The least cruel method of execution?

There you go feigning idiocy again, Joe. There is no contradiction there whatsoever, and your pretending there is will fool no one. He who kills for no reasonably understandable purpose presents a greater threat of recidivism that he who kills with a reasonably understandable purpose... because said circumstance is infinitely less likely to recur.

Any child of average intelligence could understand this point, but you're still pretending you can't... which means you're still acting like a ******* idiot and I'm still bored. If you'd like me to discuss my points further; address them with some indication you're trying to understand them, rather than twist them into something they're not. Until then; discussion with you is as useless as it is boring.

J'accuse !

OCCOM BILL wrote:

There you go feigning idiocy again, Joe. There is no contradiction there whatsoever, and your pretending there is will fool no one. He who kills for no reasonably understandable purpose presents a greater threat of recidivism that he who kills with a reasonably understandable purpose... because said circumstance is infinitely less likely to recur.

There you go, changing your position again. Unless "killing for no reasonably understandable purpose" is just another synonym for "heinous," then you're introducing yet another subset of murder into your argument (that would make three so far). Furthermore, the distinction makes no sense. There are plenty of mass murderers who kill for some "reasonably understandable purpose." Are they less likely to kill again if released?

OCCOM BILL wrote:

Any child of average intelligence could understand this point, but you're still pretending you can't... which means you're still acting like a ******* idiot and I'm still bored. If you'd like me to discuss my points further; address them with some indication you're trying to understand them, rather than twist them into something they're not. Until then; discussion with you is as useless as it is boring.

Sorry this is so boring for you, but I don't really see how your inability to present your own argument in a coherent fashion might reflect on me in the least. If you want to go on with this pitiful act, crying that no one understands you as a way to avoid explaining an increasingly confused and indefensible position, then I encourage you to start your own thread. I suggest "Waaaaah! I Want My Mommy!" as a title.

It's all the same position, Joe, and you're the only person pretending to be too stupid to get it. Yes Joe: Killing a person for being a witness, or so they don’t report your crime against them is heinous, or torturing them because it turns you on, etc... is indicative of a person who can’t be trusted not to do it again. He who kills a person who’s guilty of committing a heinous crime of is own, presents far less threat of recidivism. Only a moron would pretend that’s too tough to understand. Why do you continue to pretend to be that moron?

It's only you Joe. No one else here has pretended to be too stupid to understand what I write, whether they agree with it or not. Apparently you have no confidence you can face it head on, so you’ve decided to rely on sophomoric idiocy to avoid displaying your incompetence.

Oh, and leave my dead mother out of your childish bullshit if you have a shred of decency left.

If you’re trying to convince me you’re a piece of ****; it’s starting to work. I've never seen you behave so poorly, online or in person, and continue to wonder what the **** your problem is...

OCCOM BILL wrote:

It's all the same position, Joe, and you're the only person pretending to be too stupid to get it. Yes Joe: Killing a person for being a witness, or so they don’t report your crime against them is heinous, or torturing them because it turns you on, etc... is indicative of a person who can’t be trusted not to do it again. He who kills a person who’s guilty of committing a heinous crime of is own, presents far less threat of recidivism. Only a moron would pretend that’s too tough to understand. Why do you continue to pretend to be that moron?

A person who kills a witness to prevent him from testifying is more likely to kill again than a person who kills a child rapist? How do you figure? Just because you think the latter crime is somehow laudable doesn't necessarily mean that the perpetrator is less likely to do it again. Didn't we learn anything from all those Charles Bronson movies?

OCCOM BILL wrote:

It's only you Joe. No one else here has pretended to be too stupid to understand what I write, whether they agree with it or not. Apparently you have no confidence you can face it head on, so you’ve decided to rely on sophomoric idiocy to avoid displaying your incompetence.

I'm the only one who has dealt squarely with your argument. It's not my fault that it is riddled with inconsistencies.

OCCOM BILL wrote:

Oh, and leave my dead mother out of your childish bullshit if you have a shred of decency left.

Oh brother! (you don't have a dead brother, do you?) Spare us your feigned indignation.

OCCOM BILL wrote:

If you’re trying to convince me you’re a piece of ****; it’s starting to work. I've never seen you behave so poorly, online or in person, and continue to wonder what the **** your problem is...

If you spent even one-fourth the time and effort on forming a logically coherent and well-reasoned argument as you have on complaining about me being a big meanie, then you might have actually accomplished something, instead of just pathetically whining like some spoiled little brat. If you want to play with the big kids, you better change out of that diaper.

Blahblahblahblahblahblah...

OCCOM BILL wrote:

Blahblahblahblahblahblah...

How tiresome you've become, O'BILL.

