the green mile?

by sparrowdown 57 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  scotoma

  If you are for capitol punishment YOU are casting your lot with the likes of JW's.

  Capitol punishment is anti-male. Three times as many males committ violent crimes as females.

  There should be no doubt that murder has a genetic component to it. You don't have to look for an imbalance in the brain. It is linked in a large way to those two organs hanging between a man's legs.

  Give men a choice. :SNIP: + 20 years to think about it. Or life in prison.

  Women who kill their children? Schizo. They need drugs and better drugs.
• 

  jgnat

  I believe that to execute a man for murder is to punish him immeasurably more dreadfully than is equivalent to his crime. A murder by sentence is far more dreadful than a murder committed by a criminal. The man who is attacked by robbers at night, in a dark wood, or anywhere, undoubtedly hopes and hopes that he may yet escape until the very moment of his death. There are plenty of instances of a man running away, or imploring for mercy—at all events hoping on in some degree—even after his throat was cut. But in the case of an execution, that last hope—having which it is so immeasurably less dreadful to die,—is taken away from the wretch and certainty substituted in its place! There is his sentence, and with it that terrible certainty that he cannot possibly escape death—which, I consider, must be the most dreadful anguish in the world. You may place a soldier before a cannon’s mouth in battle, and fire upon him—and he will still hope. But read to that same soldier his death-sentence, and he will either go mad or burst into tears. Who dares to say that any man can suffer this without going mad? No, no! it is an abuse, a shame, it is unnecessary—why should such a thing exist? Doubtless there may be men who have been sentenced, who have suffered this mental anguish for a while and then have been reprieved; perhaps such men may have been able to relate their feelings afterwards. Our Lord Christ spoke of this anguish and dread. No! no! no! No man should be treated so, no man, no man!” - Dostoyevsky, speaking from personal experience

  The goal is no more murderers, no more senseless violence. What is the fastest way to that end?
• 

  Magnum

  In theory, I fully believe in capital punishment and could personally be an executioner. In actuality, though, I would proceed with extreme caution because of the possibility of mistaken convictions.

  To me, it's not about whether it's good or bad for society, whether it makes murder victims' families feel better, or any similar reasons mentioned in posts above. It's about pure, raw justice - even revenge. I don't think revenge is always wrong.

  I am aware of some unspeakably horrible things that have been done in modern times and in the past. I could easily execute the perpertrators of such deeds, and I would want them for punitive reasons to suffer before they die - not in a gruesome way, but I would want them to have time to think about their deeds and anticipate their upcoming executions. For example, I'd like to put them in rooms with huge windows facing the gallows upon which they would be hanged and give them time to anticipate the hanging. And it's not because I'm mean, hard, or sadistic. It's because of my great sense of love and kindness and concern for the welfare and happiness of my fellow creatures, both human and animal. It's because I think life is sacred (not necessarily in a religious sense) and I hate suffering and anyone who unnecesarily causes it. It's because I love justice.

  I have done a lot of reading on torture - especially that carried out prior to modern times. It's not because I have a sadistic side to me, but it's because I just can't wrap my head around it; I simply cannot believe that humans could think up such methods and carry them out. I also just cannot believe that living creatures have had to endure such heinous things. I would actually like to execute torturers.

  I happened a couple of years ago to stumble upon a video of a man who was in a pen with some kind of raccoon-looking creatures, maybe a little larger and longer than raccoons common in the U.S. He was beating them drunk with small canes. When they could no longer walk, he would hang them by one foot on what looked like a clothes line. He then proceeded, while they were alive, to skin them. He started at their feet making cuts. He then peeled the skin off in one piece - from the feet all the way down and off the head. I couldn't stand to watch it, so I put my hands over my eyes and peeked between my fingers. I saw one of the animals who had been skinned. I saw muscle and other tissue; his skin was completely gone. As he was hanging upside down, he turned his head up and pitifully looked at his body, as if to try to figure out what was going on. It was worse than anything I've ever seen in any horror movie.

  My wife walked in the room and saw the look on my face and immediately said "what's wrong?" I just shook my head and couldn't explain. It was a mix of different emotions - rage and fury mixed with horror and shock and and intense desire to help that poor creature. There was also a burning desire for justice and revenge. I am horrified now as I think about it (and the fact that I'm sure it goes on regularly). I would find great satisfaction in executing the SOB who did that.

  Mikado: Nonone who does such awful thing can be anything other than ill, I'm not saying they are insane, but there is something fundamentally wrong with them.

