The least cruel method of execution?

Finally; we've learned that there is only one sure way to prevent recidivism.

Ps. Thanks for retrieving the worst argument Joe ever offered.

Not liking the idea of killing in the first place, but finding it justifiable in certain cases; I want the most effective solution carried out in the most humane way possible. I want him gone, but I believe torture to be a heinous act so I don't want him tortured, too. What the F@@k is so hard to understand about that? If someone committed a heinous act against my loved ones, I believe I could kill them myself. I would not, could not, regardless of how horrible the crime, torture anyone. Not being a "hypocrite", I would not, could not, ask the state to do what I couldn't do myself.

Joe, I did... 5 years ago and it remains unanswered. Put short; torture would affect the recidivism rate not one iota, so there is nothing half-way about the application of the Death Penalty. While you can provide not one example of an innocent person being put to death by the state in recent times (proven beyond a reasonable doubt); I can provide a plethora of examples of recidivism that could easily have been prevented by the application of the death penalty. The single best example of this would be one Kenneth McDuff.

In any event, I never said that the prisoners, after being tortured, should be released. Indeed, I think my point was pretty clear: capital punishment should be made more brutal. That means that the prisoner, after being tortured, would end up being quite dead. Per my argument, therefore, the death penalty would have the exact same effect on recidivism as it does today -- it would just include some torture. The addition of the torture wouldn't increase the effect on recidivism, it's true

no, it wouldn't increase the effect on recidivism, but it might very well increase the pool of potential sick-minded first offenders, which would then increase the pool of those eligible to become recidivists.

So you would like to see the federal government employ, train and pay people to torture other people?

What would the interview process entail? What would be the educational and previous experience requirements?

Jesus - no wonder the rest of the world thinks we (Americans) are nuts.
(or is this a joke - please tell me it's a joke - I can't read the whole thread to find out and there's too much other depressing stuff going on in the news for me to try to digest this seriously if it's only a joke).

So you would like to see the federal government employ, train and pay people to torture other people?

When you make that appeal to emotion argument that I've now seen you post more than once can you at least resize the pictures (you can do it with easy width/height on the bbcode) so that we don't have to scroll so much?

It's a stupid way to argue, and there's no reason to make it a huge and stupid way to argue.

Code:[img width=100 height=100]http://image.url[/img]

Replacing 100 with whatever pixel dimension you want of course.

The sum total of your response contradicts your previous argument. You now agree that recidivism is obviously reduced by Capital Punishment, regardless of whether or not torture is employed, so apparently your opponents from 5 years ago weren't fools after all. Good concession, Joe.

Frank Apisa wrote:

Here is my contention:

Your comment: "Capital punishment certainly incapacitates a criminal, in that executed criminals are not likely to commit subsequent crimes" ...

...misstates the actuality of the situation.

"Executed criminals" are not "not likely to commit subsequent crimes -- THEY DAMN WELL WILL NOT COMMIT SUBSEQUENT CRIMES. They will be dead -- which is the usual result of execution.

One of the disadvantages of this type of electronic interchange is that subtleties of expression are often lost. Of course, executed criminals absolutely, positively will not commit further crimes. My earlier comments about the likelihood of them not committing further crimes was mildly ironic -- the expression of which, evidently, did not translate well in this medium.

Frank Apisa wrote:

Your subsequent comment: "But punishment short of death can also accomplish this goal. Pace the objections raised by Scrat, we can, at least theoretically, devise a system of incarceration that minimizes the likelihood of a prisoner, condemned to life without parole, committing further crimes"...

...misstates the actuality also, in that ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY preventing the criminal from EVER committing a subsequent crime CANNOT be ensured via incarceration PERIOD -- and that includes incarceration so onerous and severe as to be inhumane.

Well, first of all, we're dealing with theoretical possibilities here. Furthermore, we're dealing with evolving standards of "cruel and unusual punishment." After all, remember that I'm arguing that death penalty proponents should favor more brutal and cruel methods of execution, which would necessarily entail the repeal of the Eighth Amendment. So "inhumane" forms of incarceration are largely irrelevant to the argument. And, as I mentioned before, if there is ever a question of which type of punishment is worse -- incarceration or death -- the proper response would be to let the prisoner decide which punishment to endure.

Your point, though, is that no method of incarceration can guarantee that a prisoner, convicted of a capital crime, won't commit another crime. I'll grant you that, but at what point are we entitled to insist upon that guarantee? Certainly, capital punishment would also end the criminal careers of habitual rapists, arsonists, check-forgers, burglars, and marijuana growers. Yet we don't extend capital punishment to these types of crimes, even though, in these instances, the permissible goals of incarceration/incapacitation are imperfectly met as well.

As I have mentioned before, capital punishment is unique: thus, it must serve its goals in a unique fashion. If incapacitation can be achieved in a manner short of execution, the state is obliged to choose that method. And if incapacitation is always imperfectly achieved, why are we entitled to insist upon perfect incapacitation in the case of capital crimes?

Anyone who argues that execution should serve the goal of incapacitation must provide additional justification (as I have explained in detail before) why capital punishment is needed. And if we accept imperfect incapacitation in non-capital cases, we need additional justification why perfect incapacitation is needed for capital cases.

Frank, you seem to assume that perfect incapacitation (through means of the death penalty) is justified for prisoners convicted of capital crimes. Yet that is, at this point, an unsupported assumption. Your task, then, is to explain why it's necessary to resort to capital punishment to achieve a level of incapacitation that we don't insist upon for any other crime.

Certainly, capital punishment would also end the criminal careers of habitual rapists, arsonists