FoolThemAll

Point taken.

I could be wrong, but I don't think I mentioned self-defense. I was speaking of justified pre-emptive action. Scenarios where there is imminent danger.

I think the big question that keeps me imagining that the example is applicable to nearly all is this: why are you a pacifist? Is it personal preference, or is pacifism the one correct path for all? Your quote here would seem to indicate the former, but is there a third option I'm missing?

If it's personal preference, then it's certainly possible to support and see as moral the taking of lives by other people in defense of others. And then we might just be in agreement.

If it's a matter of considering it immoral, and the decision not to take a life is considered always the more moral or less immoral choice, then I'd have to wonder how that is reconciled with any support of the existence of police and the armed forces. This may be more appropriately directed to willravel.

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alansmithee

You don't see how people who have committed crimes considered lesser in their society can judge others? If that's the case, nobody should go to jail. There are degrees to crimes, and it's not realistic to think that this would be different just because everyone is in prison.

Also, I have read that now most child molesters are kept segregated in their own wings in prison.

And as for the castration issue, many psychologists feel that it is effective in some cases. Even if rape is often about power, that isn't always the case in child molestation. And even if it is, by removing alot of the various producers of testosterone, the drive for violence is often found to go down. I researched this a small amount a couple of years ago for a report I did on the sex offender registry laws that were being enacted them. Chemical castration especially is found to often reduce recidivism in child molesters (in the few instances it's been used).

Fourtyrulz

See my above post...

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stevo

Chemical castration...huh. I'm for the old fashion method of a rubber band and a knife.

As for the death penalty for child sodimizers, well I'm not convinced that it would act as a deterrant to child sodomy, but might cause the sodimizer to take the child outside the state or just kill him anyway.

Just because one is convicted of child sodomy does not automatically imply death, as the jury will have to decide on the punishment to reccomend based on the facts of the crime and the judge will have to impose the sentance. The way our justice system is set up, beyond a reasonable doubt, and with mandatory appeals, along with better technology for DNA analysis, Yeah. I'm all for it.

Mephisto2

The reason I mentioned self-defence was the line "Such people need to be willing to defend with lethal force in case the situation arises."

I was being safe in my interpretation.

I think we can both agree that self-defence, appropriate self-defence, is acceptable.

Well, there are degrees of pacificism. My sense of pacificism is a moral one. I believe force should be used as a last resort.

However, as I said earlier, I accept the need for police and armies. I also believe in a concept of a "just war". World War Two is a perfect example. Indeed, the invasion of Afghanistan is quite close in a modern sense. And, believe it or not, the invasion of Iraq (had the intelligence proved correct), would also have been perilously close. All that was required to justify it was

- Proof that the WMDs did exist
- Verification of the "deployable in 45 minutes" claim
- UN Security Council resolution under Article 7 of the Charter

Unfortunately number 3 was never forthcoming and numbers 1 and 2 are sadly lacking.


I think we may be, but it's still something I struggle with. It all depends upon your definition of "in defense of others."

The US seems to have interpreted this as "well, they might use them in the future" or "well, they could give them to terrorists"; both claims that I find hard to swallow. In other words, I'm not sure I support pre-emptive strikes. It's a difficult moral, philosophical and, in today's world, real and immediate question we must ask ourselves.

Well, I think it's certainly possible for the taking of a life to be considered less moral than not taking it, yet still supporting it as "the lesser of two evils". The support for the existence of police and the armed forces is perfectly acceptable in both our beliefs in the right of self defense.

Ireland has a police force that is mostly unarmed. It is not necessary for the police to kill people except in the most extreme circumstances (at least in Ireland). In the US, where society is armed to the teeth, a different set of variables enter the equation and things get murky.

So, I do believe that not taking a life is alway more moral than taking one. But taking a life is sometimes justified.

Quite subtle shades of grey, eh?

And unlike others, I do not hold some sort of inherent belief that I'm right and others are wrong. These are my, constantly evolving, set of beliefs and I struggle with dealing with the nuances every day. At least every day that I debate such topics with interesting people on TFP!

I don't have all the answers. But I try to do, I try to support, what I think is right. Pre-emptive strikes are usually not to be supported. It is not OK to attack a nation or kill someone, just because they MIGHT do something in the future. It MAY be right to attack a nation or kill someone if you KNOW they are going to do something.

Make sense? Probably not.


