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Yep. Temple.for the record, the scenario you detail isn't a crime in texas.Hell, driving drunk, pausing only to fire off a few hundred rounds into the oncoming traffic, doesn't seem to be a crime in Texas either! On the other hand, in Connecticut, a kid who has just turned 17 can be tried for statutory rape of a girl who turns 17 the very next day.I'm in the bar business myself and I can tell you in Texas the law is hard on DWI's. At least in my area anyways.
oh, they're no joke in houston either, trust me.
you're up around temple/mexia/waco someplace, right?
is Rylanders still there? (the burger joint). i was locked up with the owner's son...
I know people in Clear Lake with multiple citations (like, almost every Friday), and no loss of license. And if you leave Houston headed north on I-45, before you hit Conroe there's a big sign about how many people died from drunk driving accidents there this year. Almost makes me think there's some selective enforcement going on...
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I know people in Clear Lake with multiple citations (like, almost every Friday), and no loss of license. And if you leave Houston headed north on I-45, before you hit Conroe there's a big sign about how many people died from drunk driving accidents there this year. Almost makes me think there's some selective enforcement going on...
hmmm. i had a friend get pulled over on nasa rd 1 a few months ago, had to bail him out for dwi. maybe the people you know knew the cop? but you're right about the selective enforcement, its kinda like my knack for not getting traffic tickets...
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How so? I mean, some states will put a 17-year-old in a maximim security prison for 10 years if his girlfriend is 15. Then, when he gets out, he's on a "sex offender" list FOREVER, and is forever barred from living in most cities. His debt to society, such as it were, is never repaid.
So, yes, many of the U.S. laws may be stricter, if that's what you meant. But I'm not sure I'd say they're better, without knowing in what way that's measured.
You can find corner cases of injustice in any system. What you really need to look at is conviction rates compared to rate of occurrence.
I'm going to hide this under a spiler because it's long:
Now, I know that at first blush that sounds really awful, but when considering that number keep in mind a coupe of factors:
* Most rapists are multiple rapists
* 50% of rapes go unreported to the police
It also helps to compare it to some other crimes:
* robbery has a conviction rate of 3.5:100
* murder has a conviction rate of 17:100
Rape is given almost as much precedence in investigations as murder, but there are almost no unreported murders, which is why the conviction rate is twice as high.
Now compare that number (8.5:100) with England. In England the number is, and I'm not joking as much as I wish I were, 1:200 -- and rape is more likely to be reported in the UK! Basically, if you're a British woman and get raped, even if you know your assailant and report it, you can pretty much count on him getting away with it.
There are countries with higher conviction rates than the US, but there is good reason to be suspect of those numbers. For example, in Japan the conviction rate for all crimes is something like 92%, but in Japan they're are no protections for suspects, no jury trials, and almost all criminals are convicted on the basis of confession rather than physical evidence, and there is no plea bargaining so the justice system refuses to attempt to prosecute unless they know they can win. Japan is rife with police abuse, as many suspects are held for weeks on end and subjected to hours and hours of interrogation until they crack and confess. They also don't keep records of the number of rapes that go unreported.
Romania also has a higher conviction rate based on the number of reports, but Romanian police don't record the vast majority of rape reports, because it is a common belief amongst Romanian police that most women who report rapes are really just prostitutes who got ripped off by johns, so they don't take a report, and they also don't record unreported rapes.
Seriously, if you are an American woman and are subject to a sexual assault, not only should you report it -- feminist claims that police are generally non-responsive are almost entirely false, and based on an understanding of police that reflects a reality of 50 years ago -- but you are far more likely to receive justice than anywhere else in the world.
Sex crimes were actually my primary area of focus in college. It's weird to say it, but I'm something of an expert on them.
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I know people in Clear Lake with multiple citations (like, almost every Friday), and no loss of license. And if you leave Houston headed north on I-45, before you hit Conroe there's a big sign about how many people died from drunk driving accidents there this year. Almost makes me think there's some selective enforcement going on...
Yup, sounds like Good Old Boy syndrome.
Small town, officer knows the drunk driver, doesn't want to ruin dude's life, let's him off with warning after warning after warning.
A real problem with small town law enforcement across the country.
What you really need to look at is conviction rates compared to rate of occurrence.
Thanks for the data; they were frighteningly enlightening. I guess what threw me is your use of "sex crime" to mean "rape." To me, the former term is so vague as to be nearly meaningless. The latter is a vicious atrocity that, to my mind, merits the death penalty as surely as murder.
but you're right about the selective enforcement, its kinda like my knack for not getting traffic tickets...
You suck! I get a ticket every time I'm pulled over, without exception. And I get pulled over when I go like 5 mph above the limit. Sometimes the cops keep one hand on their pistol the whole time, which is always fun, and one time they carded my wife (a passenger) on the off-chance she might me a minor that maybe I transported across a state line (I was in Virginia that time). And the thing is, I drive a nondescript Ford Escort, properly registered, and I'm clean cut and always polite. One of my cop friends told me it was nothing personal, but "you look like a criminal."
