(no subject)

[digitaldiscipline]

Anyone still object to the death penalty?

http://lesslikeyou.livejournal.com/405930.html

Some people...

Comments

[mschaos.livejournal.com]

oh gawds...that makes me sick

[fenixinthedark.livejournal.com]

NAMBLA lives.

Just goes to show you that the "how to boil a frog" analogy is absolutely apt. If you want to boil a frog, don't toss him into a rolling boil. Put him in a room temperature pot, and slowly increase the temps.

That's how I feel on this subject. I believe in moderation. That things should not swing too far in either direction on the "conservative/liberal" agenda scale. But, there are times I would rather err on the side of being *overly* conservative. Like when there are *children* involved.

There *MUST BE A LINE* at which we stop. When we say, "this is progressive thinking, and that is simply wrong".

[hellsop.livejournal.com]

Let's see how long he lives in the slam.

[xany.livejournal.com]

my only objection to the death penalty is that I won't get to participate.

I suggest a road trip and blanket party for this fuckwit.

[marchenland.livejournal.com]

Yes, I still object to the death penalty in 99.99999% of cases.

This guy is obviously sick, clearly a criminal, almost certainly untreatable, and clearly deserves punishment, but I still would not support his state-sanctioned killing.

What happens to him in prison, of course, is a different form of justice, and that's fine by me. Many people deserve to die, but I will never support the government's method of making that decision.

[david-deacon.livejournal.com]

I'm with hellsop. Death penalty? Why let him off so easily? A lifetime of prison shower rape should cure him of his pedophilic tendencies. The alternative is a few years isolated in solitary while his appeals expire, followed by a mercifully quick death by lethal injection.

[marchenland.livejournal.com]

Actually, I don't think a lifetime of prison rape would cure him. Typically, pedophilia of this level is not curable, and violence of any sort tends to breed MORE violence, not less.

[david-deacon.livejournal.com]

Well, I admit I was speaking emotionally, not making a rational argument.

[marchenland.livejournal.com]

I understand.

I just think that the cases where we feel most emotional about a subject are the cases where we should most firmly apply logic and our most stringent of standards.

Would I enjoy seeing someone like this fry? Well... yeah, I have to admit I would. But justice should never be about enjoyment or emotions. She's blind for a reason.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

*nods* The visceral response to someone perpetrating things like this is to remove them from polite society most expeditiously. If they are made to suffer some measure of what they have caused, so much the better.

But, yes, there's a system in place. It just doesn't function well sometimes.

[lil-m-moses.livejournal.com]

Anyone still object to the death penalty?

Yes. Always.

Besides, as others have said, I think life in prison is always a better punishment, though I think the prisons could use some roughing up - they've gotten too cushy.

[marchenland.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty much in agreement with you, although I still allow that there may be some tiny, tiny percentage of chance that I might think deserves the death penalty. I can't think of one; I hover around Pol Pot and the like, but even then, I'm just not sure.

Of course, prison for this guy will equal the death penalty, unless they keep him in solitary.

[lil-m-moses.livejournal.com]

I was going to just do a me too to your comment, but ultimately, I feel that I do not ever have the right to decide whether another human should live or die, and by extension, my government should also not have that right. This is one of my relatively few spiritually-influenced views, but it's a vitally important one to me.

This doesn't mean that there might not be a very few people I wouldn't be terribly sorry to see taken out by other means, whether accidental or deliberate by another individual. However, I cannot abide the institutionalization of such decisions, and I will feel bad for the person who took them out as having to face Divine Judgment for murder. Personally, I'd go to jail for contempt of court before I'd serve on a jury for a trial with the death penalty as an available sentence, and I am a conscientious objector in matters of war. I know this makes me a bit of a crackpot in a lot of people's eyes, but I really don't care. I'm the one that has to live in my head, not them.

[marchenland.livejournal.com]

That's pretty much an "amen," from me.

I give myself a tiny bit of wiggle room, but I can't imagine myself ever using it.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

On the whole, I agree with everything the two of you have said.

