Is the death penalty morally wrong?

[Siro]

You ignored the adjectives "serial" and "violent". I am not taking about the guy a girl calls rape on after a drunken night out. Or the 18 year old who slept with his GF and mom and dad are mad.

I am talking about the man that has raped several women after beating them at knife and/or gun point and leaving them for dead or actually dead. Again the exception not the rule.

I absolutely think that is on a level with the typical death penalty cases of murders. Please take the post as a whole.

As for jail being a legit punishment for all these crimes(like the drug crimes you mention). Well that is a whole new argument not isn't it?

You're missing the point. YOU think the violent rapists and pedophiles should be executed (or that it should be at least discussed). But what you've done is to extend the boundaries of the argument beyond where they are at today. Currently, the justification comes from the idea that only a life can pay for a life. So if you take someone's life, justice dictates that yours is forfeit. There is also a half-assed argument about deterrence. But you've extended the criteria. You're saying, "what if you destroy a life/lives, isn't that as bad as taking one?". It's a new consideration, and we can continue to extend it further. What if you bully someone until they kill themselves? You've practically taken a life. I hope you get my drift.

That's one of countless issues I have with the death penalty. I actually have a problem with the entire system since it's based on retribution instead of rehabilitation, and I do not think that is the best way to run a society. But if we're stuck with that, then I prefer we take the death penalty off the table.

 

[Stoked]

You're missing the point. YOU think the violent rapists and pedophiles should be executed (or that it should be at least discussed). But what you've done is to extend the boundaries of the argument beyond where they are at today. Currently, the justification comes from the idea that only a life can pay for a life. So if you take someone's life, justice dictates that yours is forfeit. There is also a half-assed argument about deterrence. But you've extended the criteria. You're saying, "what if you destroy a life/lives, isn't that as bad as taking one?". It's a new consideration, and we can continue to extend it further. What if you bully someone until they kill themselves? You've practically taken a life. I hope you get my drift.

That's one of countless issues I have with the death penalty. I actually have a problem with the entire system since it's based on retribution instead of rehabilitation, and I do not think that is the best way to run a society. But if we're stuck with that, then I prefer we take the death penalty off the table.

My reasoning is not about a life for a life. Mine is that society is simply better off without some lives in it, in any capacity.

If that makes me cold (or any term someone wishes to use) then so be it.

 

[Beer]

You think rapists an pedophiles should be executed? That's another reason I oppose the death penalty. Once you accept that taking someone's life is a legitimate punishment, the temptation to apply it to crimes you find specially icky is too strong.

In the the 80s, drug offenses were in vogue, and it became perfectly acceptable to give someone 25 years in jail for using drugs. Not long before that, homosexuality was seen as one of society's greatest ills, and homosexuals were sent to rot in jails. And why not? We accept jail as a legitimate punishment, and so we will apply jail sentences in accordance of how each crime is seen at the time. Except that in the case of the death sentence, each decision is utterly final.

Kind of see your point but violent rape and pedophilia will never be socially acceptable.

 

[gandalfe]

This is really a fundamental question of government. When is it moral for a society to do that which is IMMORAL for a member of that society to do?

 

[candrew]

So anyway Holmes got life in prison instead of the death penalty. As much as it sickens me every time I see that puke, I too have a problem with imposing the death penalty on an obviously disturbed individual. Even the doctors who testified FOR the prosecution said he most likely would not have done what he did if he wasn't as ****ed up as he is. Yeah, I know that doesn't meet the legal criteria for this or that and it doesn't preclude him from being subject to the death penalty; but morally speaking I think we as a society should hold ourselves to a higher standard than what goes on in a courtroom.

In and of itself I don't have a problem with the death penalty; but what I do have a problem with is the common denominator of almost every single person on death row is their economic status - so if person A and person B commit the same crime and person A gets the death penalty and person B doesn't get the death penalty simply because he is of greater economic means, then it doesn't take Socrates to figure out the moral implications of that.

 

[LogGrad98]

Of course there is. Raping a person passed out from drinking for example.

I would argue rape in any context is a form of violence.

 

[Siro]

I would argue rape in any context is a form of violence.

It's a reasonable argument, but I responded within the context provided.

 

[Siro]

Kind of see your point but violent rape and pedophilia will never be socially acceptable.

I didn't mean to imply that they would be socially accepted. But what constitutes violent rape and/or pedophilia, and what should be done about them, have changed, and will likely change again. And I used those because they were Stoked's examples. What I'm saying applies to all crimes.

 

[fishonjazz]

I would argue rape in any context is a form of violence.

What about an 18 year old who has sex with his 16 year old girlfriend who wants to have sex with him?

Still violent?

 

[fishonjazz]

I would argue rape in any context is a form of violence.

A form maybe, but there are still different levels of violence.

I think most women would chose to be raped while passed out drunk rather than kidnapped, beaten, and tortured, then raped.

In other words...... Rape with no other injury is not as bad as rape + a black eye, broken nose, etc

 

[Getting Traded]

What about an 18 year old who has sex with his 16 year old girlfriend who wants to have sex with him?

Still violent?

That's ridiculous. In some cultures, women were becoming wives at the outset of puberty and bearing children. For example, ancient Israel, where Mary was likely no more than 14 years old.

 

[fishonjazz]

That's ridiculous. In some cultures, women were becoming wives at the outset of puberty and bearing children. For example, ancient Israel, where Mary was likely no more than 14 years old.

