent. Dredd Scott case in point. That is why people are trying to set precedent granting embryo's more rights. For example, some states allow for a person to be tried for a double homicide if they kill a pregnant woman.
Your quote:
"Whoa, whoa. The law is not interested in practical equality, I said merely that government should be. Things like good public education, health care, enforcement of civil rights laws, etc. Everybody is the same in the eyes of the law, white/black, man/woman, rich/poor."
After reading that, I read your post again. I admit I misunderstood your statement. Altough, I wouldn't mind debating this point in another thread. Not the equality under the law part, but the rest of the statement.
Your quote:
"You're confusing just with fair, or even right. It is just to allow abortions, as long as they are all allowed or denied equally. Justice is precision, not accuracy. A just system provides the same result every time, regardless of who is involved. A fair system, well, that's getting into another area all together."
I agree with this part. That is what I was trying to get at, but worded it poorly.
Your quote:
"I agree, I just think that your argument rest on granting an embryo, which is not a legal person, the same rights as a person. You've clearly made up your mind about the issue, and it's one that can operate fairly consistently, but there's just no real precedent for it. It's one that to claim that a person isn't a person just because he's African (even though the Taney court really just held that he couldn't be a citizen), as that's utterly preposterous to our sensibilities. It's possible that as time moves forward, earlier and earlier fetuses and even embryos can be viable outside of the womb, but right now I'm not comfortable calling a fetus that's utterly reliant on being in utero for survival a legal person. It's human, sure, but in terms of biology it's pretty indistinguishable from the mother. "
Yes my argument rests on granting an embryo the legal rights as a person. Again, just because there is no precedent, does not mean it is not valid. Every precedent starts somewhere. In terms of biology, it is very easy to seperate it from its mother. For one, it has a unique genetic code. That code is different enough that the mother's immune system has to supress itself, otherwise it would attack the embryo and kill it. For second, even though it derives sustenance from the mother, it has to biologically make use of those nutrients on its own. Third, it has a seperate and distinct boundary that seperates it from the mother. Either a cell membrane at first, or actual skin later.
Your quote:
"You said that abortions are ok when the mother could die, what about a woman that is 8 months pregnant, but the pregnancy is now life threatening? The child might be able to live, but an abortion would be safer than a C-section. Would the child's rights still outweight the mothers?
What about victims of rape or incest? If the discussion becomes one of moral rights, how is it remotely fair to force a woman to carry her rapist's child to term? "
This part of the question does become more emotional. I did actually bring up the rape part earlier, but did not answer.
I would say that yes the embryo that results from a rape or incest would have the same rights as any other. The embryo is blameless. It is the result of a crime, however had no part in the committing of the crime. Yes it would be an exceptionally diffulcult thing to ask of a person, to carry their rapists or relatives child. But society does have a long history of asking it's members to do diffulcult or unpleasant things. For example the draft and fighting in a war. Would I personally want to carry my rapists child? (if it was possible) No. Did I want to commit acts that I otherwise would normally not want to do while serving in the military? No. But do them I did.
As for the 8 month pregnancy bit. If only one could survive, then the one that the doctor's deemed most likely to survive would have the most rights. If it was the child, then save the child. If it was the mother, then save the mother. Medical personnel make these decisions frequently. If they have two patients, and they can't save both, the pick the one most likely to survive and devote their time to that one.
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Post by: Polonius
Ratbarf wrote:Well, you're using your example as a metaphor for our current society.
Not entirely, it was more of a metaphor as to why we should have the death penalty. We have already debunked the whole "its more expensive to kill people" thing because that is a problem with its application. If they wanted to kix that maybe they should have all death penalty cases reviewed by an enlarged Supreme court. That would cut down the cost of multiple appeals and save time. Though it may be a misallocation of Supreme Court resources it would certainly speed things up and as long as they spend less each year on the new process than the old one its viable.
So, you're saying the death penalty is easy to fix, we just need to completely overhaul the judicial system of the United States and every one of the states to make it work better. I gotta be honest, I'm not impressed with the elegance of the solution. Teh problem isn't at the SCOTUS level, they don't take very many cases a year, and only a handful are death penalty cases. I mean, that's the whole point: the death penalty just isn't used much. If the use were increased, the cost would go down, but you're still relying on juries to unanimously vote to put a person to death: not an easy thing.
