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RE: Mental Health - 7/21/2011 8:05:12 PM

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quote:

When you check something out you really do a complete job. Thanks for the info!

You're welcome.

quote:

Oh My gosh. I appreciate your effort, Wyld, but what an awful list. (Not you, the content on the list, itself.)

Sorry about that LP, but I thought it might be a good idea to get in a few specific examples of exactly the kind of behavior we are discussing here.
Lest those across the pond feel left out, I also found this:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/7147662/Killers-freed-to-kill-again.html

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RE: Mental Health - 7/21/2011 9:18:41 PM

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quote:

ORIGINAL: PeonForHer
...States don't murder, they execute. Execution is legitimate and legal killing; murder isn't. But that was true of Nazi Germany - so, on that definition, the Nazis didn't murder people any more than the USA has, or the UK did in the past.

But there's a trick of words, here. Terrorists in Northern Ireland used to call their killings 'executions'. This made their killings 'moral', 'righteous' and 'clean', as far as they were concerned. They might well have talked of the their targets as not being the recipients of terrorist violence, but 'military law'. Their victims were just receiving 'consequences'.

This is why, when I see that trick being played, I always call on it. It makes no difference which 'authority' we're talking about or wherever it exists. Its legitimacy is always open to question.

Of course a law's morality is open to question. However, for the most part, we accept that the State, because it is the State, is entitled to do certain things that individuals are NOT. (i.e. wage war, levy taxes, make and enforce laws, sign treaties, etc.) And i don't see anyone (besides Hannah) claiming that the State does NOT have those rights. No one is saying, for example, that it's wrong for the Strate to imprison people, because it would be wrong for individuals to do it. You may or may not believe that capitol punishment is one of the things that a State has the right to do, if it wants. You may believe that the death penalty is so gross a violation of everything that's right, that the U.S, government has no right to enact such a law because it violates universal human rights. You are certainly entitled to think so.

But it's just as unreasonable to say that the State is never justified in killing, as it is to say that the State is always justified in killing because it is the State. If Hitler is a murderer for killing 6 million Jews, does that also mean that the Allied forces are murderers for sending soldiers to kill 6 million Germans? Or is State sanctioned killing, while always unfortunate and sad, SOMETIMES justified by the circumstances; at least justified enough to call it by a name other than "murder"?

This thread has made me question my reasons for endorsing the death penalty. i confess i always assumed, despite the absence of proof, that capitol punishment deters crime. That might not be true. i couldn't find any hard evidence to support the idea. Then again, i couldn't find any hard evidence that disproves it, and i don't know whether the fact that a different system works in Scandinavia, is a good argument that the same system would be effective here. The two countries are very different. Having said that, if anyone could prove that it would work, i would be happy to give it my support. In most cases, i think that vengeance alone is NOT a good enough reason to mete out death as punishment.

But perhaps even death as vengeance is not unjustifiable in all cases. Getting back to the beginning of the thread, i still say i have tremendous sympathy for both people. In fact, i would have had sympathy for Hitler, too, if he had stood before me for judgement, but i wouldn't have hesitated to sentence him to death. There are SOME offenses for which death is an appropriate punishment. And, under normal circumstances (i.e. NOT as a gross violation of human rights) i believe that the State is entitled to make that decision.

The question was asked earlier in the thread, whether it's also "wrong" for certain countries to execute women for infidelity. And while i don't LIKE it, while it violates my personal moral code, i still understand that other societies will have THEIR moral codes; and that while i'm entitled to my opinion about their laws, it would be a far worse to force my morality on them (That is, except when it's NOT, except when their law is so great a violation of what's right that i'm compelled to step in and fight for what i think is right. Everyone defines that line in a different place, i guess. i think the U.S. was right to fight against Hitler. i would not think it was right to declare war on Saudi Arabia because of their religious laws.)

