THE Government of Singapore was due to murder a man this morning. Certainly, it is acting according to the laws of that country. Certainly, the means of his death is known from long experience to be quick and painless. Certainly, no one in Singapore took any apparent pleasure in the decision that a man should die. But no qualification can disguise that they have planned an act of murder. And there is no explanation, no justification, that can excuse any nation from killing an individual who has broken the law. There never has been and there never will be. For any state to kill a convicted criminal already imprisoned and incapable of doing further harm, is desperately cruel. It is not an act committed in rage or madness. It is not the act of an evil individual killing for gain or to assuage some appalling passion or prejudice. It is not needed to defend the state against enemies within, or to protect the community against imminent harm. The death penalty is an ineffable act of violence against individuals who are defenceless and, at the end of their lives, utterly alone. And the leaders of countries from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, from China to Singapore, that allow executions, are deficient in humanity and reason. The death penalty is wrong - no ifs, no buts.
generally i agree but my cowboy upringing still nags at me that there are times when it is reasonable.
take for instance the 10 year old girl who was abducted last week here in japan. she was picked up, raped, murdered, then cut into pieces and put into a box (it makes me sick just writing this). that little girl did nothing to anyone and the man who did it, discovered yesterday, has done it before, last time in northern japan. he escaped capture last time but luckily they were able to nab him and finally put him away.
i gotta say, as the father of two entirely innocent children that when it comes to this kind of crime i would kill the fucker myself. i am not certain of this but believe they have capital punishment here and hope this kind of crime qualifies for it. some times there are ifs and buts worth considering.
i dont agree with government executing people as a means to enforce the law and gain justice, however, when i visit peoples' private houses i dont shit on their stove. Its probably not right, not allowed and would rightly upset the hosts.
Singapore is well known for its strictness and stress of civil obedience and only until recently did they repeal a law against chewing gum because no littering or spitting is tolerated.
Mr. Nguyen, visiting Singapore from Australia, was convicted by a court for trafficking 396.2gm of pure heroin worth an estimated S$1.3 million. Under Section 7 of the Misuse of Drugs Act, the death penalty in singapore is mandatory if the amount of diamorphine or pure heroin imported exceeds 15gm.
With lucrative drug profits comes great risk. (Un)fortunately, Mr. Nguyen was caught. Should a penalty be a surprise to a drug dealer when he gets caught breaking the law?
So the harsh lesson is to please behave when visiting your hosts' house and make sure to put the seat back up like it was. Its common courtesy.
Acts like genocide, rape, and murder aren't merely acts of 'breaking the law.' They are crimes against humanity. They are things that can't be healed or forgotten or forgiven. These acts continue to harm and degrade not just those who were directly affected, but the whole of society.
Of course the whole world, every act in it, is awash in greys, and never ever clearly white and black. But when certain things happen, when a person steps so far beyond the realm of humanity as to actually attack it...
it seems a strange thing then that the singapore government is one of the few that recognise and support the military junta in burma, which the un and us have declared an illegal regime, whoes main source of income is the government controlled production and export of heroin. i have no patients for a government that executes an average of 1 drug mule every 10 days while sitting down with those who profit from the desperate and addicted to line their coffers. if anyone should be up against the wall.......
it seems to me that whether the rules are right or wrong, they are there and clear for all to see. People know of the (fair or unfair) harsh penalties for drug trafficing in Singapore and other such nations and should expect to face these without complaints if they are caught red handed, as I believe Mr Nguyen was. Its not like he was borderline on the 15gm rule.
I conceed that his circumstances and family history were very very sad and that it was desperation that lead him to this but i still cannot see that supporting and joining the drug trade was the way to get out of drug related debts. Surely by trying to help his brother, he was simply putting many others in exactly the same position just a short time down the line.
there is nothing to say in favour of the death penalty.
even if there would be 'a flawless legal system' as agfa8x said.
"an eye for an eye - a tooth for a tooth - leaves a nation blind and toothless" (Soory my translation might be not completely right)
This (cowboy-) or medieval attidude unites some fundamentalistic islamistic countries and the VR Cina and the US with some other pseudo-democratic countries or with Singapore.
it isn't exactly the code of hammurabi i am talking about. i just think someone who will rape and cut a child into pieces shouldn't be allowed to live, particularly when its a serial act.
maybe i would not have thought so a few years ago but now i am a father my perspective has changed a bit... i wouldn't try to get into the legal aspects of such things or even try to defend the right or wrong of it. and i don't know where the line should be drawn. nonethless i still believe that sometimes there are crimes against real humans that should be answered to by execution.
as for the drug trafficer well i have mixed feeling but the dude knew what he was getting into.
Funny, I don't see australians coming over to sacramento asking Arnold to grant clemency for the many death inmates in californian jails. Or to China, or to some other countries where australian inmates are facing imminent death by execution.
To kick up such a fuss after 3 years in the making is more mob mentality than sincere resistance against the death penalty. Where was the press, or your ardent response 3 years ago when he was nabbed in the airport during a transit? If the resistance against this was sincere and not sensational, perhaps a counter during that period with the force of your entire government on it may have changed the course of this person's life. But no, the press and some fanatics have to wait till the last week to place a petition and then conjure up all kinds of imaginary accusations to justify your own mob mentality.
they declared me unfit to live
and into the great void my soul will be hurled
they wanna know why i did the things that i did
well i guess theres just meanness in this world.
