Maryland abolishes death penalty

CriedWhenBrucieLeft said:
At a purely philosophical level it is totally relevant to carry it through to the "nth degree", as you pithily dismiss mckindog. And you ask "How about war - the most obvious example of state sanctioned killing." What about it? Yes, this is also state sanctioned killing. Does calling people "combatants" makes you fell better about their deaths?
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I think you misread me here. I'm not dismissing it all, quite the opposite.
I'm pointing out that if you make blanket statements about state sanctioned killing being wrong in one instance, I'd like to see how you apply that logic to others.
 
mckindog said:
My last post was responding to Flash.
In response to Wingman's excellent post, why is taking away liberty better than than taking away life?
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Is that not self-evident, if one accepts that both alternatives are "evil" in some sense? Taking away one's liberty is a lesser evil - and it is reversible, which is where I first entered this discussion.
 
I apply it logically --to all state sanctioned killings. Do I have to list them all? Your suggesting double standards --but if we discussed every other example of life taking under the umbrella of "the law" I'd call it state sanctioned killing. I'm not saying it's all avoidable, I'm just stating what it is.

Good point Wingman --it's the lesser of two problematic choices. It's also reversible.
 
Actually, the U.S. is predicated on the notion that liberty is also a right you have upon birth:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

I have no problem with a state legislature like Maryland's banning the death penalty. That's a reasoned policy decision that each state is free to make on its own. Where I have a problem is when people think that the government CAN'T deprive a person of his life in addition to his liberty. At least in the U.S., it unquestionably CAN. Anyone who thinks otherwise has not read the Constitution:

No person shall be ... deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; [a meaningless statement if you can't deprive someone of life at all]

I realize few others on this forum are subject to the U.S. Constitution, and thus other nations are free to do what they want. But as a lawyer in the U.S., that's my main point of reference. Again, whether a government CAN is different than whether it SHOULD. Given the number of people on death row who have been freed by exculpatory DNA evidence, I think not.
 
I thought we were debating should? I don't really care what the US constitution says. In fact I'm getting pretty tired of people trotting it out as some sort of counter-argument. This is what your state thinks. I want to know what you think...
 
Dr. Eddies Wingman said:
Believe me, I think Anders Behring Breivik deserves to die for what he did. I also think Vidkun Quisling and Henry Oliver Rinnan
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It may be a bit ghoulish, but there strikes me as something just about Jeffrey Dahmer's fate. He was sentenced to hundreds of years in prison, but the state (I think it was Wisconsin) had banned the death penalty. So, he went to prison instead. Where he was beaten to death by another inmate. Tough to feel pity on that one.
 
CriedWhenBrucieLeft said:
I thought we were debating should? I don't really care what the US constitution says. In fact I'm getting pretty tired of people trotting it out as some sort of counter-argument. This is what your state thinks. I want to know what you think...
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Then read the last sentence of my post. Annoying to use the "I'm getting pretty tired" whine when you don't even read the post you're responding to.
 
Dr. Eddies Wingman said:
Is that not self-evident, if one accepts that both alternatives are "evil" in some sense? Taking away one's liberty is a lesser evil - and it is reversible, which is where I first entered this discussion.
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Which is where I originally wanted to take this discussion.
In the case I posted earlier, very few would suggest the killers 'deserve' to live.
They do because society has decided it is somehow better off if they do.
I know why society is better off opposing capital punishment on a philosophical level.
Contrary to what people reading this thread may think, I have spent the past 20 years arguing in the same way Wingman and Brucie are arguing.
In the case I posted, I need someone to explain to me why society is better off with these two people alive.
 
CriedWhenBrucieLeft said:
So what do you feel about another man being beaten to death then?
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I was referring to this sentence, in the post to which you responded: "Again, whether a government CAN is different than whether it SHOULD. Given the number of people on death row who have been freed by exculpatory DNA evidence, I think not." To expand, in principle I think the death penalty is just. If you assume that life is an inalienable right, then the unlawful taking of a life is about the worst thing you can do. By taking another's right to life, yours is forfeit. My big problem is that I think the criminal justice system in many countries, the U.S. included, does not do as good a job as it could in finding the correct culprit, particularly in cases involving the poor and minorities. Someone smarter than me (I think it was Blackstone) once wrote something like, "better a hundred guilty men go free than one innocent man suffer," and that is particularly true when what the innocent man may suffer is death.

