Correct.

See above. We're in agreement.

Hey, theres nothing wrong with Russia, im sure Sloanie can back me up on this one

well Russia is no longer Soviet Russia, or so they tell us ;)

Russia was only cool back under Khruschev and Stalin :(

Russia will be freezing cold for a few years yet. If you plan on invading in the winter, make sure you take nipple warmers.

Hanging: Up to about 10 minutes in slow agony if done wrong, one swift snap if lucky. 10/10 or 2/10 for pain.
Shooting: Depends on where target is shot. It needs to sever the spinal cord to kill near-instantly. Otherwise is death by bleeding. 1/10, or 9-10/10?
Electric Chair: Courtesy of your skin's high resistivity, this cooks you. 10/10
Lethal Injection: Target given barbiturates (heavy painkillers - think morphine strong), then something to stop lungs, then potassium iodide to stop heart. 0/10 due to drug euphoria.

Dunno about gassing.

Basically, I'm morally against the death sentence. As soon as you quantise it with costs, you're putting a price on someone's life. You're demeaning their worth as a living thing, and becoming a contract killer - killing for a saving of $x.

I maintain that the "people responsible for 9/11" should not be killed. They should be maintained in solitary confinement for life, with the walls covered with images of those killed, and the knowledge that they were responsible for such carnage. Let them go insane with guilt, or live in holy rapture at their achievements for their purpose.

They will all be judged in the end anyway.

If we as a society believe that killing another person cold-bloodedly and intentionally is wrong - whatever the killer's self-justification for doing so - then we can't accept the death penalty. Saying that it's right to deliberately kill a person who would otherwise live - whether for revenge, or for deterrence for others, or for a monetary saving (shudder) - completely undermines that position. I believe that taking the conscious choice not to be a society that kills is worth the price of prison costs.

Indeed, but our society does not believe that. If a man with a machine gun opens up on a crowd of people, the police will kill him. While this is obviously necessary, it shows that we have already given the state the power to legally kill another human being.

yes but that is diferent. when they kill someone in the middle of a murderous rampage they are doing it to save the liaves of the people he/she would otherwise have killed. When you kill someone who is already in prison there is no danger of them killing anyone else, so the killing is just like samf said, for revenge, or for deterrence for others, or for a monetary saving.

I know all that, I was just making the point that society does condone 'state murder' in at least one circumstance.

money saved helps other people live.

/edit Damn internet!

I think the key word in Sam's post is 'cold-blood', Oob. Leave the straw men to David Farrar.

OK so you are fine with torture and mental abuse. Glad we have cleared that up then.

Not torture, nor mental abuse.

They are isolated from other people, so all they're left with is themselves. Although you could argue that denying them human interaction is mental abuse, really they'd be in there with themselves and whatever demons they've got.

It was more the 'Let them go insane' comment I was asking about

Ah, but they do that to themselves. To be honest, from what I've heard about the zeal of some of them, I wonder if they would feel remorse?

Surely forcing someone to be in a position where you intend them to go crazy constitutes mental torture, even if they "do it to themselves". I was under the impression that all mental torture involved the victims essentially doing it to themselves as it's their mind caving in on itself from within rather than an external source torturing the brain.

For Christ's sake Templar, the people responsible for 9/11 are hardly the worst people on earth. Killing a few thousand Americans pales in comparison to genocides of entire cultures (Jews, Armenians, Chinese in South-East Asia, Native Americans, Africans in the Belgian Congo and German South-West Africa, etc), let alone the fact that over 30,000 civilians are dead in Iraq due directly to the American intervention.

I know, it was the simplest example I could think of, and the only punishment I've ever considered. Thought of that when I was 16 and listening to Linkin Park, mind.

Hahaha, fair enough then.

The only case where I am on unsure ground about advocating torture and the death penalty is in cases like the worst of the worst Nazi officials, like the Angel of Death and Heinrich Himmler.

Way to miss the point, all I meant to show is that there are circumstances under which the state allows the murder of individuals, even if it doesn't allow the death penalty for prisoners.

Torture anyone responsible for such atrocities, and televise it. Anyone who commits a crime of that magnitude should lose any consideration or mercy, and their continued existance should be used entirely to appease their victims.

The americans have recently invented a device to make people feel as though they are on fire without actually causing any physical damage, I'd love to see genocidists get a taste of that. If it makes just one madman think twice before committing mass murder, then it's all worth it.

Well, yes. But that's not what Sam said, so your point is besides the point. Your statement is not contrary to, nor contradictory of, Sam's, and yet you posit it as being so. Therefore, your reasoning is fallacious, and I accuse you of STRAWMAN!

:hurr:

Here is the comment I was responding to:

"If we as a society believe that killing another person cold-bloodedly and intentionally is wrong - whatever the killer's self-justification for doing so - then we can't accept the death penalty."

I know Oob. For some reason it didn't show up when I tried to quote it. Your response was that if someone was firing on a crowd of people, we would kill him. But that wouldn't be killing him in cold blood, it would be killing someone who was armed, and currently harming other people. So it's not a contradictory statement, as a necessary premise of Sam's argument is not met by your counter example.

If the guy stopped killing people, went home, smoked a spliff, and played playstation 2 for a while, the state wouldn't (in the form of the police) bust into his house and kill him in cold blood. Not legally, anyway. That would have to be the circumstances under which your counter example was contrary to Sam's.

Love the new avatar, btw.

This depends on how you take the term 'cold blooded'. Having just now read the definition of it, it could work either way. This is really an issue of semantics though, which I have no desire to argue over.

Be warned, non-festive Cthulhu will return!

:ph43r: