17-12-2003 22:35									#61
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...-2003Dec14.html

Something I thought was on point with the topic of this thread.

	17-12-2003 22:51									#62
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International criminal court (he's pissed that many people off), and no to death penalty. I'm on principle opposed to killing even the most vile, plus it'll martyr him which will create more problems for the West.

	18-12-2003 00:25									#63
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let the iraqis deal with him, but prohibit the death penalty.

	18-12-2003 00:50									#64
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quote: Originally posted by Q Cubed let the iraqis deal with him, but prohibit the death penalty.

Why?

	18-12-2003 00:52									#65
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as i've stated above. i'm opposed to the death penalty for moral reasons.

	18-12-2003 00:56									#66
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surely (and this point has been pretty much ignored so far) that is the iraqis decision. he commited his crimes against their country so if they want to put him to death then why not? if they want him to rot in a cell, then that's cool too.

	18-12-2003 00:56									#67
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What does that have to do with anything? Limiting the punishments available to the Iraqis undercuts the value of turning him over in the first place. The only reason such a thing should be done is if he turns over useful and substantial information to us.

	18-12-2003 01:05									#68
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i cannot in good conscience support a move that would lead to capital punishment.

granted, it's completely outside of my control, and if the iraqis do wish to kill him, i'm sure they'll find a way even if we do set up an injunction.

hell, it happened to lee harvey oswald, didn't it ? or jeffrey dahmer (a bit more of an apt description)?

that does not stop me from having the moral obligation, at least to myself, of opposing the death penalty.

	18-12-2003 01:41									#69
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quote: Originally posted by Q Cubed quote: The contradiction, Q cubed, is opposing the death penalty for the guilty and supporting it for the blameless unborn everyone has the right to life. no human has the right to abrogate another's right to life, no matter how inhuman the other person has behaved--unless you are willing to set yourself as superior to them, removing both their humanity away and your own.

This the dilemma that haunted early Christian Church, but in a different context. If life was sacrosanct, how do you justify war? They solved that problem in terms of justice, which is the same concept involved in capital punishment.

To the extent that Church fails to learn from its own history and begins to make absolute the right to life, it creates unfortunate and irreconcilable conflicts with human nature and with human needs.

	18-12-2003 01:48									#70
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For those of you who opposed the death penalty in Saddam's case, do you think that a cozy prison would deter future Saddam's?

Would you agree, then, that the death penalty would provide greater deterrence?

What is more important here, deterrence of war crimes and crimes against humanity or some idealized principle?

	18-12-2003 01:48									#71
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war can't be justified. it's something that happens because we're human. there can be wars for good causes, but the human cost of it is staggering.

i know of justice. i know saddam has to answer for a lot of hellish things. but being human means that i cannot set myself above him without losing my humanity. that is exactly what he did when he summarily decided that others should be denied the right to life simply because they opposed him: he set himself as to be more than human; and now he's learning that he's really only human after all.

i can't support the death penalty because i can't convince myself that it makes me any different from the murderer it gets rid of.

	18-12-2003 01:51									#72
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who said he deserves a cozy cell?

make him stay in his spider hole for the rest of his life, unable to move, stand, sit, or lie down. make sure he gets medical treatment, so the rest of his life is a long long time.

or have him march through iraq, barefoot, coming face to face with every single individual he's wronged. let them abase him and humiliate him.

cruel? perhaps. but so were his tortures. will it stop other saddams? it just might.

killing him will only make them sleep in 50 different palaces, rather than 40.

	18-12-2003 05:17									#73
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quote: International criminal court

Can't. ICC doesn't have jurisdiction over things done before it came to existance.

	18-12-2003 08:34									#74
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quote: Originally posted by Q Cubed who said he deserves a cozy cell? make him stay in his spider hole for the rest of his life, unable to move, stand, sit, or lie down. make sure he gets medical treatment, so the rest of his life is a long long time. or have him march through iraq, barefoot, coming face to face with every single individual he's wronged. let them abase him and humiliate him. cruel? perhaps. but so were his tortures. will it stop other saddams? it just might. killing him will only make them sleep in 50 different palaces, rather than 40.

Q Cubed, you have a strange concept of cruel and unusual punishment. Torture is OK. The Death Penalty is not. To most civilized people, the opposide is true.

	18-12-2003 08:57									#75
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cruel and unusual punishment ? honestly, i don't think too much about it.

yes, i can see the wisdom in gandhi's statement that an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. in cases like this, where saddam brutalized people, it--to me--only makes sense that he should walk a mile in their shoes.

i don't support torture for most things. interrogations do not need it. convicts as a rule don't deserve it.

but saddam is a sadistic bastard who i honestly feel needs to understand what he did to other people. killing him won't make him realize that. why?

his words when he was captured: "i was a fair and just leader."

	18-12-2003 09:04									#76
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I think Saddam understands what he did to others. It's just that he doesn't care. And torturing him will not make him care about others.

	18-12-2003 09:06									#77
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quote: Originally posted by Q Cubed quote: The contradiction, Q cubed, is opposing the death penalty for the guilty and supporting it for the blameless unborn everyone has the right to life. no human has the right to abrogate another's right to life, no matter how inhuman the other person has behaved--unless you are willing to set yourself as superior to them, removing both their humanity away and your own.

This is why you think there is a contradiction - you don't understand that we don't all agree with you. Your fundamental premise - everyone has an inviolable right to life - is purely subjective and not held by many.

	18-12-2003 09:08									#78
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and killing him will make a difference then how ?

	18-12-2003 09:09									#79
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quote: This is why you think there is a contradiction - you don't understand that we don't all agree with you. Your fundamental premise - everyone has an inviolable right to life - is purely subjective and not held by many.

oh, i realize this. this is why i don't support legislation against abortion.

	18-12-2003 09:10									#80
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It wouldn't. Like I said earlier, I don't think he should be killed or tortured.

	18-12-2003 09:10									#81
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quote: Originally posted by Q Cubed yes, i can see the wisdom in gandhi's statement that an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. in cases like this, where saddam brutalized people, it--to me--only makes sense that he should walk a mile in their shoes.

An eye for an eye makes the world blind only if we don't recognize when the slate is clean. An endless cycle of retribution happens only if something doesn't tell us when to stop. That something is the court system.

	18-12-2003 09:13									#82
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Revenge is generally accepted to be immoral. That's partially reflected in our justice system. If I kill someone out of revenge, I get sent to prison. But why does it become moral when the state kills people?

	18-12-2003 09:17									#83
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I meant revenge as administered by our justice system

In fact, the morality of vengeance (by the courts) is one the key foundations of our justice system. Otherwise, there is so much there that is really injustifiable.

	18-12-2003 09:22									#84
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You didn't answer the question. Why should I get thrown in prison if I kill out of revenge, but the state should be applauded if it kills out of revenge?

And yeah, a lot of the justice system is totally unjustifiable to me.

	18-12-2003 09:24									#85
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Because you are a vigilante if you do so - you have no "right" to administer revenge. Only the courts have the right to sentence people.

	18-12-2003 09:27									#86
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But I have the right to kill out of self-defense, right? So why should the state have the right to kill out of revenge, but not me? And furthermore, why should killing out of revenge warrant my possible execution?

	18-12-2003 14:09									#87
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Why? It works. Not necessarily the death penalty part, but the state engaging in retribution. The trick is finding the happy middle ground behind what is considered "enlightened" for the time period and what is considered "barbaric". The pendulem swings back and forth depending on the country, time period, and the society. Not enough retribution and you descend into anarchy, look at the thread on sentencing in Europe and Pekka's description of the problems in Finland. Too much retribution, i.e. PRC and Texas, and innocent people get executed. Like most practical solutions to moral and ethical problems, it's messy, prone to error, but we muddle through and hopefully learn from our mistakes (I am an optimist).

	18-12-2003 23:11									#88
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I have not posting in a while on apolyton, thus that is why I am responding now to your post.

quote: Originally posted by Q Cubed the cycle of death must end. if we kill saddam, will it bring back to life the young women his son uday raped and killed? if we kill saddam, will it bring back the sanity of the woman lawyer whose mind was destroyed because she had the gall to defend someone against saddam? if we kill saddam, will it bring back those servicemen who sacrificed themselves?

Well neither will putting him in prison for the rest of his life. The reason why we punish people who murder is not to bring back the life of the person that was killed. Nothing we do can do that. Death Penality is a punishment, to make the cirminal pay for what he has done. The person that murdered show how little he views life. Why should he have the right to live when he has taken it from someone else.

As for the lawyer, weather or not Saddam is put to death or not would not make a defference. If their sanity if effected in the end it does not matter what punishment he gets. But I doubt that any lawyer would have his or her sanity effected my this trial. But I think he is crazy enough to try and defend himself with out of lawyer.

quote: i am opposed to the death penalty because i believe every life is sacred, no matter whose, and what they chose to do with it. your life has as much of a right to exist as saddam's--the only difference is, you haven't used yours for evil. because everybody has a fundamental right to life--even murderers--and because we are ourselves only human, we should not be the ones meting out judgement.

Again you are wrong there. Once someone takes the life of anther, in my view they gave up their right to live.
They must pay for what they have done. No other punishment for Saddam in my view would do his victoms justice, expect for his death.

quote: babies deserve a right to sacred life. that is why i oppose abortion. the terminally ill should want to live. that is why i oppose euthanasia. and those that murder have a right to their sorry ass lives. that is why i oppose the death penalty. besides, who said that the remainder of his days would be pleasant? hand him over to the families of those he tortured; let them torture him until the end of his days.

That I think would only be punishment enough for the tortured, it would not be enough for the millions he has killed. Besides if you did turn him over to his victoms, they would most likely kill him after torturing him for a while or he would die from the torture.

I do believe that babies have a right to live, that outways the rights of the mother being able to do what she wants with her body. But Like I said I think that when you murder someone you have given up your right to live.

	18-12-2003 23:37									#89
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quote: Why? It works.

It doesn't. Look at the places with the harshest sentences, places like the US and Russia. They also happen to have some of the highest crime rates, particularly violent crime rates. OTOH, the places with more reasonable sentences, such as most of Western and Northern Europe, have some of the lowest crime rates.

A reasonble justice system shouldn't be based on something barbaric and senseless like revenge, but maximizing the freedom of society. Killing or torturing Saddam does absolutely nothing to increase anyone's freedom; it only takes away freedom from him.

	18-12-2003 23:41									#90
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quote: Death Penality is a punishment, to make the cirminal pay for what he has done. The person that murdered show how little he views life. Why should he have the right to live when he has taken it from someone else.

Why shouldn't he have the right to live? I value human life, and human freedom. I don't think anyone's life or freedom should be taken away without a damn good reason. Revenge is an idiotic one.