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What you really need to look at is conviction rates compared to rate of occurrence.Thanks for the data; they were frighteningly enlightening. I guess what threw me is your use of "sex crime" to mean "rape." To me, the former term is so vague as to be nearly meaningless. The latter is a vicious atrocity that, to my mind, merits the death penalty as surely as murder.
Oh yeah, sorry. Cop talk. In criminal justice circles we talk about "sex crimes" rather than "rape." That can include rape, sexual assault, molestation, and several other crimes, but doesn't include things like sodomy, prostituion, pandering, etc. which are "vice crimes."
In criminal justice circles we talk about "sex crimes" rather than "rape." That can include rape, sexual assault, molestation, and several other crimes, but doesn't include things like sodomy, prostituion, pandering, etc. which are "vice crimes."
What about 17-year-olds and their girlfriends? (Imagining the Big Lebowski saying, "Which one is Logjammin'?")
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What you really need to look at is conviction rates compared to rate of occurrence.Thanks for the data; they were frighteningly enlightening. I guess what threw me is your use of "sex crime" to mean "rape." To me, the former term is so vague as to be nearly meaningless. The latter is a vicious atrocity that, to my mind, merits the death penalty as surely as murder.
hmmm, this is one of the reasons im NOT for the death penalty. strangely enough (and i know from some first hand experience) being in prison for the res tof your natural life, with NO HOPE of EVER being free is far worse than getting "let off the hook" after eight years or so, you know, if the point is to punish someone...
however, since we do have the death penalty in some states, i would be very careful about the "rape deserves the death penalty" stance. i cite a recent case in maryland where a man and a woman were having consentual sex, the woman decided she didnt want to anymore, it took the man SEVEN SECONDS from the time she decided to remove consent to the time he stopped (seven seconds, folks). he was convicted of rape.
this article doesn't really go in depth, but it was the top of the google list
does that guy deserve the death penalty?
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Oh yeah, sorry. Cop talk. In criminal justice circles we talk about "sex crimes" rather than "rape." That can include rape, sexual assault, molestation, and several other crimes, but doesn't include things like sodomy, prostituion, pandering, etc. which are "vice crimes."What you really need to look at is conviction rates compared to rate of occurrence.Thanks for the data; they were frighteningly enlightening. I guess what threw me is your use of "sex crime" to mean "rape." To me, the former term is so vague as to be nearly meaningless. The latter is a vicious atrocity that, to my mind, merits the death penalty as surely as murder.
in texas, arizona and florida, soliciting a proistitute can get you put on a sex offender list...
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but you're right about the selective enforcement, its kinda like my knack for not getting traffic tickets...You suck! I get a ticket every time I'm pulled over, without exception. And I get pulled over when I go like 5 mph above the limit. Sometimes the cops keep one hand on their pistol the whole time, which is always fun, and one time they carded my wife (a passenger) on the off-chance she might me a minor that maybe I transported across a state line (I was in Virginia that time). And the thing is, I drive a nondescript Ford Escort, properly registered, and I'm clean cut and always polite. One of my cop friends told me it was nothing personal, but "you look like a criminal."
wow, i got pulled over a few weeks in a small texas town, accidentally gave the cop my prison id instead of my license, and he STILL let me off with a warning!
this article doesn't really go in depth, but it was the top of the google list
does that guy deserve the death penalty?
Obviously not, but the woman might! Seriously, that's a major miscarriage of justice. I'm talking rape like dude holds a chick at gunpoint kind of thing, or some creep like Joran van der Sloot and his date rape drinks.
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hmmm, this is one of the reasons im NOT for the death penalty. strangely enough (and i know from some first hand experience) being in prison for the res tof your natural life, with NO HOPE of EVER being free is far worse than getting "let off the hook" after eight years or so, you know, if the point is to punish someone...
I'm opposed to the death penalty because states which use the death penalty have higher violent crime rates. Seriously, check it out sometime. The South (including Texas) has the highest execution rate AND the highest murder rate. The correlation is so strong it's almost overwhelming.
If you look internationally, you'll find that the most violent cultures are also the cultures that most gleefully embrace the death penalty. Like Saudi Arabia, where public executions are still commonplace, has one of the highest rates of murder in the world (and is a place where men feel they have the right to kill their wives for bring dishonor to their family by, for example, going out alone to the market).
it's called the "brutalization effect." Essentially the theory is that the nastier and more brutal the state, the nastier and more brutal the people, as the people learn what authority means from watching the state. And when the state uses the death penalty, they are teaching their citizens that having authority gives you the right to kill people.
