DC Sniper

He's defending his opinion, nothing wrong with that.

But remember, don't try to push your beliefs to other people, not everyone thinks the same way.


@Zotten: SENTENCE thats the word i was looking for, thanks xd

He's defending his opinion, nothing wrong with that.

But remember, don't try to push your beliefs to other people, not everyone thinks the same way.


@Zotten: SENTENCE thats the word i was looking for, thanks xd

"Murderers have rights too" is not exactly an opinion I am comfortable with. They DO have constitutional rights, but the Constitution does not bar the death penalty. I know if someone killed one of my family members, I'd want the guy that did it to fry.

Keep in mind i am not flaming these people. I have attacked their arguments, not the people, and that's just me defending MY opinion.

I think there's a problem with your constitution guys, probably it being it was formulated so many years ago... and times change...

And the "murderers have rights too"... there should be written somewhere that if you commit murder you should be stripped from any kind of rights you had, after all, you just took a life away, stripping that person of his own rights forever...

Heh, glad to help zephyr. XD

I still think it's the easy way out.

And the "murderers have rights too"... there should be written somewhere that if you commit murder you should be stripped from any kind of rights you had, after all, you just took a life away, stripping that person of his own rights forever...

I don't follow that logic at all. Sure, there are some rights that should be stripped (the ones involving opportunity/means to kill people) because they've demonstrated that they will abuse them. But all of them? Going way too far. Some things are never acceptable behaviours towards another human.

So it's okay to kill off victims of an imperfect legal system because our society's thirst for blood is that great.

Gotcha.

Oh, and "They deserve to die because they were convicted and they were convicted because they deserved to die" isn't circular reasoning?

But but but...it's common sense to execute people who have murdered one or more other people (cough).

As much as you've said it, I fail to see the common sense in it all. What makes it common sense? 2 + 2 is common sense, not this. If this topic was common sense, there would be no argument here or in public in general.

So it's okay to kill off victims of an imperfect legal system because our society's thirst for blood is that great.

Gotcha.

Oh, and "They deserve to die because they were convicted and they were convicted because they deserved to die" isn't circular reasoning?

Straw man. You simplified and misrepresented my argument to make it seem much weaker than it actually is. Are you comfortable with presenting compete bullshiit as your argument and hoping nobody catches on to it?

They deserve to die because they were convicted, and they were convicted BECAUSE THEY COMMITED FIRST DEGREE MURDER AND THERE WAS SOLID EVIDENCE TO CONCLUDE A JURY TRIAL WITH A VERDICT OF "GUILTY BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT." That's my argument, not what you said. Beyond a reasonable doubt means just that -- the judge and jury were presented with evidence such as ballistics, reliable witness testimony, and forensics, which concluded 100% that the perp was guilty. Beyond a reasonable doubt means he has no solid alibi, that he was connected to the crime scene by witnesses that have not been discredited by the defense, that the murder weapon has his finger prints on it, that his hair was collected at the scene. It is that solid evidence that leads to the conviction, leading the jury to conclude that they were guilty, and they are then sentenced to death. No death penalty case can be concluded without a jury trial and a verdict of guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. The reliability of all this is a teeny tiny bit less than 100%, which is what your whole argument hinges on. Since your argument uses logical fallacies to make up for its logical inadequacies, the only really logical conclusion is that either you don't know what you're talking about or are deliberately making untruthful arguments. Either way, arguing with you any more is a complete waste of my time.

The argument against the death penalty, for the gazillionth time, is that a civilized society that is striving to transcend murder and war cannot justify using death as a punitive measure. That is the primary reason for why the death penalty is no longer viewed as acceptable by most 1st world countries. In America there is also the argument that the death penalty is a form of "cruel and unusual punishment," which violates the 8th Amendment and therefore makes the death penalty unconstitutional. When the Supreme Court eventually repeals the death penalty, those are the arguments it will use in its ruling. It is the WEAKEST (though the easiest and shortest) approach to argue that the death penalty is improper because once in many years it convicts an innocent, and that should get the well-over-99.99% of cons that DESERVE it off the hook. Only the fuucking media takes that approach frequently, because derailed victim stories are simpler and more sensational (and sell more newspapers) than something more solid and logical.

Only a very talented writer can make a passionate and complete argument in a short amount of space that focuses around the Constitution, or a well-developed philosophical and historical viewpoint. That type of argument is progressional and requires the use of a lot of evidence, hwich is difficult to manage in tight editorial word-count constraints. It also takes incredible talent to make such an argument relevant and exciting to the general public, which generally does not care about Constitutional technicalities or philosophy. However, any last idiot can, in that amount of space, describe a sob story of some guy that was convicted in teh 1970s (BEFORE modern forensics and ballistics tech, and therefore hardly applicable to the here-and-now,) and recently released due to new DNA evidence. He then makes a tired and weak argument that there are probably thousands of innocent people in prison, (for which he has no proof,) and then it's front page news. You are buying this mediocre glib bullshiiit line hook and sinker. And you are agreeing with it simply because you have read it a bunch of times, not because it is in any way a strong argument.

