death penalty

emprworm · January 29, 2003

"You said that breaking in alone is enough reason to be shot."

yea it is. and it is not a crime in the US to shoot someone who breaks into your home,

if you feel genuinely threatened. example: you awake in the middle of the night to a loud crashing noise downstairs- your kids are asleep in their rooms. you walk down the stairs to see a shadowy figure holding a gun moving silently through your living room. Your children are 1 room away. At this point, he hasn't exactly put a gun to anyone's head. At this point, I am going to shoot him. No crime comitted - at least in the US.

now obviously if it was a sunny day and a punk kid busted through my window wearing shorts and carrying a stick, I wouldn't kill him because he does not represent a rational threat to my life.

Anathema · January 29, 2003

So it's legal to shoot a burglar in any situation in the US? That's sick. In the Netherlands you'd be arrested and convicted for murder, because you should have waited for the police to take him way, and rightly so.

emprworm · January 29, 2003

lol, wait around for the police to show up? haha. They wouldn't even know. Maybe he cut the phone lines?

All I know is an armed man breaks into my house under cover of night and is headed for my child's bedroom.

Armed man is dead if I have nearby gun.

no crime comitted.

Of course, you would turn on the light and say "Excuse me. Please, can you leave my house?"

then you get a bullet in your chest and your wife and kids are killed. He robs you and flees. Meanwhile, you survive your wounds and have the rest of your life to reflect on why you failed your family because you did not protect them and valued a criminal more than them.

Timenn · January 29, 2003

I didn't meant to order those points on importance. Maybe I should have used '-' instead of numbers.

But what about the third point?

And Emprworm, you forget that you might get the death penalty if you kill a burglar in cold blood

emprworm · January 30, 2003

"And Emprworm, you forget that you might get the death penalty if you kill a burglar in cold blood"

unlikely. Any self defense case will stand if the person was threatened with immediate harm to himself or others. Killing a burgler inside your own home will most likely never warrant the death penalty- i just cannot see how it could, unless the burglar was subdued and then you walked up and shot him while he was helpless. In this case he did not represent a threat and was killed in the heat of the moment. Remember that I said I favored the death penalty in extreme cases of aggrivated murder where the murders were planned and not carried out on a freak whim.

Acriku · January 30, 2003

"Our government gives us the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. "
Acriku, were you quoting this document?
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness
i like the part about governments being instituted among men to secure the already existing rights of people.
If government grants rights, then a government endorsing slavery is perfectly acceptable. A pure democracy could "vote in" that all atheists are subhuman and should be imprisoned, and such would be morally "right".
But I am glad that kind of moral relativism was not what our government was founded upon.

Quoting to an extent, just to show you what I interpret it as, not to back it up. They might have wrote that the rights were already there, but that is their opinion (religiously influenced). And if democrats did that, they would have to have majority in everything, like the republicans sort of do now, and then that's assuming the people agree with it. I would protest, because I did nothing to have my right to live instituted by the government taken away, but that is it.

emprworm · January 30, 2003

"but that is their opinion (religiously influenced). "

And you do not agree with it? You think that a human being has no rights but what his society grants to him?

nemafakei · January 30, 2003

Emprworm, you do all you can to get the man out of your house without killing him. Shoot to injure, not to kill, or turn the light on with the gun pointed at him...

Have I missed something, or are we forgetting the main reason for incarceration - protection of the public from the criminals - and if someone cannot be easily contained, or refuses to co-operate in incarceration, then they must be removed more permenantly from society.

"1. To scare of other people from committing crimes

2. To punish the one who commited the crime

3. To educate the criminal, to behave correctly, when the punishment is over."

What do you do when the criminal cannot be rehabilitated? When their crimes so terrible that providing free meals and a cell for the rest of their life is not deterrent enough for other potential criminals?

Does someone have a right to live when all they would do with it is infringe upon that of others? (and why?) If they do, then that right is far from enough to warrant society maintaining it.

Caid Ivik · January 30, 2003

What do you do when the criminal cannot be rehabilitated? When their crimes so terrible that providing free meals and a cell for the rest of their life is not deterrent enough for other potential criminals?

They have no free meals. Every prisoner works. In many countries hardly. But there is no crime which cannot be punished without taking deliquent's life. Of course, when he does it again, then yes. Germans started two wars and most brutal slaughtery of whole nations in our history. But still between them were some wise people, which had taken the rule and made it peaceful and democratic. That's same with our souls. In everyone is something bad and something good. Prison should return criminal to that good side.

