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>>>I'm not against the Death Penalty on general principle grounds You should be... When you kill someone outside the conditions of self defense that is murder

>>>I'm not against the Death Penalty on general principle grounds You should be... When you kill someone outside the conditions of self defense that is murder and is immoral. I do not care if the government doing it as some kind of "punishment" or a person doing it for another reason, murder is murder, "capital punishment" is murder. If we want a peaceful, just and free society, it can not include capital punishment. A free and civilized society does not have Capital Punishment. History will not judge us by how we treat the acceptable people, the people that follow the rules, the nice people... No history will judge our society by how it treats the worst of us, the evil people that given the opportunity would slice your throat open and laugh as you bleed out... It is likely that in 100 years, this time will be viewed by people living then like we view the barbarism of Early American history. People will be asking "how could anyone support that kind of treatment of others". This of course is not just about capital punishment but the entire prison system.

ajkjk 11y ago
It's very easy for me to have a preferred moral code that is almost like yours except that I do not axiomatically declare that capital punishment is equivalent to murder.
- the_ancient 11y ago
  Why? Because it is "legal". Do you base your morality on what is legal and what is illegal? How do you define murder?
  - function_seven 11y ago
    Sincere question. Why are you allowed to murder someone in self-defense, but not as a punishment for crimes? What moral code do you rely on that draws the line there? Why is that moral code more correct than one that draws the line between punishment and capricious violence? FWIW, I'm somewhere between you and OP in my thoughts. Definitely against the death penalty in practice, and somewhat ambivalent in theory. But it's interesting to really think about the axioms we construct our morals and ethics from, and why they're the way they are.
    - the_ancient 11y ago
      >>Why are you allowed to murder someone in self-defense, but not as a punishment for crimes? The principle of Self Ownership, which is the basis of the philosophy of liberty https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9srplWe_QQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9srplWe_QQ It would not be murder to protect your own life from the aggression of others. However any use of violence must be in proportion to the threat to your life. I.e I do not believe you have the right to kill someone for trespassing, but only in those circumstance where there is a reasonable believe your life to be direct and immediate danger.
      - rwjwjuwjudf 11y ago
        If capital punishment is murder, then taxation is theft.
        the_ancient 11y ago
        Correct
        jakub_h 11y ago
        Is paying for services theft?
        rwjwjuwjudf 11y ago
        I dunno, I'm not a libertarian :)
        zo1 11y ago
        Why don't you rephrase that with the appropriate level of detail and not leaving out important facts: Is not wanting to pay for something that you were given and didn't explicitly request theft? And yes, I'm an anarcho-capitalist and jumping in here. There are a slew of assumptions that are being made when arguing for a pro-state stance. Eventually, you'll stumble on this thing called the "social contract", and then magically all questions of validity are somehow answered. It's a convenient answer devoid of any first-principles, that many are content with using as a basis to defend the status-quo of the existence of a state.
- barrkel 11y ago
  Governments are made by people out of people. The whole system is just people, telling one another what to do, with the carrot of reward and the rod of violence, as necessary. An organization isn't a shield against personal morality. Capital punishment is a bunch of people telling another person to kill yet another person. That's all it is. (And yes, war is murder too.)
  - ajkjk 11y ago
    I agree with most of that, except for the "is" in "war is murder". What do you mean by "is"? At the end of the day we have decided as a society that "Killing people is called murder and it's Very Bad", and we can also decide that "killing people who don't deserve it is murder and it's Very Bad" if we prefer. Personally, I vacillate between thinking that capital punishment and life-imprisonment is quite immoral (and that we should fine something like 'exile' as an alternative), and a more utilitarian stance that, well, we have to find something to do with dangerous people and it doesn't really bother me if getting rid of them entirely is it. [n.b. these stances are all in a vacuum and do not reflect my policy beliefs, which are specifically attuned to our society's pisspoor implementation of life-imprisonment and capital punishment.]
joering2 11y ago
Frankly, I don't even understand what's the purpose of capital punishment? It is not to punish someone -- they are already dead, so they can't feel the punishment It is not to set an example -- its been proven over and over again - when people are ready or commit crime, the last thing they think of is that they will get caught or get punished. That's why death penalty does not stop people from committing heinous crimes. It is not to give relief to the family of a victim. Countless examples of (mostly Christians) that publicly said they forgive the murderer and are against death penalty for him/her are always being ignored by justice. Its very scary to think a civilized country have something as horrible as death penalty, which imho means we gave up on someone. Sure I've seen animals in human skin but what stops us from putting them in jail for the rest of their lives (not money I can tell you that).
- baddox 11y ago
  One obvious answer is that capital punishment guarantees that the criminal will not commit another crime, which isn't true of any other sentence.
  - rwjwjuwjudf 11y ago
    Lifetime solitary without any means of communication. This is probably worse than death.
    - baddox 11y ago
      People escape from prison.
      - rwjwjuwjudf 11y ago
        Haha, not from supermax they don't.
- Grishnakh 11y ago
  If you used a time machine to bring some people from a 1600s English colony here in America to the present time, they would think our punishments are cruel and unusual. To them, prison itself was cruel and unusual punishment, so they didn't have them: they just executed people or did other harsh, but quick punishments, depending on the crime. To them, it was far more merciful to execute someone than to stick them in a prison cell for years and years. (They did have jails, though, but only for people awaiting trial.) So any time I see someone criticizing the death penalty as "uncivilized", I think it's a bit silly because there have been whole cultures that completely disagreed.

