Do murderers deserve to die?

dirtychinchilla · 1 Apr 2012 at 09:59

So you've just contradicted yourself in one sentence. Good job.

The Halk · 1 Apr 2012 at 10:01

Castiel said:
Can the state, which represents the whole of society and has the duty of protecting society, fulfill that duty by lowering itself to the level of the murderer, and treating him as he treated others? The forfeiture of life is too absolute, too irreversible, for one human being to inflict it on another, even when backed by legal process. And I believe that future generations, throughout the world, will come to agree.

Kofi Annan, Ghanaian diplomat and Secretary General of the United Nations 1997 -2007.

The argument only holds water when you ignore the other side of it - that we cause loss of life by not using the death penalty. We spend money looking after people instead of research into a space elevator to avoid the mass famine and epidemics that are due from mass overpopulation. We could save lives by research into GM crops, or cancer or dementia...

The money we spend on prisons could be used instead for cancer screening, and that would directly save lives...

However I'm still against it at present because I don't feel we have a justice system that I'm entirely happy with.

I also think that if we were to get serious about rehabilitation, and we were to concede defeat in the 'war on drugs' then the cost of prison would be greatly reduced, perhaps to a point where what we spend on murderers etc is a very small amount, in relative terms, and we no longer have it on our conscience that the money could be spent to save significant amount of lives.

So for now I'm against it, but not for Kofi Annan's reasons.

bhavv · 1 Apr 2012 at 10:01

dirtychinchilla said:
So you've just contradicted yourself in one sentence. Good job.

Awww, you're so cute, you deserve some candy for that, but I'm not going to give you any.

Murderers deserve to be killed for their crimes, but I'm not going to give them any of that either, and neither is the state.

[FnG]magnolia · 1 Apr 2012 at 10:02

bhavv said:
I aagree with that. But it doesnt mean that the murderer deserves to carry on living and potentially killing others in the future.

Did you even read what you typed? My goodness.

dirtychinchilla · 1 Apr 2012 at 10:03

The Halk, I understand what you mean, but unfortunately we don't live in a utopian society, and as such crime will always exist, and unfortunately we will always have to pay for it. Governments waste a lot of money in a lot of places, for example, on nuclear weaponry. I don't think targeting prisons as the only source of money wasting is really valid.

dirtychinchilla · 1 Apr 2012 at 10:04

Sorry bhavv, your idiocy evidently surpasses any decent though processes that go through your mind. You have contradicted yourself and, apparently, are completely unaware of it.

BunnyKillBot · 1 Apr 2012 at 10:05

How bhavv can be on my ignore list and still troll a thread is quite impressive.

Anyway, on topic, no.

The Halk · 1 Apr 2012 at 10:06

dirtychinchilla said:
The Halk, I understand what you mean, but unfortunately we don't live in a utopian society, and as such crime will always exist, and unfortunately we will always have to pay for it. Governments waste a lot of money in a lot of places, for example, on nuclear weaponry. I don't think targeting prisons as the only source of money wasting is really valid.

Well, I think it might be. We can't really tell until we do prison properly. I suspect the cost of prison, if done properly, will shrink drastically and the argument won't be there to be made. However if we were to do prison properly and it didn't shrink, and the justice system was greatly improved then I might be in favour of the death penalty. Until then I think it is morally wrong, and we can't decide what will be right in the future.

dirtychinchilla · 1 Apr 2012 at 10:07

Fair enough. Surely if it's morally wrong to you, though, then it shouldn't be used?

bhavv · 1 Apr 2012 at 10:08

dirtychinchilla said:
Sorry bhavv, your idiocy evidently surpasses any decent though processes that go through your mind. You have contradicted yourself and, apparently, are completely unaware of it.

No I havnt, you dont realize that I am discussing my opinion on what murderers and child rapists deserve.

I am not advocating for it to become a state wide law or to actually happen.

How is that difficult to understand?

Castiel · 1 Apr 2012 at 10:09

The Halk said:
The argument only holds water when you ignore the other side of it - that we cause loss of life by not using the death penalty. We spend money looking after people instead of research into a space elevator to avoid the mass famine and epidemics that are due from mass overpopulation. We could save lives by research into GM crops, or cancer or dementia...