There's no need for me to respond to any of the points you raised in your last post, because you didn't make any substantive points. Indeed, you haven't made any in about the last four posts. You'd much rather whine and complain about all of the imagined slights that you've had to endure at my hands. Fine, go ahead. You'll excuse me, however, if I don't join in.

I'll leave it at this. Here, as I understand it, is a summary of your position. You won't provide something like this, but perhaps you can at least point out where I have gone wrong:

According to you, "there is only one sure way to prevent recidivism." That is capital punishment. "The permanent nature of capital punishment is what makes it the only proven guarantee against repeat murder."

But while the death penalty prevents recidivism by murderers, you object to sentencing convicted murderers to be tortured to death because "torture would affect the recidivism rate not one iota." That's because it makes a big difference to potential future victims that a murderer is put to death, but it doesn't matter at all if he is tortured to death. The justification for capital punishment, therefore, is that it is the only sure way to prevent recidivism.

The option to sentence convicted murderers to life without parole should not be adopted because that punishment "has been proven less effective than capital punishment for preventing recidivism." In fact, your position can be summed up in the phrase: "Dead men don't re-offend."

Now, here's where things get a little murky.

You contend that "Death sentences should only be used on heinous criminals." "Heinousness," apparently, is measured by the "level of depraved indifference" displayed by the criminal, such "that they should never again be trusted." On the other hand, "Heinousness of the crime has no bearing on likelihood of recidivism," although it does have a bearing on the risk of recidivism (the distinction remains unclear).

You also now contend that not all murderers should be executed. "All offenders who met the well defined criteria for first degree murder/capital offense would face the death penalty. No other penalty would exceed 20 years without enhancements." In other words, although "heinousness" has no bearing on whether a murderer will kill again, and although capital punishment is the only effective method of preventing recidivism, you are still willing to free some murderers after as little as twenty years in prison: "those not convicted of First Degree/Capital Offenses should be sentenced to no more than twenty years in prison, disregarding any sentence enhancements." And that, apparently, is because there is a relationship between the murderer's "heinousness" and the likelihood of recidivism: "He who kills for no reasonably understandable purpose presents a greater threat of recidivism that he who kills with a reasonably understandable purpose... because said circumstance is infinitely less likely to recur."

In sum, capital punishment is justified because it prevents recidivism. No other punishment, including life without parole, is as effective at preventing recidivism. Society especially needs to protect itself against heinous murderers. We cannot, however, predict with any accuracy, based on the level of a murderer's "heinousness," whether he will commit any future crimes. All we know is that "heinous" murderers will be more likely to commit future crimes than "non-heinous" murderers. "Non-heinous" murderers, therefore, should be released from prison after serving their sentences, despite the possibility that they will commit more crimes, whereas "heinous" murderers should be put to death, in order to prevent them from committing more crimes.

But then again, maybe not, since you also acknowledge that "DOJ stats leave no room for doubt that violent criminals tend to re-offend." It's just that "preventing heinous criminal's recidivism is a perfectly logical goal and it so follows that preventing the most heinous acts recidivism are the most important." Or, in other words, while all violent criminals tend to re-offend, heinous criminals tend to re-offend worse, so there's more of a justification in stopping them from re-offending.

I encourage you to correct any errors I have made. Or you could just mope and pout and claim that I'm being an asshole. I leave the choice up to you.

Very close. My objection to punitive torture is that I find the suggestion as too heinous for a civilized society.

Your contention that it would increase the deterrent effect, I think is probably pretty accurate… but I don’t see the additional deterrent affect of torture as sufficient justification to for society to do something so heinous. And, it is obviously true that it wouldn’t alter the recidivism rate one iota.

I don’t know how that could remain unclear; but I’ll try one final time to clear it up.
Death penalty should be used to prevent heinous criminals from repeat offending because heinous criminals present an unacceptable risk to innocent people. (Jaywalkers do not present an unacceptable risk to innocent people; so preventing their recidivism is infinitely less important.) Risk is identified not just by likelihood of reoffending, but also by what offense may be repeated and against whom.

Your error here is in your rewording. There remains no necessary relationship between the murderer's "heinousness" and the likelihood of recidivism; the difference is in whether that risk is acceptable. Also note that I redefined "First degree" as "First degree/Capital Offense" with both aggravating factors AND the ability to back down from special circumstances.

Okay, save the artificial, nonsensical contradiction in the middle, "We cannot, however, predict with any accuracy, based on the level of a murderer's "heinousness," whether he will commit any future crimes. All we know is that "heinous" murderers will be more likely to commit future crimes than "non-heinous" murderers." False. What we know is that heinous murderers will be more likely to commit more heinous crimes, which is a far less acceptable risk.

Innocents are far less likely to face a threat from gramps… even if Gramps were to go on a child-rapist-killing spree (fictional Charley Bronson); he wouldn’t be targeting innocents… who are, of course, my primary concern.

