Eorl wrote:So for those who like killing people, but don't want to face the death penalty themselves, at least they have a productive way to put their skills to good use?
Well, it always helps if you enjoy your work.
cicerone imposter wrote:I''m not sure how you arrived at the idea that the executioner enjoys killing. He's given the order by legal authority of the state.
I'm not sure how you got that. The executioner either enjoys doing it, or he doesn't. The question was, which one do you prefer is employed in that role?
"...or he doesn't" is equally possible.
Ticomaya wrote:Eorl wrote:So for those who like killing people, but don't want to face the death penalty themselves, at least they have a productive way to put their skills to good use?
Well, it always helps if you enjoy your work.
So to enjoy killing someone is evil and despicable and worthy of the death penalty, unless the government is paying you to do it for them....then it's just "a positive attitude at work"?
Which one is employed doesn't make any difference to the executed or the law.
Eorl wrote:Ticomaya wrote:Eorl wrote:So for those who like killing people, but don't want to face the death penalty themselves, at least they have a productive way to put their skills to good use?
Well, it always helps if you enjoy your work.
So to enjoy killing someone is evil and despicable and worthy of the death penalty, unless the government is paying you to do it for them....then it's just "a positive attitude at work"?
In a manner of speaking. One is a crime, and the other is not a crime. Similarly, if a soldier enjoys his work, and his work happens to be killing the enemy, there is nothing inherently wrong with his doing his work simply because he enjoys it.
Ticomaya wrote:Hold on ... you just said your moral code does not "allow" you to "take a life," yet somehow self-defense is permitted -- nay, mandated -- and if you happen to kill the guy, that isn't because you "took a life," it's just a consequence of the attacker's own aggression (you bleeding hearts will rationalize and perform all sorts of semantic gymnastics to avoid having to admit you have ever taken a life), and you have the temerity to call what I said "a load"?
Yeah. I got the temerity, all right.
You numbskull.
Argue, or get lost.
As a matter of fact, ticomaya brings up an excellent point about a soldier. Whether he enjoys it or not doesn't matter one iota. If he's a soldier in Iraq, he's probably more worried about keeping himself and his fellow soldiers alive more than whether they enjoy killing their "enemy." As a 100 percent volunteer army, do they enjoy killing? Does it matter to you, me, or the enemy?
Solders sometimes kill their own by friendly fire, and often times kill innocent men, women and children. Do they enjoy killing? The bottom line is they volunteered, and are being "paid" to do their jobs.
Is the president or the commanders on the field responsible for the killings? When is killing wrong? Only when a criminal who is found guilty and is executed?
echi wrote:Ticomaya wrote:Hold on ... you just said your moral code does not "allow" you to "take a life," yet somehow self-defense is permitted -- nay, mandated -- and if you happen to kill the guy, that isn't because you "took a life," it's just a consequence of the attacker's own aggression (you bleeding hearts will rationalize and perform all sorts of semantic gymnastics to avoid having to admit you have ever taken a life), and you have the temerity to call what I said "a load"?
Yeah. I got the temerity, all right.
You numbskull.
Argue, or get lost.
I believe our argument is over. You are just a hopeless bleeding heart, who can't even be honest with yourself over the fact that your moral code allows you to take a life.
cicerone imposter wrote:echi, What's the difference between an active act and a past act of violence?
If you're a passenger in an airplane, and a terrorist group takes over the plane. What will you do?
That's a good question. The safety of the innocent passengers has got to be secured, no question. It's a judgment call, c.i.
I hope I would have the mind to do whatever is necessary to stop the hijackers from hurting anyone.
As a matter of fact, ticomaya brings up an excellent point about a soldier. Whether he enjoys it or not doesn't matter one iota. If he's a soldier in Iraq, he's probably more worried about keeping himself and his fellow soldiers alive more than whether they enjoy killing their "enemy." As a 100 percent volunteer army, do they enjoy killing? Does it matter to you, me, or the enemy?
Solders sometimes kill their own by friendly fire, and often times kill innocent men, women and children. Do they enjoy killing? The bottom line is they volunteered, and are being "paid" to do their jobs.
Is the president or the commanders on the field responsible for the killings? When is killing wrong? Only when a criminal who is found guilty and is executed?
Even in warfare, killing people is ideally a last resort.... unless killing people is the aim itself, such as in cases of ethnic cleansing, and that I also find abhorrent.
But let's not get off track here. Killing criminals is an entirely different thing. To build on what Lash said, to indulge your enjoyment of killing people makes you as bad as the criminal. Seriously, what kind of person enjoys it? Do they like to see the faces of the criminal's family?
Killing people against their will is always wrong in my opinion. I only find it acceptable when a greater wrong is the result of not doing so. Capital punishment does not fit that criterion.
Eorl wrote:Even in warfare, killing people is ideally a last resort.... unless killing people is the aim itself, such as in cases of ethnic cleansing, and that I also find abhorrent.
But let's not get off track here. Killing criminals is an entirely different thing. To build on what Lash said, to indulge your enjoyment of killing people makes you as bad as the criminal. Seriously, what kind of person enjoys it? Do they like to see the faces of the criminal's family?
Killing people against their will is always wrong in my opinion. I only find it acceptable when a greater wrong is the result of not doing so. Capital punishment does not fit that criterion.
Of what relevance is this hypothetical of yours of persons who enjoy killing people? Just as killing criminals is an entirely different thing than killing the enemy during war, killing criminals is an entirely different thing than killing innocents. The purpose of capital punishment is not to indulge the executioner's (or society's) enjoyment of killing people. Whether the executioner enjoys his work or not -- just as whether a soldier enjoys his work or not -- is irrelevant.
baddog1 wrote:
What do you think about the "island" scenario? Place only the most heinous criminals together on an off-limits, otherwise uninhabited, undeveloped island and let them fend for themselves...
Actually, that's how Australia was founded by white men. England sent its heinous criminals there.
NickFun wrote:Acually, that's how Australia was founded by white men. England sent its heinous criminals there.
From my young years readings, I came to the conclusion that some of them were convicted for bread stealing. Obviously, one become heinous after that...
heinous and not so heinous. Transportation was seen as marginally more humane than execution.
When the lid on the N American garbage can closed, a new one opened in Australia
Wikkipeadia wrote:Around 50,000 convicts were transported to the British colonies in North America in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. When the American Revolutionary War brought an end to that means of disposal, the British Government was forced to look elsewhere. After Captain Cook's famous voyage to the South Pacific in which he visited and claimed Australia in the name of the British Empire, he reported his findings to the government, and the British, for the first time, became aware of the existence of the continent of Australia.
