Evil

[mistermack]

As far as I'm concerned, Seth hasn't answered the real question on the death penalty.
If he has, I haven't seen it.
And that is, should we risk killing innocent people, to kill the guilty? In peace time?

Anyone who says we should is an asshole of the greatest order. But that's what he seems to be saying.
Answer please. Without the bullshit.

[hackenslash]

Anyone who says we should is an asshole of the greatest order.

[pErvinalia]

A true libertarian would fight tooth and nail against the state executing individuals. But as we know, Seth ain't no libertarian..

[Seth]

Seth

Again you show no respect for good statistics.

That's because there are, as Samuel Clemens said, three kinds of lies: Lies, damned lies, and statistics. You want to make statistical arguments out of things that aren't amenable to statistical apportionment, specifically people's lives. You either don't understand this concept or you're mendaciously ignoring it.

You are so often wrong because you talk about individuals and their occasional actions, rather than the overall trend.

That's because the individual is more important than the statistic, and the statistic cannot be used to infringe on the individual's rights just because you think it should.

Locking murderers up for life very rarely results in prison guards getting hurt or killed. It does happen, of course, but so rarely.

The statistical probability of a prison inmate who kills another inmate or guard killing another inmate or guard is 1.00. The guard or other inmate who gets killed has an absolute right not to get killed and the statistical apportionment of that person's right to live versus the comfort or continued existence is 1 to 0.

There are research results showing that prisoners who are treated badly are far more likely to maim or kill guards, or riot, or otherwise make genuine trouble. Treating prisoners humanely is a cheap way of reducing trouble.

Putting them in a hole in the ground, dead, absolutely eliminate any potential whatsoever of that individual doing further harm to anyone, ever.

As I said before, there is not a single rational reason for the death penalty.

Sure there is. Dead men don't kill again.

There is even a study, which I read several decades back, which showed that anywhere there was a highly publicised execution of a murderer, then in the area where it was publicised, the murder rate actually rose for about 3 weeks. The researchers asked some of the murderers why they had responded to the publicised execution that way, and the reply was that, if the government could get revenge by killing people, so could they. Remember that murderers do not think like the rest of us, and their warped 'logic' can result in something we did not predict.

The solution to that problem is to execute such people. There are a very limited number of people in the world willing to commit murder. Kill them all and the problem goes away.

[Seth]

Most victims and loved ones would just like them to be dead ...

Citation?

I wouldn't be surprised if that were the fact, but it is not in itself a compelling argument, however understandable the sentiment might be.

It's compelling to them.

[Seth]

As far as I'm concerned, Seth hasn't answered the real question on the death penalty.
If he has, I haven't seen it.
And that is, should we risk killing innocent people, to kill the guilty? In peace time?

Anyone who says we should is an asshole of the greatest order. But that's what he seems to be saying.
Answer please. Without the bullshit.

We "risk killing innocent people" all the time in every society. More "innocent people" are killed every single year because we take the risk of allowing people to drive automobiles than have been executed by the state in all of US history.

I agree that the current standards of proof of guilt are inadequate to the degree of certainty required to execute someone, but that's a process issue, not an argument for banning the death penalty where the convict's guilt is absolutely certain, which is true in the vast majority of existing cases. Protections against miscarriages of justice are not beyond us today, with the advancements in forensic evidence analysis. A few procedural changes, such as prohibiting the death penalty in cases where eyewitness identification is the only or primary evidence and requiring incontrovertible forensic (DNA) evidence will ensure that guilty persons get what they have coming and innocent persons are not wrongfully convicted and/or executed.

[Seth]

A true libertarian would fight tooth and nail against the state executing individuals. But as we know, Seth ain't no libertarian..

Based on which particular Libertarian principle, pray tell? Libertarians do not eschew the use of force, they only eschew the initiation of force. Once force has been wrongfully initiated by someone, Libertarians have no problem whatsoever with the use of force in self defense.

[JimC]

A true libertarian would fight tooth and nail against the state executing individuals. But as we know, Seth ain't no libertarian..