Sneakgab · January 30, 2003

Lol... bring them back to the good side...

Gommel (or whatever his name) in the bunkers of the... second reich:D

''Roosevelt''.. *heavy breathing*... '' I have something to tell you''... '' I am you're father!'' takes off Natzi hat...

'''What! no it can't be true!'''

''but it is''

Suddenly Hitler walks in with his crazy electro gun natzi experiment thing and starts frying Roosevelt when suddenly Gommel picks him up

'''' What are you doing Gommel!?'' Crazy Hitler voice... Hitler get's thrown into well and dies

'''Father, come back to the light side!''' screams Roosevelt

''It...is..cough...urgh...too..late''

'''FATHER!'''

emprworm · January 30, 2003

Emprworm, you do all you can to get the man out of your house without killing him. Shoot to injure, not to kill, or turn the light on with the gun pointed at him...

fine, but certain circumstances might warrant you to shoot to kill (he is armed with a sawed off shotgun and if you shoot him in the leg, you're just gonna #$#$ him off....and with a sawed-off shotgun, he can't miss)

Acriku · January 31, 2003

I don't believe my rights were given to me by a greater being, but anything secular I more or less agree with.

Sneakgab · February 1, 2003

bleh, who cares who you're rights were given by. It's pointless to waste time with unnecesary statements regarding religion. IE: mentioning god... mentioning you disagree with that...

Scrinlord · February 1, 2003

I agree with the death penelty. some people have absolutly NO right to live, and if we dont execute them, they just sit in jail. And I believe that Americas jails are WAY to nice. you can have a TV in jail, eat good food, get books, you can even earn a COLLEGE DEGREE while you are in jail, paid for by the state! especially for murderers, I think that prison should be a cement hole in the ground, with bars on top. They should feed you the general equivilent of an elementary school lunch(3 meals a day), and they should VERY SELDOM allow any recreation, and only then to prevent them from going completley mad.

Did you know that in many US states, the governemnt pays several thousand dollars more to keep a criminal who is in prison healthy and content for a year than they pay to feed and educate school students? That is HORRIBLE! I can get arrested, and I will have a better education, and be better taken care of, than I am in school! That is just pitiful if you ask me.

Timenn · February 1, 2003

Did you know that bringing someone to death cost more then to give him/her prisonment for the rest of his/her life?

That are fake stories you hear. Prisons aren't palaces...

Apollyon · February 1, 2003

That are fake stories you hear. Prisons aren't palaces...

They are in England...

Timenn · February 1, 2003

Were you locked once in a prison?

Apollyon · February 1, 2003

not personally, but due to human rights here and our government being almost socialist (IMO anyway) the prisons here have better accomodation than many boarding schools :O.

Timenn · February 1, 2003

How do you know? Have you been in jail?

Mostly such stories are fake stories

Acriku · February 2, 2003

Are you saying any method of execution is more expensive or just electrocution/lineup and shooting em?

Scrinlord · February 2, 2003

I have been inside of a prison, although I have not been TOO prison. And I heard those stories from police officers and wardens, they are not fake. And I have seen figures and fact sheets, and prisoners ARE taken care of better than students, trust me. maybe not in a max. security prison, but in most, yeah

and actually, execution is not all that expencive, it is just death row that is expencive because they leave them there with full benifits for so long.

Acriku · February 2, 2003

And that "last meal" can be pricey.

Inoculator9 · February 2, 2003

You can't put a pricetag on sentient life though. I think if a countries finances can accomodate the lack of a death penalty then they should take the moral high ground and seek alternatives.

Scrinlord · February 2, 2003

I dont have a problem if there is an alternative that actually makes sense, but I HATE the fact that a murderer can hang out in prison, being fairly comfortable and healthy and well taken care of for the rest of his life after he stole the life of someone else.

problem is, there really are not any good alternatives to the death penelty. anything like what I am thinking and they would scream "cruel and unusual punishment"

Inoculator9 · February 2, 2003

It is cruel and unusual punishment, killing someone for killing for killing someone.

Alternatives... How about life with a required number of service hours? Or having to endure life with hundreds of other men who are so socially incorrect that they start getting in bed with each other. In a lot of ways it's a lot less comfortable then you would think. The inmates enact their own punishments on each other.

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