Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Capital Punishment

When China had a drugs problem they rounded up 20,000 drugs dealers and shot them. Solved the problem. Or in Zaire before the rumble in the jungle they rounded 10,000 crims and shot every tenth one with a warning that if there was any trouble they would be back...decimated , you might say. It’s a thought ..but its not what I would base an argument for the death penalty on



. We all know that the possibility of being dead would dissuade us from a course of action more than the remote possibility of watching TV in a comfy room for a few years . According to Liberal argufiers some alchemical; process happens between the obvious truth and “ The figures” whereby the reverse is true . In fact it would appear that the prospect of being dead is actually an encouragement to run about the place committing murder.( Now just pause to ponder on the ocean going gold plated asininity of the suggestion in your own time ). This is the misuse of statistics especially across cultural divides a notoriously complex area in which straightforward comparisons are to mistake the provenance of the data .
MISUSE OF STATISTICS
For example during the 19th century the rate of church building across the US showed the rate of Saloon building According to some that proves churches cause drunkenness . Actually population causes both and that’s the sort of trick. Similarly the presence of guns and the incidence of murder is proven by comparison between the UK and the US .. leave Switzerland out and you have your self some “evidence” put it back in and you have a problem.

The death penalty is present in far fewer countries in the developed world because in tandem with industrial and post industrial economic development there has been a the growth of a certain moral relativism and a cowardice in confronting moral choices. Assuming that everything that is modern is good is required to make the statistics work.The conclusion is in the premise . Liberals do not want to unpack these statistics because they are too convenient despite the glaringly obvious problem with the nonsensical topsy turvy conclusion about the motives of individuals .It is perfectly straightforward to do so along the lines I suggest.


In any case deterrence is secondary, The primary purpose of law is justice and in some cases there is no doubt and there is no question that death is the only fit punishment. Rose West should not be alive .
Yes its expensive and yes its difficult to look at but if we go on avoiding right and wrong we will end up with animals where once there were men ....It looks to me as if we are long way to far down that road already. The death penalty comes from the love and duty you bear the departed.This moral abstention is nosing its way down our streets with insidious intent . That’s why the people who live in them are in favor of returning Justice and punishment to the heart of our penal system.

19 comments:

Stan Bull said...

Prolific posting today, Mr N.
But this particular post is excellent.
The worst aspect of the death penalty is that it is applied in a highly discriminatory manner. The poor and minorities are more likely to be executed in the than those who commit similar crimes but who can afford better legal help. You won't see many white millionaires on death row in Texas or Florida.

Jenny! said...

I support the death penalty, but I would be an even bigger supporter of the eye for an eye type punishment...you steal...you get your hands cut off...your rape someone...you get your dick cut off!

Newmania said...

You won't see many white millionaires on death row in Texas or Florida.


Are there some who deserve to die then ? I doubt it

Newmania said...

you get your dick cut off!


That would deter me and i aoppriove of chemical castration of soem classes of sexual offence

Anonymous said...

newmania said:

there has been a the growth of a certain moral relativism and a cowardice in confronting moral choices



But aren't the real cowards and moral relativists those who support the death sentence,n?

Those of you who call for corporal punishment have in the past been responsible for the collective murder of innocent people - those who had been wrongly convicted of murder and who's blood you bayed for.

If we are going to have the death sentence for murder of innocents, then, in justice, you must all be put to death for YOUR crimes.

You should therefore think yourselves fortunate indeed that the liberals among us are opposed to collective murder of killers as it means your death sentence will not be carried out.

Auntie Flo'

Newmania said...

You should therefore think yourselves fortunate indeed that the liberals among us are opposed to collective murder of killers as it means your death sentence will not be carried out.

Its not murder for soldier to defend his country or for the death sentence to be carried out after proper jurisprudence if it is justice
Does Justice no matter Flo? Is it your place to forgive pain born by others .No.

I `m not sure what you mean about everyone dying that is very many miles of the point in my humble opinion

Anonymous said...

newmania said:

n: Its not murder for soldier to defend his country

I agree with you regarding soldiers, war has it's own code of practice.

n: or for the death sentence to be carried out after proper jurisprudence if it is justice

How can it be justice to use a form of punishment, the effects of which are irreversible, and which is known to have been used to kill innocent people?, what difference is there between society killing an innocent person, because it wrongly or negligently judged them to deserve to be killed, and an individual killing someone for the same reason? I say there's none.

Either way an innocent person - who could be you or a member of your family - is murdered.


n: Does Justice no matter Flo? Is it your place to forgive pain born by others .No.

Of course justice matters. I would have most killers locked up for the rest of their natural lives and made to work damn hard to repay society and their victims families.