Based on which particular Libertarian principle, pray tell? Libertarians do not eschew the use of force, they only eschew the initiation of force. Once force has been wrongfully initiated by someone, Libertarians have no problem whatsoever with the use of force in self defense.

Personal self defence, sure. Consistent with your general stance.

But rEv was emphasising the State's role in this. Libertarians exhibit (occasionally for very good reasons) a strong distrust of the state, particularly when it acts against an individual, so there must at least be some tension between your "death to criminals" leaning, and your libertarian side...

[Seth]

A true libertarian would fight tooth and nail against the state executing individuals. But as we know, Seth ain't no libertarian..

Based on which particular Libertarian principle, pray tell? Libertarians do not eschew the use of force, they only eschew the initiation of force. Once force has been wrongfully initiated by someone, Libertarians have no problem whatsoever with the use of force in self defense.

Personal self defence, sure. Consistent with your general stance.

But rEv was emphasising the State's role in this. Libertarians exhibit (occasionally for very good reasons) a strong distrust of the state, particularly when it acts against an individual, so there must at least be some tension between your "death to criminals" leaning, and your libertarian side...

The Libertarian philosophy favors small government, not no government. There's nothing in Libertarian philosophy that prevents the members of a community from dealing with a danger to the community in a collective manner. The trick to Libertarianism is that participation is voluntary, not obligatory.

If someone kills someone else, and the community can get 12 volunteers to act as a jury, and if the evidence meets the required standards of proof, nothing in Libertarianism prohibits the community levying punishment on the individual who has wrongfully initiated force or fraud. In general, the concept of "shunning" is adequate for most misbehavior, but where the lives of the members of the community are at stake, there is nothing that prohibits collective self defense, which includes making sure a killer is not given the opportunity to kill again.

[JimC]

Sure, but right now you haven't got that folksy small-town arrangement dealing with murder, you have the full apparatus of the modern state...

[Blind groper]

To Seth

When you make a statement like "more guards will get attacked", that is a statistical statement. It applies to lots of people, not to the individual.

Any rational thinker will consider statistical reality very carefully. Far more carefully than the wishy washy, namby pamby, vapid "rights" you have a habit of warbling on about.

If you improve conditions under which prisoners are kept, and thus cut down on aggressive actions against prison guards (which it does do), then that is far more important than your emotion based argument that those prisoners 'deserve' to be given harsh treatment.

On executing the innocent.
Get it into your head that there is no way available to avoid penalising the innocent. The courts operate to a standard of 'beyond reasonable doubt'. Not beyond all doubt, and that leads to somewhere between 1% and 25% of all convictions being dealt out to innocent people. The best approach the USA has found (albeit seriously imperfect) is to permit numerous appeals to those on death row. That costs the American taxpayer literally many millions of dollars. Yet, to circumvent that process will lead to numerous innocent people being murdered by the state for crimes they did not commit.

Far better to take the cheaper option and simply lock those guys up till they are so old they are unlikely to reoffend. If someone turns out to be innocent (and that happens quite often), he can be released and compensated.

And here is another use of statistics. People over 65 years of age rarely reoffend. It is not because they cannot. It is because they have reached a level of maturity in which they do not want to.

Even you, Seth, at age 61, with your hyper-aggressive and borderline insane stance on killing people, are unlikely to actually do it. Because your 'angry young man' stage was left behind with your callow youth.

Although, if any person is going to break the statistical rule, it is most likely someone like you who clearly thinks with his gonads.

[mistermack]

A few procedural changes, such as prohibiting the death penalty in cases where eyewitness identification is the only or primary evidence and requiring incontrovertible forensic (DNA) evidence will ensure that guilty persons get what they have coming and innocent persons are not wrongfully convicted and/or executed.

You're a liar.

[Seth]

Sure, but right now you haven't got that folksy small-town arrangement dealing with murder, you have the full apparatus of the modern state...