  I don't think you should make such a bold, unfounded statement. Such a statement should be backed up by a lot of scientific research. So are you saying that all humans are fundamentally, inherently good and incapable of inflicting extreme evil on others? I guess you are since you say that 'no one who does such an awful thing can be anything other than ill'. Can't some people just be plain out mean, heinous, sadistic, cruel? I think so, but I'm not going to be dogmatic because I don't know for sure. Yeah, I believe "there is somthing fundamentally wrong with them" - they're mean as hell.

  If you came home one day and found that your children had each been slowly tortured to death in a different way, your cat had been slowly cooked in a microwave oven, and your dog had been slowly boiled alive, and the perpatrators were caught, would you want them executed? I would even if they were declared to be insane. I don't see how any who could do such a thing could ever be happy. Call it euthenasia if you want, but they should be executed. Nothing capable of that should be allowed to live in my opinion.

  I might change my mind later, but the above is how I feel now. And again, it's because I can't stand suffering and I want all causes of it removed.

  P.S. When Sadam Hussein was hanged, I actually felt a little sorry for him, but then I thought about just the little bit of suffering that he caused that I'm aware of, and I found myself glad that he was hanged and that he had time to contemplate the fact that he was going to be.
• 

  sparrowdown

  You raise an interesting point Magnum. You say you could be the executioner, that's interesting.

  I wonder, out of how many that agree with executions could actually "flick the switch" themselves.
• 

  Mikado

  Magnum ,you would make a great torturer I can't help feeling.

  you do realize your response to watching animals being tortured is a particularly disturbing one don't you?

  Nothing justifies the death penalty, nothing.

  Once people start saying, what if it was your family, they have lost the argument... that's why victims families can't decide punishment, because we aren't savages...
• 

  Apognophos

  It's natural that any of us would want to murder someone who killed our loved ones, or maybe even others' loved ones, but that's a knee-jerk emotional reaction. By using the line of reasoning, "Wouldn't you?", the implication is that a person's emotional desires automatically have moral validity. If that's the case, why do we even bother reasoning on anything? Why not just go through life acting on our emotions in the moment? The answer is, because that's what criminals do.

  At our core, we are animals, after all, and sometimes our emotional desires are not pleasant ones. But we have evolved in the direction of gaining more and more self-control and more of a sense of societal obligation than most animals. It's just that the part of the brain that handles that higher thinking is in the front, farther from the spine, and takes longer to kick in. It also gets overridden in times of high duress when survival seems to be on the line. Since protecting oneself and protecting one's family are very basic desires, facing someone who killed your family will naturally trigger a desire to eliminate them as a threat.

  So, as was stated, there's good reason why victims are not allowed to choose their own method of punishment. This is a fundamental principle in our civilized society, that we do not let the victims near the person who wronged them, and instead mete out punishment according to a book of rules administered by a hopefuly objective, uninvolved judge. Wanting to go backward to capital punishment and executioners with axes in hand is asking to regress in our moral development as a species.

  We all feel those urges once in a while -- "What a monster, he should just be eliminated" -- but it fails to make us any better as people or to benefit society. I also don't think that people should have to live out their lives in an institution unless they are incurable; life sentences are punitive and not rehabilitative. However, this has been the best we could do in this imperfect world. Hopefully we will develop betters methods of "fixing" the broken people that clog up our justice system.

  Some of them have a congenital lack of self-control due to FAS and other common maladies in the lower class, or become angry at the unfairness of having cognitive impairment, some have massive chemical imbalances, and some were raised in a very poor environment that lacked love and was possibly abusive. If you really knew the reasons why these people commit crimes, I think you would find it hard to "pull the switch" on them. Arguably performing an execution on somebody while recognizing that they had an impairment that led them to commit crimes makes us no better than the Nazis. I declare this statement an exemption from Godwin's Law because it is a valid comparison: read about Action T4 if you don't get the connection.
• 

  Ucantnome

  i fluctuate between the two.

  i think i tend more toward no capital punishment but let God deal with it.
• 

  Ucantnome

  i fluctuate between the two.

  i think i tend more toward no capital punishment but let God deal with it (for God is a consuming fire)

  two posts are better than one
• 

  FlyingHighNow

  ^^^ What he said.

  violent criminals? sociopaths? paedophiles? Put them on an island, guarded by technology, to protect society from them. They can live out their lives, farming their land, whatever they choose to do. Banishment is good enough for me.

  tal

  Let them find out what they are like, by hanging out with like people.
• 

  Finkelstein

  Capital punishment is really being locked away separate from humanity for the rest of a living human life.

  Killing someone as the way the do it in most modern countries like putting people to sleep and giving them

  a lethal injection is not really punishment and when you kill someone, your killing off plausible evidence pertaining

  to the crime, for some people who were given life sentences for murder were later to be found innocent.