However, does justice for those who are wrongfully convicted not matter, newmania. Is it your place to forgive the pain born by them and their families? Isn't this justice you talk rather one dimensional?

Auntie Flo'

Anonymous said...

In place of miscarriage of justice, several countries, including Norway, Sweden and Denmark use an expression, which directly translated to english means "Murder of Justice as an expression of how serious and criminal it is to prosecute or convict innocent people.

Auntie Flo'

Newmania said...

How can it be justice to use a form of punishment, the effects of which are irreversible,

If the same is true of the crime many times over and far worse which would be the case ….I don’t see your point

and which is known to have been used to kill innocent people?

That is a problem but a minor one There are about twenty people who are really in for life like Rose West m, the chance of error is minuscule and by not applying law with appropriate seriousness the chance of innocents being killed is far far far greater except you don’t see that so you feel good about yourself Abandon justice and you abandon humanity. You cannot abandon the notion of balancing the scales of justice altogether because there might be a mistake . Can you not see the damage that you do for the sake of your squeamishness.

what difference is there between society killing an innocent person, because it wrongly or negligently judged them to deserve to be killed, and an individual killing someone for the same reason? I say there's none.

Then you do not understand the law. A society must defend itself so a soldier is not murdering when he does so even if it is a mistake. We seek to approximate true justice known only to “ God” though the fine balancing of the imagined scales of justice. Called jurisprudence. In this way we try to make justice real and not just an idea.. We also endeavour by our courts and process to make the decision impersonal and approximating to an agreed formula so as to take away personal malice and human anger . In this we are civilising ourselves not to avoid justice but to define and implement it impersonally . That is why it is not murder even if it is a mistake . Just as wrongful imprisonment is not kidnap , in a properly working system of law.

If at the heart of it you abandon justice because there may be a mistake then you no longer have jurisprudence you have a social refuse collection system hiding the guilty so you neither see them nor the relatives nor the life that has been taken.
Feels better to you but it is wrong .. Easy to ignore a dead persons rights of course . My view rather depends on the inconvenient need to treat the dead as if they had a worth still. Perhaps you don1t agree perhaps you feel they are worm food so might as well be forgotten ..what good can it do now ? That sort of thing ? Most do nowadays




Either way an innocent person - who could be you or a member of your family - is murdered.

Emotive nonsense. If you have nothing more to say than death is nasty you can go to your room !


n: Does Justice no matter Flo? Is it your place to forgive pain born by others .No.

Of course justice matters. I would have most killers locked up for the rest of their natural lives and made to work damn hard to repay society and their victims families.


That is a cop out and you know it ! Locked up !!! Rose West by the meansure of an eye for an eye and a tooth for tooth would be tortured raped and kept in terrifying darkness thirty times over for years . I say we draw a line because of the harm it does to us by proxy but no , she cannot be allowed to sit in a cell and feel important . It’s a betrayal and a cowardly lack of empathy it does not balance .It is an insult , a sacrilege and spitting on the grave of the dead who are not here for you to feel sorry for .


However, does justice for those who are wrongfully convicted not matter, newmania.Is it your place to forgive the pain born by them and their families? Isn't this justice you talk rather one dimensional?

I’ve dealt with this in a number of ways and you are of course just raising the possibility of a mistake. That possibility is disappearing small for those I have in mind say fifty in a decade , those I real life imprisonment for crimes so terrible and so beyond all possible doubt of guilt that to deny the dead and their families and the moral health of society what is plainly justice is a far worse danger. Part of your squeamishness I suspect is that you have the usual modern delusion that we live forever. We do not . Evil and good on the other had may well do.

I do not think you have a clear idea of what you think justice is . You said “work damn hard to repay society and their victims families.”

I like that idea which the Liberals have mentioned and I think it was not given a fair hearing . But how much work would you think was just recompense for your child’s life ..or for the torture of your child many times over… You say , rightly , that death is a special sort of punishment and you are right . Some crimes are special sorts of crime for which there is no balancing by weeding the garden or handing over your salary in fact the scale is so wrong it is a further act of desecration to the memory of the post. Should I save up for a murder Flo ?

Anonymous said...

newmania said:

Easy to ignore a dead persons rights of course . My view rather depends on the inconvenient need to treat the dead as if they had a worth still. Perhaps you don1t agree perhaps you feel they are worm food so might as well be forgotten ..what good can it do now ? That sort of thing ? Most do nowadays


So, in your scheme of justice, those wrongfully killed by society are just wormfood, "a problem but a minor one", whereas those wrongfully killed by individuals are sacrosanct and to be avenged.

No, I'm sorry, newmania, there's a screw loose in this.

