The Death Penalty

I'm conducting a mini survey. No need for elaboration if you don't wish, but opinions are welcomed. So pretty straightforward - are you for or against. Don't be shy if you have Texan blood - i won't hold it against you.

 

i've was involved in a discussion about this over on the hfc forum. i'm in favor of the death penalty but under the following provisos:

1) it is used a lot more effectively and subtly than it is at present so it's seen as more of a deterrant and less as a way to gain celebrity or an interesting new way of dating as it is in america.

2) there is an effective rehabilitation programme that those facing the death penalty will have been through so they've had the chance to be rehabilitated, educated and reintroduced into society as useful and safe members of society.

3) it is only used in for violent multiple crimes e.g. murder, armed robbery, terrorism, rape, paedophilia, etc. where the criminal has been convicted multiple times in the past for similar crimes and shows no signs of being able to cease his criminal actions.

i'm aware of the counter arguments against the death penalty the strongest of which in my mind is how can you ever be sure you have the right person. to me though locking someone up and subjecting them every day to the possibility of rape, stabbing, beatings or mental and / or physical torture is perhaps a lot worse than getting it over with quickly.
then there is the argument that it's precisely because of this that the criminal should be locked away for life. to that i say i'd rather have my tax money spent rehabilitating and educating him so he contributes to society and perhaps breaks the cycle of multi generational criminal families than feeding and housing him for 10 years so he can come out a better more hardened criminal thanks to the information he's absorbed and the weights he's lifted a step closeer to lifetime imprisonment or the death penalty.

cheers

julian

 

This is a sensative subject (so I'll butt straight in)...

I don't see why we pay money to keep people like Peter Sutcliffe, Dennis Nillsen or Dr Shipman alive - they're convicted serial killers and there's no hope for them - if there was, they'd have tried to help themselves first you'd have thought; keeping them alive is a waste of taxpayer money. That said, society should have been able to pick up on their actions (see below) so perhaps society is as guilty as they are...

However, I'd definitely extend the penalty to rapists - why should they get 5 years or whatever when the woman gets a life sentence? Rape is unforgivable - there's no excuse for it whatsoever. If you can't get the real thing, use your right hand - don't go out and become lower than a sewer rat.

You can of course argue that people who do these kinds of things might not be "right in the head" - well, if this can be proven after the fact, perhaps better screening of the masses can be done to determine if someone has got some kind of problem that could get worse, before damage is done, instead of the doc just waving you away with some magic pills that are more often than not going to cause more problems than they solve...

Although you can't excuse it at all though, there's a bit in "Killing for company" (a book about Dennis Nillsen) where the author mentions that perhaps society could have done more to prevent it happening - like talking to your neighbours once in a while, taking time out for others etc, instead of letting people just fester away and end up going nuts. I mean, something like 11 people died at his hands and no-one even noticed - people disappear all the time... Personally, I think that's a pretty fair for the author to say.

As for the A NUMBER ONE excuse (it seems) of having "diminished responsibility" through drug taking or being drunk - that's no excuse at all. You took the drugs or drank the alcohol - so therefore even if you didn't know what you were doing at the time, you started that mechanism off and should have been responsible enough to stop it, so that excuse doesn't hold water...

 

Yes, but at least if you find out the conviction is unsound, you can let them out again

 

States have no moral right to take lives, and the judicial system makes mistakes. Therefore, regardless of the severity of a crime, I'm against capital punishment.

The tabloid press's ranting about the awfulness of particular crimes makes not one iota of difference to the principles at stake IMO.

-- Ian

 

Jules,

Are your pro death penalty sentiments based on rational considerations, or are they a reflection of what are fundamentally emotional and ideological traits? I feel the later is more strickly true in both the pro and anti camps.

If there is an element of reasoning in your attitudes, i am curious to untangle the various strands. My interpretation of your points, indicates that your main motivation for supporting the death penalty is based on incapacitation. If this is the case - would a life imprisonment without the chance of parole satisfy this agenda, for example? If there are other reasoned justifications, i would be interested what you feel about them - i.e. retribution, revenge, cost, deterrence etc.

So basically, regardless of certain 'special cases' or 'clauses', why would you wish to sentance somebody to death at all? Is it reasoned or ideological/emotional. Also, would you be prepared to kill that individual with your own hands (injection/firing squad/hanging/electrocution), or just give silent compliance?

cheers

Even the few votes in so far, are pretty much as would be expected.

 

Have you seen 'The Life of David Gale' Robbo?

 

err, no

 

Thanks for the reply Dom (take no prisoners ) , one tasty question for you, which i also posed to Jules,

'would you be prepared to kill that individual with your own hands (injection/firing squad/hanging/electrocution), or just give silent compliance?'

Also, Dom, as things currently stand, in the countries where the death penalty is still employed, particulalry in the US, it is actually more expensive than life imprisonment. Largely attributed to the legal rangling and lengthy Death Row sentances. So to justify in terms of financial considerations, and the application of tax payers money, the current system would need to be revised. Of course this entails certain risks, if you see them as so, primarily the potential killing of an innocent individual, if enough time is not spent getting a 'watertight' case.

 

http://worldfilm.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http://us.imdb.com/Name?Winslet,+Kate

(click on the number 5 film to access moe info on the film)

Better than my description. Cool film though IMO, and relevant to what is being talked about here.