As to your question about one man being beaten to death by another...I'm generally against it.
 
I understand your argument now! :); cheers for expanding. However, I simply don't agree with the statement "By taking another's right to life, yours is forfeit". Why? Says who? Plus, this statement is misleading: "If you assume that life is an inalienable right, then the unlawful taking of a life is about the worst thing you can do". No. If you assume that life is an inalienable right then any taking of a life is unjustifiable. Not just "unlawful taking"; any taking.
 
Mckindog --it's not about me (or anyone else) explaining "why society is better off with these two people alive". You're painting it very black & white: death or life. (And, for the record, I do think killers "deserve" life; or rather, I don't think we have the authority to deal out death.) To me the very last option, the extreme choice, is to kill them. Why is this being offered as some sort of solution? What does this say about the people who advocate this stance? It's not good. It makes me very sad that people think this is justified, or "right", or "lawful"; citing this constitution & this law, etc. I just don't understand it to be honest. Killing these people makes you no better than them.
 
CriedWhenBrucieLeft said:
Mckindog --it's not about me (or anyone else) explaining "why society is better off with these two people alive". You're painting it very black & white: death or life.
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But it is black and white, life and death. That is exactly what we are discussing.
When, if ever, is the state justified in taking the life of an individual?

One of my favourite Neil Peart lyrics is "gravity and distance change the colour of right."
When I discuss this issue in abstract, I come to the same conclusion you do.
When I read the story I posted and picture myself in the position of that poor girl's father, I come to a different conclusion.
You can choose to refuse to debate the issue on those terms if you wish, but are you going to tell that girl's father it's not about why society is better off with those two evil people alive? Its not about spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to lock them up, keep them secure, feed them, bathe them and generally keep care of them for the next 50 years?
If you are making that choice, you can't ignore the enormity of who these killers are and what they did.
You need to look at their evil and the pain they have caused straight in the face first.
 
I'm not refusing the debate on those terms or ignoring the crimes they've committed.

There's a reason the law (to much criticism) doesn't really consider what the father, in your example, thinks. Let's consider the idea of asking the heartbroken, confused, angry, bitter victims' families & friends how they think said convicted criminals, rapists, & mass murders should be dealt with. And you know where that leads us? Bitter retaliation. Revenge. Humiliation. Eye for an eye stuff. It turns logically into (Saudi Arabia): lets medically paralyse the bastard, because that's what happened to our son/daughter after his crimes. It turns into: he tortured; we should torture him. This is barbaric. Don't say this wouldn't happen; it would. I don't want to be part of a society which says this is acceptable or justified; I don't think that it is. And, again, I say: what does this say about us, if this is how we choose to deal with those in society who commit heinous crimes? It says to me, that everything that motivated them (murderers), seems to motivate us too: hate, revenge, etc. It says we are morally bankrupt hypocrites.

"You need to look at their evil and the pain they have caused straight in the face first. "
And what? Deal all that evil & pain right back at 'em!? Become everything they are?

"When, if ever, is the state justified in taking the life of an individual?"
It's not. That's what I think. There's no need for it. We're not animals.
 
I assume, of course, that the people who are strongly against the death penalty are equally strongly against abortion, right?
 
They're unrelated, Cornfed. I'm against death penalty and all in for support of abortion. A fetus isn't a human being and it's way more evil to give birth to a creature you won't want, love, take care of and everything else.
 
But you did call life an unalienable right. I support abortions too but some would argue that it does take away that right. It isn't unrelated. The same arguments against the death penalty can be used against abortion too.

Also, having an unwanted child is not the only reason for abortions. Some people abort babies that are likely to have birth defects. like down syndrome.
 
Exactly (--to your final point.) The two are related; but other factors can come into play with abortion/terminations (as I mentioned earlier) which have no relevance to the debate around the death penalty e.g. the moral conundrum of save baby or save mother, with no possibility of saving both. (Yes, I appreciate this is only one single example.) With the death penalty there is no such conundrum, as it's pretty easy to save the life of someone sentenced to death --don't have laws allowing you to sentence people to death in the first place.
 
“Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.” - Gandalf
 
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