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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dayuhan who wrote (81798)	6/15/2000 3:20:00 AM
From: one_less	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

<<It risks the lives of innocents...>> This seems to be your strongest argument against the death penalty. Are you aware of any innocents that have been wrongfully executed in recent times. I am not. Maybe someday we will discover a mistake that was made during the 90's. How many innocent lives are you putting at risk by keeping cold blooded murderers etc. in the system for life? Thousands...

To: Dayuhan who wrote (81798)	6/15/2000 7:37:00 AM
From: Neocon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

I begin to get irritated here, as you had only to read further down: The death penalty is a fitting response to heinous crimes (not merely murder, but murder with aggravating circumstances) because we must preserve a sense of proportionality in sentencing, and in the schedule of penalties. By the time we reach simple murder, we exhaust our recourse to simple imprisonment as punishment. If we want to differentiate between the ordinary crime and even fouler acts, we resort to execution. We could, of course,chronically torture the inmates to achieve a similar effect, but we have decided that execution is more humane than torture. See above for most of your complaints. The empirical evidence about systems of justice is complicated and brings into play numerous variables, and neither of us is sufficiently expert to seriously review it. We cannot control for factors like ethnic homogeneity, relative lack of immigration, family solidarity, and habits of social deference left over from (disintegrating) class systems. We also have a difficult time because there was a lengthy hiatus in executions in the States, and they are still unusual except in a handful of states, so whatever social message that may be intended may be diluted. Also, it is not necessary for there to be an effect on murderers for there to be a salutory effect on potential criminals more generally, but that would be difficult if not impossible to measure. We have gang wars and occasional outbreaks of senseless violence, as in school shootings. They have soccer hooliganism and serious fascist parties, and, in some countries, such as the UK and the former Yugoslavia, chronic political violence (Northern Ireland and the various ethnic wars in the Balkans). Historically, it is not long since Germany, Japan, and Italy were in the thrall of fascist leaders who brought untold misery to the world, and countries like France were full of collaborators, helping to haul Jews to Auschwitz. If some of these countries are more peaceful now, maybe it is because of the previous bloodletting. I do not, in any case, feel confident in any "empirical" assertions either of us might make about such things, when they are, in fact, highly speculative. If you are not persuaded by the argument, so be it. Since our initial premises are so different, I did not expect to persuade you.

To: Dayuhan who wrote (81798)	6/15/2000 8:20:00 AM
From: Neocon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

By the way, I used to hang- out on the Libertarian thread, as the resident conservative. Every so often, some guy, recently returned from Amsterdam, would come on and spout off about how "freedom works", still excited by the legal availability of drugs and brothels. I would chuckle, reminded of fellow travelers who would take short trips to the Soviet Union or China and come back spouting off about socialist paradises, even during incidents like the Ukrainian famine or the Cultural Revolution. They would get mad. I would point out that even a cursory search showed research exists questioning the prudence of these liberalization policies, and that the jury was, at least, still out on whether it was harmless or quite socially dangerous. They would get madder. But what no one could ever grasp was that it would not matter if the Netherlands could successfully legalize vice, without the spread of baneful consequences, because all things are not equal, and it might very well be that the consequences would differ in the United States. We are not in a position to reduce the number of variables and fully control for them, there are no laboratory conditions. That is why states and localities are supposed to make policy as much as possible, because local circumstances differ. So do temporal circumstances. That is why, for example, pointing out the positive effects of immigration at the turn of the century, or making an emotional appeal to those of us whose great- grandparents came through Ellis Island, is not an argument stopper. Different times, different problems. Things usually become matters of controversy because the argument cuts very close, and there is a lot of surmise involved. There is a fairly widespread consensus on free- trade, and even the protectionists now talk about "free and fair trade", using barriers only in defense. There is a widespread consensus that racism is intellectually bankrupt and morally wrong, as there is a greater diversity within "races" than between them, and it is best to treat people as individuals. In instances like this, one might talk about "common sense", although that was not always so. Otherwise, few matters of public policy are easily resolved by common sense.

To: Dayuhan who wrote (81798)	6/15/2000 8:22:00 AM
From: jlallen	Respond to of 108807

It risks the lives of innocents, So does letting a murderer live to murder again whether on parole or in prison. it costs money, The price we pay to make sure the system does not convict innocents. and it does not accomplish anything measurable. This is a matter of opinion, not an argument. JLA