'The hardest decision I have ever made': Illinois governor abolishes death penalty

[Hot Mega]

Re: 'The hardest decision I have ever made': Illinois governor abolishes death penalt

Hot Mega-

the fact that Facetious is in furious agreement with you doesn't make you the slightest bit doubtful about the strength of your arguments?


:1orglaugh

I don't make it a habit of agreeing with people as much as I agree with positions.

People who agree or disagree with people as opposed to positions often times find themselves at odds with consistency, facts and objectivity.

Re Face: Even a clock set for the wrong time is at least right 2 times a day. I have loftier issues to hammer down with Face though.

("Welcome to my parlor.", said the spider to the fly. "It's the prettiest little parlor that you ever did spy".):elaugh:

 

[wolverine83]

Re: 'The hardest decision I have ever made': Illinois governor abolishes death penalt

I'm not going to take sides here, but I do have a question to pose.

What's the difference between killing one person and killing many? Are you still not considered a murderer?

 

[Hot Mega]

Re: 'The hardest decision I have ever made': Illinois governor abolishes death penalt

I'm not going to take sides here, but I do have a question to pose.

What's the difference between killing one person and killing many? Are you still not considered a murderer?

The difference between killing anyone is circumstance.

For example, you come home and happen upon 3 men on the precipice of killing your wife and kids but you kill them first. Is that murder? HELL FUCKING NO!!!.

However, you devise a scheme to kill a business partner because they are going to sell and carry it out. You are a murderer and deserving of the death penalty IMO.

Ergo, all killing is not equal (or equally bad ).

 

[wolverine83]

Re: 'The hardest decision I have ever made': Illinois governor abolishes death penalt

The difference between killing anyone is circumstance.

For example, you come home and happen upon 3 men on the precipice of killing your wife and kids but you kill them first. Is that murder? HELL FUCKING NO!!!.

However, you devise a scheme to kill a business partner because they are going to sell and carry it out. You are a murderer and deserving of the death penalty IMO.

Ergo, all killing is not equal (or equally bad ).

I should've asked the question in the form of "with premeditation" tacked on to it.

Self-defense is not the question or a part I wanted to include in my question, but thank you for taking the time to find a loophole in it.

 

[TheOrangeCat]

Re: 'The hardest decision I have ever made': Illinois governor abolishes death penalt

Looking at the actual phrasing the governor uses, he's simply trying to indicate to the pro-death mob that this was something he had to do: almost like a leaf being carried along on a tide.

The reality, of course, is that if you give most rational men a choice over the power of life or death (sans politics, war or personal vengeance), they will abdicate that power for fear of what it will do to them to exercise it.

 

[Facetious]

Re: 'The hardest decision I have ever made': Illinois governor abolishes death penalt

Re Face: Even a clock set for the wrong time is at least right 2 times a day.

It all depends on how you want to rationalize it . . . I guess.

 

[Hot Mega]

Re: 'The hardest decision I have ever made': Illinois governor abolishes death penalt

I should've asked the question in the form of "with premeditation" tacked on to it.

Self-defense is not the question or a part I wanted to include in my question, but thank you for taking the time to find a loophole in it.

Maybe so since that's the only way you get the death penalty is if the circumstances are the knowingly premeditated murder of a innocent individual. :dunno:

 

[TheOrangeCat]

Re: 'The hardest decision I have ever made': Illinois governor abolishes death penalt

: Even a clock set for the wrong time is at least right 2 times a day. I have loftier issues to hammer down with Face though.

Only if it's keeping perfect time. Which, metaphorically, is actually much closer to the heart of the matter here.

In a world absent of absolute certainly (perfect time), then we can never be entirely certain of guilt, even with confession.

Which means we must either make the decision to take the life based on best belief, or we chose to preserve life in the knowledge that if we are wrong, we ourselves commit an injustice greater than the crime for which a death penalty has been assigned.