Exactly.

 

[fishonjazz]

I would argue rape in any context is a form of violence.

Another example of rape not being "violent":

I had a female friend that I hung out with often and one night after going to the bar and getting drunk we were hanging out in my apartment and she wanted to have sex and started getting aggressive and trying to climb on top of me and whatnot.

I told her no many times and kept saying that I didn't like her in that way and to stop...... She persisted and I eventually gave in.
That type of scenario would normally be considered rape. It was not violent at all imo. Just uncomfortable and awkward.... But certainly not violent

 

[carolinajazz]

Here's my take on "Capital Punishment! IF WE value something highly, we are usually willing to pay a high price for it. But if we consider it to be cheap, we will pay little or nothing for it. That is only reasonable.

Punishment for crime has generally been viewed this way also. The criminal is supposed to “pay” for his crime in proportion to its seriousness, usually by fine or imprisonment. This principle was followed even more closely in Biblical law. It required the criminal to pay compensation for any actual losses, plus punitive damages. The principle of like for like extended even to murder. God’s law demanded “life for life.”—Deut. 19:21. "You should not feel sorry: Life will be for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot."

Human thinking often ignores this equal-value relationship when it comes to the taking of life. Attention shifts from the victim’s life to that of the murderer. The lives of possible future innocent victims are also ignored, while the guilty murderer’s life becomes highly valued.

The Originator of life sets the value of an innocent life at the most that a murderer has to give—his own life. “Anyone shedding man’s blood, by man will his own blood be shed.” Far from cheapening life, this God-given law puts the highest possible value on it, a price that many do not want to see paid.—Gen. 9:6.

In reality, are not those who impose weak penalties for the taking of life the ones who actually make life cheap? Emotion-charged descriptions such as “legalized murder” also evade the real issue. “Murder” itself is a legal term for unlawful killing, just as “stealing” denotes unlawful taking. Thus, if a policeman confiscates a criminal’s gun, it cannot be called “stealing.” Neither can a lawful execution, by definition, be called “murder.”

Does the death penalty deter persons from committing murders? Man’s Maker, who knows human thinking well, says that it does. Speaking of a false witness whose testimony might even bring death to his victim, God’s law said that “you shall treat him as he intended to treat his fellow .*.*. You shall show no mercy.” “Life for life” was to be the penalty. Noting the deterrent effect of this certain justice, the Law states: “The rest of the people when they hear of it will be afraid.”—Deut. 19:16-21

When the State, in effect, declares that murder is no more serious than robbery or other crimes by routinely releasing killers after relatively short sentences, what does such cheapening of human life do to the very fabric of human society? One indication is what has happened to United States crime of all kinds since capital punishment ended in the mid-1960’s.

When executions came to a halt, the murder rate (together with most other crime) suddenly skyrocketed to almost triple the former average in just one decade! No doubt other factors also are involved, but can anyone say with certainty that there is no relationship between rising crime and absence of the death penalty?

If capital punishment “brutalizes society,” as many insist, it would follow that its elimination should surely tend to make society more humane. Then, why is it that American brutality (as measured by the rate of violent crime) suddenly grew most rapidly at the very time executions ceased? What, in truth, actually “brutalizes society”—capital punishment, or the making of innocent lives cheap for criminals to take?

Admittedly, the judicial systems are not perfect; nor are human court systems today.
But to put it pointedly, in his written Word, God does not indicate that capital punishment is wrong.

God’s thought on the matter is that as long as the superior authorities of Caesar exist, they ‘bear the sword to express wrath upon the ones practicing what is bad.’ That includes applying the sword in the sense of employing capital punishment.

The Bible says that such serve as “God’s minister to you for your good. But if you are doing what is bad, be in fear: for it is not without purpose that it bears the sword; for it is God’s minister, an avenger to express wrath upon the one practicing what is bad.”—Romans 13:1-4.

 

[carolinajazz]

That's ridiculous. In some cultures, women were becoming wives at the outset of puberty and bearing children. For example, ancient Israel, where Mary was likely no more than 14 years old.

...are you suggesting that Mary had Jesus when she was only 14 years old?

 

[gandalfe]

...are you suggesting that Mary had Jesus when she was only 14 years old?

And Yahweh would have been infinitely old. Or, at the least, over 4000. Which would definitely qualify as statutory rape. Not to mention the power imbalance.

 

[addictionary]

I don't think people who commit fury crimes would be at the discrimination of what death feels like or if it is a threatening and demotivating thing against commiting crime. They just act out of insanity. Death penalty is a method to ease the victim's need for vengeance. If a gov is gonna OK DP, then they should openly admit that they are doing it for victim's and society's feelings, but not at all to solve the actual problem.

Corruption in governing and politics should be a crime that leads to DP though. That would scare the **** out of smart *** little ******** in all countries. But there would be the relativity effect over the proof of the defendant's guilt.

 

[Miggs]

No.

 

[babe]

No.

Prize for shortest answer AND for most responsive to the OP question.

 

[babe]

morality by definition is a human value or judgment, as is the determination of right and wrong. Invoking higher authority, particularly unprovable authority, is customary.

uhhmmmm. . . . interesting if a new JAZZFANZ member named GOD signs up and starts answering these questions. . . . wonder if Colton will allow this. . .