Even if the cost were lowered, there's still a pretty limited benefit. I suppose if the cost of executions were brought to less than the cost of life imprisonment (or it's average), than the state is saving some money, I suppose. I guess I think it's easier to eliminate an obscure punishment than to overhaul the judiciary, but that's just me.
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Post by: Ratbarf
I didn't say it was easy, I said it was simple.
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Post by: Polonius
Ratbarf wrote:I didn't say it was easy, I said it was simple.
I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for it. If Congress can't get around to creating a dedicated Tax court of appeals, I doubt they'll be leading the charge.
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Post by: Ratbarf
Oh I by no means expect any of the ideas sounded here to come to fruition. Its just fun to debate on the internet.
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Post by: Polonius
Pragmatic realism is a hobby of mine, which is why I say to just scrap the damn thing. It's easier than fixing what is arguably not worth fixing in the first place.
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Post by: JohnHwangDD
It is a pity that neither pragmatism nor realism enters into the slightest for the power that be...
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Post by: youngblood
Here's the thing about the death penalty: you don't have to pay for them for the rest of their lives. Example: 22 year old kills 4 people in a robbery and gets life in prison. Due to our amazing food and prison system, he lives to the ripe old age of 55 while never paying taxes or anything, Americans pay for him to be alive. This could cost millions of dollars. I believe the cost of the death penalty is several hundred thousand dollars. It's a wee cheaper. In the end, though I don't actually think we have the authority to outright kill someone.
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Post by: Kilkrazy
The appeals process is necessary because of the number of wrongful convictions.
If there was no appeal and a death penalty, it would be harder to get juries to convict on capital crimes.
For every wrongful conviction, an innocent person is in jail or dead, AND a murderer goes free to kill and kill again.
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Post by: Greebynog
youngblood wrote:Here's the thing about the death penalty: you don't have to pay for them for the rest of their lives. Example: 22 year old kills 4 people in a robbery and gets life in prison. Due to our amazing food and prison system, he lives to the ripe old age of 55 while never paying taxes or anything, Americans pay for him to be alive. This could cost millions of dollars. I believe the cost of the death penalty is several hundred thousand dollars. It's a wee cheaper. In the end, though I don't actually think we have the authority to outright kill someone.
Go back and read this thread. Executing someone costs more than life in prison.
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Post by: youngblood
Greebynog wrote:youngblood wrote:Here's the thing about the death penalty: you don't have to pay for them for the rest of their lives. Example: 22 year old kills 4 people in a robbery and gets life in prison. Due to our amazing food and prison system, he lives to the ripe old age of 55 while never paying taxes or anything, Americans pay for him to be alive. This could cost millions of dollars. I believe the cost of the death penalty is several hundred thousand dollars. It's a wee cheaper. In the end, though I don't actually think we have the authority to outright kill someone.
Go back and read this thread. Executing someone costs more than life in prison.
Read that. If you look at where the extra cost comes from, it stems from the proceedings and all of the extra legislation. If the death penalty were reworked and stream lined, it could be quite cost effective. Look at the studies that say it's more expensive and the actual procedures are quite cost effective. With that said, I still am not for it. I'd RATHER have someone in prison for life than kill them. I'm just saying that you gotta look at the details of why the death penalty is more expensive.
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Post by: mcfly
I say that those in favor of the death penalty should go all Boondock Saints on those we find worthy of the death penalty.
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Post by: Kanluwen
The only way it won't cost money to maintain a death row inmate is when we start leaving them on our secret dinosaur island prison.
There, the dinosaurs run the show. It's not pretty, but man. All we gotta do is airdrop a few hundred prisoners and we have T-Rexes for the field of combat every other day!
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Post by: Kilkrazy
youngblood wrote:Greebynog wrote:youngblood wrote:Here's the thing about the death penalty: you don't have to pay for them for the rest of their lives. Example: 22 year old kills 4 people in a robbery and gets life in prison. Due to our amazing food and prison system, he lives to the ripe old age of 55 while never paying taxes or anything, Americans pay for him to be alive. This could cost millions of dollars. I believe the cost of the death penalty is several hundred thousand dollars. It's a wee cheaper. In the end, though I don't actually think we have the authority to outright kill someone.