I'm opposed to the death penalty because states which use the death penalty have higher violent crime rates. Seriously, check it out sometime. The South (including Texas) has the highest execution rate AND the highest murder rate. The correlation is so strong it's almost overwhelming.
That's about the only coherent argument against it I've ever heard -- I'll have to look into the stats. Usually people say it's not fair, or that it's too harsh a punishment, but I always felt it wasn't so much a punishment as an assurance: an executed murderer or rapist has a 0% chance of repeating his crime. But if it actually does spawn more of them, then that's not much use.
is Rylanders still there? (the burger joint). i was locked up with the owner's son...Yep. Temple.for the record, the scenario you detail isn't a crime in texas.Hell, driving drunk, pausing only to fire off a few hundred rounds into the oncoming traffic, doesn't seem to be a crime in Texas either! On the other hand, in Connecticut, a kid who has just turned 17 can be tried for statutory rape of a girl who turns 17 the very next day.I'm in the bar business myself and I can tell you in Texas the law is hard on DWI's. At least in my area anyways.
oh, they're no joke in houston either, trust me.
you're up around temple/mexia/waco someplace, right?
Yeah, it is. Are the burgers any good? I've never ate there before.
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I think its a bigger problem that the disparity between the highest earner in a company and the lowest earners has become so much larger than it was in the past. In 1950, the disparity ratio was about 1:100 -- the guy on the assembly made about $1 for every $100 that the CEO made -- while currently the disparity is 1:1000 and still rising. That middle class wages have stayed stagnant for thirty years while CEO earnings have increased by over a 1000% points to a serious problem in American society.
I wouldn't regard a large disparity in, for arguments sake, top and bottom decile earnings as a problem per se.
Unless there are a sufficiently large enough number of people making sufficient money to directly skew the economy (well, to skew the economy beyond the yacht and private jet marketplace), I don't believe there's any problem with top-earners making very large amounts of money -- what matters is how much the people at the bottom of the ladder are making.
Whilst some difference could be made by increased redistribution of wealth from the well-off to the poor, I believe the direct impact would be very limited and the indirect consequences very hard to predict. Rather than worrying about a few people with telephone number salaries, I believe it's better to focus on how the people at the other end of the scale can be raised up out of poverty -- without it mattering if in doing so the disparity is increased further, so long as the poorest in society are raised above the poverty line.
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I'm opposed to the death penalty because states which use the death penalty have higher violent crime rates. Seriously, check it out sometime. The South (including Texas) has the highest execution rate AND the highest murder rate. The correlation is so strong it's almost overwhelming.That's about the only coherent argument against it I've ever heard -- I'll have to look into the stats. Usually people say it's not fair, or that it's too harsh a punishment, but I always felt it wasn't so much a punishment as an assurance: an executed murderer or rapist has a 0% chance of repeating his crime. But if it actually does spawn more of them, then that's not much use.
Though correlation does not imply causation. It might be that violent societies care less about the civil rights implications of executions. After all, the southern states are probably more religious than the ones more north, but that doesn't necessarily mean that religion causes murder and rape.
I'm opposed to the death penalty because states which use the death penalty have higher violent crime rates. Seriously, check it out sometime. The South (including Texas) has the highest execution rate AND the highest murder rate. The correlation is so strong it's almost overwhelming.
As pointed out above, correlation is not the same as causation. Just because both occur in the same area does not mean one is the cause of the other. It maybe that both are caused by a common factor. Or maybe there is a causation relationship but not in the direction we first think (that areas with higher rates of crime make the citizens more accepting of more dire measures to curb it).
Comparing areas with low violent crime and not having the death penalty to areas with high violent crime and who use it can be misleading. We know that violent tendencies can be higher in certain families than others even excluding the effect of the raising environment (that is there can be a genetic component to some behavior). We also know that, in the US, people immigrated to different areas in large groups from similar genetic backgrounds. Thus there may be quite different tendencies for certain behavior in some areas than others.
Also we know that income can be a large factor in the number of violent crimes. Most violent crimes are commited by lower income people. Due to the nature of wealth distrubitions we know that there are areas of the country much better off than others and that may be skewing the data also. For example, I would wager that the average personal income in Rhode Island is much higher than the average personal income in Mississippi. This can be another reason why comparing different areas can be misleading.
Instead of comparing different areas and their policies on the death penalty it would be better to compare one area with itself. There was a time when the death penalty was not considered constitutional and thus was not allowable as a sentence. Compare the per capita number of violent crimes in the areas that NOW use the death penalty during time periods where the death penalty was allowed and not allowed. If violent crime in that area increased when the death penalty was reinstated, then there may be a causational relationship. If it did not increase (significantly from a statistical point of view) during that time, then we might be wrong to claim a causational relationship (at least in that direction).
Even if this reason proves to be false (and it may very well be true I haven't examined the data from a state that uses the death penalty to a time when it couldn't) there may very well be other reasons not to use the death penalty anyway.