 

[Stephen1956]

Re: 'The hardest decision I have ever made': Illinois governor abolishes death penalt

It costs much more to kill a man convicted of a capitol crime than it does to keep him locked up for thirty years. It took Illinois 14 years to kill John Wayne Gacy, after he was convicted of murder. Multiply the hourly fee for his appeal attorneys by the years defending him, then compare that to the yearly cost of imprisonment, about 30 to 40 thousand a year. The attorneys cost more than the cost of imprisonment.
On the other hand, an executed man will never have to opportunity to kill again. A life sentence without parole means nothng if someone is pardoned by a governor. I would not want to be the one to explain to a family why their loved one was killed by someone who had killed before and was pardoned for it.
An executed man is nothing more than a defective product being returned to the manufacturer.

 

[beauregard]

Re: 'The hardest decision I have ever made': Illinois governor abolishes death penalt

Hell, we can always be like some countries.
Take Canada for instance.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clifford_Olson

He plead guilty in exchange for his wife to receive 10K per murder he committed. So yes ladies and gentlemen, murder does pay.

or you could kill 130 people and get a 30 year sentence in Colombia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luis_Garavito

Or kill 22 patients in Norway and get 21 years:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnfinn_Nesset

Kill 3 people and get 25 years in Portugal:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/António_Luís_Costa

Yeah, lets join those other civilized nations and their great laws for murderers.

 

[TheOrangeCat]

Re: 'The hardest decision I have ever made': Illinois governor abolishes death penalt

Hell, we can always be like some countries.
Take Canada for instance.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clifford_Olson

He plead guilty in exchange for his wife to receive 10K per murder he committed. So yes ladies and gentlemen, murder does pay.

This is a 22 year old case. It's about as relevant as disco. It also led directly to the law being changed to stop this from happening - including confiscating his old age pension

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Keenan

Not only profited handsomely from his crime, he also in the process got the Son of Sam Law struck down in California allowing any criminals whether they be hop heads or serial killers to make $$$$ from their atrocities.

Taking one extreme example is a very bad way of making a point.

 

[Supafly]

Re: 'The hardest decision I have ever made': Illinois governor abolishes death penalt

Getting rid of the concept of Death Sentences is just smarter, in the first place

To execute or not: A question of cost?
States discover it's cheaper to imprison killers for life than to execute them

After decades of moral arguments reaching biblical proportions, after long, twisted journeys to the nation's highest court and back, the death penalty may be abandoned by several states for a reason having nothing to do with right or wrong:

Money.

Turns out, it is cheaper to imprison killers for life than to execute them, according to a series of recent surveys. Tens of millions of dollars cheaper, politicians are learning, during a tumbling recession when nearly every state faces job cuts and massive deficits.

...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29552692/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/

Secondly, the legal system is not an eye for an eye system. It is about correcting misbehaviour. Because we could argue:

Why only kill people for murder in the first? It might as well be expanded for rapists. Or child abusers. And while we cut off slack from our healthy society, let's loose other creatures that basically hold us down. Just don't stop thinking about improving your country!

 

[Boothbabe]

Re: 'The hardest decision I have ever made': Illinois governor abolishes death penalt

I have a question for everyone who's in favour of the death penalty. Suppose someone lies to the entire world saying a certain country is developing weapons of mass destruction. Suppose that someone also declares war on said country, again, based on lies, and as such is directly responsible for the deaths of thousands of people. I'd call that a pretty heinous crime, a war crime even. Does that person deserve to be sentenced to death?

 

[Bearded_Menace]

Re: 'The hardest decision I have ever made': Illinois governor abolishes death penalt

I have a question for everyone who's in favour of the death penalty. Suppose someone lies to the entire world saying a certain country is developing weapons of mass destruction. Suppose that someone also declares war on said country, again, based on lies, and as such is directly responsible for the deaths of thousands of people. I'd call that a pretty heinous crime, a war crime even. Does that person deserve to be sentenced to death?