Go back and read this thread. Executing someone costs more than life in prison.
Read that. If you look at where the extra cost comes from, it stems from the proceedings and all of the extra legislation. If the death penalty were reworked and stream lined, it could be quite cost effective. Look at the studies that say it's more expensive and the actual procedures are quite cost effective. With that said, I still am not for it. I'd RATHER have someone in prison for life than kill them. I'm just saying that you gotta look at the details of why the death penalty is more expensive.
Read my post above which points out the various problems of not allowing appeals for capital crimes.
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Post by: youngblood
Kilkrazy wrote:youngblood wrote:Greebynog wrote:youngblood wrote:Here's the thing about the death penalty: you don't have to pay for them for the rest of their lives. Example: 22 year old kills 4 people in a robbery and gets life in prison. Due to our amazing food and prison system, he lives to the ripe old age of 55 while never paying taxes or anything, Americans pay for him to be alive. This could cost millions of dollars. I believe the cost of the death penalty is several hundred thousand dollars. It's a wee cheaper. In the end, though I don't actually think we have the authority to outright kill someone.
Go back and read this thread. Executing someone costs more than life in prison.
Read that. If you look at where the extra cost comes from, it stems from the proceedings and all of the extra legislation. If the death penalty were reworked and stream lined, it could be quite cost effective. Look at the studies that say it's more expensive and the actual procedures are quite cost effective. With that said, I still am not for it. I'd RATHER have someone in prison for life than kill them. I'm just saying that you gotta look at the details of why the death penalty is more expensive.
Read my post above which points out the various problems of not allowing appeals for capital crimes.
Excellent points. Never put much thought into the things you were saying. I'm off to think this over...
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Post by: Greebynog
Sorry, you must be new to the Dakka Dakka OT forum. This isn't how we operate down here. You don't just offer your opinion then if rebutted well think about your stance and readjust it, you just keep on typing ill-informed rants untill someone says something stupid and the thread gets locked. Repeat ad infinitum.
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Post by: youngblood
Greebynog wrote:Sorry, you must be new to the Dakka Dakka OT forum. This isn't how we operate down here. You don't just offer your opinion then if rebutted well think about your stance and readjust it, you just keep on typing ill-informed rants untill someone says something stupid and the thread gets locked. Repeat ad infinitum.
Haha, thanks for the tip. I'll try to keep my mind more closed.
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Post by: Greebynog
Welcome to the Dakka side.
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Post by: Frazzled
Greebynog wrote:Sorry, you must be new to the Dakka Dakka OT forum. This isn't how we operate down here. You don't just offer your opinion then if rebutted well think about your stance and readjust it, you just keep on typing ill-informed rants untill someone says something stupid and the thread gets locked. Repeat ad infinitum.
Exactly. Its just that kind of attitude that will turn this into a productive philophical forum, and we cannot permit that. You are heretoafter banished to discussing Zombie related topics. 
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Post by: spartanghost
I havn't been on this thread for a day or so so i'm going to take a couple points to respond to people's responses to my earlier post.
Mango wrote:Spartanghost,
1. If someone is missing a limb, they no longer have the requisite parts. Can we kill them? So number of parts does not a human make. Appearance is also a poor method. A white person looks different than a yellow looks different than a black, yet except for racial supremacists who tend to make those judgments based off of emotion rather than reason, most people would agree that all of the disparate ethnic groups are still humans. Making a judgment based off of appearance tends to lead to genocide. Location does not determine if something is human. If you use location, say inside the womb instead outside, you could easily define it as inside a prison or outside it. Dwarfs are also much smaller than normal, yet they are still human.
[\quote]
You make a good point, but this type of definition of a human being can't be boolean like that. There would of course be ranges. for instance, with this definition, the human in question would have to be above the minimum size that a fetus is at the time it is generally capable of surviving outside the womb. I agree judging on appearances is generally wrong, but only when it's a narrow range of appearances. for instance, if you have something that is shaped similarly to an adult human, but has a larger jaw, no nose, and green skin, it's not a human, it's an ork. The location argument isn't that general. I'm not saying anyone can decide any location denies humanity, but certain places can. the womb is one of them. If you create a computer program that represents itself as a hologram that looks, feels and acts exactly human (like the Doctor in star trek voyager), it fills all criteria for humanity, except that it exists primarily in a computer's cyberspace. Humans are not currently capable of existing in such a place, therefor something there is not human. Bing in a womb however, does not preclude one from becoming human.
