Death Penalty Is Good - For & Against

Comment

I'm talking about the declaration of human rights which are supposed to be universal, one of which is the right to life.
Of course the law has to be amended to fit with the times but there has to be certain non-negotiable rights to ensure that there's no chance of a power crazy government taking away all of our rights. If you were so in touch with reality then you would understand that individuals need these safe-guards as protection from the state. 
You would also understand that a democratic justice system takes the removal of freedom seriously and so only sends criminals to prison as a last resort, to protect the public. Obviously the death penalty would not be a last resort as they could go to prison instead.
Your point about the Middle East is ridiculous seeing as though that is the system of government that I detest, and the reason I feel the need to protect my rights is so that I never have to endure a system of government like that.
Also, I find it hard to believe that you would justify ending a life because you don't want money to be spent on them to live.

Comment

You can declare anything you want, it doesn't make it so.  The rights guaranteed in the Constitution apply *ONLY* to the United States, they have no bearing anywhere else, no matter how much you might "declare" otherwise.

Unfortunately for you, the middle east example is proof of how wrong you are.  You *HAVE* none of the rights you demand there!  They simply don't exist, no matter how many times you might declare that they do.  Whether you like it or not doesn't change reality.  The problem is, you're just making empty declarations and demanding reality do what you want it to do, you're not showing how any of these declarations have actual worth in reality.  You're just reacting emotionally, not rationally.

And I've never said I would end a life just to save money, I'd only do it if they were guilty of a heinous crime, but rationally speaking, financial concerns are going to come into any social decision and saving money by not having to build more prisons, not having to feed people who will never get out of prison, etc. is a rational idea.

Comment

I live in England where I have many rights and the death penalty is not practised. I am against the death penalty and any other unjustified attacks on my liberty. 
I know these rights don't exist in the Middle East and I never claimed they do, what I said was that I defend my rights so that England does not become a country where rights no longer exist, like the areas in the Middle East.
I'm not talking about the rights guaranteed by the constitution, I'm talking about the rights declared by the UN, the "basic rights and freedoms to which ALL humans are entitled."
I am fully aware that these rights are not given in every national state but they do not just apply to America.
Rights may be abstract but that does not mean they don't exist or do not have worth in reality, once they have been declared they exist in so far that it would be illegal for the government to take them away (without popular support).
The worth of such rights can not be expressed in 1000 words, however, basically rights protect us from the government by preventing it from becoming to powerful. This is something I have previously stated and you have yet to refute.

Comment

Fine, that doesn't change anything, it simply means that England has a different set of rights than other countries do.  Such is life.

The UN is an utter waste of time, it has never actually done anything, it just makes a lot of pronouncements which it has no power whatsoever to enforce.  If you're going to base your argument on anything the UN says, forgive me if I laugh.

The problem with claiming rights exist in reality is that you have no way of demonstrating it.  How do you know which rights actually exist and what process do you go about determining which are real and which are not?  If you can't back them up with reasoned, rational argument and logic, then your claims are simply subjective and no better than anyone else's.

If you have a representative form of government, then you don't need to worry about being "protected from the government:, that's simple paranoia.  You put your politicians in power, you can remove them from power, what is there to fear?  Of course, if you don't have a representative form of government, or the people are too stupid to actually control the government they put in power, whose fault is that?

Comment

I wasn't saying that the UN is effective, merely that human rights don't just apply to America.

We are debating principles here, rights are always going to be abstract and so by definition they can not be empirically demonstrated. If that was a reason not to give them any credibility then why have any rights at all, we may as well all have systems of government like the those in the Middle East. I have already stated that rights are subjective, and that is precisely why they need protection because they can be so easily abused.

Your point about representative government is embarrassingly narrow-minded. Take a look at Nazi Germany, Hitler was elected by a representative government and in less than 6 years had stripped people of virtually all of their rights. Clearly history has taught you nothing.

I thought it was obvious that the problem with representative government is "tyranny of the majority" leaving the minority of people vulnerable. For example, if 90% of the population believe that we should torture all suspected peadophiles (not convicted ones), then by your reasoning, that is what we should do.

However we have the right to be free from torture and so it is illegal for the government to do that no matter what the majority of people want. I also thought it would have been obvious to anyone with half a brain that the majority is not always right.

Comment

Well I never once said rights apply everywhere, only that I believe they should. I'm not stupid, I know there are places where people have no rights at all, what I'm saying is that I think the rights that exist where I live "should" be universal, not that they are.

The jews did not let Hitler come to power, in fact Hitler never had over 50% of the vote in the Reichstag, the Nazi's were simply the largest party. So in this case it wasn't even the majority of people that let him come to power and the many people who did not elect him suffered the consequences. Hitler introduced an emergency powers decree by creating the illusion of a national crisis, the people allowed this because he played on their fears. Once this was passed there was nothing the people could do.

It was easy for Hitler to do that by scaring them into giving up their rights. It's not simply that the people let him do it, it also happened in Russia under Stalin. It is arguably happening in the UK and US to a lesser degree, the government are using terrorism to scare people into giving up their rights.

You seem quick to condemn the German people but it is clear that you would be all to ready to give up your rights for false promises of safety, seeing as though they mean so little to you.

Comment

Did you not read the last part of my post

"Beliefs are generally opinions which by definition can not be factually true and valid. Are you suggesting that we should not debate opinions? I'm sure most people would agree that opinions are the only things worth debating, seeing as though facts are, by definition, objectively true and therefore undebatable."

By your reasoning i.e. it impossible to demonstrate that someone has the specific right to life, how do you explain "that the person loses their right to breathe"?
How can they lose a right they never had in the first place?

I have argued why my beliefs are valid, by giving examples of what happens when rights are given up or taken away. I've stated why rights are important with reference to Germany and Russia.