 

Ian - are you actively against it, so to speak, or just ideologically in discussions over a latte. I think for many anti (and pro) DP folk, it is a matter of principle. (There are few who do not sway strongly either side of the pendulum) Yet is this principle strong enough to act on. Or is the lack of involvement merely a reflection of the growing apathetic trend in modern society. And are principles and inaction compatible?

cheers

i'm merely playing devils advocate today

 

I used to be extremely politically active in the revolutionary left, yes. But not in the last decade, as I had a serious falling-out (too tedious to go into details). Nowadays I'm with Adorno - practice is easy, the theory's still shot and needs work.

-- Ian

 

As with the old vegetarian thing, yes, I would kill someone if the law mandated it. However, OBVIOUSLY you need to be pretty sure you've got the right bod (look at Timothy Evans/10 Rillington Place in the 50s) BEFORE you apply the penalty. These days, with DNA testing, CCTV, trails left by your swipe card etc, it's more straightforward to get a real conviction of the right person based on the evidence. So if you have the right person, and the right evidence (from multiple sources) you don't need an appeal - but ONLY if the evidence is sound. IN this case the death penalty would be far less expensive than keeping the fellon alive.

I mean - they have perfectly clear CCTV footage and (I believe) witnesses to a murder that happened in Reading last year; some tanked up dickhead decided to stab someone else in a fight, after leaving the Purple Turtle. The whole thing was on tape, he admitted it, yet he got manslaughter. WHy? He admitted killing the guy so he was sober enough to know right from wrong, and in any case, he was the one who drank himself into that state anyway, so in this kind of situation, I don't see a problem with the death penalty. I mean, let's face it, Man murders millions every day, and it happens in nature all the time.

Mind you, I really need to calm down on all these things - life's too short to get angry all the time. Can't believe I just said that but there you go

 

You might know my uncle then!! Hope it wasn't him you fell out with - he did it full time, with next to no money, for many years. I was always told as a child not to tell anyone what he did - such clandestine activities seemed quite exciting to me as a kid

Is 'Dialectic of Enlightenment' a good spring board? Or another? I am as yet relatively unfamiliar, but i like the look of the material covered in that one, on first impressions.

cheers

 

If you want a flavour of Adorno, "Minima Moralia" is the best place to start by far. A wonderful and wide-ranging book, written aphoristically. "Negative Dialectics" is the most complete statement of Adorno's mature thought. "Dialectic of Enlightenment" is, indeed, also a good place to start (it's considerably easier to read than most of the later stuff, and the clearest statement of his early theory). I'd also recommend a collection of short essays and lectures, "Critical Models".

I get the feeling you have to have gone from Nietzsche to Marx and back to Nietzsche to really "get" Adorno. He's the least co-opted of all the Frankfurt School, and by far the smartest.

-- Ian

 

Thanks Ian - 'Minima Moralia' and 'Dialectic of Enlightenment' are now in my basket. .

Do revolutionaries have the right to take lives?! ...on a sacrificial pretext of a distant utopia.

Or is murder never permitted in any guise?

 

"Right" was the wrong word. "Authority" would be better (I'm basically an anarchist). I don't believe "murder is always wrong", but I also don't believe any state or any judicial system is deserving of being given the trust to make decisions about who to hang or electrocute or lethally inject.

As for revolutionaries, they rarely have any moral sense at all. Their overwhelming pragmatism puts paid to any serious consideration of the big conceptual questions, IME.

-- Ian

 

ahh..........'there is no more reliable witness than each man is to himself'!

cookie off.....

I have one moral (fabricated harmoniser) - and that is i would never murder anyone, under ANY circumstances. Its a blatant oasis of contradiction in a desert of naturalism, but then i was born without canines intact. Otherwise, i'm as instinctive as a bat in a drainpipe. However, i find my impulses difficult to quench, in stale air, occupied by disfigured bats who sprouted eyes and envy. The consequences of which are a dibilitating state of inaction. Merely left to ponder the fluttering echos in the bat cave, whilst my fellow occupants painfully survive. The local bats see in the reflection of my slippery skin, the appearance of a pragmatic apathetic abdicator, with philanthropic, non-threatening and malleable speckles. The main protagonists in the western zone of the cave could not have designed a more wonderful and compliant spectator. However, beneath the epidermis resides a black hole of mouldy dreams. This ungallant sacrifice of a sidelined and inert bat, at least preserves the beauty and integrity of an idea. The only other alternative would be to either murder all the other bats barring the undiscovered abdicators, or cohabit in a fury of hedonism, the path to which is securely blocked by pangs of peculiar reasoning - another disfigurement in the otherwise still desert air.

I have NOT acted in the benefits of those who are extinguished at the hands of the aggressors. If someone could find the key to my chains, i would die to save just one.

........cookie on

Heidegger would have been proud

What do you do for a living Ian?

...................................................................................

Can anyone explain WHY they have the impulse to kill. You have outlined the circumstances, now tell me WHY in those circumstances. What is that you wish to achieve? either on a practical, emotional or metaphysical level. WHAT COMPELS YOU TO ACT??!!

thanks
:cookie:

 

Like most people with a philosophy degree, I ended up writing software...

-- Ian

 

I wouldn't know, not having killed anyone...

However, I guess it's just part of human nature isn't it - that's why we like programmes like Kirsty's Home Videos or Fear Factor - to see people getting fierced out, mauled, injured what have you...

I tell you some things that can make you violent though - lack of physical contact, lack of affection, isolation etc etc. A LOT of the time it's loners you want to worry about...