i realise that endorsing the death penalty means that people's blood is on my hands. i have never attempted to deny it. And, up until now, i would not have hesitated to throw the switch if i had been called on to do it, as unpleasant as it might be. This thread has given me a lot to think about. But i have not asked the State to do anything for me that i would not have been willing to do for myself. And nothing that's been said on this thread has CONVINCED me that my position is wrong.

pam

(in reply to PeonForHer)

RE: Mental Health - 7/21/2011 9:27:10 PM

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I am a huge proponent of the death penalty. In fact, I think capital punishment should be expanded to several other crimes. I think just about any crime that includes the intentional act of mayhem should be a capital punishment offense and intentional felony murder should most certainly carry that punishment as well.

But...I also believe that there should be a "beyond all doubt" standard of proof that would be in addition to the reasonable standard. Beyond reasonable doubt would be used to convict and beyond all doubt would be used to impose capitol punishment. So...in the situation where a person grabs another person, beats the mortal crap out of them and rapes them and....oh look....it was all caught on film....I think that kind of aggravated sexual assault should be a capitol offense.

I don't think it has anything to do with Christianity at all. Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and all that. It is the ultimate deterrent...at least for that particular criminal defendant...and it is also the ultimate vindication of the victim and society's interest in justice.

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RE: Mental Health - 7/21/2011 9:52:26 PM

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The biggest problem I have with capital punishment has more to do with practice than theory.

There is something macabre about strapping a guy onto a gurney in some basement room somewhere while everybody tries to wash their hands of the whole affair by means of a series of mechanical stand-offs.

If you're going to execute a human being, first of all treat him like one, and then have the fucking courage of your convictions. Stand him up like a man, in the light of day, facing his fate with his boots on, and shoot him.

K.

< Message edited by Kirata -- 7/21/2011 10:15:00 PM >

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RE: Mental Health - 7/21/2011 10:53:30 PM

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Peon, I have had enough of you comparing my country to the nazis, because as I remember my history lessons, we saved the UK's bacon from them. How dare you. That comparison is actually incredibly offensive. Makes me wonder why my dad risked his life in World war 2 . I am not usually such a reactionary, but fuck that.

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RE: Mental Health - 7/21/2011 11:01:24 PM

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Red rose brings up a great point. How many of those who think CP is the ultimate evil have actually known someone they loved who has been brutally murdered ? It changes your prospective, believe me. Capital punishment is actually the most civilized choice, from that position.

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RE: Mental Health - 7/22/2011 1:18:50 AM

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quote:

Peon, I have had enough of you comparing my country to the nazis

Simply proof that Godwin's Law is alive and well even on CM, Semi. I wondered who would be the one to bring up Hitler. Pity it was Peon.

ETA- What really bothers me here is the number of people who have stated that the death penalty is state sanctioned murder, and therefore no different than what criminals do to their victims... yet many of the same people seem to have no issue with state sanctioned kidnapping and imprisonment, even if said imprisonment lasts until the accused dies of old age in a cell... odd, that.

< Message edited by WyldHrt -- 7/22/2011 1:42:57 AM >

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RE: Mental Health - 7/22/2011 3:12:14 AM

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quote:

ORIGINAL: WyldHrt

What really bothers me here is the number of people who have stated that the death penalty is state sanctioned murder, and therefore no different than what criminals do to their victims... yet many of the same people seem to have no issue with state sanctioned kidnapping and imprisonment, even if said imprisonment lasts until the accused dies of old age in a cell...

Food for thought, eh?

K.

(in reply to WyldHrt)

RE: Mental Health - 7/22/2011 3:40:42 AM

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Iamsemisweet

Peon, I have had enough of you comparing my country to the nazis, because as I remember my history lessons, we saved the UK's bacon from them. How dare you. That comparison is actually incredibly offensive. Makes me wonder why my dad risked his life in World war 2 . I am not usually such a reactionary, but fuck that.