Mr Mephisto

FoolThemAll

Nope, I completely understand what you mean about pre-emptive attacks, and I pretty much meant 'defense of others' in which there is an imminent threat. I'm not completely sure I agree with you on pre-emptive attacks, but it makes a lot of sense.

This is the part I didn't understand. Lesser of two evils? What's the greater evil?

The way I read it, the greater evil would be 'not taking it' (and that's what I believe), but that would contradict the first half of your sentence.

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I wonder if we're stuck in Rome.

lukethebandgeek

Look, if someone holds down a six year old girl, and forces ass sex on her, then that person needs to be beaten half to death, sodomized himself, and then beaten the rest of the way to death. The death penalty shouldn't be painless, it should be painful. As far as I'm concerened, screwing up children's lives is the sickest thing anyone could do.

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Justsomeguy

I hope you do not support live in prison then.

Mephisto2

Why?

Mr Mephisto

pinoychink790

I don't support the death penalty at all. It gives criminals an easy way out. They should stay alive in prison, because it can give them time to reflect on themselves and feel guilty for what they did. Also, what gives us the right to kill others? It's like a double-standard, because it's like saying "they must die because it's wrong to kill", yet WE'RE killing them. So then we must die too, if we're going to base the death penalty on something like that.

Justsomeguy

It does not make sense to NOT support the death penalty but to support life in prison. Essentially, they do the same thing and mean the same thing. However, one costs more and still poses reasonable threat to society. The point of jail is to take people out of society. However, the idea is that their behavior can be corrected. It has to support the notion that people can change and within time, the person's may effectively be placed back into society.

Under certain circumstances, the law and the majority think that a person's crime and/or behavior is so horrible that it the person can never be rehabilitated. The answer, then, is to eliminate the person from society. The death penalty is the only response that really does this. The moral argument to support life in prison is weak as well. It's naive. It's uses arguments such as "people should not be killed," or for murder for example, "if killing is bad, how can the government justify killing people in return?" Life in prison to me is a mother that tells on her son but then begs her husband to stop whipping the child.

pinoychink790

you do make a good point Justsomeguy, it makes a lot of sense, but do you completely disagree with me when I say that the death penatly is a double-standard because it's like saying "they must die because it's wrong to kill". Or do you truly believe that the government has the right to kill people in order to justify their crimes????

Mephisto2

Why not?

No they don't. One ends up killing someone. Another incarcerates them.

Actually, the death penalty costs more than life in prison. Numerous studies have proven this. If you want references just let me know.

Not really, at least not in the US. In the 1970's, US prison policy effectively changed from one of rehabilitiation to one of simple punishment.

For starters, I recommend you read the paper The Past and Future of U.S. Prison Policy by Craig Haney (of the University of California, Santa Cruz) and Philip Zimbardo (of Stanford University). You can find it at the journals section of the American Psychological Association (direct link: http://www.apa.org/journals/amp/amp53709.pdf)

Well, patently it is not.

How so?

Yes, it does use such arguments. And many others. What's your point? If you disagree with those arguments, then fine; but I'm still confused as to what you're trying to argue.

Mr Mephisto

pinoychink790

Thanks for backing me up there Mr Mephisto, I would have said something myself, but my conscience got in the way. And if you weren't really backing me up there, thanks anyway, because you really showed him.

Lebell

Agreed, but if there is anything that tests my conviction against the death penalty, it is child rapists.

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"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." – C. S. Lewis

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Coppertop

Except that if we make a mistake and convict someone wrongfully, we can (partially) unfuck the guy who was sentenced to life. Not so for the guy we just executed.

Justsomeguy

Your argument does not address the issue. Read it several times and understand why. Your problem is with the courts, which is not even being discussed.

He really showed me that I made a typo or two when I read his post and that his opinion is different. My comment was that it logically does not make sense to not support the death penalty but to support life in prison.

gondath

I think it's sad that people will crucify a man for raping a child and affecting one life and see that as worse than a high up executive in a company destroying the lives of thousands. It's a hideous the way some crimes are inflated to seem worse than ones which inflict far more damage to far more people.

Coppertop

Why thank you for telling me what my problem is. And after only reading a few lines of text. What insight!

And it is the central issue. Because you don't care doesn't mean no one else does. Your advocacy of the death penalty leaves no room for error. I envy your confidence in our system, misplaced though it may be.

daswig

Yup, just like murder is generally a capital offense, but theft isn't. Why is that? Could it be because money can be replaced, and is, after all, just a thing, while life and a child's innocence are far harder to fix? If somebody offered you fifty million dollars in compensation in exchange for your allowing them to assrape your child, would you do it?

