My Problems With My Country

[MagicNakor]

I support the death penalty. It's not very civilized to kidnap prostitutes and then grind their bodies up. And seeing as this fellow in particular had done it for well over ten years...I don't think it's very likely he'll be "rehabilitated."

[dwightfry]

I think people should have the right to do what they see as best for themselves as long as it doesn't physically hurt any one else.


I don't think anyone has the right to stop you because they feel that you living is the most important thing. Nobody knows exactly what is going on except for the person living it. I don't think many people really realize what it is going to do to people who love them, but if they do and they still feel it's not worth it, then that's there choice.

[ilw]

Originally posted by MagicNakor@20 November 2003 - 10:39
I support the death penalty. It's not very civilized to kidnap prostitutes and then grind their bodies up. And seeing as this fellow in particular had done it for well over ten years...I don't think it's very likely he'll be "rehabilitated."

if the death penalty stopped people from doing this I'd be willing to accept it, but the death penalty doesn't seem to do much in terms of preventing crime, imo it just fulfills the bloodthirsty instincts for retribution that victims and onlookers experience. The countries that have abolished the death penalty seem to be doing just fine, so again imo its something barbaric that you could do just fine without.
I agree that with the system as it is now some people won't be rehabilitated, but if they can be safely locked up for the rest of their lives, why not do that instead of killing them?

[AussieSheila]

I agree with ilw there The father of one of the Bali bombing victims put it well, he is a judge btw, re the death penalty for the bombers "Not in my sons name thanks." I think if someone hurt one of my kids my first reaction would be to want to tear them apart, but then I think as time went by I hope I would feel the same way. I wouldn't want something like that added to the memory of my child.

I also think it's letting criminals off easily to put them to death. I would rather they had a long, long time to think about things.

[MagicNakor]

I had evidence to the contrary, that it actually does work as a deterrent. But some of my research into various things has been lost, so I don't have any quotes.

I don't believe that I should have to pay to house, clothe, and feed serial killers, rapists, paedophiles, and so on. They aren't locked up for any significant amount of time anyway. And it costs a fortune to do so.

[j2k4]

I'm gonna have to post more than once here to answer all these, so here's what's first.

ilw-

Say what you want, the death penalty sure deters those who would murder again.

Think for a minute about the difficulty of gathering a statistic which would inform you definitively how many people do not commit murder precisely because there is a death penalty.

Also, no amount of science in the world can make a fetus "brain-dead".

I will, if I can find the correct reference, define for you what I don't like about Liberalism; I have a passage somewhere that does it better than I could.

Conservatism is, as usual, not very well-understood here.

[j2k4]

Originally posted by 3RA1N1AC+20 November 2003 - 03:56--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (3RA1N1AC &#064; 20 November 2003 - 03:56)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteBegin-j2k4@19 November 2003 - 22:16
I find it ironic that, while amongst us conservatives a range of opinions exist, American liberals, pretty much straight down the line, are pro-abortion, pro-euthanasia, pro-assisted suicide

and i find it ironic that fiscal conservatives aren&#39;t out in the street protesting against the hog-wild spending spree that our president is on, and that a predominantly christian country seems completely unfamiliar with the idea of turning the other cheek (as relates to both the death penalty and to inventing excuses for starting wars ).

irony isn&#39;t that difficult to find in most things, if you look at them with an ironic tilt.[/b][/quote]
3RA1N1AC-

This conservative would protest rather strongly the propensity for spending demonstrated by the Bush administration.

Bush, however, does not get to my neck of the woods, nor is he likely to (so that I might protest for his edification).

Another drawback is that I have a job which I must attend; most protesters must be unemployed-I don&#39;t see how they manage it, otherwise.

[ilw]

Originally posted by MagicNakor@20 November 2003 - 12:58
I had evidence to the contrary, that it actually does work as a deterrent. But some of my research into various things has been lost, so I don&#39;t have any quotes.

I don&#39;t believe that I should have to pay to house, clothe, and feed serial killers, rapists, paedophiles, and so on. They aren&#39;t locked up for any significant amount of time anyway. And it costs a fortune to do so.

yeah it comes down to your hard earned tax dollars, I&#39;m sure we could all save &#036;15 a month by killing off some of those spongers.

You may think these people are not fit to share your society, but you&#39;d kill them to save money? I&#39;m just curious, but i notice you mentioned rapists and paedophiles, would they all get the death penalty as well?

Think for a minute about the difficulty of gathering a statistic which would inform you definitively how many people do not commit murder precisely because there is a death penalty.

Well i&#39;m saying instead of death penalty lock them up for their life, where they are unable to commit murder (i&#39;m assuming a perfect jail.....). As for statistics, well they&#39;ve been produced some showing differences some no difference etc, but I think the most telling thing is that people in Europe seem to survive just fine, society hasn&#39;t crumbled yet.
How many lives of innocents would you have to save in order to justify killing all the murderers?

[j2k4]

Let&#39;s see, now-liberalism:

From Robert Bork:

"The idea of "liberty" has continuous change built into it, precisely because it is hostile to constraints.

Men seek the removal of the constraint nearest them.

But when that one falls, men are brought up against the next constraint, which is felt to be equally irksome.

That is why the agenda of liberalism is in constant motion and liberals of different eras would hardly recognize one another as deserving the same label.

Harry Truman would have hated the Sixties, and, because his liberalism contained more powerful constraints on individualism, he was not a liberal in the same sense that Bill Clinton is.

The perpetual motion of liberalism was described by T.S. Eliot half a century ago: &#39;That liberalism may be a tendency towards something very different from itself, is a possibility in it&#39;s nature.....It is a movement not so much defined by it&#39;s end, as by it&#39;s starting point; away from, rather than towards something definite.&#39;

What liberalism has constantly moved away from are the constraints on personal liberty imposed by religion, morality, law, family, and community.

Liberalism moves, therefore, toward radical individualism and the corruption of standards that movement entails.

"By destroying the traditional social habits of the people, by dissolving their natural collective consciousness into individual constituents, by licensing the opinions of the most foolish, by substituting instruction for education, by encouraging cleverness rather than wisdom, the upstart rather than the qualified.....Liberalism can prepare the way for that which is it&#39;s own negation:
The artificial, mechanized or brutalized control which is a desperate remedy for it&#39;s chaos."

Hope this helps.

[j2k4]

Originally posted by ilw@20 November 2003 - 11:34

Think for a minute about the difficulty of gathering a statistic which would inform you definitively how many people do not commit murder precisely because there is a death penalty.

Well i&#39;m saying instead of death penalty lock them up for their life, where they are unable to commit murder (i&#39;m assuming a perfect jail.....). As for statistics, well they&#39;ve been produced some showing differences some no difference etc, but I think the most telling thing is that people in Europe seem to survive just fine, society hasn&#39;t crumbled yet.
How many lives of innocents would you have to save in order to justify killing all the murderers?

Huh?