I'm sorry, but that's just cretinous , Iamsemi. I've explained over and again why I did that and to what extent they are comparable. The flip-side of Godwin's Law is that people use it as a way of pretending righteous indignation at any comparison, in any way at all, of any state with that of the Nazi state.

Here is that comparison again, in the simplest form I can. The Nazi state, and *most other long-established and advanced states* including that of the USA and the UK a) were or are states, and b) make what they do look legitimate and beyond moral questioning by virtue of being states. One of the ways they have of doing this is by changing the language. Thus, murder becomes 'execution'. In the UK the government rebranded the (hated, and finally defeated) idea of the Poll Tax as the 'Community Charge' in the 1980s. More recently 'torture' became 'enhanced interrogation techniques' and kidnapping became 'extraordinary rendition'. (Yes, Wyld, the idea extends beyond killing.)

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RE: Mental Health - 7/22/2011 4:49:50 AM

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quote:

One is that the best policy for an individual isn't the same thing as the best policy for a whole society.

quote:

In My scenario, the room was a smaller version of society. In My mind, the society was better off with the threat to another being removed.

I see that, LP, but that's the real sticking point for me. People are wont to talk of 'smaller versions of society' without realising that the metaphors they're using very often don't apply. A society as a whole can't be looked at as a small room. Looked at in that way, the conclusion is obvious and pretty unavoidable. You're always unsafe while a psychopathic killer is still alive. You were right to say, earlier in your post, that the differences between the USA and Scandinavian countries involves lots of factors. Yet, difficult though it is, comparing whole nations, and whole social systems, remains the thing that we have to do.

To remain outside the ethical discussion of whether or not it's OK for a state to take a person's life and stick with the theme of prevention of murders in society as a whole . . . .
On the thread that SpiritedRadiance started in Polls, someone has launched the familiar argument, 'Make the punishments harsher and this will deter crime'.

It astonishes me. For thousands of years people have been saying this, but each time someone says it, it's as though they think it's a whole new idea. So we see harsher punishments, and more death sentences, and *still* violent crime rises in most of the places where that principle is put into effect. I do wonder just how harsh punishment, and in particular the death penalty, needs to get before people start just to question what they so firmly believe about its efficiency in society as a whole.

It's because of this inefficiency (and I use the word deliberately) that I do think we ought to consider such questions as just how many people get killed because some murderer wants to evade capture knowing, as he does, that he'll get the death penalty, and he has nothing to lose. Or his friends decide that the police, the law, the state as a whole, are murderers and now the enemy, therefore are 'legitimate' targets for killing. Or, more widely, the brutalising effect of it all: the sheer, simple fact that people who see violence as normal (whoever does it) become more violent themselves. They become more fearful, and fearfulness flips over into aggression all too easily. Some people - the worst of all - really do pick up the most dangerous lesson of all: that if the state does it, it must be OK, morally legitimate, for these people to kill as well. I've said before that Northern Irish terrorists used to talk of 'executions' rather than 'murders'. How many gangsters do the same?

In whatever way, the atmosphere of violence, of cruelty, gets soaked into the skin. If violence breeds violence, then maybe its opposite, say, 'civilised behaviour breeds civilised behaviour' is also true. It's perhaps worth taking a lot more detailed look at those places where this principle apparently has been applied - like Scandinavia. Start by thinking not of the ethics of executing one person for his crime, but of efficient methods of reducing murder (and other crimes) in a society as a whole.

< Message edited by PeonForHer -- 7/22/2011 4:50:59 AM >

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RE: Mental Health - 7/22/2011 5:22:55 AM

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Kirata

quote:

ORIGINAL: PeonForHer

Yet, where it says in the Bible - in the Ten Commandments, no less - "Thou shalt not kill" . . . that's not at all clear. Oh no. Mightily ambiguous, that is.

Before you start basing your snarks on the Bible, it would help to know what you're talking about.

It actually does say 'Thou shalt not kill' in the Bible, Kirata. This is one of the Ten Commandments.

