Random political thought thread.

[SensEye]

Since the real question is where exactly you draw the line that something deserves death penalty. Therefore in my book it is better to just work in the direction that there is less of severe crime and some drastic individual cases can be solved with life sentence, and that would be it.

In a sense we are in violent agreement. I agree it is very important where you draw the line for when the death penalty is applied. You simply feel any legal system cannot be trusted to do it right. I feel competent individuals can judge individual cases competently, and as such, there are cases where the death penalty is clearly warranted, and it should be a tool that can be applied. Bottom line, I feel this line can be drawn and enforced properly, you don't.

For the record, legalizing/banning the death penalty is low (very low) on my list of political concerns. Intellectually, in a competent (non-corrupt) legal system, it makes sense to have it available. But the alternative, warehousing people for the rest of their natural lives (which I am not sure is really more humane) is an acceptable alternative.

Your argument involving corrupt regimes is simply a whole other discussion. I doubt corrupt regimes who execute opposition voices would care what is on the legal books or not. I'm sure murder is illegal in Russia, but it doesn't stop Putin and his cronies from tossing people out of windows.

 

[The Cat]

 

[SensEye]

The life is sacred argument is not shallow and one dimensional....the argument is a serious one but wholly misplaced. The death penalty is just about the punishment fitting the crime...it is a response to certain extreme actions people choose to undertake and them having to shoulder the responsibility for their choices. Illusory conceptions of morality and "right/wrong" don't need to come into any of this.

Due process is not necessarily reliable. Juries can be misled. It is much more thornier issue. Only where guilt is not reasonably disputable do I favor putting the person to death. In some cases like with most mass shooters guilt/innocence is not even close to being reasonably disputable.

I agree with you here. If the death penalty was to be reinstated, and it was up to me, I would have it apply only when the burden of proof meets a standard of 'beyond any doubt' not just 'beyond reasonable doubt'. Also, the crime would have to be at least first degree murder, and maybe even only for multiple murders, something like that.

The life is sacred argument is serious. I call it shallow and one dimensional if one simply states: life is sacred, therefor the state must NEVER take it. End of story.

There is much more to be discussed. For example, no one would argue against (I don't think) the concept that you can kill in self defense, and it should not be considered a crime. So when innocents are murdered, it really a case of them failing in their own personal defense. I don't see why the perpetrator, whose life would not be considered sacred if the victim had taken it defending himself, becomes automatically sacred after the fact. In a sense, the death penalty is simply extracting justice for the innocent victim. Again, under certain conditions and when there is no doubt as to the guilt of the perpetrator.

 

[Red Herring]

Moral authority of the state !?
I am sorry Herring but you can't really say stuff like that on US forum without looking either ridiculous or autocratic.

The problem is that yours and mine government are quite unlike the government of the people you are trying to talk to. They don't have perks that the government will pay their chemo therapy (even if they are unemployed). That there are no guns all over the place and that police is actually doing their job in a way that it was meant to be. Or that the government fund will pay you the college degree and thus no one will have student debt, (what allows for more free lifestyle). Etc. etc.

Therefore in order to really remove the need for death penalty you must first make a massive overhaul of the economic paradigms. Since just going straight for the removal of death penalty can only require extra prisons, and that isn't that much of a solution.

When did you see that US mass media brought some politicians from Europe to studio in order that journalists can ask them how they solved healthcare, how is the taxation going, what are their solutions about crime, how is green new deal going, what are their views on education ... etc. That isn't happening and thus you have to be careful with what you are saying. Since most will have no idea what exactly are you talking about or how that should work (what probably isn't a coincidence).

I think it's a chicken and egg thing. Many of the problems in the US seem to be caused by cultural idiosyncacies. But when I try to explain that - to my European eyes - the core problem behind problems x, y or z (healthcare and student debt and gun violence and police brutality and school to prison pipelines and low consumer protection standards and unaffordable higher education and all that other stuff), the common denominator, appears to be the American "Menschenbild" (a bit hard to translate, but it roughly means "concept or idea of man") I usually get the response: "Yeah, but we can't change out values because we have problems x, y and z, you see?". They can't adopt more humanistic policies because they don't share humanistic values but they don't share humanistic values because they don't have humanistic policies (compared to Europe).