The money we spend on prisons could be used instead for cancer screening, and that would directly save lives...

However I'm still against it at present because I don't feel we have a justice system that I'm entirely happy with.

I also think that if we were to get serious about rehabilitation, and we were to concede defeat in the 'war on drugs' then the cost of prison would be greatly reduced, perhaps to a point where what we spend on murderers etc is a very small amount, in relative terms, and we no longer have it on our conscience that the money could be spent to save significant amount of lives.

So for now I'm against it, but not for Kofi Annan's reasons.

The cost to the State of prosecuting and carrying out the Death Penalty in States where the Death Penalty is used outweighs the cost of incarceration of the individual for what remains of their life in Stats that do not.

In any case, the argument that 'money spent on x could be spent on y' is not realistic......You could apportion relative value to any State funding, and a 'space elevator' will solve famine and assauge overpopulation?.....I could think of far more effective ways to spend money or more accurately redistibute wealth to combat poverty and the associated issues that come with that.......instituting a death penalty wouldn't save money, let alone allow significant redistribution of wealth to impact the issues you raised.

dirtychinchilla · 1 Apr 2012 at 10:10

I understand what you're saying, but I disagree, as does Kofi Annan, that the use of capital punishment is EVER justified. My point being that you have contradicted yourself, not that you are not entitled to your opinion.

Kofi Annan states that capital punishment is not justified for any crime. And then you basically said, yes I agree with that but not for murderers and rapists, therefore disagreeing with him??

bhavv · 1 Apr 2012 at 10:13

The Halk said:
Until then I think it is morally wrong

Hypothetically speaking, suppose you had the option to completely ending war, genocide, disease, famine, suffering, and any other bad stuff forever, but in order to make this happen you would have to torture an infant to death.

Would you do that or not?

[TW]Fox · 1 Apr 2012 at 10:15

bhavv said:
Hypothetically speaking, suppose you had the option to completely ending war, genocide, disease, famine, suffering, and any other bad stuff forever, but in order to make this happen you would have to torture an infant to death.

Would you do that or not?

What a stupid question. Such a scenario would never exist so the answers to it are completely irrelevent.

bhavv · 1 Apr 2012 at 10:16

[TW]Fox;21594152 said:
What a stupid question. Such a scenario would never exist so the answers to it are completely irrelevent.

Its a hypothetical moral dilemma taken from an ethical discussion on killing.

The ethics of which can be applied to:

If you had to kill one man to save the lives of three innocent others, would you do so or not.

dirtychinchilla · 1 Apr 2012 at 10:17

bhavv said:
Hypothetically speaking, suppose you had the option to completely ending war, genocide, disease, famine, suffering, and any other bad stuff forever, but in order to make this happen you would have to torture an infant to death.

Would you do that or not?

Those things make you human. Committing a morally wrong act, once again, to justify a morally wrong act, makes it invalid.

bhavv · 1 Apr 2012 at 10:19

dirtychinchilla said:
Those things make you human. Committing a morally wrong act, once again, to justify a morally wrong act, makes it invalid.

So would you or would you not do it?

dirtychinchilla · 1 Apr 2012 at 10:20

Certainly not!

[FnG]magnolia · 1 Apr 2012 at 10:21

bhavv said:
Hypothetically speaking, suppose you had the option to completely ending war, genocide, disease, famine, suffering, and any other bad stuff forever, but in order to make this happen you would have to torture an infant to death.

Would you do that or not?

I'd hope someone with more moral fibre than me did, yes. The five biggest blights on the face of humanity? Yeah, I'd be happy if they weren't around any more.

Gangster · 1 Apr 2012 at 10:22

Arnie said:
Theoretically, if you know their guilt with 100% certainty, do murderers deserve the death penalty?

I used to think not but now I've changed my mind.

Yup, providing your 100% certain that they are guilty...sure they do.

Dont keep them locked up, cost too much money. Although I like the idea of leaving in them in a cell for the rest of their days slowly dying. (or if you going to kill them, then shoot them in arms, legs, stomach then finally the head - make them go through some suffering before they die, punish them for taking someone elses life).

As for paedo's/rapists, lock em up - male chop of the dong and women... well I dunno. Keep them both locked up, sick ***ers.