And therein lies the problem. The Constitution guarantees you a jury of your "peers," who are supposed to be the people you live and work with, who know you, and therefore are in a position to judge you based on that knowledge in addition to the evidence.

[JimC]

Sure, but right now you haven't got that folksy small-town arrangement dealing with murder, you have the full apparatus of the modern state...

And therein lies the problem. The Constitution guarantees you a jury of your "peers," who are supposed to be the people you live and work with, who know you, and therefore are in a position to judge you based on that knowledge in addition to the evidence.

Actually, I think that's a bit scary. What a chance to pay off old scores, with small town animosities festering under the surface of calm and rational decision making...

I think I'd prefer a panel of strangers, with no prior knowledge of me, only able to decide based on the evidence and legal argument presented...

[Seth]

To Seth

When you make a statement like "more guards will get attacked", that is a statistical statement. It applies to lots of people, not to the individual.

No, it's a group reference to individuals, each and every one of whom has an absolute, unalienable right not to be killed or injured by a killer.

Any rational thinker will consider statistical reality very carefully. Far more carefully than the wishy washy, namby pamby, vapid "rights" you have a habit of warbling on about.

'Mr. BG, the Federal Statistical Service has determined that your statistical risk of being victimized by a criminal was 0.033 percent. Therefore, you were justly prohibited from exercising any sort of self defense against the vanishingly small probability that you might be attacked. Because you violated this statistic-based regulation of your right to self-defense, your active resistance to the individual who broke into your home to rob you, which resulted in an injury to that individual, constitutes a criminal act on your part called "willful violation of statistically-determined self-defense rights" and you are sentenced to three years in prison, where your statistical probability of being ass-fucked and beat to death by lifers is determined to be 75 percent. You are hereby advised that your right to resist such actions is limited to 75% effectiveness, and if you exceed this quota of self-defense success you may be charged accordingly."

Get it yet, numbnuts?

If you improve conditions under which prisoners are kept, and thus cut down on aggressive actions against prison guards (which it does do), then that is far more important than your emotion based argument that those prisoners 'deserve' to be given harsh treatment.

How do you improve on the conditions under which a psychopathic murderer is interested only in being kingpin of the cell block and kills anyone he perceives threatens his status?

On executing the innocent.
Get it into your head that there is no way available to avoid penalising the innocent.

Sure there is.

The courts operate to a standard of 'beyond reasonable doubt'.

Yup.

Not beyond all doubt, and that leads to somewhere between 1% and 25% of all convictions being dealt out to innocent people.

So raise the threshhold for imposition of the death penalty, as I've suggested several times. If that standard of "no doubt" is not met in the penalty phase of the trial, then the standard incarceration rules apply.

The best approach the USA has found (albeit seriously imperfect) is to permit numerous appeals to those on death row. That costs the American taxpayer literally many millions of dollars. Yet, to circumvent that process will lead to numerous innocent people being murdered by the state for crimes they did not commit.

The problem is that the system allows too many appeals. One trial, one appeal. If you don't get it right at the appeal, you're screwed.

Far better to take the cheaper option and simply lock those guys up till they are so old they are unlikely to reoffend.

"Unlikely" is an insufficient metric for the safety of the public against a known killer. Sorry. Amputate their hands and feet and maybe.....

If someone turns out to be innocent (and that happens quite often), he can be released and compensated.

It happens quite rarely in point of actual fact, and that militates for process changes, not leniency.

And here is another use of statistics. People over 65 years of age rarely reoffend. It is not because they cannot. It is because they have reached a level of maturity in which they do not want to.

Except maybe those psychopathic killers like Charles Manson or the Blind Sheik, who is already well over 65 as I recall.

Even you, Seth, at age 61, with your hyper-aggressive and borderline insane stance on killing people, are unlikely to actually do it. Because your 'angry young man' stage was left behind with your callow youth.

Then why do you care if I carry a gun?

Although, if any person is going to break the statistical rule, it is most likely someone like you who clearly thinks with his gonads.

Thought I left all that behind. Make up your mind.