That being said, I am also aware that advise from foreigners is often taken rather badly as it comes across as condescending and both the left and the right seem to agree that stuff would never work over there because they are so exceptional.

Part of the reason I am getting involved in these discussions at all (besides some sympathy for those who actually do have some curiosity for what life is like outside) is because those foundations you and I basically share are hard earned and easily lost if we don't take good care of them. I have mentioned the Boeckenfoerde dilemma before: a functioning modern secular liberal democracy requires certain values and social dispositions in the populations which the system itself can not instill in them. Without the goodwill of the people the system can not maintain itself and it will give way to authoritanianism and misery.

Whenever I am close to despairing over the fate of humanity though I take consolance in the words of Yuval Noah Harari that anything created by humans can also be dismantled by humans (change is a constant) and a quick reminder that some of the greatest social accomplishments are actually quite recent by comparison. Germany, for example, is far from perfect and has tons of problems (most of them self-inflicted), but if you compare our society today with that 70 years ago it almost seems like a miracle what a transformation this society has undergone. I have great respect and even admiration for the thinkers of the post-war years of the late 40s to early 60s like those of the Frankfurt school (especially Adorno!) but also thinkers like Hanna Arendt or people leading a vita activa like Fritz Bauer whose integrity and intellectual depth and deeply rooted concern for humanity in the aftermath of one of the greatest desasters of all time who took it to contribute to a better world and a better society by looking at the core issues at the basis of those then recent developments. That is a generation of thinkers to whom we owe an enormous debt and I would love to see more of that these days!

 

[Red Herring]

There is much more to be discussed. For example, no one would argue against (I don't think) the concept that you can kill in self defense, and it should not be considered a crime. So when innocents are murdered, it really a case of them failing in their own personal defense. I don't see why the perpetrator, whose life would not be considered sacred if the victim had taken it defending himself, becomes automatically sacred after the fact. In a sense, the death penalty is simple extracting justice for the innocent victim. Again, under certain conditions and when there is no doubt as to the guilt of the perpetrator.

I believe you are muddling up a few things here.

Killing in selfdefense is acceptable but that does not mean that the life of the perpetrator thus averted is less valuable or that he has forfitted his right to live. It only means that when two ethical principles (e.g. the right to privacy and the right to information) collide there has to be a hierarchy where the lesser evil is chosen. In the case in selfdefense the killing of the attacker is still bad, it is just non-punishable and less evil than letting the murder happen. There is a huge difference between something being acceptable and non-punishable as a neccessary evil and the same action being glorified, institutionalized and actually praised as a good and just thing to satisfy the emotional needs of parts of the population.

For that reason the force used in selfdefense has to be proportionate. Otherwise you are not giving enough room to the other person's right to physical integrity and life. Those rights are inalienable. They do not seize to exist just because there are situations where they are overridden by an even higher right (the right to live of the innocent person).

You also seem to confound selfdefense and selfjustice. If you kill somebody after the immediate threat is over that is not defense that is revenge. Defending a dead person's right to live by killing yet another person is nonsensical. The justice you are speaking of here is the justice of ancient Babylon or the Old Testament, not that of an enlightened 21st century society. It is appealing to the most base human instincts but no basis for a modern society.

 

[Virtual ghost]

In a sense we are in violent agreement. I agree it is very important where you draw the line for when the death penalty is applied. You simply feel any legal system cannot be trusted to do it right. I feel competent individuals can judge individual cases competently, and as such, there are cases where the death penalty is clearly warranted, and it should be a tool that can be applied. Bottom line, I feel this line can be drawn and enforced properly, you don't.

For the record, legalizing/banning the death penalty is low (very low) on my list of political concerns. Intellectually, in a competent (non-corrupt) legal system, it makes sense to have it available. But the alternative, warehousing people for the rest of their natural lives (which I am not sure is really more humane) is an acceptable alternative.

Your argument involving corrupt regimes is simply a whole other discussion. I doubt corrupt regimes who execute opposition voices would care what is on the legal books or not. I'm sure murder is illegal in Russia, but it doesn't stop Putin and his cronies from tossing people out of windows.

For me death penalty also isn't some kind of a priority, although that is kinda linked to the fact that it is banned in my case.