Mango wrote:
2. My point was not that if it is not natural therefore it is bad. My point was that Society does not assign blame to individuals for results outside of their control, for example dyeing from a heart attack, versus being murdered. One is a “natural cause” meaning no person is to blame. In murder, one person took a deliberate action that a reasonable person would know would result in the death of another person.
Alright. Just a misunderstanding then.
Mango wrote:
3. Hence why I said immature human. Maturity (and here I am using the term as it relates to physical maturity rather than emotional maturity). Is also a poor measure on deciding what is human. A human typically does not reach full maturity until 25 or so. Would it be permissible to kill anyone under 25 without penalty?
This is a good point. I could say that there's different levels of physical maturity, and a potential/immature human would have to reach a certain level of physical maturity to be an actual human. Children have to reach certain levels of physical maturity before they are considered full members of society (voting, driving, drinking etc.). This is not necessarily because they magically become qualified at exactly that age, it';s just an arbitrary number chosen as a cut off to make sure people have a certain level of maturity. It's not 100% effective, some people are mature enough to vote years before they're allowed to, and some people die of old age, still not mature enough for that power. It is however, effective enough to keep the system working within acceptable parameters. but I digress. To address your point directly, no it would not be permissible to kill anyone under 25, but thats because they have a level of maturity that a very immature fetus doesn't have, and that's the point i'm trying to make.
Mango wrote:
4 and 5. This is incorrect. You are changing the fetus’ environment artificially, and then saying it was not viable because it did not survive. If I took you and place you naked on the moon, you would die. Does that mean you are not a viable organism?
This is a bit of a silly analogy. Humans are not supposed to be able to survive naked on the moon. they ARE supposed to be able to survive naked on planet earth. if something does not function in it's intended main environment then it is not viable. You may say "well a fetus isn't supposed to survive naked on planet earth!", well no. but that's because it's a fetus, not a human(yet).
mango wrote:
“Quality of life” is a very relative term. Would the fetus rather live a mediocre life or not live at all. No one asked the fetus. The decision was made for it. People talk about choice in this matter. Bt they rarely mention the fact they are taking the choice from another. Did the embryo “choose” to be conceived? No. Does the embryo get to “choose” to live or die? No. That choice is taken from it. In cases of rape, (I am talking in cases where the rape could potentially result in a pregnancy, so am excluding male on male rape) you have a wrong committed. A man forces himself on a woman. He takes away from her her choice. Then later the woman finds out that the rape resulted in a pregnancy. Is the resulting embryo guilty of the crime committed by the rapist? Or is the embryo blameless? Yet for no actions of its own, the embryo is aborted by the mother, who does not want to carry the child to term, and be reminded every day for nine months of the original crime. Is that not another wrong? Killing something that is blameless, does not correct the original crime. Should instead the woman be forced again to carry the child to term, even if she gives it up for adoption at birth? That is a much tougher question to answer than whether or not the embryo should be killed so that the parents can go off to college, party until 3:00 in the morning, and live a life unencumbered by a child, until they are “ready” to settle down and have a child. Even if by “ready’ you define it as emotionally or financially able to better care for the child.
Yes this choice is taken away from the fetus, but it isn;t in any way shape or form capeable of making that choice. therefor the choice must be made for it. We can't go to the future and be like "hey kid, we're from the past. should we abort you?" firstly they'd definitely say no, and the damage has already been done to the mother. Because the fetus is not a human being yet, the quality of life for the mother is more important. Now by quality of life i don't mean she can't watch TV quite as much, or has a bit more responsibility in her life, but she will probably have to quit any school she is taking, won't be able to get a decent job for a long time, and therefor have a very difficult time caring for the child as well as she might like to.