I also previously argued that in a liberal justice system (the type we both have where we live) people are imprisoned as a last resort, because they are a danger to society. Following from this, the death penalty is not compatible with a liberal justice system, as it is an attack on a person's fundamental liberty, and not as a last resort.

I think I have made clear how important the values and principles of a liberal justice system are.

You have to remember that when we're arguing about rights, we are arguing about subjective values and principles, you need to get over your obsession with concrete demonstratabilty. It seems clear you have not read the works of any one enlightenment thinker, you have no idea of the struugles endured to achieve our present rights and so you have no understanding of their inherent value, even if they are not empirically demonstratable.

Comment

I'm not imposing anything. I used Russia and Germany as examples of countries that were liberal democracies but, in a state of national crisis, were easily transformed into totalitarian regimes. I was highlighting the importance of protecting rights and using Russia and Germany as examples of what happens when they are not properly safe-gaurded.

Why is it ridiculous? 
I see all human beings as equal so why should I apply one set of standards to measure my own culture and another to measure somebody elses. Why is it bad for me to want the global abolition of the death penalty? If I don't agree with institutionalized murder as a matter of principle then I would be going against my own values if i said that it was ok for some people to practise it but not for others.

It's not about me imposing my values on anybody. I would not attempt to tell a country how to run it's people, however I'm not going to say that the death penalty is ok in America but not here. However I am fully aware that it is an issue only for the American government and people to resolve.

Comment

Well you are forgetting that cultures merge and die out. They are not entities in and of themselves and the differences that arise out of culture are not immutable.

Also virtually all of human behaviour is adaptive, very little is innate. This makes humans highly adaptable to their surroundings and so customs and values can be easily changed.

You hold a common view that cultural differences are irrevocable but that is simply not true. Throughout history human societies have merged and some less progressive practises and values have been dropped, and this has allowed us to form more universal values. For example, cannibalism is considerably rare in relation to it's historical commonness and this is because cultures that practised it have either merged with other cultures and dropped the practise or simply died out.

However, there is now the view that cultures are things that need to be protected and preserved which I think is a dangerous view as it stands in the way of human progression. Naturally it would be possible, and very likely, that humans would form a set of universal values.

Comment

I believe that my culture is superior to any other that is around today because it provides the best conditions for human advancement. When my culture merges, presumably people will adopt my cultural values. That is irrelevant anyway because when my culture merges I will choose which values to retain and which to discard, as will everybody else. That is how a collective set of univeral values are established. There are aspects of my culture with which I disagree and would not be bothered if they were discarded.

I don't actually think it was generally 'forced', although it might have been in some cases, i'm not sure. However, the British empire spread many customs across a lot of cultures. When australian aboriginees saw how advanced we were they began to adopt a lot of our customs and they saw how we frowned upon cannibalism, so they discarded it.

Cannibalism was merely an example. The main point was firstly, that our nature is not determined by our culture as we are not confined to it. Secondly, it is possible, even likely, that human beings will one day have a collective set of universal values.

Comment

If you read any liberal texts,and I'm talking about classical liberalism  not modern liberalism. You will see that the death penalty is a rare occurrence in any liberal democracy, it is more characteristic of an authoritarian regime. It is actually surprising that America still engages in such a draconian practise.

I'm not insisting anything, I'm using my knowledge of liberalism, democracy and the progression of civilisation. Why does everything have to be demonstratable with you? Are you such a moral relativist that you have no sense of right and wrong unless it's demonstratably proven to be right and wrong? You seem like you have absolutely no resolution or conviction except from that which is derived in evidence

What you are describing is the result of multicultural polices which institutionalise difference and so prevent integration. I have already said that many people hold the view that cultures need to be protected and preserved and what you described is an example of the destruction this view can cause.

Comment

paladen:  Excellent point, but I'm not in favour of supporting the illegal aliens either.

Kirsty:  What makes you think that I support liberalism anyhow?  While I don't support a wildly authoritarian regime, I'm certainly more in favour of a somewhat authoritarian form of government than I am of a completely liberal one.  In fact, I've condemned the liberalization of America (and everywhere else, in fact) for many years.

As for moral relativism, yes, there is no absolute right or wrong outside of the societal context so if you're going to claim that something is inherently right or inherently wrong, you're going to have to demonstrate why.  The problem is that a lot of people, yourself included, simply declare by fiat that something is right or wrong, good or evil, simply because it fits into your particular world-view, you haven't demonstrated that your particular world-view is accurate or worthwhile.  You're certainly entitled to your opinion, you simply present your opinion as fact when it is anything but.

Comment

I'm not talking about what you support. Whether you like it or not America was founded on liberal values i.e. Life, Libery and the pursuit of happiness. If you like being told what to do and how to live your life that's fine, but I seem to remember the phrase "the land of the free" being associated with America.

You condemn the liberalization of everywhere else? That's somewhat like me wanting to see liberalism in other cultures.

I disagree with moral relativism for the same reason I disagree with cultural relativism. I don't state my opinions as though they are facts just because I don't say "in my opinion..." all the time.
It is the point of debate to state your opinion, it's rare that one can dispute facts, as by definition they are indisputable. I agree that there are a lot of grey ares in terms of morals, and I agree that social context do play a part. However individuals have a strong sense of what is right and wrong and they are generally similar to the groups idea of what is right and wrong.

Moral relativism, in its purest state, would condone all behavior, no matter how many rights are violated or what the consequences are. To believe in pure moral relativism, one would have to be able to stand back and say, "it is ok for another person to kill me, even if they have absolutely no pretense to do so," something that anyone is very unlikely to do since human beings, along with all living creatures, strive to preserve themselves, first and foremost.