In theory I can agree that a competent council can make educated decision that someone deserves a death penalty. The problem is that just about no one here got the hint from my posts. Which is: can anyone here guarantee me that if Trump wins again that the death penalty in US will not be misused ? Especially if we consider his recent statements about dictatorship and revenge. That is the part where I actually have a problem.

If a country is generally democratic then just maybe you can get something out of death penalty. If you use it very very rarely and basically for the crimes that average Joe probably isn't even in the position to commit. But if the country starts to lose it's democratic foundation then all of this can very quickly spiral into evident problem. In other words if death penalty is legal and used fairly often it is much more easy to evolve into open misuse of it. What then only speeds up the transition towards having it "Putin style", since it is used as a daily threat. As I said I wasn't born in a democracy and thus I don't take it for granted.


That is my actual problem with the concept.

 

[Virtual ghost]

I think it's a chicken and egg thing. Many of the problems in the US seem to be caused by cultural idiosyncacies. But when I try to explain that - to my European eyes - the core problem behind problems x, y or z (healthcare and student debt and gun violence and police brutality and school to prison pipelines and low consumer protection standards and unaffordable higher education and all that other stuff), the common denominator, appears to be the American "Menschenbild" (a bit hard to translate, but it roughly means "concept or idea of man") I usually get the response: "Yeah, but we can't change out values because we have problems x, y and z, you see?". They can't adopt more humanistic policies because they don't share humanistic values but they don't share humanistic values because they don't have humanistic policies (compared to Europe).

That being said, I am also aware that advise from foreigners is often taken rather badly as it comes across as condescending and both the left and the right seem to agree that stuff would never work over there because they are so exceptional.

Part of the reason I am getting involved in these discussions at all (besides some sympathy for those who actually do have some curiosity for what life is like outside) is because those foundations you and I basically share are hard earned and easily lost if we don't take good care of them. I have mentioned the Boeckenfoerde dilemma before: a functioning modern secular liberal democracy requires certain values and social dispositions in the populations which the system itself can not instill in them. Without the goodwill of the people the system can not maintain itself and it will give way to authoritanianism and misery.

Whenever I am close to despairing over the fate of humanity though I take consolance in the words of Yuval Noah Harari that anything created by humans can also be dismantled by humans (change is a constant) and a quick reminder that some of the greatest social accomplishments are actually quite recent by comparison. Germany, for example, is far from perfect and has tons of problems (most of them self-inflicted), but if you compare our society today with that 70 years ago it almost seems like a miracle what a transformation this society has undergone. I have great respect and even admiration for the thinkers of the post-war years of the late 40s to early 60s like those of the Frankfurt school (especially Adorno!) but also thinkers like Hanna Arendt or people leading a vita activa like Fritz Bauer whose integrity and intellectual depth and deeply rooted concern for humanity in the aftermath of one of the greatest desasters of all time who took it to contribute to a better world and a better society by looking at the core issues at the basis of those then recent developments. That is a generation of thinkers to whom we owe an enormous debt and I would love to see more of that these days!

Of course that it is a chicken/egg debate.

With this you have basically said in pretty academic language what I have said a number of times. The "problem" of US is that it never had modern war on it's soil. Which would basically force various rationalizations of the system. Since their system is basically built on the premise that they can't have a major crisis at home and therefore everything can be loose. This is exactly why COVID devastated them so much. Since it created serious crisis at home and the system wasn't meant to face such challenge. To you and me it was uncomfortable era but social collapse or 200 000$ in medical bills wasn't in the cards. My government for something like two and a half years gave the financial help to small business to preserve them in the COVID mess. What was funded out of survival of those business and in the end almost all of them survived. Therefore I tend to think that most of "it can't work here" is basically just poor understanding of the concepts. Plus you don't have to tell me about wars, the last one in my case was much more recently then yours. While we are catching up Germany, so our changes are even more rapid. They are so rapid that many are uncomfortable and old people are basically completely lost. Since their birth there were 3 different social orders and 4 different currencies. What means that the changes aren't subtle.

 

[Tomb1]

I am sorry if that came out of as rude.
I simply can't believe that one can't separate issues such as death penalty and income taxes.

Plus to tell you the truth I don't know that much about libertarian principles. I never even heard about the term until I came to this forum, since in my part of the world the term doesn't exist. Here liberals are as far as you can go into individualism.

