Plato's Playground
In light of these very real and difficult problems of fairness and justice i think we should stop using the death penalty now for anyone of any age.
Exactly! In addition, studies show that capitol punishment is not really a deterrent to crime, nor can it be counted as swift justice, since the cases take years to make their way through the appeals. Get rid of it.
Speaking of death, you could go to this article by Dana Priest about a ghost detainee in custody of the CIA in Afghanistan, who was chained naked to a concrete floor and froze to death when the temperature dropped overnight. That's not all; go read. What have we become in this war against terror? I am horrified, ashamed, repulsed. Is there any end to this sort of thing?
The problem with wanting to execute Jeffrey Dahmer et al is that, as they say, hard cases make bad law. No matter what you may think about an individual case, you have to trust the state to make that decision. You don't get to make it yourself.
Sigh... The link above to the Dana Priest article does not work. Here's it is again:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp...6-
2005Mar2.html
cervantes---exactly right. good thing i'm not king, tho one does sometimes rise to meet responsibility in a good way.
I have heard it used for what seemed like a rhetorical device before , but still have to say I was startled by your statement that you'd happily "flip the switch" on Jeffrey Dahmer, DPR. What would it do to your humanity to execute someone? The costs to your own soul psyche and spirit would surely be enormous.
There are of course larger issues at work in my complete objection to corporal punishment, so in a way this first reaction of mine is a side issue. But it gets to the heart of the matter: I believe that when a society uses violence to deal with crime problems they tear apart social fabric they are attempting to salvage.
We live in a culture where everything is used, and little is held sacred. The murder of murders will never lead to peace or justice in our society from my point of view. To have a reverence for all life, you need to move beyond the thirst for venegance. We need to work for restorative justice on all levels of our society if we want to see this natio
nation flourish.
i'm not arguing in favor of imposing the death penalty, but i don't worry about my psyche in the blatantly obvious cases of deranged humans who have IMHO removed themselves from our consideration of mercy. i think the death penalty is morally impractical, not morally abhorrent per se. i don't see it as vengeance.
is incarceration corporal punishment?
Well there are many inhumane forms of incarceration, but surely a humane society will create a humane system of incarceration. Our society has not achieved this-- one need only look at Abu Graib and Guantanamo Bay for evidence.
I know you weren't trying to make the pro-death penalty argument. Alls I was trying to say was that I couldn't really get past that initial knee jerk reaction. And as for the matter of stopping the use of the death penalty for kids and adults, you'll get no argument from me. I'm with you on that.
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