Did I get anything wrong with the way I characterized the way lawyers tend to work???

I wasn’t negatively judging the matter.

OCCOM BILL wrote:

Very close. My objection to punitive torture is that I find the suggestion as too heinous for a civilized society.

I originally thought that you were changing your position again, but I see that, in your 2004 post, you mentioned that torture was too heinous for you to countenance.

That still doesn't help you, though. My point has always been that, if you support capital punishment, then logically you should support torture. Your refusal to endorse torture on moral grounds (or esthetic grounds -- it's not clear), therefore, just makes your position on capital punishment inconsistent.

OCCOM BILL wrote:

Your contention that it would increase the deterrent effect, I think is probably pretty accurate… but I don’t see the additional deterrent affect of torture as sufficient justification to for society to do something so heinous. And, it is obviously true that it wouldn’t alter the recidivism rate one iota.

Well, those prudential reasons really shouldn't play any role in your argument if you're saying that you have a moral objection to torture, unless your morality is itself based on a purely prudential foundation. In other words, if your morality forbids you to endorse torture, then the fact that torture might actually work is (or should be) immaterial.

OCCOM BILL wrote:

I don’t know how that could remain unclear; but I’ll try one final time to clear it up.
Death penalty should be used to prevent heinous criminals from repeat offending because heinous criminals present an unacceptable risk to innocent people. (Jaywalkers do not present an unacceptable risk to innocent people; so preventing their recidivism is infinitely less important.) Risk is identified not just by likelihood of reoffending, but also by what offense may be repeated and against whom.

That's fair enough, but then these prudential considerations are also largely immaterial. It really doesn't matter why you favor capital punishment. The only thing that matters (at least in this discussion) is why you don't favor torture.

I've heard lots of cockamamie rationales for the death penalty: yours isn't the most cockamamiest.

OCCOM BILL wrote:

Your error here is in your rewording. There remains no necessary relationship between the murderer's "heinousness" and the likelihood of recidivism; the difference is in whether that risk is acceptable. Also note that I redefined "First degree" as "First degree/Capital Offense" with both aggravating factors AND the ability to back down from special circumstances.

Yeah, I noticed that. I have no idea why you needed to redefine those terms or what your redefinition means, but then I'm not sure it matters any more.

OCCOM BILL wrote:

Okay, save the artificial, nonsensical contradiction in the middle, "We cannot, however, predict with any accuracy, based on the level of a murderer's "heinousness," whether he will commit any future crimes. All we know is that "heinous" murderers will be more likely to commit future crimes than "non-heinous" murderers." False. What we know is that heinous murderers will be more likely to commit more heinous crimes, which is a far less acceptable risk.

I'm not entirely sure I agree -- after all, I haven't seen any empirical studies which reach that conclusion and you certainly haven't cited any. For the purposes of argument, however, I'm willing to accept that "heinous" murderers are more likely to commit more "heinous" murders. Since this all relates to your recidivism argument, however, it really doesn't matter. You oppose torture on moral grounds, not on prudential grounds, and preventing recidivism is a prudential concern, not a moral one.

OCCOM BILL wrote:

Innocents are far less likely to face a threat from gramps… even if Gramps were to go on a child-rapist-killing spree (fictional Charley Bronson); he wouldn’t be targeting innocents… who are, of course, my primary concern.

I'm glad you put your faith in Gramps to be judge, jury, and executioner. And here I thought everyone was innocent until proven guilty.

“No, you were negatively judging me. But that's ok, I forgive you.”

Moral grounds for the most part. Torture is very evil so it would take a tremendous evil for torture to be the lesser of the two.

I’m not following you here. My morality doesn’t necessarily forbid me to endorse torture (though it does forbid me to endorse punitive torture); it mandates that when faced with terrible choices I should choose the lesser evil whenever possible, and again; it would take a tremendous evil for torture to be the lesser of two.

joefromchicago wrote:

I've heard lots of cockamamie rationales for the death penalty: yours isn't the most cockamamiest.

Really? That’s quite a statement considering what you’re feigning advocacy of.

Well, if we’re back to exclusively discussing your "anything short of torture is a half measure" theory; I suppose it doesn’t. It did, however, explain how my hypothetical death penalty eligibility standards differed from the norm.

I didn’t suggest the law should give him a pass (that’s what juries are for.) How long would you put away that 75 year old Grandpa who’s only crime in his whole life was to blow away his grandson’s rapist? More than 20 years? Life? Would you have him tortured, Joe? Would you be equally afraid to have him in your neighborhood as the guy who blows people away for kicks? Really?

Truth be told; I've probably been accused of hypocrisy on A2K 100 times. I don’t recall it being proven, even once.