@raphjd:
Your whole premise is based on executing innocent men so some guilty men don't go free. I can understand why you don't want us to think about executing innocent men. It makes you look like an asshole.
No. It makes it look like you have nothing but an ad hominem argument. In all the anti SJW, 3rd 'n 4th wave feminist posts you make the people here tell you that you're an asshole for saying x, y, z without ever taking you seriously. You shout back and forth. You thump on your chests. You feel you've accomplished something.
You don't.
These ad hominem attacks just make you appear like a teenager – and I have no way of knowing that you're not.
@raphjd:
How many innocent men are you willing to allow to be executed in order to prevent 1 crime? Give us a number.
If you're going to ask this kind of question you first answer the same question about your own thoughts: How many people are you willing to let be victimized by repeat offenders before you say enough?
By asking these kinds of rhetorical questions you stall discussion. You think you've made a great point but you're just punting the ball away. It gives the impression you don't have an answer – and you probably don't.
@raphjd:
Ok, so you admit that some innocent men are executed. That is why I made my original post. I said I support the death penalty in principle, but not in practice because innocent people get executed. **You support the death penalty and say who gives a fuck about the innocent men who get executed, I don't know them. That is the difference between our stances. **
But those are real cases, that you support happening exactly like they did. Also, if you want to complain about "emotion" then **why did you set up the scenario about my family? ** It was for emotional reasons. Do you really not get that?
Why did I set up the scenario about your family? Because you had previously set up a similar scenario about mine and then wished me dead for having done so. Otherwise, I wouldn't have. That's not my style.
What you said is not the difference in our styles. Let me do a round about and then come back to this.
Laci Green put up several examples of women who had been actually rapped but their cases dismissed because of lack of evidence, too much time passing, yada, yada, yada. She used those specific examples to say, hey, this system is broken. What we should do instead is redefine rape to mean this and change the existing ways the police to things. All of this was and is supported by pulling up specific extreme examples where the system didn't work.
You're doing the exact same thing. You're saying look at these specific cases. OMG, the tragedy! Because of these specific examples we now have proof the entire system is flawed and should be abolished.
What you both are doing is creating policy based on FEELINGS. This is why I don't argue from emotion (unless I'm feeling lazy in real life).
The difference in styles between what you and I are arguing is that I'm looking at the system in totality and saying statistically people fall through the cracks. You're digging into those cracks. You're pulling pennies out as though they're things of value. I'm saying this is the system we have, let's deal with it; you're saying this one part of the system in broken – because pennies -- so lets destroy the whole thing.
Does that make sense now? I don't think policy should be made from feelings. You apparently do.
@raphjd:
In your child molestation example, how does executing innocent men have anything to do with piss poor sentencing and the refusal to build more prisons? In Europe, they don't "punish" they "rehabilitate". This means they are weak on criminals, actual fucking criminals. It has nothing to do with executing innocent men.
Once again, my argument has nothing to do with executing innocent people. Zero. I explained this multiple times in the course of this thread. Perhaps the previous example will finally make it sink in for you.
The rest of your argument proves my point. I think if you molest a child you should be executed. I, personally, am willing to concede that a person should be given one chance. If after they're rehabilitated they never do it again, fine. If they get caught again, off to the chopping block. Let me be clear, I'm talking about executable offenses, not theft. I'm also talking about such offences in the West, not in Uganda where being gay is an executable offence.
@raphjd:
Instead of focusing on executing innocent men, make the justice system really about justice.
Stop focusing on executing innocent men and focus on prosecutorial misconduct, police corruption and the like.
Not once have you advocated fixing the system. Your stance has always been, the system if fucked, so execute innocent men.
As I said, the choice is unfixable. There is a continuum. The choices on either side are binaries that learned men have been discussing for at least 2000 years. Interestingly, Sam Harris has said that within a decade we will most likely have computer systems that will be able to tell if someone is telling the truth perfectly every time. Such a machine would help rule out certain cases and help prevent the innocent from being executed.
Otherwise, your solution is to throw out the whole system. I'm saying, no. In fact, the current system in the US has already been modified so much that it's more expensive to put a person on death row than to just keep him alive for life imprisonment. I think there are enough guilty people on death row to be executed right now. I'd put Charlie Manson at the top of the list but those changes to the death penalty say that he's not guilty by reason of insanity.
@raphjd:
I believe OJ is a murderer. HOWEVER, the stench of shit by the LAPD, et al, never left my nostrils. The cop that admitted on tape that he (and other cops) would routinely plant evidence was glaring when he is the one that found all the main evidence. Blood evidence items left in a crime scene van with a broken cooling system.
While I do believe he's guilty, I would vote NOT GUILTY if I was on that jury.
One of the many problems with our justice system. It doesn't mean we should throw out trial by jury, does it?
Let's meet up!