And, for me, there's a lot of wisdom in that - as it stands, in the sense of the word 'kill' that we use today. Because I have come to believe that, just as violence breeds violence, killing breeds killing. My 'snark' is reserved for those who'll put abundant effort into reinterpreting the bits they don't like in the Bible, but leave alone the bits they *do* like.

For instance,

"It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God." (Matthew 19:24)

For the last two centuries it has been common teaching in Sunday School that there is a gate in Jerusalem called the eye of the needle through which a camel could not pass unless it stooped and first had all its baggage first removed. After dark, when the main gates were shut, travellers or merchants would have to use this smaller gate, through which the camel could only enter unencumbered and crawling on its knees! Great sermon material, with the parallels of coming to God on our knees without all our baggage. A lovely story and an excellent parable for preaching but unfortunately unfounded! From at least the 15th century, and possibly as early as the 9th but not earlier, this story has been put forth, however, there is no evidence for such a gate, nor record of reprimand of the architect who may have forgotten to make a gate big enough for the camel and rider to pass through unhindered.

http://www.biblicalhebrew.com/nt/camelneedle.htm

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RE: Mental Health - 7/22/2011 5:40:09 AM

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FR

Just a further thought about states' efforts to change language in order to make a thing look morally legitimate: I began to wonder, why do we talk of 'executions' instead of 'killings'?

Execution, dictionary definitions:

1. the act or process of executing
2. the carrying out or undergoing of a sentence of death
3. the style or manner in which something is accomplished or performed; technique: as a pianist his execution is poor
4. the enforcement of the judgment of a court of law

A great, as well as time-honoured euphemism, then. Killing someone grouped in with playing the piano . . . . When you think about it, way better language-manipulation even than 'enhanced interrogation techniques' for 'torture'.

< Message edited by PeonForHer -- 7/22/2011 5:53:04 AM >

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RE: Mental Health - 7/22/2011 5:49:15 AM

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quote:

ORIGINAL: PeonForHer

It actually does say 'Thou shalt not kill' in the Bible

It says that in the King James and a few other translations, but...

You shall not murder. ~New American Standard Bible
You shall not murder. ~New International Version
Thou dost not murder. ~Young's Literal Translation
You must not murder. ~New Living Translation
You shall not murder. ~New King James Version
Do not commit murder. ~New International Reader's Version
You must not murder anyone. ~New Century Version
Do not murder. ~Holman Christian Standard Bible
Do not commit murder. ~Good News Translation
You shall not murder. ~English Standard Version
Do not murder. ~Contemporary English Version
You shall not murder. ~Amplified Bible

K

< Message edited by Kirata -- 7/22/2011 5:51:50 AM >

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RE: Mental Health - 7/22/2011 8:42:59 AM

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Kirata

quote:

ORIGINAL: PeonForHer

It actually does say 'Thou shalt not kill' in the Bible

It says that in the King James and a few other translations, but...

You shall not murder. ~New American Standard Bible
You shall not murder. ~New International Version
Thou dost not murder. ~Young's Literal Translation
You must not murder. ~New Living Translation
You shall not murder. ~New King James Version
Do not commit murder. ~New International Reader's Version
You must not murder anyone. ~New Century Version
Do not murder. ~Holman Christian Standard Bible
Do not commit murder. ~Good News Translation
You shall not murder. ~English Standard Version
Do not murder. ~Contemporary English Version
You shall not murder. ~Amplified Bible

K

Hmmm. So, we're back to the difference between 'murder' and 'kill', then. I strongly doubt that the Bible defines the difference in terms that make it OK for the state to kill, but not ordinary people. I suspect it'd be more like 'killing is wrong unless for sound moral reasons'

Wikipedia says:

"The Old Testament's examples of killings sanctioned by God are often cited in defense of the view that "murder" is a more accurate translation. Additionally, Hebrew has other words for "kill", including הרג (harag) and המית (heimit), while רצח (ratzach), which is found in the Ten Commandments לא תרצח (lo tirtzach), was more specific. Joel M. Hoffman concludes that "kill" is too broad but "murder" is too narrow to reflect tirtsah.[57]

Also, I'm not well up enough in Biblical studies to note which words for 'kill', exactly, were used in the following excerpts:

Exodus 20:13: Thou shalt not kill.