For the last bit about the rape victim, Thats an easy situation to address. I for one wholehartedly believe she should ahve the choice to abort it, even if abortion is otherwise illegal. there is no way she should ahve to suffer so much more because someone committed such an atrocity against her. Yes from your point of view you are killing something blameless to alleviate the suffering of another blameless person, but again to my prevailing concept that a fetus is not a human, the rape victim outranks the fetus by leagues. As i;ve stated before abortion for the purposes of the mother continuing to lead an irresponsible lifestyle isn't a good idea, but is most cases that's not the primary reason. it probably factors, but it's usually a pretty small factor.
Mango wrote:
Yes my opinion is that the human life does indeed begin at conception. Scientifically, that is the most valid view point. Other definitions would exclude too many segments of the population to be valid.
Are there instances where is justified to take a life? Yes. Is to preserve the life of another one? Yes. Is to protect others? Yes. Is to prevent another from harming people in the future, one? (That goes back to the original topic of this post.) Yes. Is doing it for convenience? No. Is it justified for “quality of life” of another? No. That way of thinking leads to eugenics and euthanasia.
This is not just an American topic by the way. This is a topic at least as old as the ancient Greeks. The original Hippocratic Oath included verbiage about not performing abortions.
I can't argue your opinion, I can only argue my own. So we're probably going to disagree on that point forever. Yes at conception it is a human life, but it's not a VIABLE human life. The point is that Inviable human life is impairing an viable human life. I don't know what eugenics are but I'm also in favour of euthanasia in certain circumstances. If someone has 2 weeks to live and every second of it is going to be excruciating pain accomplanied by the most horriffic hallucinations ever seen by humankind, you damn well better believe I would grant that person's wish to die, were I in such a position. To force them to live through that is in my opinion the worst atrocity possible. Again, convenience is not justification for killing, but to defend ones own life (not survival i mean having a full life) by killing something that I don't personally believe to to worth as much as that original life, Thats Ok in my opinion. I'm not saying a fetus is worthless, i'm just saying that the future of a young girl who was raped, or had a condom break on her is worth more than a microscopic pile of cells that *may* become a human being some day.
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Post by: spartanghost
smiling Assassin wrote:spartanghost wrote:Yes, it is different, but this isn't black an white here. It's closer to being human yes, but it's still not all the way there. Agreed probability of survival a human does not make, but that's not really what i was trying to say. The cake analogy is a good one. But my conclusion of it is different. If someone asks me what i'm doing i'll say "I'm baking a cake". If they ask me if it is a cake, i'll say "No, it's batter right now, but it will probably be a cake in a few minutes. would you like a piece?" similar situation as far as I see it.
Not particularly. So, you're saying that when the Child-Cake comes out of the toasty Womb-Oven, then it's alive? That moment? A cake is a very poor example to use. How about 10 minutes earlier? The cake won't be good to eat, but the child will survive with proper care.
Coming out of the oven was more an analogy for the child becoming biologically viable rather than being born. That is, to be capable of surviving naked in earth's atmosphere for a short period of time. Does this answer your question?
smiling Assassin wrote:spartanghost wrote:Respectfully, no. It's not viable. Viable means it can survive for a short period on it's own. for the most part a fetus can't. If you remove a fetus at say, 3 weeks and plop it on the table, it's probably dead by the time it hits the table. therefor it;s not viable. I can see why you might call that selfish, but I believe it's justified. Think of it this way: A girl wants to have a baby, but soemtime in the future, when she's ready so she can provide for it well. But she gets pregnant because the condom broke! she's not ready at all. if she keeps it, she'll have the baby, and probably love it just the same, but it's life won't be quite as full as if she had waited.. but if she aborts it, and has another one a few years down the road when she's ready, this baby has a much fuller, well provided for life. I really think that that's worth it. I really do think it's a shame that a potential human is lost, but i feel it's a necessary evil to do well by our children. I've said it before and i'll say it again. If theres ever a way that fetus can be saved without the woman having to go through with the pregnancy, it's awesome and i support it 500%. but we just can't do that now, so we have to settle for the next best thing.
Where do you draw the line, sir? And anyway, that's not a foetus, that's called an embryo. Actually, it's not even a fully developed embryo. That's like saying, "Oh yeah, let's rip out these 100 cells." I might be exagerating somewhat, but that's all that is there at the "3 week" stage of pregnancy. And why do you discount the Adoption stage in all these affairs, how about giving the child away to a foster carer?
I draw the line at biological viability. If it can survive without any input from the mother ( i.e. it can be delivered and adopted at the moment of birth), then I believe abortion is wrong. I call that a human being and killing it is murder. but if it can't survive without precisely it's biological mother, then no. it's not a human yet. I reralise this is a loose definition and isn't waterproof, but I hope my point shows clearly.
smiling Assassin wrote:spartanghost wrote:Theres one more point i'd like to add. Laws about abortion aren't necessarily about right and wrong, they're about choice. Some people believe as I do, that it's a viable and often good option, and others believe it's wrong. The laws would never under any circumstances FORCE anyone to have an abortion. It would always be that person's choice. It feels kind of oppressive(sorry for the harsh word, i don't have a better one) that people would seek to take away that choice; that freedom. It just doesn't seem fair that a complete accident could result in someones life being messed up so badly. Even if there was some kind of control on it like you're only allowed to get 1 or 2 (that weren't beyond your control) before they cut you off. I believe that anyone who keeps getting pregnant like that simply isn't taking the necessary precautions to prevent it, and in that case they're just being stupid (although one could argue that these are the last people who should be having children). If it was controlled like that, I believe it would relax some of the controversy about it, but since we're talking about a human life (or potential human life, depending on what you believe), i don't think the controversy will ever end completely.
This is all very true, you make a good argument.
For the books, I'm erring on the side of Anti-Abortion, but you make a very good case.
sA
Thank you! I try. Everyone here is making good and valid arguments and this is a very, very good debate. possibly one of the best i've ever been involved in.
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Post by: spartanghost
Aaaand now back to the original discussion.
I think the death penalty is good for cases in which the person obviously deserves to/needs to die. For instance if someone rapes someone, confesses and says they'd do it again, why are they even appealing? take them out back and shoot them! we don't want those people on our planet! This is an extreme case, and it has to be. The death penalty should only be used in cases where it makes more sense than anyone can debunk. The problem in the cost thing is that the appeals happen with people who there is that doubt about as well as the sure ones. if 12 police officers and 50 bystanders see someone brutally rip a person to death, why the hell are we spending all the time and resources giving them a fair trial when it's so obvious they're guilty it hurts. Yes, the constitution garauntees everyone a fair trial, but come on. some times it's unnesesary. maybe "fair trial" could include a stage where the case is given a look and if there is any shred of doubt whatsoever; ANY way that the person could not be guilty the rest of the trial goes ahead, but if not they just get convicted. in my opinion, that's fair. if it's impossible for you to have not committed the crime how is it fair for you to have a chance to escape the consequences? I'm sure there are flaws in this argument but it's 3:30 am right now. plus it may add some interesting points bouncing back and forth.
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Post by: namegoeshere
I wouldn't assign the death penalty for a single rape. IMO it's only right for multiple murders. Multiple murderers are pretty rare so the cost shouldn't be too bad.
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Post by: JohnHwangDD
I'm good with the death penalty for a single attempted murder.
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Post by: Kilkrazy
In the good old days we had the death penalty for stealing a sheep.
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Post by: youngblood
I say the death penalty for those attempting suicide.
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Post by: jp400
Kill em all and let god sort them out.
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Post by: Black Blow Fly
I agree with you KK. I have seen so many cases where someone not responsible for a heinous crime is scapegoated and has to pay with their life so that others appear to have served justice. On the flip side it gauls me that people like Charles Manson gets off the hook for committing human atrocities. I think the US justice system was built to protect the rights of common people and scumbags have the opportunity to trump on this. That is why characters such as Dirty Harry, Mad Max and the Punisher are deities, they short circuit the latency of the system and bring justice to those deserving the ultimate penalty. You can't correct the base actions of a serial killer, they have no sense of morality for whatever reason and it's just not right that innocent people have to pay the price for their villany. I am glad I live in an area where I can protect myself by own choice to do so.
G
Kilkrazy wrote:The appeals process is necessary because of the number of wrongful convictions.
If there was no appeal and a death penalty, it would be harder to get juries to convict on capital crimes.
For every wrongful conviction, an innocent person is in jail or dead, AND a murderer goes free to kill and kill again.
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Post by: spartanghost
youngblood wrote:I say the death penalty for those attempting suicide.
lawl
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