I think it depends on your perspective. Singapore is an important weigh station in Golden Triangle heroin trade. For historical reasons, governments in that part of the world consider this multi-billion dollar industry to be a threat to their stability and to the rule of law, and I'm not sure I blame them. In general, I don't agree with the death penalty as an effective deterrent for people like traffickers who regard expending human lives as just another cost of doing business, but I can see why governments from Thailand to Indonesia are so concerned about it and prepared to be draconian. Remember, that we here in the US have, just as Singapore has, militarized the fight against commercial drug trafficking. We may not (with a few exceptions.. yes, under certain circumstances, called the kingpen rule, you CAN be executed in the US for drug trafficking.. execute traffickers, but if you get caught, as Mr Nguyen had, with a million dollars of the stuff, don't count on ever seeing the light of day again. One can debate, endlessly, whether US and Singaporean drug policy is correct, but I don't think you can legitimately single out the Singaporeans for being the only countries to view narco-terrorists (the US term for commercial traffickers) as a military threat. I respect the Anglo-Australian position on that (more than one province in Canada consider American drug laws to be violations of human rights), but I think that we, rightly or wrongly, lock at these things differently.
I hope they add a few extra feet when they drop him. Maybe that will snap his neck killing him immediately as opposed to suffucation. Now, what's on TV. . .
i disagree completely that someone convicted and put in prison can do no further harm to another human being. The only way that would be the case is if the convict were placed in solitary confinement for the rest of their lives. If i recall the legality of solitary confinement at all was under question recently in the states under the premise of it being a cruel or unusual punishment.
I guess i dont know if most prisons seperate their lifetime and violent criminals from those that commit nonviolent crimes. I imagine that there are people that go in as nonviolent criminals and after being "rehabilited" may emmerge as someone that is a danger to society.
hmm didn't read through everything but I find it funny that people are stupid enough to go around hanging someone. for what? to make a statement that it's not alright to do whatever he supposedly did. So what. Shit happens. We have all these people in this world that think this is a good thing. to kill someone because they killed someoen else or whatever but it dosn't solve any problems. Maybe the problem is the people who agree with this sort of punishment. You know the father who has two kids and says that he believes in this punishment. the father who has a wife and dresses like a yuppie and drives a beamer suv and works at an office somewhere where he can provide for his family. the father that before he met his current wife and had kids had another woman with a kid that he abused. a kid that was ignored. a kid that cried out for help and no one listened to. as a result of everyones blindness, lack of action to listen to the chlld seriously, now the child has grown up to be a killer all becasue no one listened to him when he was younger. this sort of shit happens all the time wether it be the father, mother, or whoever that screws up the childs brain and mentally damages him for life. this is an every day thing. and can be seen on this scale or even a smaller scale where people put down homeless people or another race or becasue of the way someone dresses etc... often it is the person standing next to you that is a result of these peoples social conventions. it is the ahole driving the suv that looks good on the outside but is really mean on the inside and destroyed someone emotionally. or it is a result of our everyday actions buying dole pinneapples that were planted by 12 year old slaves on the mexican american border and beat for going to slow and now they are retaliating. they are taking back what has been taken from them and they have every right to. so before anyone judges someone think about why the person you want to judge is the way they are. are they suffering becsue you are capitalizing off of them? are they suffering because they werre abused? why are they this way?
You should be slapped around a little. To sit here and blame someone for punishing a murderer of all people, grow up, get a life, and keep smoking your broccoli.
upside down >> And there is no explanation, no justification, that can excuse any nation from killing an individual who has broken the law. There never has been and there never will be.
The Criminal offends the Nation as a whole when he attacks even one member of the Nation, and the Nation has invested in it the right to punish those criminals, execution in some cases.
If the State becomes any softer then the State would have broken its contract on Justice, and the Folk then recover the right to take Justice into their own hands. And that Justice will be quick.
of the 38 states in amerika that have the death penalty, 24 have had to release death row inmates who were found to be innocent. sometimes the state is the criminal...
Some show their might by exacting bodily revenge, others show their might by resisting the will for revenge. I find it hypocritical for a country that practices institutionalized killing to simultaneously claim moral superiority to the criminals it executes.
vado>> of the 38 states in amerika that have the death penalty, 24 have had to release death row inmates who were found to be innocent. sometimes the state is the criminal...
No; we are talking of two different things. The act of law is one and the Justice system is another. The statistic you cite refers to the malfunctioning of the latter. The State is that constituted machinery to carry out things for which the single individual lacks courage or strength or resources. I agree mistakes like that happen everywhere but if we stopped doing things because we may make mistakes then we wouldn't get out of bed in the morning. Liberal thinking tries to bring everything down to the lowest common denominator - I say nonsense, - be bold, be brave. I don't believe in blaming the system just because its implemented badly/inefficiently.
Janosh>> Some show their might by exacting bodily revenge, others show their might by resisting the will for revenge. I find it hypocritical for a country that practices institutionalized killing to simultaneously claim moral superiority to the criminals it executes.
Are you saying the US for instance is just as bad as Iraq? or the Talibans?!
Actually there are cases where the State executes its criminals because it cannot suppress them or the system which gives rise to them - so it executes them out of its own inefficiency and weakness. That is usually the liberal state, founded on the rosy belief all are naturally good.
Such socialist systematizers suppose circumstances in which vice, disease, distress, corruption, etc. would no longer grow - and that means condemning life. The more a society advances, the more rich it is bound to be in refuse materials, and criminals and waste and decay and failures and deformities. A society cannot be forever young. And any institution which thinks it can abolish age is silly.
The same Establishment 'manufactures consent' ('democracy and the free press'), and thereby manages dissent! Wrong and Right are so manufactured.
There are rebels who have awakened us from slumber and gone against the current social order and risked their honour, their lives, their freedom - so we owe such type of 'criminals' much. I personally feel one cannot assess the value of a man based on a single deed. Dostoevskian psychology shows a man may commit robbery when what he really wanted was blood. On the other hand, Dostoevsky said of the inmates of his Siberian prisons that they formed the strongest and most valuable part of the Russian people. Punishment cannot be a penance or payment as if an exchange relationship existed between guilt and punishment - "punishment does not purify for crime does not sully".
[Upside down] was speaking of there being absolutely no excuse or justification for execution, and I was against this absolutism. The moral view sees punishment as some sort of expiatory exchange value for his actions, the immoral (honest) view sees it as making an example out of him to forbid such future actions.
One cannot enhance a man if he is treated with contempt, but at the same time, executions are necessary in some cases, active defense, and sometimes useful deterrants. Traitors deserve to die. Though the question of who should be called traitors and loyalists is a different matter - the history of Ireland for example.
sotthi i refer to the film judgement at nuremburg.
would you like to get out of bed some morning sotthi and find that the meal you had last night was your last and that you have risen from bed for the last time and that you will soon be taking your last walk to receive your first lethal injection...ah mistakes are to be expected.
"Janosh>> Some show their might by exacting bodily revenge, others show their might by resisting the will for revenge. I find it hypocritical for a country that practices institutionalized killing to simultaneously claim moral superiority to the criminals it executes.
Are you saying the US for instance is just as bad as Iraq? or the Talibans?!"
I'm not sure how you can extrapolate that from what I said. What I'm saying is that a country that resorts to injuring and killing its enemies when they have been incarcerated and rendered incapable of causing harm is a country essentially admitting that it has no confidence in its justice system to support its righteousness. A powerful and just nation can withstand pathological criticism without fear of collapse.
Give me an example of a situation where a State HAS to execute an individual because they are just too dangerous. That is a mark of not a liberal state whose rule is based on popular consensus, but rather a totalitarian one whose hold on power is mandated by a minority and is so tenuous that one individual could set the people against the state.
Give me an example where the death penalty acted as a deterrant where life in prison did not. Perhaps you are asserting that those who flew those planes into the WTC merely needed to be reminded that they were committing a capital crime?
And as for "strengthening the system", what manner to you propose for reforming the judicial system that will result in the a death penalty process incapable of error? Perhaps the death penalty can be meted out by computers, and act flawlessly and without controversy like the BCS?
since when is blowing up a statue a capital offense? criminal? yes. capital offense? i don't think so. the buddha is contrary to the taliban's system. so, in fact its not the way the justice is dispensed, no its the system right? it was a law on the books in taliban governed afganistan. remember the present government in afganistan was set to execute a guy who converted to christianity.
Janosh >>>>What I'm saying is that a country that resorts to injuring and killing its enemies when they have been incarcerated and rendered incapable of causing harm is a country essentially admitting that it has no confidence in its justice system to support its righteousness<<<<<
Janosh , ..some years back the Indian security forces arrested a Pakistani cleric terrorist Maulana Masood Azhar who belonged to the Lashkar E Toiba or Al qaeda or some Pakistan related terrorist organisation.
well the Indian govt ( which is a liberal state whose rule is based on popular consensus ) with all due respect to protocol held him in prison until other members of his organisation hijacked an indian commercial flight IC 814 and held it hostage in Kandahar ,Afghanistan.
Maulana masood azhar was released in exchange for the passengers ( one of them was killed by the hijackers )
anyways.
It was later ascertained that this individual "Maulana masood Azhar " after being released was involved in various terrorist attacks in the region and was also indirectly involved in the 9/11 WTC attack.
so if this answers your question partly.
If a person like azhar was executed immediately by the indian govt and just not merely incarcerated probably some events in history would have been diff.
The need of a death penalty may wary.
its different in different cases.
for e.g..
1) Imposing a death penalty on a murderer (who may be a normal non-criminal man ) and has committed the crime in impulse or anger.
2) Like a sadistic child rapist murderer which jump here has mentioned in the first reply to this thread.
or 3) Like the hardened criminal minded terrorist or gang leader who will stop at nothing if he's released and is more dangerous when imprisoned.
one cannot have a blanket like opinion that death penalty is wrong for all three cases or all together wrong.
sometimes it's necessary for the state to take decisive measures for larger interests.
at the most ,Liberalism in the judicial system can be a policy ...never a principle.
Regarding your example, I think you could better put the blame for the deaths caused by this individual on the Indian Government's policy of engaging in hostage exchange.
In Palestine, terrorist attacks are frequently justified as retribution for the killing of an individual by the State. So it goes both ways.
Janosh>> I'm not sure how you can extrapolate that from what I said.
I thought it somewhat fitting.
Janosh>> What I'm saying is that a country that resorts to injuring and killing its enemies when they have been incarcerated and rendered incapable of causing harm is a country essentially admitting that it has no confidence in its justice system to support its righteousness. A powerful and just nation can withstand pathological criticism without fear of collapse.
Yea, I already called such states weak.
But there are other reasons than that. For example, in Nepal recently, such safely incarcerated rebel prisoners were just handed over lumpsum under Maoists pressure. Succumbing at such junctures will always leave open situations for more unrest, more corruption and the whole just gets weakened all the more if not nipped at the bud. It is too soon to speak of this particular incident's repurcussions.
Janosh>> Give me an example of a situation where a State HAS to execute an individual because they are just too dangerous. That is a mark of not a liberal state whose rule is based on popular consensus, but rather a totalitarian one whose hold on power is mandated by a minority and is so tenuous that one individual could set the people against the state.
Tim Mcveigh - An example of a libertarian state; though I was largely sympathetic of his manifesto and his sentiments, even I found his means inexcusable.
And I wouldn't call India weak if it announced a capital punishment against all those evangelists and proselytizers of any faith practising forced conversions of people below the poverty line with money as bait. India in this instance is weak precisely for not having done so.
What to tolerate, how much, and to what extent - lines should be drawn. A completely yuppy govt. is ripe for slavery.
Janosh>> Give me an example where the death penalty acted as a deterrant where life in prison did not.
Liberalist capital punishments have actually produced more rebels and a bad conscience than as deterrant models. But my point was - you were speaking of moral superiority and I was trying to say, the immoral view atleast is honest enough not to equate guilt, punishment and expiation; and whether it turned out valid or not, it was atleast honest to believe it would act as a deterrant. Its the difference between 'sin'[moral] and 'crime'[immoral]. For example, the theft of fire by Prometheus was not regarded as a sin by Zeus but as a crime.
Among the ancient Greeks [the court of Areopagus],
"Wilful murder was punished with death, and other degrees of homicide and malicious wounding were punished with banishment and confiscation of goods. Those who were convicted upon a charge of unintentional homicide, not perfectly excusable, were condemned to leave the country for a year. Treason (prodosia) was punished with death. The goods of traitors who suffered death were confiscated, and their houses razed to the ground. It was not permitted to bury their bodies in the country, but they were cast out into some desolate place. Hence, the bones of Themistocles, who had been condemned for treason, were brought over and buried secretly by his friends, as related by Thucydides. The posterity of a traitor received the treatment of outlaws."
I would say today's age lacks such a pathos. [Antigone]
And I am not sure if all these suicide terrorisms have devalued life in some way or not.
Janosh>> And as for "strengthening the system", what manner to you propose for reforming the judicial system that will result in the a death penalty process incapable of error? Perhaps the death penalty can be meted out by computers, and act flawlessly and without controversy like the BCS?
Fine. Reintroduce the Duel system!
But seriously, the dignity of man and life cannot be restored till a good conscience is restored. Then we have something like ancient Japan, where a man automatically committed sepukku if he thought he committed dishonour - a crime in his eyes and the eyes of his forefathers.
Nobility can't be enforced; it has to awaken.
Anyway, from my point of view, I limit capital punishment to traitors and proselytizers, where such crimes present themselves just all too clearly - an attack on one's soil and spirit.
vado>> since when is blowing up a statue a capital offense? criminal? yes. capital offense? i don't think so. the buddha is contrary to the taliban's system.
It depends where you draw the frame. To some that is more than a mere 'statue', and a part of world-heritage, years and years of work and conservation and Afghan identity - the Taliban's usurpation of power is just that and speaks nothing for the history of Afghan
identity - fact. And no Taliban religious book can ever pervert that.
I consider it thus a capital offence to efface a spirit of some people, the identity of a soil, and a treasure bequeathed to the world as a whole.
A strong system in effect would have checked the sprouting of such weak, intolerant men with their nervous discharges of hysterical energy mis-taken for strength and might.
Where are those architects who believe that a stone is just as valuable as human life?!
"Tradition may be defined as an extension of the franchise. Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead."
- G. K. Chesterton
Janosh>> Regarding your example, I think you could better put the blame for the deaths caused by this individual on the Indian Government's policy of engaging in hostage exchange.
You miss the point. There wouldn't be any hostage exchange or such policy if the offender had been executed straight away.
Janosh>> In Palestine, terrorist attacks are frequently justified as retribution for the killing of an individual by the State. So it goes both ways.
That's no excuse; a State should do its job, and prepare and plan accordingly for such foreseeable terrorist attacks.
May I simplify your argument so as to show it's elegance?:
Killing by the State is okay and justifiable, except under the following conditions:
-When it is undertaken by a Nazi State intent on commiting genocide...
-When it is undertaken by Pinochet's State intent on stifling dissent...
-When it is undertaken by Idi Amin's State....
-When it is undertaken by Stalin's State....
-When it is undertaken by Pol Pot's State...
-When it is undertaken by the United States against some innocent Vietnamese villagers...
-When it is undertaken by the United States against Saccho and Vanzetti...
-When it is undertaken by the Afghan State upon a convert to Christianity...
If I understand you propertly, what binds all of these exceptions together is that the State in question didn't use the CORRECT justification for killing. Praytell what is this correct justification that is suitable for all occassions?
Shouldn't the Objectivist Club be having its Memorial Day picnic right now?
Nope. In fact, I'm arguing that it is never justified, and opens the door to an morally unwinnable debate as to when death is an appropriate sentence. An irreversible sentence can not be based on arguments that are so prone to political manipulation.
Just earlier you were saying that capital punishment comes about as a result of a lack of popular consensus, when a totalitarian regime requires it to maintain order. Now you are suggesting that political debate is incapable of resolving the issue. You seem to be suggesting that because the debate is 'morally unwinnable', we should stop capital punishment out of default? Is this really your argument?
What about in cases of war or public danger? Is it then acceptable for a state to condone killing?
We are not talking about war, we are talking about capital punishment, a case of an individual who has been been incarcerated and rendered incapable of causing harm. There is no justification for killing that individual except for revenge, which is an essentially primal, irrational instinct with no social benefit.
I did not say "that capital punishment comes about as a result of a lack of popular consensus". What I asserted is that it is the last resort of a regime who does not believe that it can win a political debate on merit, only by force.
I asked the question about war in order to understand your reasoning. Youre now implying that capital punishment is wrong, because it is based only on revenge, and has no social benefit. Are you implying that killing is justified when there is some social benefit? How do you measure that?
Interesting question, and I have to say I haven't the slightest idea of how one determines what is a "just war"... the arguments are quite different when you are talking about an enemy who might actually pose a threat to a coutnry's citizens as opposed to one safely encapsulated in our penal system.
Janosh>> May I simplify your argument so as to show it's elegance?
My argument has been very simple to begin with. Capital Punishment is valid in certain cases. And I'll make it even more simpler.
"The evil of the strong harms others without giving thought to it - it has to discharge itself; the evil of the weak wants to harm others and to see the signs of the suffering it has caused." [Nietzsche]
One kind of state acts out of strength and another kind acts to prove its strength.
One kind considers the breach and violation of its honour as crime and punishes them for it, and another kind punishes to dishonour the criminal.
The list you provide is not mine and there can't be a single take of whether one considers a given state as weak or strong. I, for instance would not put all those listed under a single heading because they are expressions of different political-philosophical moralities, though they may all appear totalitarian. And what state is truly liberal, truly democratic anyway? That kind of thinking is a farce.
Janosh>> An irreversible sentence can not be...
Again, what in life is reversible? Time moves only in one direction. A man who has spent five years and his judgement suddenly reversed or acquitted, cannot get back those five years. Irreversible crimes (even Bamiyan is lost forever) are to be met with irreversible sentences. One must be a pig to chew and tolerate everything.
You write,
>>the arguments are quite different when you are talking about an enemy who might actually pose a threat to a coutnry's citizens as opposed to one safely encapsulated in our penal system.
The murder of Daniel Pearl was carried out by one Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, a known terrorist who spent time in Indian prison masterminding this plot.
Physical safety within prison walls does not preclude plotting crimes from within. Capital punishment may even be a more humane death than putting someone through a lifetime of torturous, maddening, severe inhumane confinement.
VAN Tuong Nguyen was hanged today at Changi Prison
THE Government of Singapore was due to murder a man this morning. Certainly, it is acting according to the laws of that country. Certainly, the means of his death is known from long experience to be quick and painless. Certainly, no one in Singapore took any apparent pleasure in the decision that a man should die. But no qualification can disguise that they have planned an act of murder. And there is no explanation, no justification, that can excuse any nation from killing an individual who has broken the law. There never has been and there never will be. For any state to kill a convicted criminal already imprisoned and incapable of doing further harm, is desperately cruel. It is not an act committed in rage or madness. It is not the act of an evil individual killing for gain or to assuage some appalling passion or prejudice. It is not needed to defend the state against enemies within, or to protect the community against imminent harm. The death penalty is an ineffable act of violence against individuals who are defenceless and, at the end of their lives, utterly alone. And the leaders of countries from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, from China to Singapore, that allow executions, are deficient in humanity and reason. The death penalty is wrong - no ifs, no buts.
(the australian.)
generally i agree but my cowboy upringing still nags at me that there are times when it is reasonable.
take for instance the 10 year old girl who was abducted last week here in japan. she was picked up, raped, murdered, then cut into pieces and put into a box (it makes me sick just writing this). that little girl did nothing to anyone and the man who did it, discovered yesterday, has done it before, last time in northern japan. he escaped capture last time but luckily they were able to nab him and finally put him away.
i gotta say, as the father of two entirely innocent children that when it comes to this kind of crime i would kill the fucker myself. i am not certain of this but believe they have capital punishment here and hope this kind of crime qualifies for it. some times there are ifs and buts worth considering.
can you justify not giving the death penalty to someone who has killed more than one person?..like five people?
i dont agree with government executing people as a means to enforce the law and gain justice, however, when i visit peoples' private houses i dont shit on their stove. Its probably not right, not allowed and would rightly upset the hosts.
Singapore is well known for its strictness and stress of civil obedience and only until recently did they repeal a law against chewing gum because no littering or spitting is tolerated.
Mr. Nguyen, visiting Singapore from Australia, was convicted by a court for trafficking 396.2gm of pure heroin worth an estimated S$1.3 million. Under Section 7 of the Misuse of Drugs Act, the death penalty in singapore is mandatory if the amount of diamorphine or pure heroin imported exceeds 15gm.
With lucrative drug profits comes great risk. (Un)fortunately, Mr. Nguyen was caught. Should a penalty be a surprise to a drug dealer when he gets caught breaking the law?
So the harsh lesson is to please behave when visiting your hosts' house and make sure to put the seat back up like it was. Its common courtesy.
My cowboy upbringing agrees with jump.
Acts like genocide, rape, and murder aren't merely acts of 'breaking the law.' They are crimes against humanity. They are things that can't be healed or forgotten or forgiven. These acts continue to harm and degrade not just those who were directly affected, but the whole of society.
Of course the whole world, every act in it, is awash in greys, and never ever clearly white and black. But when certain things happen, when a person steps so far beyond the realm of humanity as to actually attack it...
Well... They're less than animals in my opinion.
Heroin...
I have the unfortunate priviledge of seeing what that drug does to people every single day. Drugs like that sit somewhere between rape and murder.
I will shed no tears for Mr. Nguyen or cry over the 'inhumanity' of his death.
in a flawless legal system, there are crimes that deserve death.
there are no flawless legal systems.
it seems a strange thing then that the singapore government is one of the few that recognise and support the military junta in burma, which the un and us have declared an illegal regime, whoes main source of income is the government controlled production and export of heroin. i have no patients for a government that executes an average of 1 drug mule every 10 days while sitting down with those who profit from the desperate and addicted to line their coffers. if anyone should be up against the wall.......
it seems to me that whether the rules are right or wrong, they are there and clear for all to see. People know of the (fair or unfair) harsh penalties for drug trafficing in Singapore and other such nations and should expect to face these without complaints if they are caught red handed, as I believe Mr Nguyen was. Its not like he was borderline on the 15gm rule.
I conceed that his circumstances and family history were very very sad and that it was desperation that lead him to this but i still cannot see that supporting and joining the drug trade was the way to get out of drug related debts. Surely by trying to help his brother, he was simply putting many others in exactly the same position just a short time down the line.
there is nothing to say in favour of the death penalty.
even if there would be 'a flawless legal system' as agfa8x said.
"an eye for an eye - a tooth for a tooth - leaves a nation blind and toothless" (Soory my translation might be not completely right)
This (cowboy-) or medieval attidude unites some fundamentalistic islamistic countries and the VR Cina and the US with some other pseudo-democratic countries or with Singapore.
it isn't exactly the code of hammurabi i am talking about. i just think someone who will rape and cut a child into pieces shouldn't be allowed to live, particularly when its a serial act.
maybe i would not have thought so a few years ago but now i am a father my perspective has changed a bit... i wouldn't try to get into the legal aspects of such things or even try to defend the right or wrong of it. and i don't know where the line should be drawn. nonethless i still believe that sometimes there are crimes against real humans that should be answered to by execution.
as for the drug trafficer well i have mixed feeling but the dude knew what he was getting into.
Funny, I don't see australians coming over to sacramento asking Arnold to grant clemency for the many death inmates in californian jails. Or to China, or to some other countries where australian inmates are facing imminent death by execution.
To kick up such a fuss after 3 years in the making is more mob mentality than sincere resistance against the death penalty. Where was the press, or your ardent response 3 years ago when he was nabbed in the airport during a transit? If the resistance against this was sincere and not sensational, perhaps a counter during that period with the force of your entire government on it may have changed the course of this person's life. But no, the press and some fanatics have to wait till the last week to place a petition and then conjure up all kinds of imaginary accusations to justify your own mob mentality.
they declared me unfit to live
and into the great void my soul will be hurled
they wanna know why i did the things that i did
well i guess theres just meanness in this world.
I think it depends on your perspective. Singapore is an important weigh station in Golden Triangle heroin trade. For historical reasons, governments in that part of the world consider this multi-billion dollar industry to be a threat to their stability and to the rule of law, and I'm not sure I blame them. In general, I don't agree with the death penalty as an effective deterrent for people like traffickers who regard expending human lives as just another cost of doing business, but I can see why governments from Thailand to Indonesia are so concerned about it and prepared to be draconian. Remember, that we here in the US have, just as Singapore has, militarized the fight against commercial drug trafficking. We may not (with a few exceptions.. yes, under certain circumstances, called the kingpen rule, you CAN be executed in the US for drug trafficking.. execute traffickers, but if you get caught, as Mr Nguyen had, with a million dollars of the stuff, don't count on ever seeing the light of day again. One can debate, endlessly, whether US and Singaporean drug policy is correct, but I don't think you can legitimately single out the Singaporeans for being the only countries to view narco-terrorists (the US term for commercial traffickers) as a military threat. I respect the Anglo-Australian position on that (more than one province in Canada consider American drug laws to be violations of human rights), but I think that we, rightly or wrongly, lock at these things differently.