Deuteronomy 5:17: Thou shalt not kill.

Matthew 5:21: Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment.

< Message edited by PeonForHer -- 7/22/2011 8:44:00 AM >

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RE: Mental Health - 7/22/2011 8:49:43 AM

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FR

Further to the word 'Execution', and to avert too much patriotic fury: I have no doubt at all that we Brits were the first to coin that term as a way of legitimising the state's killing versus that of ordinary people. Before the USA even existed, in fact. Actually, amongst Western states, I'd be perfectly willing to believe that England led the way at most of the legitimation strategies currently most favoured across the world.

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RE: Mental Health - 7/22/2011 9:11:09 AM

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quote:

ORIGINAL: PeonForHer

I strongly doubt that the Bible defines the difference in terms that make it OK for the state to kill, but not ordinary people.

I strongly doubt I ever claimed that. And in a democracy, at least, the State is the "people."

quote:

ORIGINAL: PeonForHer

I suspect it'd be more like 'killing is wrong unless for sound moral reasons'

Then it wouldn't mean "thou shalt not kill," would it. It would mean unsanctioned killing: murder.

K.

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RE: Mental Health - 7/22/2011 9:29:57 AM

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Take a life, lose a life simple

no one has a right to murder If we are to abolish the death penalty, I should like to see the first step taken by my friends the murderers

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RE: Mental Health - 7/22/2011 9:58:41 AM

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Kirata

I strongly doubt I ever claimed that. And in a democracy, at least, the State is the "people."

I never claimed that you did. But I was indeed asking if you knew where I could find a distinction between 'kill' and 'murder' in the Bible. I had the impression that your knowledge of the Bible was more complete than mine.

As for 'in a democracy, at least, the State is "the people" - "

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a state is "a an organized political community under one government; a commonwealth; a nation. b such a community forming part of a federal republic, esp the United States of America".[8] However, the most commonly used[9][10][11][12][13] definition is Max Weber's, which defines the state as a compulsory political organization with a centralized government that maintains a monopoly of the legitimate use of force within a certain territory."

Wikipedia.

In an ideal democracy, the state would be the people. But that's just the ideal, not the practice.

quote:

Then it wouldn't mean "thou shalt not kill," would it. It would mean unsanctioned killing: murder.

'Sanctioned by whom?' is the question under discussion. The State, God? I wonder what Jesus thought of the killings carried out by the Roman state?

< Message edited by PeonForHer -- 7/22/2011 10:00:22 AM >

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RE: Mental Health - 7/22/2011 10:28:11 AM

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quote:

ORIGINAL: whipher1

Take a life, lose a life simple

I thought that was a widespread view amongst Americans at the start of this thread, whipher - but apparently I was wrong. The more recent view here is that you execute someone in order to prevent him murdering anyone else.

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RE: Mental Health - 7/22/2011 11:16:18 AM

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quote:

ORIGINAL: PeonForHer

'Sanctioned by whom?' is the question under discussion. The State, God? I wonder what Jesus thought of the killings carried out by the Roman state?

Talking to you is like trying to pick up snot. First you play the Bible card...

Yet, where it says in the Bible - in the Ten Commandments, no less - "Thou shalt not kill" . . . that's not at all clear. Oh no. Mightily ambiguous, that is. What God probably meant there was was 'Thou shalt not eat krill, like whales', or some such.

When I point out that most translations render the word as "murder," then you say the question is "sanctioned by whom?"

In the context of a Biblical commandment??? Gee, can I think about that one for a bit?

K.

< Message edited by Kirata -- 7/22/2011 11:58:32 AM >

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