I'm generally against the death penalty because it's a bad public policy option. It cannot be ameliorated and requires a level of accuracy that, I believe, our justice system is incapable of attaining. There are too many cases that have been overturned in the last 10-15 years to give me any confidence.
Add to that the discrepancies in when the death penalty is sought - cases where defendants can't afford decent or even experienced capital case lawyers and racial disparities - and I come to the conclusion that it shouldn't be available as an option.
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I'm opposed to the death penalty because states which use the death penalty have higher violent crime rates. Seriously, check it out sometime. The South (including Texas) has the highest execution rate AND the highest murder rate. The correlation is so strong it's almost overwhelming.That's about the only coherent argument against it I've ever heard -- I'll have to look into the stats. Usually people say it's not fair, or that it's too harsh a punishment, but I always felt it wasn't so much a punishment as an assurance: an executed murderer or rapist has a 0% chance of repeating his crime. But if it actually does spawn more of them, then that's not much use.
The problem is that, statistically speaking, a death row inmate has a better chance of dieing from natural causes on death row than from being executed. I personally think that the death penelty should be looked at like abortion, it should be rare but is some times needed.
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Also we know that income can be a large factor in the number of violent crimes. Most violent crimes are commited by lower income people. Due to the nature of wealth distrubitions we know that there are areas of the country much better off than others and that may be skewing the data also.
People who feel less secure (financially as well as personally) tend to be under stress, and that stress can make it easier for them to be willing to take more draconian measures to 'feel' secure (stealing stuff for the poor, taking drugs that take away the stressful feelings, for a time, or supporting 'tough on crime' laws). I would not be terribly surprised to learn that growing up in poverty might even pre-condition people to have less respect for the lives (and property) of others, since, from their perspective, other people had no respect for *their* life during their formative years. Then again, I grew up in some pretty scary poverty from time to time, and the idea of killing people doesn't make *me* feel more secure about anything, so I'm not sure that people who live in economically depressed areas deserve a pass for being pro-violent crime and pro-death penalty.
It may not be a causal proof of any sort, but it always seemed to make sense to me that if you raise someone to believe that human life is *not* sacred, that it has limits past which you will be *killed,* then it's harder to convince that person that killing people is actually *bad.* Once life has a price tag, so to speak, the question of price comes up. How much is a life worth? Can I kill someone for hooking up with my sister? Can I kill someone for dissing my mother? Can I kill someone for stealing my bicycle? Can I kill someone for cutting across my yard? Can I kill someone for disagreeing with me on a messageboard? (Gosh, I hope not.)
Every child wants to believe that the world is 'fair,' and is frustrated to the point of tantrums by perceived injustice, by 'what Billy got away with' or seemingly arbitrary parental rules that only seem to apply to them.
Some adults still cling to this belief, refusing to accept that the world isn't fair, or that it isn't all going to be magically made right in the end, with bad people (who were rich, popular and spent their silver years in a ferrari with a trophy wife half their age) being punished and good people (who were poor, sickly and struggled through their lives) being rewarded by some ultimate arbiter of what's 'fair.'
They support strong 'justice,' because they feel a sense of outrage at all the things that people seem to be 'getting away with' in this world. And yet that 'justice' *always* revolves around punishment, never around rewards for those who behave well. Children are to be spanked, never praised.
I had a professor who was against the death penelty, but for abortion. I always found that to be the weirdest sort of disconnect imaginable.
That's because you're trying to project your views on his. There may be reasons to treat them the same depending on how you approach the two issues. When JP2 brought the Catholic Church out against the death penalty, he did so based on a single moral principle that he held - death was the province of god alone. By doing so, he brought the Catholic position on euthanasia, abortion, suicide, and the death penalty all into the same line.
But that's not the only criteria you can apply. It's hard to deny that, under some circumstances, the death penalty might be appropriate. Think of the Nazi leaders executed after the Nuremberg trials. Yet, there are also plenty of good arguments that the state should not have the power to order the death penalty because of a past track record of applying it based upon unfair discrimination or erroneously. And none of those reasons should be assumed to have any impact whatsoever on the abortion rights debate.
I'm not sure that people who live in economically depressed areas deserve a pass for being pro-violent crime and pro-death penalty.
I agree and am not suggesting it. I was merely trying to point out that violent crime and support of the death penalty may both be influenced by other factors and that it may be meaningless to compare different areas, states, or countries due to these possible other factors.
It may lead us into some faulty logic. Like for example we might believe that an area will get less violent if we remove the death penalty. If the cause of the violence is not the death penalty but both are in fact symptoms of something else, then if we don't address the actual cause the problem will never be solved. You might remove a symptom (the death penalty) but retain others (violent crime).