Wow. Sorry. I just made more typos there than I would've thought possible :)
I hope they add a few extra feet when they drop him. Maybe that will snap his neck killing him immediately as opposed to suffucation. Now, what's on TV. . .
i disagree completely that someone convicted and put in prison can do no further harm to another human being. The only way that would be the case is if the convict were placed in solitary confinement for the rest of their lives. If i recall the legality of solitary confinement at all was under question recently in the states under the premise of it being a cruel or unusual punishment.
I guess i dont know if most prisons seperate their lifetime and violent criminals from those that commit nonviolent crimes. I imagine that there are people that go in as nonviolent criminals and after being "rehabilited" may emmerge as someone that is a danger to society.
hmm didn't read through everything but I find it funny that people are stupid enough to go around hanging someone. for what? to make a statement that it's not alright to do whatever he supposedly did. So what. Shit happens. We have all these people in this world that think this is a good thing. to kill someone because they killed someoen else or whatever but it dosn't solve any problems. Maybe the problem is the people who agree with this sort of punishment. You know the father who has two kids and says that he believes in this punishment. the father who has a wife and dresses like a yuppie and drives a beamer suv and works at an office somewhere where he can provide for his family. the father that before he met his current wife and had kids had another woman with a kid that he abused. a kid that was ignored. a kid that cried out for help and no one listened to. as a result of everyones blindness, lack of action to listen to the chlld seriously, now the child has grown up to be a killer all becasue no one listened to him when he was younger. this sort of shit happens all the time wether it be the father, mother, or whoever that screws up the childs brain and mentally damages him for life. this is an every day thing. and can be seen on this scale or even a smaller scale where people put down homeless people or another race or becasue of the way someone dresses etc... often it is the person standing next to you that is a result of these peoples social conventions. it is the ahole driving the suv that looks good on the outside but is really mean on the inside and destroyed someone emotionally. or it is a result of our everyday actions buying dole pinneapples that were planted by 12 year old slaves on the mexican american border and beat for going to slow and now they are retaliating. they are taking back what has been taken from them and they have every right to. so before anyone judges someone think about why the person you want to judge is the way they are. are they suffering becsue you are capitalizing off of them? are they suffering because they werre abused? why are they this way?
zeth01, let me guess, your from a blue state? Wow.
wtf is a blue state i jsut ranted about whatever random stuff came to my mind
You should be slapped around a little. To sit here and blame someone for punishing a murderer of all people, grow up, get a life, and keep smoking your broccoli.
I wont smoke it but I'll eat it becasue it is good for me.
I didn't blame anyone
upside down >> And there is no explanation, no justification, that can excuse any nation from killing an individual who has broken the law. There never has been and there never will be.
The Criminal offends the Nation as a whole when he attacks even one member of the Nation, and the Nation has invested in it the right to punish those criminals, execution in some cases.
If the State becomes any softer then the State would have broken its contract on Justice, and the Folk then recover the right to take Justice into their own hands. And that Justice will be quick.
of the 38 states in amerika that have the death penalty, 24 have had to release death row inmates who were found to be innocent. sometimes the state is the criminal...
tree hugging sissy newspaper
( the australian )
Some show their might by exacting bodily revenge, others show their might by resisting the will for revenge. I find it hypocritical for a country that practices institutionalized killing to simultaneously claim moral superiority to the criminals it executes.
vado>> of the 38 states in amerika that have the death penalty, 24 have had to release death row inmates who were found to be innocent. sometimes the state is the criminal...
No; we are talking of two different things. The act of law is one and the Justice system is another. The statistic you cite refers to the malfunctioning of the latter. The State is that constituted machinery to carry out things for which the single individual lacks courage or strength or resources. I agree mistakes like that happen everywhere but if we stopped doing things because we may make mistakes then we wouldn't get out of bed in the morning. Liberal thinking tries to bring everything down to the lowest common denominator - I say nonsense, - be bold, be brave. I don't believe in blaming the system just because its implemented badly/inefficiently.
Janosh>> Some show their might by exacting bodily revenge, others show their might by resisting the will for revenge. I find it hypocritical for a country that practices institutionalized killing to simultaneously claim moral superiority to the criminals it executes.
Are you saying the US for instance is just as bad as Iraq? or the Talibans?!
Actually there are cases where the State executes its criminals because it cannot suppress them or the system which gives rise to them - so it executes them out of its own inefficiency and weakness. That is usually the liberal state, founded on the rosy belief all are naturally good.
Such socialist systematizers suppose circumstances in which vice, disease, distress, corruption, etc. would no longer grow - and that means condemning life. The more a society advances, the more rich it is bound to be in refuse materials, and criminals and waste and decay and failures and deformities. A society cannot be forever young. And any institution which thinks it can abolish age is silly.
The same Establishment 'manufactures consent' ('democracy and the free press'), and thereby manages dissent! Wrong and Right are so manufactured.