ajkjk 11y ago

It's very easy for me to have a preferred moral code that is almost like yours except that I do not axiomatically declare that capital punishment is equivalent to murder.

the_ancient 11y ago
Why? Because it is "legal". Do you base your morality on what is legal and what is illegal? How do you define murder?
- function_seven 11y ago
  Sincere question. Why are you allowed to murder someone in self-defense, but not as a punishment for crimes? What moral code do you rely on that draws the line there? Why is that moral code more correct than one that draws the line between punishment and capricious violence? FWIW, I'm somewhere between you and OP in my thoughts. Definitely against the death penalty in practice, and somewhat ambivalent in theory. But it's interesting to really think about the axioms we construct our morals and ethics from, and why they're the way they are.
  - the_ancient 11y ago
    >>Why are you allowed to murder someone in self-defense, but not as a punishment for crimes? The principle of Self Ownership, which is the basis of the philosophy of liberty https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9srplWe_QQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9srplWe_QQ It would not be murder to protect your own life from the aggression of others. However any use of violence must be in proportion to the threat to your life. I.e I do not believe you have the right to kill someone for trespassing, but only in those circumstance where there is a reasonable believe your life to be direct and immediate danger.
    - rwjwjuwjudf 11y ago
      If capital punishment is murder, then taxation is theft.
      - the_ancient 11y ago
        Correct
      - jakub_h 11y ago
        Is paying for services theft?
        rwjwjuwjudf 11y ago
        I dunno, I'm not a libertarian :)
        zo1 11y ago
        Why don't you rephrase that with the appropriate level of detail and not leaving out important facts: Is not wanting to pay for something that you were given and didn't explicitly request theft? And yes, I'm an anarcho-capitalist and jumping in here. There are a slew of assumptions that are being made when arguing for a pro-state stance. Eventually, you'll stumble on this thing called the "social contract", and then magically all questions of validity are somehow answered. It's a convenient answer devoid of any first-principles, that many are content with using as a basis to defend the status-quo of the existence of a state.
barrkel 11y ago
Governments are made by people out of people. The whole system is just people, telling one another what to do, with the carrot of reward and the rod of violence, as necessary. An organization isn't a shield against personal morality. Capital punishment is a bunch of people telling another person to kill yet another person. That's all it is. (And yes, war is murder too.)
- ajkjk 11y ago
  I agree with most of that, except for the "is" in "war is murder". What do you mean by "is"? At the end of the day we have decided as a society that "Killing people is called murder and it's Very Bad", and we can also decide that "killing people who don't deserve it is murder and it's Very Bad" if we prefer. Personally, I vacillate between thinking that capital punishment and life-imprisonment is quite immoral (and that we should fine something like 'exile' as an alternative), and a more utilitarian stance that, well, we have to find something to do with dangerous people and it doesn't really bother me if getting rid of them entirely is it. [n.b. these stances are all in a vacuum and do not reflect my policy beliefs, which are specifically attuned to our society's pisspoor implementation of life-imprisonment and capital punishment.]

joering2 11y ago

Frankly, I don't even understand what's the purpose of capital punishment? It is not to punish someone -- they are already dead, so they can't feel the punishment It is not to set an example -- its been proven over and over again - when people are ready or commit crime, the last thing they think of is that they will get caught or get punished. That's why death penalty does not stop people from committing heinous crimes. It is not to give relief to the family of a victim. Countless examples of (mostly Christians) that publicly said they forgive the murderer and are against death penalty for him/her are always being ignored by justice. Its very scary to think a civilized country have something as horrible as death penalty, which imho means we gave up on someone. Sure I've seen animals in human skin but what stops us from putting them in jail for the rest of their lives (not money I can tell you that).

baddox 11y ago
One obvious answer is that capital punishment guarantees that the criminal will not commit another crime, which isn't true of any other sentence.
- rwjwjuwjudf 11y ago
  Lifetime solitary without any means of communication. This is probably worse than death.
  - baddox 11y ago
    People escape from prison.
    - rwjwjuwjudf 11y ago
      Haha, not from supermax they don't.
Grishnakh 11y ago
If you used a time machine to bring some people from a 1600s English colony here in America to the present time, they would think our punishments are cruel and unusual. To them, prison itself was cruel and unusual punishment, so they didn't have them: they just executed people or did other harsh, but quick punishments, depending on the crime. To them, it was far more merciful to execute someone than to stick them in a prison cell for years and years. (They did have jails, though, but only for people awaiting trial.) So any time I see someone criticizing the death penalty as "uncivilized", I think it's a bit silly because there have been whole cultures that completely disagreed.