I think if you had a little bit more contact with people who had been sexually abused as a child, or if you actually had a child of your own, you might have a slightly different perspective.

Child molesters who actually make it into the criminal justice system alive are far luckier than they deserve to be. If they die horrible deaths in prison, so be it. They chose the tune, so they must pay the piper.

Mephisto2

You know, despite the colourful language, that's very well put Daswig.

However, I suspect I know your position on the death penalty, but you don't mention it here. Do you support it?

You know I don't, but that's based upon my personal moral reasons.


Mr Mephisto

FoolThemAll

Hey, Mephisto. Don't mean to be a nag, but I'm wondering if you could clarify what you mean here:

I asked:

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I wonder if we're stuck in Rome.

Mephisto2

Sure thing. I thought I had responded, so my apologies for this oversight.

The taking of a life is less moral than taking a life. Agreed?
If one had a choice, between killing and not killing, then not killing is the more moral path.

However, in some circumstances, self defence, a just war, preventing an immediate threat etc, one may be able to state that killing is necessary. However, it is still immoral. Killing is always immoral. But in these circumstances it is the "lesser of two evils", because failing to act, failing to "kill" may result in much greater harm.

Neither choice is moral, but one is "less evil" (less immoral if you will), than the other.


Does this make sense? I hope I've explained myself.


Mr Mephisto

FoolThemAll

I assume you mean "less moral than not taking a life"?

If so, this reads like you're saying at the beginning that not taking a life is always the more moral choice. Then at the end, it seems like you're saying that sometimes it's the less moral choice, because it could "result in much greater harm". I'm not seeing how these two statements can go together.

My view: sometimes it is less moral not to take a life.

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I wonder if we're stuck in Rome.

daswig

Stop it. Next thing you know, you'll be respecting me, and I can NOT have that. >

Yes indeed, I support the death penalty. In fact, I think the death penalty isn't used often enough, nor with enough swiftness. For example: I think that fucking a child under the age of 10 years old should qualify as a death penalty offense, provided certain evidentiary and statutory criteria are met. For example, if there was physical evidence (say, physical indicia of the sexual assault, coupled with a positive DNA match of the recovered evidence and the accused) and if the attacker was, say, 18 years old or older. Given those circumstances, I have no problem with the courts giving the perpetrator a "hot shot", since the evidence is indisputable and incontrovertable and the nature of the crime is so horrendous.

Additionally, I support the death penalty for adult "stranger rape" when there is DNA evidence of a conclusive nature.

I also don't think that there's any excuse for the amount of time between sentencing and execution taking over, say, 5 years. That should give everybody involved MORE than ample time for the appeals process.

But I don't support the death penalty for, say, fraud or theft...It should be kept for crimes against the person, and only if the nature of the crime could reasonably be forseen to negatively impact the victim's life permanently. So the death penalty wouldn't be on the table for breaking and entering, but would be on the table for a "hot burglary" of an occupied dwelling in the nighttime that resulted in a fatality or serious injury.

Mephisto2

Thank you. Very well and succintly put.

I disagree, but hey... you knew that already.


Mr Mephisto

daswig

Hey, you're a product of your environment. It's not YOUR fault...

The_Dunedan

Daswig;
I normally don't support C-P, but under the criteria that you stated I think I could find some applicability for it. I've always been a fan of C-P for rape; either that or physical/chemical castration.

daswig

Rape has never been about sex, it's about power. Physical/chemical castration is a joke as far as a means of preventing recidivism. They simply use "inanimate objects". This is why penetration with an inanimate object has been codified as a specific offense which is generally equal to rape in the eyes of the law.

The_Dunedan

I was well aware of the rape = power issue; I'd heard, however, that chemical castration was having good effects where it'd been tested in Holland and in Louisiana.

daswig

The problem with chemical castration is that it can be overridden simply by taking huge doses of testosterone (which isn't that hard to get), with the added "bennie" that the individual basically becomes much more aggressive than they were beforehand.

Mephisto2

I'm not a supporter of castration (chemical or otherwise) either.

Put them in jail.


Mr Mephisto

drakers

I think life in a cell, where you spend 23 hours of your life in would be hell instead of taking the easy route and dying a quick death.