And, in all probability, an extended stay in general population is the equivalent of a death sentence for this winner.

Which suits, and also saves on legal wrangling and maintenance costs.

[the-yellow-king.livejournal.com]

To repeat myself from Don's journal:

After being found guilty in a court of law, in accordance with the proper rules:
Punishment #1: Instant sterilization. Possible chemical castration or appropriate aversion therapy.
Punishment #2: Permanent gulag exile as 'criminally unable to function in society'.
People say that I'm draconian in my thoughts on punishment, law, and order, but I prefer to think that I am simply fair-minded.

[fenixinthedark.livejournal.com]

How 'bout leaving him in a closed room with the parents of the kids?

Were it my child, I'd want my own piece of him... and I know which piece that would be.

[the-yellow-king.livejournal.com]

Can't condone it. Sorry. :(
My favorite quote of all time is this:

"Fragile as reason is and limited as law is as the institutionalized medium of reason, that's all we have standing between us and the tyranny of mere will and the cruelty of unbridled, undisciplined feeling."
- Justice Felix Frankfurter

As much as I have always read and enjoyed "The Punisher" and "Batman", I can't really subscribe to their vigilantism, despite desparate feelings to the contrary. Essentially, I fear the tyranny of the mob, no matter how right the mob may be - the mob may easily be just as wrong. I feel that punishment of a crime should be impartial, un-empassioned, and befitting the crime itself - and only delivered after judicial procedure.

My reasoning for the above, I have to admit, is not altruistic. By holding to that, I may hold myself to the same standard. After all, if I allow the parents to punish him, should I not also be able to issue similar punishments for crime? What about the two men who conspired to cheat my father over a decade ago? What would be a suitable punishment for them...and what if I carried it out, as vicious as it might be?

No, I shall side with reason and law, and keep my feelings in check.

[fenixinthedark.livejournal.com]

I am of two minds on this subject.

There is the impartial one... when observing from the outside, and there is the highly partial one who *knows* that if anything happened to my kid, then the impartial one would go out the window.

I saw an episode of whatever law show Cameron Manheim used to be on (I have *only* seen one or two, as I do not watch TV regularly, so do not commit the names to memory) that dealt with this topic. She was vehemently defending a woman who was schizophrenic from being executed. Her character was against the death penalty, and *especially* in this instance, wherein the woman was not properly diagnosed at the time of her trial, but had been since.

The writing for this show was very good, as her character *admitted* that, were she a member of the family of the person her client had killed, she'd likely see it differently.

And that is the crux. Yes, Lady Justice *should* be blind, but it is also something of an hypocrisy on all of our parts as well, as, were any of us in the shoes of someone who suffered a traumatic loss like the wanton murder of a loved one or the molestation of our child, *we'd* want our hour in the room with the bastard who did it too.

I know I would...

[the-yellow-king.livejournal.com]

Yes, we would all want that hour. I definitely am in the camp that such wants should be effectively controlled/smothered so as not to allow mere emotional reaction to take over. It's a loss of control thing; I detest loss of control more than anything else on the planet. However, that's a personal diatribe that I could discuss for hours - how reason and control defines us as human more than emotions/instinct do, etc, etc.

Another particular objection my mind also raises to that personal vengeance is "If in this case, then why not EVERY case? What logical reason could there possibly be for such distinctions?" Essentially, I cannot reason my way out of the fact that if I took personal vegeance for a child of mine, that it would also give me carte blanche to do so for every similar offender, regardless of whose child it is. Any exception I could come up with would be based on emotion, and therefore, invalid reasoning since not supported by fact.

However, as the law states that we may not take personal vengeance, I cannot reason my way around it. Thus, and so, etc.

BTW, if you don't mind my asking, did you ever live in GA? Your LJ name reminds me of someone I used to know.

[mighty-man.livejournal.com]

Why not put him to good use?

Use him as a warning to all the bad boys and girls out there that his "congrgation" is where they will be sent if they're naughty.

I can think of more than a few people that I wouldn't mind subjecting to his "ministries."