:rofl2:

 

[PirateKing]

Re: 'The hardest decision I have ever made': Illinois governor abolishes death penalt

Now what are they going to do the next time some POS kidnaps, molests, tortures, dismembers, cooks and eats some innocent, defenseless kid?? Oh, I forgot. Give 'em 3 squares, a pillow and free room and board for the rest of his life.

Leave it to prison justice I suppose.

 

[Supafly]

Re: 'The hardest decision I have ever made': Illinois governor abolishes death penalt

I have a question for everyone who's in favour of the death penalty. Suppose someone lies to the entire world saying a certain country is developing weapons of mass destruction. Suppose that someone also declares war on said country, again, based on lies, and as such is directly responsible for the deaths of thousands of people. I'd call that a pretty heinous crime, a war crime even. Does that person deserve to be sentenced to death?

Dammit, now I am a Mod I cannot send rep no more !!!

 

[emceeemcee]

Re: 'The hardest decision I have ever made': Illinois governor abolishes death penalt

I have a question for everyone who's in favour of the death penalty. Suppose someone lies to the entire world saying a certain country is developing weapons of mass destruction. Suppose that someone also declares war on said country, again, based on lies, and as such is directly responsible for the deaths of thousands of people. I'd call that a pretty heinous crime, a war crime even. Does that person deserve to be sentenced to death?

some predicted responses:

-it doesn't count because he meant well

-it was war, so it doesn't count

-it doesn't count when the people who are killed are of a different nationality

-yes it does count, but I'm not interested in making an issue out of it and I kept voting republican anyway

 

[meesterperfect]

Re: 'The hardest decision I have ever made': Illinois governor abolishes death penalt

some predicted responses:

-it doesn't count because he meant well

-it was war, so it doesn't count

-it doesn't count when the people who are killed are of a different nationality

-yes it does count, but I'm not interested in making an issue out of it and I kept voting republican anyway

here's mine:
what the fuck does saddam hussien have to do with it?
A guy that used the death penalty on MILLIONS, innocent, guilty, children babies.
Its a totally moot argument, Appels + Oranjes.
Lameness at its best.

some believe in it.
some do and don't depending on the crime.
some don't.

we should leave it at that.

P.S. I believe the US would have gone to Iraq no matter who was Prez at the time for reasons I don't care to discuss at this time because its moot also.
Appels + Oranjes.

 

[Ulysses31]

Re: 'The hardest decision I have ever made': Illinois governor abolishes death penalt

I have a question for everyone who's in favour of the death penalty. Suppose someone lies to the entire world saying a certain country is developing weapons of mass destruction. Suppose that someone also declares war on said country, again, based on lies, and as such is directly responsible for the deaths of thousands of people. I'd call that a pretty heinous crime, a war crime even. Does that person deserve to be sentenced to death?

Like I said back in Post 34, certain people will always escape the death penalty, maybe because of their wealth, maybe because of their colour, because they are politicians, because they are soldiers with immunity or maybe because of their influence/contacts. It's far easier to execute the poor crack addict black man from the Bronx rather than a rich Yale educated white guy from a well respected family, even if he is responsible for 1000s of deaths whilst the black man is responsible for 1

 

[meesterperfect]

Re: 'The hardest decision I have ever made': Illinois governor abolishes death penalt

Like I said back in Post 34, certain people will always escape the death penalty, maybe because of their wealth, maybe because of their colour, because they are politicians, because they are soldiers with immunity or maybe because of their influence/contacts. It's far easier to execute the poor crack addict black man from the Bronx rather than a rich Yale educated white guy from a well respected family, even if he is responsible for 1000s of deaths whilst the black man is responsible for 1

you know clinton bombed iraq too, killed some people.
waco? little kids?
really wanna go there?
it's an irrelevant argument, maybe even a desperate one.
you don't believe in the death penalty fine but don't use such a lame ass argument.

and the "it's racist" argument is ridiculous too.