I was reading the book “On Boxing by Joyce Oates” and I found this really interesting. This is the excerpt.
"Some time ago one of the souther states adopted a new method of capital punishment. Poison gas supplanted the gallows. In its earliest stages, a microphone was placed inside the sealed death chamber so that scientific observers might hear the words of the dying prisoner…The first victim was a young Negro. As the pellet dropped into the container, and gas curled upward, though the microphone came only these words “Save me Joe Louis, save me Joe Louis, save me Joe Louis…save me…save me Joe Louis…save me…Joe” --Martin Luther King, Jr. quoted in Chris Mead Champion Joe Louis, Black Man in White America.
I just thought that was incredible.
How screwed up is the death sentence? anyone find it justifiable?
I don’t quite understand what you’re saying. I also don’t see where the possible consipracy is. But I imagine that inhaling Hydrocyanic acid makes one delirious and incoherent. I wouldn’t take anything that was said after someone was exposed to such a gas seriously.
You’re wrong, question!
Because the death penalty is evil and people should like, love one another and stuff. If a man cuts off my girlfriends head with an axe and uses her severed head to give himself a blowjob, I’m just gonna send love waves at him with my mind. Because it’s all about the love.
This one time I hit my head while jumping in a pool. Sonny Liston pulled me out the water. He searched my pockets, punched me in the stomach, and threw me back in. My hero.
Seriously though, how’s that quote go again? One should learn to recognise and fear the man who suffers an overwhelming desire to punish others?
You mean like Frank Castle, Marion Cobretti, and Harry Callahan?
And now for the philosophy stick I mentioned. Do you think criminals are as much people as innocents and victims?
I’ll take: not understanding what you are asking for $50, Alex. I’ll agree that crimminals are members of the species homo sapiens, but I’m not sure what that has to do with anything.
Be careful swinging that philosophy stick…look where it got your namesake.
I favor capital punishment because of its deterrent value. I’m not speaking in the general sense, it being very hard to find evidence of crimes not committed, but in the specific, i.e no one has ever been executed twice for the same crime.
You’re right. What I should have said was ‘The desire to punish others leads to awesome visual media’.
I’ll take: not understanding what you are asking for $50, Alex. I’ll agree that crimminals are members of the species homo sapiens, but I’m not sure what that has to do with anything.
A man kills another man in cold blood. This is murder, yes? Why is the deliberate killing of a criminal any different to killing anyone else deliberately, when the difference between a criminal and a regular civilian is so negligable? Is there something a criminal does that inherently renders them less human than others, or makes their lives less valuable?
Be careful swinging that philosophy stick…look where it got your namesake.
I favor capital punishment because of its deterrent value. I’m not speaking in the general sense, it being very hard to find evidence of crimes not committed, but in the specific, i.e no one has ever been executed twice for the same crime.
One of the few (by few I probably mean several) arguments for capital punishment I agree on is that the unable to be rehabilitated will be permenantly prevented from repeating their crimes. I wasn’t sure what grounds or arguments you were using to vouch for said capital punishment, so I asked in a roundabout way. Bonus points for Socrates reference.
Depends on what purpose we wish my punishment to serve. If it was for my natural life, death plz. Of course, being dead, when I’m later proven innocent, it’s kinda “Oh, my bad”, isn’t it?
Capital punishment is a good way of making miscarriages of justice irrevocable while reducing murder rates not at all.
–C.D. Hare
I think the death penalty shows how backwards American politics is in comparision to many other first World Countries.
Taking another persons life is wrong regardless of the circustances.
It’s more prevalent then you think. An Australian citizen was hanged over in (Thailand, I think? Or was it Bali or something?) about a year or two ago.
Yeah I know- I dont mean to single out the USA, there’s many countries with far worse criminal justice systems I just think that its pretty archaic to have the death penalty in any country where free education and democracy are available.
Their lives are in fact rendered less valuable since they not only contribute nothing to society, but take much away from it. They spread fear, hate and hurt while destroying citizens who labor to improve their surroundings.
I take this as an unprovoked attack on criminals. Why lump them all in with the babies? It just shows how crass and jaded you’ve become towards the criminal element.