There's no consistency in your scheme of morality and justice - and you know what that means.

It aint morality and it aint justice.

Auntie Flo'

flashgordonnz said...

grEye for an eye would mean a stealer gets his stuff taken and a rapist gets serviced from the rear. A bit like what happens in prison then.

Whats wrong with just "throwing away the key"? That way, if we got the wrong chap, we can just let him out, apply some stitches to his rear and give him a little compo.

Newmania said...

Flo thats most unfair I have dealt with this problem which I admit is the most difficult one in various ways and you are simply returning to what you said in the first place .
I appreciate you don`t have all day to bother with this sort of thing but personally I feel you made an infinitely better case against airport expansion for example than you do here.

You are not far from saying isn`t horrid that people die from which nothing useful to this well worn debate follows.


YOur gracious submission will be recieved with charitable good will !

Newmania said...

Whats wrong with just "throwing away the key"? That way, if we got the wrong chap, we can just let him out, apply some stitches to his rear and give him a little compo

Seriously we are talking abou the most morally and humanly appalling trangressions the torture rape and multiple muder category.There are few . I would not advocate torture ( obviously) not because such people do not deserve to suffer but because of the dehumanising effect on us all.

WE are left then with civilised incarceration . This is not justice . I admit that we vary the application but to me to not allow the most serious penalty as a possibility shows an actual betrayal of the core principle of jurisprudence.

Anonymous said...

Ok, newmania. You're appointed Home Secretary and you reinstate the death penalty.

Jeremy Bamber has been in prison protesting his innocense for about 21 years so he's one of the first you should have executed.

The Court of Appeal has turned down his Appeal, he was found guilty of killing his parents and his sister in a horribly gruesome manner.

In your terms, justice has been done. Right you think to yourself, let's sign Bamber's execution warrant.

As you're about to sign a woman bursts into you office and says, STOP! Are you aware:

That Bamber's father was a British Intelligence Officer and that four of his colleagues have been murdered in almost the same manner as he was? And this was not reported at the trial.

That the police had a phone call relating to this yet did not interview the caller?

That a substantial amount of evidence which goes to the essence of this case was not presented at Bamber jnrs trial?

That when Police stood outside the murder scene house (for some time, with Bamber jnr who'd called them in) they reported seeing a figure at a window of the - locked - house but this was not reported at the trial?

That photographs show fresh blood Bamber's oozing from the wounds of sister at a time when, given the timing of the murder given by the pathologist, it is absolutely impossible for that to have happened? And that the only possible explanation for this is that she was killed while Bamber stood outside the house with the police?

That the evidence which convicted Bamber was:

1. DNA tests which identified his sister's blood on a silencer found in a cupboard at the house. Bamber's defence had been that the only explanation for the murders in the locked house was that his (pschyzophrenic) sister (who had not been taking her medicine) must have killed their parents and then herself.

That Bamber's defence were not aware of the figure that police had seen at the window because the police did not disclose this?

2. Overturned furniture and spilt sugar which suggested a struggle.

The reqirements of justice you described so well yesterday have been met.

Are you going to sign that warrant?

Auntie Flo'

Steven_L said...

'I support the death penalty' (Jenny)

Fry em! Fry em good and crispy!

An interesting fact: Thomas Eddison threw his weight behind the introduction of the electric chair, using AC current, so he could smear the rival to his DC current as a 'killer'. Ironically AC fried them a bit too cripsy on the outside so they switched to AC and DC became a dead donkey.

I think we should send the dodgy Al Qaeda terrorists we have to the USA and they should fry em!

Steven_L said...

Sorry that should have read:

'..switched to DC..'

I think the electric chair would deter would-be murderers. It's not an easy way to go.

Newmania said...

Flo you are going over old ground. The small chance of a mistake is part of the debits , but then by not facing the reposnisbility for the descision you cause more deaths and abandon the key stone of the justice system . To be honest I don`t know who this person is but I DO NOT ( LIKE YOU) REGARD THE POSSIBILITY OF THE DEATH OF AN INNOCENT PERSON AS THE END OF THE ARGUEMENT.

Move on ...on this basis we would never imprison anyone . You can`t give the years back

Anonymous said...

You didn't answer my question, n - which, nevertheless, sort of, answers my question :)

Auntie Flo'

Steven_L said...

Check out these photos of a fat guy from Florida being fried - then read what he did to deserve it!

http://thoughtsfromtheborders.blogspot.com/2007/08/fry-em.html

I agree with frying scum like him. I think pregnant women with 2 young children shoudl be allowed to live in peace without being murdered for the sake some twats next crack-rock.

They should ave gassed him if you ask me - or at least fired him slower,

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