But but but...it's common sense to execute people who have murdered one or more other people (cough).

As much as you've said it, I fail to see the common sense in it all. What makes it common sense? 2 + 2 is common sense, not this. If this topic was common sense, there would be no argument here or in public in general.

Depending on who you ask, it's also "common sense" to lynch black people and "common sense" to gas Jews and "common sense" to blow up planes over the Atlantic. Politicians love "common sense" because it's whatever they define it to be.

In other words, blame the s'hitty media for any unreasonable and stupid excuse on why death penalty is wrong.

In other words, blame the s'hitty media for any unreasonable and stupid excuse on why death penalty is wrong.

I can't even tell by this whether you are attacking my argument or agreeing with it.

Think about it for a sec, the media feeds on violent stories to the point where its known motto is "if it bleeds, it leads." In Chicago, where I live, there's 9.5 million people, many of them living in tight proximity to each other, and there are by statistical inevitability a few murders a day in a population that size. So the media shows ALL of them, trying to convince the general public that it's under siege. That same media then takes the side of the criminal in painting him the victim in an unfair criminal justice system. People detest the greatest media outlets, ranging from Fox to CNN to New York Times to BBC as biased and sensationalist. Then, out of the other corner of their mouths, they repeat all the crap those outlets said! Yes, I blame the s'hitty media. College is a much better place to find answers for such things than an 800 word news story. You don't form educated opinions on complex topics solely from the newspaper, you need books, and teachers to guide you through them.

Sorry, my comment was too ambiguous, I was agreeing with you.

The media these days (or always, not sure) has become a money hungry monster, they like to show people what they WANT to see, instead of showing the people what the media is meant for... news, not sensationalist crap.

So one more time, a .01% chance of an innocent condemned to death does not bother you, and permanent isolate lifetime sentences wouldn't be punishment enough.

So one more time, a .01% chance of an innocent condemned to death does not bother you, and permanent isolate lifetime sentences wouldn't be punishment enough.

does not bother me, its not enough.


hope we cleared that up and can move on now.

So one more time, a .01% chance of an innocent condemned to death does not bother you, and permanent isolate lifetime sentences wouldn't be punishment enough.

Circular reasoning.

Again, it's way less than 0.01% and it doesn't bother me because there is no way even in our modern society to conduct the criminal justice system with a 0% chance of error. You are not attacking my point in any way, you are simply restating yours.

Dude, you seriously need to quit at this point. I have completely trashed your argument and I have gone so far as to provide you with two arguments that would serve you much better in a debate of this type than this 0.01%-chance-of-error bull$hit. Why not read up on those? Because you know, the constitutional and philosophical/historical arguments are actually valid and take WAY more effort to defend again. The US Constitution is the supreme law of the land, not cheap BS peddled by C-list writers. You can interpret it many different ways, but a solid interpretation of the Constitution is pertinent to state and federal law. The stance adopted by most 1st world countries in this matter is at least somewhat relevant in deciding how this 1st world country should behave, because most of those countries have literally thousands more years of history and tradition than we do. There is no way to conclusively refute those arguments, becuase they have basis in truth and legal precendent, rather than being grounded in demagoguery and BS. By learning them, you will actually be able to argue against the death penalty in an intelligent fashion.

Well, it seems we've reached an impasse.

In any case, I was asking the question because it never seemed to bother you. It bothers me to know that it has happened, and that that power is held by the state, but that's just my personal view.

You honestly think I've never considered the other arguments? I didn't bring them up because they've been discussed to death, and it all just falls off into ideological divides anyways.

Anyways, reposting just because you haven't seen fit to address it yet.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/...fact_grann

Simply put, it's a man who was denied commutation of his execution despite new evidence being presented to the governor of his state. My argument is not limited to problem within the courtroom, but outside as well. I'm sure the people who convicted these people at that time thought they were using the most reliable forensics technology too.

Not that it really matters, because any and all flaws that exist in the system are irrelevant...

And if you really cared to know, I don't support the death penalty for the reason that it is unnecessary and too final to allow mistakes. Actions made by an individual do not necessarily warrant equal reactions by society, and the "taint" you mentioned about letting convicted murderers live seems to be an archaic concept, not fitting for the current era.

So, may I ask, what is the exact purpose and reasoning for the existence of the death penalty?

Circular reasoning.