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I had a professor who was against the death penelty, but for abortion. I always found that to be the weirdest sort of disconnect imaginable.That's because you're trying to project your views on his. There may be reasons to treat them the same depending on how you approach the two issues. When JP2 brought the Catholic Church out against the death penalty, he did so based on a single moral principle that he held - death was the province of god alone. By doing so, he brought the Catholic position on euthanasia, abortion, suicide, and the death penalty all into the same line.
But that's not the only criteria you can apply. It's hard to deny that, under some circumstances, the death penalty might be appropriate. Think of the Nazi leaders executed after the Nuremberg trials. Yet, there are also plenty of good arguments that the state should not have the power to order the death penalty because of a past track record of applying it based upon unfair discrimination or erroneously. And none of those reasons should be assumed to have any impact whatsoever on the abortion rights debate.
Yes, of course your right. I am projecting my own feeling onto his views. My views are that unless there is a serious medical reason for it, or the baby is the result of rape or incest and having the baby would result in serious emotional trauma for the mother, a child should be given the chance to live. At the same time I believe that there are times, like the afore mentioned Nazi war criminals, when society needs to have the power to take a life for the good of society. What I do not believe is that Ted Bundy or Jose Medellin has more right to live than an unborn child. That is why I say it's a disconnect in my mind.
My views are that unless there is a serious medical reason for it, or the baby is the result of rape or incest and having the baby would result in serious emotional trauma for the mother, a child should be given the chance to live.
It's all a matter of where you draw the line. In the first month, a blastoid can hardly be termed a "baby," it's more a potential baby. But then again, so is a sperm -- all it needs is an egg to fertilize. So is all birth control and all masturbation equivalent to murdering a baby? (Most would disagree. But if so, it would be important to find some way to prevent nocturnal emissions at all costs!)
The above looks like it's taken to an extreme, but there are people with such views; everyone probably remembers the Monte Python song. More often, people view a fertilized egg as a "baby." Some people view a fertilized egg that has developed organs as a "baby." Some would require humanlike form, or a chance of survival outside of the womb. There's a broad scale, not a clean-cut dividing line.
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I'm not sure that people who live in economically depressed areas deserve a pass for being pro-violent crime and pro-death penalty.I agree and am not suggesting it. I was merely trying to point out that violent crime and support of the death penalty may both be influenced by other factors and that it may be meaningless to compare different areas, states, or countries due to these possible other factors.
It may lead us into some faulty logic. Like for example we might believe that an area will get less violent if we remove the death penalty. If the cause of the violence is not the death penalty but both are in fact symptoms of something else, then if we don't address the actual cause the problem will never be solved. You might remove a symptom (the death penalty) but retain others (violent crime).
According to the facts here and here I would tend to say that poverty is a more motivating factor in violent crime that the death penalty. Notice that the safest city in America is in a state that has the death penalty and the most violent is in a state that does not. However the second safest is in a non-death penalty state, while the second most violent is in a state that has the death penalty. Also here are the violent crime rates for 2006 (the most recent numbers I could find) so you could make the comparison for yourself.
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My views are that unless there is a serious medical reason for it, or the baby is the result of rape or incest and having the baby would result in serious emotional trauma for the mother, a child should be given the chance to live.It's all a matter of where you draw the line. In the first month, a blastoid can hardly be termed a "baby," it's more a potential baby. But then again, so is a sperm -- all it needs is an egg to fertilize. So is all birth control and all masturbation equivalent to murdering a baby? (Most would disagree. But if so, it would be important to find some way to prevent nocturnal emissions at all costs!)
The above looks like it's taken to an extreme, but there are people with such views; everyone probably remembers the Monte Python song. More often, people view a fertilized egg as a "baby." Some people view a fertilized egg that has developed organs as a "baby." Some would require humanlike form, or a chance of survival outside of the womb. There's a broad scale, not a clean-cut dividing line.
Your right of course. This professor's professed belief was that abortion should be legal until 8 1/2 months. I say professed because he also cliamed to make statements just to see what kind of reaction he could provoke, so you never really knew where he stood. The only thing he was ever consistant on was his anger over not being able to smoke inside Arby's while he ate his breakfast.
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It may not be a causal proof of any sort, but it always seemed to make sense to me that if you raise someone to believe that human life is *not* sacred, that it has limits past which you will be *killed,* then it's harder to convince that person that killing people is actually *bad.* Once life has a price tag, so to speak, the question of price comes up. How much is a life worth? Can I kill someone for hooking up with my sister? Can I kill someone for dissing my mother? Can I kill someone for stealing my bicycle? Can I kill someone for cutting across my yard? Can I kill someone for disagreeing with me on a messageboard? (Gosh, I hope not.)
Alright, but let me play devil's advocate here for a minute. Is the death penalty the only practice that devalues life? Could it not be argued that euthinasia, abortion, and other practices where one person chooses to end the life of another also contribute to the devaluing of human life? What about violent movies and video games? And what if we look at from the other angle, How does sending the message that there is nothing so henious that you should be punished with anything more than free room and board for the rest of your life act as a deterent to violent crime?
