I Want Everyone's Opinion on This...

[A Black Falcon]

Boy, now that's a paradox for the debate team.

When I was on the debate team in high school one of the topics was capital punishment, actually... :)

Well, we're just gonna have to agree to disagree on that. I don't think there's such a thing as absolute morality.

We have a convention between human beings to treat each other respectfully; it's not set in stone, it's an agreement we have between each other. We decided it's the only way society could work (and it's true: imagine a world where it's fine to kill others without retribution). Someone who decides otherwise, by the terms of that agreement, can't live in society and needs to be removed by whatever means.

Innate human rights from birth for everyone are a idea we have from the Enlightenment... again, see the Declaration of Independance -- "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" was a straight Liberal Enlightenment ideal that by now has been accepted by most everyone... all people have the right to being treated fairly, to not be persecuted unfairly, etc... now the question should be 'when you commit a crime to you surrender those rights and make it okay to ignore them when considering your punishment', not the existence of those rights. After all if we didn't believe in that these days we'd still be living in monarchies. :)

My position is that yes we obviously need to punish those who break the rules of society, but we should not do things to them that do not meet our moral bounds... they might not respect those bounds but if we disrespect them too while punishing them we are almost as bad as they!

They're a threat to each other. They assault, rape, maim, and kill each other in lockup. Thus, by sparing their lives, you might be responsible for condemning others, not all of which are capital inmates.

That's the fault of the prison system, not of morality or law... we try our best, that is all we can do. Of course if we could without doubt see that this person would cause great harm (to the prison population) they should be isolated, but execution is an extreme step that crosses a line that should not be allowed to be crossed.

But saying that death is better because they harm prison inmates... poor arguement. Yes by my rules those other prison inmates should not be subjugated to undue punishment (assualt by fellow inmates), but saying that that is an excuse for murder is absurd. The 'great harm to society in general' line? Not if they're permanantly in a maximum-security prison... I don't see how them being there forever will cause great harm to society...

And I don't see anything good about life in prison. "Not palatable"? Where are these prisoners? As you say it's hardly a hotel...

Ah, but the Constitution only applies to American citizens. We're not bound by it to spare Osama, or any foreign threat, their lives. War Crime tribunals are good. Nuremberg was good. We ended a lot of Nazis that way. No one cried over them. I don't think many people would argue that hanging those excuses for human beings was a wrong or evil thing to do. If anyone ever had it coming, they did.

Natural laws (again that Enlightenment ideal that led to the birth of modern democracy) say that everyone has rights... and international law sets standards for what all nations can accept. Now I know people like you hate international law, the International Criminal Court, the United Nations, etc. but I see them as vitally important parts of this world and having it run in a fair and good manner. We need to follow international law with such people. Sadaam should not be tried by some kangaroo court in Iraq, he should be before a UN War Crimes Tribunal like the one Milosovich is facing. And we should recognize the ICC... saying that we won't sign the treaty unles Americans are exempted as Bush has is insane and very dangerous in regards to our world position. They wouldn't execute of course, and the sentence for people like Sadaam and Osama is a forgone conclusion, but that does not in the least excuse not having a full and fair trial that meets and probably exceeds all international standards.

As for Nuremburg and the other WW2 war crimes things, that was definitely one-sided 'justice'... yes they were guilty but in a better world the hearings and trials would have been more fair. :)