As I said let's just agree to disagree, we are evidently living in different bubbles, realities or however you want to call it.

You don't have to apologize. I'm not offended.

I had brought in the income tax issue by taking the premise of your death penalty argument to its logical extreme.

I was engaging in an old but ancient goodie called Reductio Ad Absurdum:

"Reductio ad absurdum is a form of argument that shows that a premise or a claim is false by demonstrating that it leads to a contradiction or an absurd outcome. The idea is to take the opponent's argument to its logical extreme and show that it results in something that is clearly false or ridiculous."

How can you use reductio ad absurdum to expose weak arguments in your field?

Learn what reductio ad absurdum is, how it works, and how to use it in different fields to spot and expose logical fallacies in arguments.

www.linkedin.com

Here, you set forth the premise that "governments should not do what people can't do" in concluding that the death penalty is wrong... I contend that if you parse out and take that premise "governments should not do what people can't do" to its logical extreme, you wind up with an absurd outcome; namely a complete ban on income tax and all forms of taxation....this is a clearly ridiculous result. Thus, you utilized a reductio ad absurdum fallacy in support of a conclusion that the death penalty is wrong.

Reductio ad Absurdum comes from the Ancient Greeks but has significantly influenced the West as an intricate part of logical reasoning. Courts strike down statutes that are reductio ad absurdum.

 

[SensEye]

In theory I can agree that a competent council can make educated decision that someone deserves a death penalty. The problem is that just about no one here got the hint from my posts. Which is: can anyone here guarantee me that if Trump wins again that the death penalty in US will not be misused ? Especially if we consider his recent statements about dictatorship and revenge. That is the part where I actually have a problem.

I think you are conflating the death penalty with an autocrat. I doubt Trump would actually abuse the death penalty, but he may abuse the justice system. Like it is nonsense to say things like "hang Mike Pence". Mike Pence did the correct thing by upholding the constitution. He certainly committed no crime and certainly didn't kill anyone. But even in cases (like those fake electors) where people took actions the clearly violate the law, and are tantamount to treason, these kind of actions should never be considered death penalty offences. Only the most heinous of crimes, where innocent life is lost, should be considered death penalty cases.

In any event, enough about this, it's not even a current political issue. I'm fine if people simply agree the issue is not black and white and should at least be open to discussion.

 

[The Cat]

 

[Virtual ghost]

Here, you set forth the premise that "governments should not do what people can't do" in concluding that the death penalty is wrong... I contend that if you parse out and take that premise "governments should not do what people can't do" to its logical extreme, you wind up with an absurd outcome; namely a complete ban on income tax and all forms of taxation....this is a clearly ridiculous result. Thus, you utilized a reductio ad absurdum fallacy in support of a conclusion that the death penalty is wrong.

Reductio ad Absurdum comes from the Ancient Greeks but has significantly influenced the West as an intricate part of logical reasoning. Courts strike down statutes that are reductio ad absurdum.

Dude, you hooked upon the sentence that I said just to quickly close the cultural gaps that aren't small. I don't believe in what I said when it comes to details.
Plus since I said what I said around midnight I wasn't ultra precise. I should have said "Governments for the most part don't have the right to do what people can't do". That "for the most part" is key, but for the sake of simplicity that was left out.

Plus as I told you I don't really care if the logic doesn't ad up in abstract principles. If logic should always legally add up I would still be living in Communism. However the whole order was thrown out the window and that was it. In your part of the world those events are known as the fall of the Berlin wall.

And here I will stop.

 

[The Cat]

Some people are going to argue for death because they hunger for it. Some will argue for it because they don't know any better. Others will advocate for it, simply because you pulled their string and they're not programmed with much more than that.

 

[The Cat]

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Jon Stewart is still pretty awesome. Thank God for that.

 

[The Cat]

 

[The Cat]

Jon Stewart is still pretty awesome. Thank God for that.

Mr Stewart could go to Washington if he wanted to. Mr Stewart could win the big chair if he wanted it.

 

[Virtual ghost]

X vs. EU: Elon Musk hit with probe over spread of toxic content

EU launches probe into Elon Musk's X platform


I am curious to see where this will go.

 

[The Cat]

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

MSNBC is kind of good now, actually. I caught some last night.

 

[Virtual ghost]

Colorado bars Trump from 2024 ballot over Capitol riot