I understand that prison is no picnic, but I have also had experience with people commiting crimes so that they could go to jail for a few nights to have a warm place to sleep and three square meals. Alot of them are just not capable of functioning in society and don't know how to get the help the need. Unfortunatly our legal system is also not set up to help these people, in most cases. I think we need to have a complete rework of our legal system. I also think that if we are going to say life is sacred, then that should include all life.
1. I think we need to have a complete rework of our legal system.
2. I also think that if we are going to say life is sacred, then that should include all life.
1. Agreed!
2. Quality, or just presence/absence? If one requires a binary world-view, then obviously "life is sacred" translates to anti-abortion, anti-capital punishment, anti-euthanasia. But if one is willing to consider the former, well, I personally would rather be put to death, than to spend the rest of my life in a maximum-security prison, or as a vegetable. Patrick Henry had a quote about that kind of stuff as well ;)
Also, "all life" would include bacteria, tapeworms, etc. For (usually) egocentric or religious reasons, many people use the term "all life" to mean "all human life." And PETA people often use the term to mean "only cute and furry life," for reasons that make no sense at all to me.
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Alright, but let me play devil's advocate here for a minute. Is the death penalty the only practice that devalues life? Could it not be argued that euthinasia, abortion, and other practices where one person chooses to end the life of another also contribute to the devaluing of human life?
Sure, but since I'm not pro-abortion (I'd prefer if there were none at all, means existed to cure birth defects in vitro and if there were zero unwanted babies, but I didn't get to choose this world), I really don't see the need to have my views on the death penalty summarily dismissed because some other people have views that you don't agree with.
I'd like to see somemore research done before I come down on one side or the other. Most people I've know who got into hard drugs started with cannibus. However, I've also known people who smoke weed and (to my knowledge) never graduated to the harder stuff. Kind of like when I started drinking. I started with a light beer one day at a party and within a few monthes was up to uzo. (spelling?) Meanwhile, some people never move past light beer. Which is a real shame if you ask me.
My info is based on a Drugs and Behaviour course I took in undergrad. Take that for what you will. I personally don't use marijuana though I tried it a couple of times 20 or so years ago in my teens - I simply don't like the drug, much preferring stimulants. So I smoke cigarettes and drink lots of coffee (both of which are uppers) - and stay far away from harder stimulants due to a real fear that I'll really, really, like them and screw up my life.
We actually have a fair bit of research on marijuana. Not as much as alcohol, tobacco and coffee but its quite extensive otherwise. The drug is not particularly dangerous - its very comparable to tobacco in that the danger is nearly identical - your putting yourself at a very significant risk for lung cancer. While people who use marijuana don't use as much as tobacco users smoke they do inhale very deeply and then hold so its been estimated that one joint is roughly the equivalent of five cigarettes. Thats the major danger from the drug - we don't have other evidence that people generally go bonkers on it and the LD 50, if there is one, is so high that there are no confirmed cases of ODing on it.
The Gateway Drug hypothesis is essentially unsupportable by data. Despite significant efforts to show that there is such a mechanism in human behaviour no one has ever been able to come up with numbers that really back it up. Far to many people simply don't move on to harder drugs and those that do are often not really introduced to them via pot smoking.
The drug is not physically addictive and not particularly mentally addictive however people do tend to self medicate - certainly there are individuals out there who find it hard to get through a day with out marijuana and will take actions to secure some that make no sense in retrospect (like using the rent money).
I'm firmly in the camp that wants to legalize and tax the stuff. I agree with regulation as one should probably not be high and driving or operating heavy machinery.
People were talking about that 24 hour curfew earlier. I wonder if anyone saw this:
16 youths off Hartford, Conn. streets in sweep
People were talking about that 24 hour curfew earlier. I wonder if anyone saw this:
16 youths off Hartford, Conn. streets in sweep
Hartford's a bad town. Not maybe on the par with Bridgeport, CT ("Gangs-R-Us"), but not what you'd call safe and family-friendly.
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It's all a matter of where you draw the line. In the first month, a blastoid can hardly be termed a "baby," it's more a potential baby. But then again, so is a sperm -- all it needs is an egg to fertilize. So is all birth control and all masturbation equivalent to murdering a baby? (Most would disagree. But if so, it would be important to find some way to prevent nocturnal emissions at all costs!)
Hard to say what the 'sin of Onan' crowd believes about nocturnal emissions, although they do consider masturbation to be akin to murder, having failed to read far enough into that Bible passage to realize that Onan was being punished for *failing to knock up his brother's wife.*
Meanwhile, in the really, real world, 30-40% of *fertilized* eggs fail to implant and get flushed out with the next menstrual cycle. So for every 6 or 7 people you know, 3 to 4 others swirled down the toilet and nobody's to blame (other than mother nature, or whomever you believe designed the reproductive system). And then there's the many hundreds of unfertilized eggs that get flushed, and the many thousands of sperm that get consumed and recycled within the testes every 48 hours, assuming that they don't also end up going down a drain somewhere.