Again, it's way less than 0.01% and it doesn't bother me because there is no way even in our modern society to conduct the criminal justice system with a 0% chance of error. You are not attacking my point in any way, you are simply restating yours.

Agreed. We don't even really execute that many people anyway (ratio compared to our population, anyway). I'm pretty sure they only do so with (in the majority's mind) 100% confidence.

 Spoiler

Kind of a side note...it surprises me that CA has the highest number of death row inmates per year, given their obviously extreme left-wing position.

Nobody's perfect. You're going to complain about our justice system saving themselves the hassle of keeping another life-sentence prisoner when we have something like the United States' welfare system? (Let's not get into that, just saying.)

Well, it seems we've reached an impasse.

In any case, I was asking the question because it never seemed to bother you. It bothers me to know that it has happened, and that that power is held by the state, but that's just my personal view.

You honestly think I've never considered the other arguments? I didn't bring them up because they've been discussed to death, and it all just falls off into ideological divides anyways.

Anyways, reposting just because you haven't seen fit to address it yet.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/...fact_grann

If you know the other arguments, and have seriously considered them in the past, then why in God's name are you deliberately and repeatedly using the weakest one, to the point where you're not even logically arguing the blasted thing?

It's very rare that these types of arguments conclude with someone "changing their mind." On the major issues, I can only think of it happening with me a small handful of times in my 10 years on the internet. Debate is more of an intellectual exercise where leaders make logical arguments to support viewpoints which their supporters already believed. Your actual beliefs on stuff like this probably were shaped by the time you were 5. You don't hear of a 5 year old successfully defending/attacking the death penalty, but he may have an opinion on it already. More likely than not, the logic he learns later will act as reinforcement for the 5 year old belief. A particularly charismatic politician can use his personality to sway that belief, (Kennedy, FDR, Hitler, Mao, etc.) We believe things because we "feel" a certain way. That's why politicians lead us -- they appeal to our emotions with charisma, first, and then support that charisma with logic.

Edit: I read 2 out of 17 pages of that article, how is this different from waht I already refuted? New Yorker is finer media, but it's still media, and I have made my point about less 0.01% enough by now that I don't want to repeat it anymore.

It's different in not being merely "sensationalist" media, but I suppose that's a personal judgment.

I'm not sure why exactly you're bringing in politicians into this, but I will make a comment on college being a superior source of information. In regards to certain sciences and technical subjects, universities are certainly one of the best sources of information. Social sciences, I'm sure you'll agree, are quite different, depending on the professor and the information that is chosen to represent the subject. How that professor guides you through that subject can vary wildly among disciplines, depending on how their views were formed in the first place. While you can say that educators have a different overall purpose from politicians, you can't say they have completely different agendas of persuasion for their subject.

In any case, you can make a logical argument, not that you might agree with it: Given that certain parts of the justice system are vulnerable to flaws (putting the idea of "beyond a reasonable doubt" into question), and that human life is precious, execution should not be allowed on the grounds that a single unwarranted death places a taint onto the society that agrees to its function, and that any sentence should be allowed to be reversed at a later time, given proper objection to prior evidence.

Yes, it's simple, but it's a single facet, and it's not the only reason I oppose the death penalty. It seems too crude a tool to use for current civilization.

Edit: I should probably write down a complete post before clicking save.

It's different in not being merely "sensationalist" media, but I suppose that's a personal judgment.

I'm not sure why exactly you're bringing in politicians into this, but I will make a comment on college being a superior source of information. In regards to certain sciences and technical subjects, universities are certainly one of the best sources of information. Social sciences, I'm sure you'll agree, are quite different, depending on the professor and the information that is chosen to represent the subject. How that professor guides you through that subject can vary wildly among disciplines, depending on how their views were formed in the first place. While you can say that educators have a different overall purpose from politicians, you can't say they have completely different agendas of persuasion for their subject.

New Yorker is snotty and elitist. I tried to get into it, but it has stuff like "modern poetry," which is really bad most of the time because it tries to be pretentious more than it tries to make pretty sentences out of words. If you look up "The Good Morrow" by John Donne, or some of Emily Dickinson's works, and compare those to the modern poetry in the New Yorker, you will see the difference. Pretentious =/= deep and beautiful.

I might add that I spoke of the New Yorker with my former English professor, with whom I've been friends for the past 10 years, (30 years experience, BA from Yale, PhD from University of Chicago,) and he AGREED COMPLETELY. My impression of New Yorker is even lower than of stuff like CNN, because CNN at least speaks on the level of hte general public, where the New Yorker is "too good" for them.

