I don't think the DP is any kind of deterrent...I sincerely doubt the perps can read and understand enough to fear it.
I just think of it as a pleasure for those that have been wronged. Nothing more...nothing less. I believe the wronged should. at the very least, have some small pleasure left in their lives.
posted on April 29, 2001 05:00:38 PM
I don't think it's a pleasure for the wronged. It's not the family who exacts justice, but society acting for the victim. What if the family of the victim or the victim himself made known their opposition to the death penalty on any and all grounds?
Personally I doubt very much that executions give the victims' family any pleasure.
posted on April 29, 2001 05:02:21 PM"many acts such as McVeigh's throughout history, however, his was an act of terrorism on American soil by an American".
Several of the families who had members killed by McVeigh...want to see him die. It is only I, granted, who would dare to call it pleasure. Whatever they choose to call it...they want to see it. Call it what you please.
posted on April 29, 2001 05:15:53 PM
Live on every channel, with a dull guilatine.
Then, prop the body up, and let the firing squad have a go,
Then, stuff the head with c4, set it ablaze, and ignite the charge.
Then, take the body, and put it through a tree shredder.
Then, take all the bits and pieces, and mix up a good batch of concrete, mix in those bits and pieces, let it set up, and then dump it in the deepest, farest reaches of the pacific.
posted on April 29, 2001 05:25:55 PM
I believe the government is getting too big for it's britches. I believed that years ago. I thought Koresh was a cult leader, but I didn't like the way that was handled by the government at all. I thought the incident at Ruby Ridge was disgraceful.
I had sympathy for those causes, and the rights that the government rolled over - right up until the moment that McVeigh blew up that building.
He didn't do a very good job for his cause. With an act that murdered innocents, he damaaged his cause far more than he could imagine. Not just children - many of the victims in that building were just citizens trying to get a social security card or working as secretaries and credit union tellers.
You know what I wonder about sometimes? McVeigh's parents. What must be going through their minds to have their son perpetrate such an act? To have their son infamous for this? He's gonna be in the history books, but not for doing great things. For murdering children and innocents.
Helluva ripple effect that act of cowardice took. If he was such a hero - why did he run after it was over? Why not stand there on the road in front of his masterpiece with a sign and claim it as his own? Because he's a chickens**t, and he knew those people, those parents, would have torn him limb from limb, right there on live TV.
posted on April 29, 2001 05:32:51 PM
I'll finally weight in on this discussion.
First, I say that punishment in a null concept whose existence is long since overdue for the landfill. Most injustices perpetrated by the justice system stem from trying to determine an adequate punishment for a criminal offender - a purely cultural and subjective process that has no merit. The threat of punishment does not stop most crime form happening and the administering of punishment as a consequence seldom prevents re-offending convicts. Therefore, punishment is something that we, as a society, inflict upon others for our sadistic pleasure.
If not Punishment, then the measure should be based upon safety: the safety of society and that of the individual. With the conviction of a crime should the thought of how best to protect society is if incarceration is actually needed. Since parolees re-offend 88% to 92% of the time, simple incarceration is not an effective deterrent and should best be left as a means to warehouse the dangerous. Therefore, a person may be so dangerous, but they are released back into society to kill and rape again, simply because enough "punishment" has been given for the offence of which they were convicted of is a tragedy. Instead, a person might commit a lesser offence, but their dangerous mental state may well bring on incarceration for life.
In addition, speaking of nonsense is the notion that we, as a society, allow our government to put to death any citizen for any reason. We put people to death because it is an effective deterrent to certain crimes? Supposedly. However, if it were effective, then there would never be any candidates for its use. Clearly it is not an effective deterrent.
The death penalty as an effective means of punishment is also silly: once you kill a person, what do they learn? Therefore, it is WE who are the murderers, not the condemned.
posted on April 29, 2001 05:33:35 PM
I dont remember which country, but there the parents/family members have the final say on whether to exact vengeance. Too bad it cant be the same here.
posted on April 29, 2001 05:44:19 PM
Oh hey...I agree. Punishment is no deterrent. I think I already said that...but, no matter.
I am big for sadistic pleasure. Yeah. I want some of that stuff. Absolutely.
Hurt one of mine? Okay. Long as I can pleasure myself sadistically... I could care less about self-serving abstract moralisms...really...
posted on April 29, 2001 05:46:49 PMKris: actually that's an element of Sharia (Islamic law). In an Islamic theocracy like Iran, a murderer can be acquitted from his punishment if the victim's kin so choose.
UBB
[ edited by jamesoblivion on Apr 29, 2001 05:48 PM ]
"How many had NO criminal histories? We never here about that, do we? Wonder why that is? Media favoritism to make the story sound more tragic of the innocent convicted, of that particular crime? I look at it this way, if you have a criminal record you set yourself up to take the fall for things you did not do. How many law abiding honest, non-record citizens get wrongfully convicted?"
Incredible. How do you know that an "honest, non-record citizen" wasn't wrongfully convicted to get a record? And once convicted of any crime, then guilty of any crime thereafter?
posted on April 29, 2001 05:54:34 PMjames - thanks. I couldn't recall what country/region that was.
I think I'm with toke on this one. If you hurt/maim/kill someone I love, I wanna see you pay. I'm always impressed with these parents you read about who forgive the murderer of their kids. Good for them. But I don't think I have it in me.
posted on April 29, 2001 05:56:53 PMThanks, now I feel very civil with my "Bubba" suggestion. Maybe you should save enough DNA just in case later he is found innocent.
Full admission by the murderer is enough for me... Let im fry...
posted on April 29, 2001 07:04:58 PM
How shortsighted. You're the type of person who signs their rights away on the dotted line and only to wake up when it is too late. You can cite one historical example of injustice (OJ) as reason to write off habeus corpus and the other Constitutional rights of due process as inapplicable to you personally? Scary. I'm glad there were people willing to shed their own blood to procure and secure those rights for the greater good.
posted on April 29, 2001 07:15:11 PM
Just to clarify... I don't think you're really appreciating just how unique and unnatural our "natural rights" really are. Looking at it from a historical perspective we're ridiculously lucky to have the Bill of Rights as the law of the land in which we live. Each of us are lottery winners just by living here and now. Study history, you'll see. There are always going to be people who "know better" and want to manage our lives -- so what if it costs a freedom or two -- and an atrocity or two; it'll only happen to "criminals", right? Yet, our Constitution has proved firm enough to withstand the constant pressures to restore us to our natural, unequal state before the eyes of the law. The Declaration of Independence may say "All men are created equal" but there is no historical evidence for that. Our freedoms are an artificial creation by people who experienced tyranny in all its glory and decided to remove that yoke from around their neck and from around our neck. So we're lucky to have them. Let's not rock the foundation.
posted on April 29, 2001 07:24:31 PM
My view on the death penalty.
Well I think if used properly, it could be a great tool to relieve prison overcrowding.
It should work like this.
No one gets sentenced to death. evryone who is guilty gets time.
Then you set a limit on prison population.
once the limit is reached, you take the 10% with the most time left and execute them.
I think that would be a real deterent to serious crime in this country.
And please, do not mistake this for some joke. I am not poking fun at a life or death situation.
my feelings are that if someone has so little regard for human life, or the rights of others to be protected from violence of all sorts, then they should first give up their own rights. And why should anyone have any regard for a murderer?