To get all Devil's Advocate on the quality of life vs. quantity of life thing (note, I don't believe this stuff, in case it isn't obvious);
What about deformed fetuses? Why is it acceptable to abort them, when there are millions of people in the world with deformities, and if one of us tried to shoot them for 'being deformed,' we'd (rightly) go to prison (perhaps with a stop at the nuthatch). Is being deformed a death-sentence? Exactly *how* deformed is 'go for execute.' Down's Syndrome? Gimpy foot? Shriveled arm? Harelip? Bad complexion?
What about that 'trauma of giving birth to a child of rape?' Yes, rape, traumatic, very bad, I stipulate to this, but why is the child being punished for it? More importantly, why is the child being *sentenced to death* for a crime that it's father is going to get 10 years in the clink for? Is it even legal to punish someone for the crimes of their father? Is it justifiable or defensible to say that a *person is being killed* for the mother's peace of mind?
What about people who breed indiscriminately, despite lacking the resources to provide for these children? If we are going to have laws *requiring* someone to have a child even when she doesn't want to, should we consider laws *forbidding* people to have children that are just going to be a burden on the state? O'Reilly makes much noise about brown people 'outbreeding us' and how we are 'losing our country.' Should we perhaps forbid immigrants, or foreigners, from breeding? As long as we think it's okay to kill deformed babies, should we also forbid deaf people or 'little people' from breeding?
I guess it all comes down to the question, who's rights prevail?
Does the unborn potential person have *more* rights than the adult tax-paying *citizen?* Is a woman a slave, her rights automatically subordinate to those of the child growing within her, utterly incapable of deciding for herself if she wants to be a mother? Should a reluctant mother-to-be perhaps be restrained throughout her term, to prevent her from doing anything to induce a miscarriage? Should she be forcibly prevented from smoking, drinking or eating junk food, so that she can't endanger this tiny person growing inside of her?
Even if our society never passed such grotesque laws, we still heap shame and contempt on 'bad mothers,' and incidents where mothers drown their children are considered abominations, since the idea that some young woman who had dreams and goals and plans for her life, but ended up seeing them all yanked away because she got knocked up and then dumped by some dude who said he loved her, would *not turn into mother-of-the-year* is apparently too radical for some to process.
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As Set pointed out, rejecting the death penalty but embracing abortion (or vice versa, as is far more common amongst fundamentalists), is only contradictory if one starts from the premise that life is sacred in some sense.
Since there is no rational reason to believe this (i.e. no empirical evidence), and since hardly anyone who makes the claim is willing to follow through with it to its full extent -- for example, anyone who opposes abortion on the grounds of the sanctity of innocent life but supports the Iraq War (with its thousands of innocent civilian casulties) is on pretty thin ice, philosophically speaking, and this would include the vast majority of the anti-choice side (especially anti-choicers in office) -- there are good reasons to reject the idea that all life is sacred.
Many people, whether they realize it or not, actually subscribe to something closer to Peter Singer's practical ethics, or are morally bankrupt and simply don't recognize it. Most fundamentalists would fall into this category.
Note that I'm not attacking Christian ethics, but rather the weird mish-mash of beliefs, some vageuly rooted in christian doctrine, that underlie the fundamentalist postions. When a person says all life is sacred, and that we can't ever abort babies, but then demands that we have a strong military and bomb the heck out of civilian populations, that person is not operating from any sort of rational ethics. An example of true Christian ethics would be the Catholic Church's universal condemnation of abortion, murder, capital punishment, and war.
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Alright, but let me play devil's advocate here for a minute. Is the death penalty the only practice that devalues life? Could it not be argued that euthinasia, abortion, and other practices where one person chooses to end the life of another also contribute to the devaluing of human life?Sure, but since I'm not pro-abortion (I'd prefer if there were none at all, means existed to cure birth defects in vitro and if there were zero unwanted babies, but I didn't get to choose this world), I really don't see the need to have my views on the death penalty summarily dismissed because some other people have views that you don't agree with.
I apologize if you felt I was dismissing your views. I was not. I was meerly trying to open up a broader discussion. In fact I would say that your views are more consistant than mine, if I understand them correctly.
An example of true Christian ethics would be the Catholic Church's universal condemnation of abortion, murder, capital punishment, and war.
You know, I rarely agree with the Catholics on anything, but I'm usually impressed with the amount of scholarship and careful thought they put into things. I respect that a lot more than "Well, it's OBVIOUS what the Bible means -- it means whatever I say it means -- if you interpret it differently than I do, you're being willfully stupid, or else have been deluded by Satan!"