As for college, yes, professor quality varies. I have gone to a $hitty school, a mediocre school, and a great school, and the only difference is that $hitty schools have more bad professors than the mediocre and great ones. Most professors even in $hitty schools are extremely intelligent and qualified, but as a person who's considered the PhD route, I can tell you that the job market has too many PhDs, so many great people end up in crappy schools.

So, you'll sometimes have a crappy professor, but you can SEE he's crap. One of my profs in the great school made us read EVERYTHING HE'S EVER WRITTEN. I, at a BA level, write much better than him with his PhD, and in any case, making people in your class read your own stuff is pathetic. I never took anything from his class seriously. Another prof (in the $hitty school) assigned such horrible books that they were almost unreadable, and gave such dull lectures that I learned nothing listening to her for 3 hours at a time; she was rude and condescending. Most professors know their stuff. You sit there and listen to them for a few hours, and you see them using examples, and give interesting lectures, and you KNOW they're the real thing. I cannot really think of a professor I've ever taken who was engaging and a good lecturer, who assigned good books, but who didn't teach me anything.

New Yorker is snotty and elitist. I tried to get into it, but it has stuff like "modern poetry," which is really bad most of the time because it tries to be pretentious more than it tries to make pretty sentences out of words. If you look up "The Good Morrow" by John Donne, or some of Emily Dickinson's works, and compare those to the modern poetry in the New Yorker, you will see the difference. Pretentious =/= deep and beautiful.

Ah, but you're attacking the source and its particular style of prose, and not the points brought up by the article in question.

But I will admit that I have a tendency to not read from certain sources given a prior history of strong bias.

So, you'll sometimes have a crappy professor, but you can SEE he's crap. One of my profs in the great school made us read EVERYTHING HE'S EVER WRITTEN. I, at a BA level, write much better than him with his PhD, and in any case, making people in your class read your own stuff is pathetic. I never took anything from his class seriously. Another prof (in the $hitty school) assigned such horrible books that they were almost unreadable, and gave such dull lectures that I learned nothing listening to her for 3 hours at a time; she was rude and condescending. Most professors know their stuff. You sit there and listen to them for a few hours, and you see them using examples, and give interesting lectures, and you KNOW they're the real thing. I cannot really think of a professor I've ever taken who was engaging and a good lecturer, who assigned good books, but who didn't teach me anything.

Can you honestly say whether these teachers then were able to change your mind towards a subject which you've had deep-seated feelings about? It seems that your premises dictate that all of our viewpoints are already formed much earlier in our lives, and that by the time you've reached 18 there's little hope in changing them. Yes, you may form a more complex perspective, but all college has really done is reinforce what was already there. What may have altered your decisions about what was interesting or not was then based on what you already choose to believe, not the quality of teacher.

Ah, but you're attacking the source and its particular style of prose, and not the points brought up by the article in question.

I am working on my manuscript (as I have been for hours,) and I did so much volunteer work earlier today with such gusto that I drank three bottles of drinking water after, and my heart rate did not return to normal for 3 hours -- as after a session of running. I am pretty tired.

"Attacking the source" implies that I somehow am questioning its character without knowledge of its contents. That's like me saying "Kitteh is a filthy piece of $hit" instead of saying "Kitteh's argument is bad." You know that I didn't call you anything. It is perfectly fine to refuse to read a magazine further if you have determined from its contents that it is for elitist pricks. It is the same reason that people like me wish that MENSA should not exist -- arrogance and elitism are the founding principles of that entity's existence.

Can you honestly say whether these teachers then were able to change your mind towards a subject which you've had deep-seated feelings about? It seems that your premises dictate that all of our viewpoints are already formed much earlier, and that by the time you've reached 18 there's little hope in changing them. Yes, you may form a more complex perspective, but all college has really done is reinforce what was already there. What may have altered your decisions about what was interesting or not was then based on what you already choose to believe, not the quality of teacher.

Actually, a good professor can do WONDERS. That English professor taught me to love writing, and that's my life now. In his classes where I was there, there were 74 students going into finals, and 3 of them had a CHANCE at an A. I don't know about the other 2, but I earned my A. I was so proud, and my writing skills improved, and I went on the internet to practice my writing skills further. 10 years later here I am -- are you seriously going to tell me that my writing skills suck? I am not arrogant or anything, but as a professional writer that's gotten tons of good feedback, I don't need false modesty either.

Another prof, ranked #12 in the country, taught me the argumentational method of St. Thomas Aquinas, a Catholic priest. I am Jewish, what the hell do I need that for? Well, Aquinas believed in anticipating your opponent's strongest arguments, and refuting them before he even made them. If you look back in this thread, I provided you with 2 good anti-death penalty arguments even as I am pro-death penalty myself. I could go on, but you hopefully get the point. If you WANT to learn you will learn a fortune. It's sleeping in class that makes education go to waste.