Is a woman a slave, her rights automatically subordinate to those of the child growing within her, utterly incapable of deciding for herself if she wants to be a mother?
Well to take a "play" from the feminist "playbook", excluding the cases where a woman is forced, a woman who willingly has sexual intercourse has already made her choice to be a mother. This is what men are told all the time about their reproductive "rights".
Looking at the issue of reproductive "rights" more broadly we see some disturbing lack of respect for men. I wonder how many people are aware that men can be raped by women (though this is rare it can happen) and that physical arousal and even orgasm are not proof of consent. How many people here think that if a man was raped by a woman and a pregnancy resulted that a man would be financial responsible to that child if the woman choose to carry it to term, regardless (thanks again Kirth) of his "dreams and goals and plans for [his] life" that would be effected by this loss of resources? I think so. Heck there are men who are not even the father of a child that are forced to support it (say if a woman cheats on her husband, they divorce, and he learns the child was not his).
I say, let's have true "equivalency" (can't really have equality on this issue) on reproductive rights. Sticking to only pregancies resulting from consensual sex. If a woman decides to carry a child to term despite the wishes of the father, the father can sign away his rights and responsibilities to the child and can not be held financially accountable for it. If a woman decides to voluntarily terminate her pregnancy despite the wish of the father for it to be carried to term, then he shall be financially compensated for his loss (similar to a wrongful death suit).
Realistically things like this are never going to happen, but it is an interesting thought experiment.
thanks again Kirth.
Actually, that was Set's quote, not mine. Good post, nonetheless; even if I don't agree with all of it, it's food for thought.
thanks again Kirth.Actually, that was Set's quote, not mine.
I was referring to the "regardless" use.
I was referring to the "regardless" use.
LOL! That went right over my head until you pointed it out. Nice one!
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Is a woman a slave, her rights automatically subordinate to those of the child growing within her, utterly incapable of deciding for herself if she wants to be a mother?I say, let's have true "equivalency" (can't really have equality on this issue) on reproductive rights. Sticking to only pregancies resulting from consensual sex. If a woman decides to carry a child to term despite the wishes of the father, the father can sign away his rights and responsibilities to the child and can not be held financially accountable for it. If a woman decides to voluntarily terminate her pregnancy despite the wish of the father for it to be carried to term, then he shall be financially compensated for his loss (similar to a wrongful death suit).
Agreed. In a perfect world, we'd even have the technology to pluck the blastocyte out of the doesn't-want-to-be-a-mother and implant it in someone who *does* want to be a mom (or is willing to play surrogate).
I've even heard of a case where the young man provided genetic evidence that he was conclusively not the father *and still had to pay child support,* because the judge thought that it was in the best interests of the child. Personally, I think that judge needs to have his peepee whacked for being a nimrod, but that's the world we live in. Entirely too many people believe that adults (of either gender) have no rights once children are in the picture. My conservative side gets all riled up when rights are taken away by the government.
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You know, I rarely agree with the Catholics on anything, but I'm usually impressed with the amount of scholarship and careful thought they put into things. I respect that a lot more than "Well, it's OBVIOUS what the Bible means -- it means whatever I say it means -- if you interpret it differently than I do, you're being willfully stupid, or else have been deluded by Satan!"
It's those darn Jesuits. Always thinkin!
If only every religious (and political) body had a group of people whose sole purpose in life appears to be to stir things up and ask the forbidden questions!
I'm generally against the death penalty because it's a bad public policy option. It cannot be ameliorated and requires a level of accuracy that, I believe, our justice system is incapable of attaining. There are too many cases that have been overturned in the last 10-15 years to give me any confidence.
Add to that the discrepancies in when the death penalty is sought - cases where defendants can't afford decent or even experienced capital case lawyers and racial disparities - and I come to the conclusion that it shouldn't be available as an option.
This would be my position as well. I don't really have any sympathy for the kinds of people who are facing the death penalty. I could not care less if they die. No moral qualms in that regard from me. However the criminal justice system is incapable of being perfect. Thats just not possible - hence there should be some way to take things back if something turns out to be a miscarriage of justice. If there was some other strong argument in favour of a death penalty - like it lowered crime rates or it was far cheaper for the tax payers or something then it might be worth while. But the reality is its so obscenely expensive to execute some one due to all the appeals etc. that its not economically beneficial and there is no real evidence that it has any positive effect on violent crime. Hence it just does not really make much logical sense. That said it does seem to make some political sense. A lot of the voters seem to want it and, I suppose, the voters should get what they desire. Hence I'm all for trying to convince the electorate that this is an idea thats more trouble then its worth.
I had a professor who was against the death penelty, but for abortion. I always found that to be the weirdest sort of disconnect imaginable.
I fall squarely into that category but don't see them as being at all related.