There are rebels who have awakened us from slumber and gone against the current social order and risked their honour, their lives, their freedom - so we owe such type of 'criminals' much. I personally feel one cannot assess the value of a man based on a single deed. Dostoevskian psychology shows a man may commit robbery when what he really wanted was blood. On the other hand, Dostoevsky said of the inmates of his Siberian prisons that they formed the strongest and most valuable part of the Russian people. Punishment cannot be a penance or payment as if an exchange relationship existed between guilt and punishment - "punishment does not purify for crime does not sully".
[Upside down] was speaking of there being absolutely no excuse or justification for execution, and I was against this absolutism. The moral view sees punishment as some sort of expiatory exchange value for his actions, the immoral (honest) view sees it as making an example out of him to forbid such future actions.
One cannot enhance a man if he is treated with contempt, but at the same time, executions are necessary in some cases, active defense, and sometimes useful deterrants. Traitors deserve to die. Though the question of who should be called traitors and loyalists is a different matter - the history of Ireland for example.
sotthi i refer to the film judgement at nuremburg.
would you like to get out of bed some morning sotthi and find that the meal you had last night was your last and that you have risen from bed for the last time and that you will soon be taking your last walk to receive your first lethal injection...ah mistakes are to be expected.
vado, that's why I already said, I don't believe in blaming the system just because its implemented badly/inefficiently.
Just because the system of Justice doesn't work efficiently and has gone corrupt, does not equal execution as bad.
Strengthen the system instead of softening the effect.
And I am not arguing for the execution of all criminals!, just certain cases where it does have validity.
the system creates the inefficiency...
strengthen the system...
"strengthen the system. i think thats what doctor sam sheppard asked for"
A strong system would have shown the 'men' behind this - their justice at the end of a rope.
Bamiyan
"Janosh>> Some show their might by exacting bodily revenge, others show their might by resisting the will for revenge. I find it hypocritical for a country that practices institutionalized killing to simultaneously claim moral superiority to the criminals it executes.
Are you saying the US for instance is just as bad as Iraq? or the Talibans?!"
I'm not sure how you can extrapolate that from what I said. What I'm saying is that a country that resorts to injuring and killing its enemies when they have been incarcerated and rendered incapable of causing harm is a country essentially admitting that it has no confidence in its justice system to support its righteousness. A powerful and just nation can withstand pathological criticism without fear of collapse.
Give me an example of a situation where a State HAS to execute an individual because they are just too dangerous. That is a mark of not a liberal state whose rule is based on popular consensus, but rather a totalitarian one whose hold on power is mandated by a minority and is so tenuous that one individual could set the people against the state.
Give me an example where the death penalty acted as a deterrant where life in prison did not. Perhaps you are asserting that those who flew those planes into the WTC merely needed to be reminded that they were committing a capital crime?
And as for "strengthening the system", what manner to you propose for reforming the judicial system that will result in the a death penalty process incapable of error? Perhaps the death penalty can be meted out by computers, and act flawlessly and without controversy like the BCS?
since when is blowing up a statue a capital offense? criminal? yes. capital offense? i don't think so. the buddha is contrary to the taliban's system. so, in fact its not the way the justice is dispensed, no its the system right? it was a law on the books in taliban governed afganistan. remember the present government in afganistan was set to execute a guy who converted to christianity.
Janosh >>>>What I'm saying is that a country that resorts to injuring and killing its enemies when they have been incarcerated and rendered incapable of causing harm is a country essentially admitting that it has no confidence in its justice system to support its righteousness<<<<<
Janosh , ..some years back the Indian security forces arrested a Pakistani cleric terrorist Maulana Masood Azhar who belonged to the Lashkar E Toiba or Al qaeda or some Pakistan related terrorist organisation.
well the Indian govt ( which is a liberal state whose rule is based on popular consensus ) with all due respect to protocol held him in prison until other members of his organisation hijacked an indian commercial flight IC 814 and held it hostage in Kandahar ,Afghanistan.
Maulana masood azhar was released in exchange for the passengers ( one of them was killed by the hijackers )
anyways.
It was later ascertained that this individual "Maulana masood Azhar " after being released was involved in various terrorist attacks in the region and was also indirectly involved in the 9/11 WTC attack.
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/timeline/2001/gulfnews101101.html
so if this answers your question partly.
If a person like azhar was executed immediately by the indian govt and just not merely incarcerated probably some events in history would have been diff.
The need of a death penalty may wary.
its different in different cases.
for e.g..
1) Imposing a death penalty on a murderer (who may be a normal non-criminal man ) and has committed the crime in impulse or anger.
2) Like a sadistic child rapist murderer which jump here has mentioned in the first reply to this thread.
or 3) Like the hardened criminal minded terrorist or gang leader who will stop at nothing if he's released and is more dangerous when imprisoned.
one cannot have a blanket like opinion that death penalty is wrong for all three cases or all together wrong.
sometimes it's necessary for the state to take decisive measures for larger interests.
at the most ,Liberalism in the judicial system can be a policy ...never a principle.
Regarding your example, I think you could better put the blame for the deaths caused by this individual on the Indian Government's policy of engaging in hostage exchange.
In Palestine, terrorist attacks are frequently justified as retribution for the killing of an individual by the State. So it goes both ways.
Janosh>> I'm not sure how you can extrapolate that from what I said.
I thought it somewhat fitting.
Janosh>> What I'm saying is that a country that resorts to injuring and killing its enemies when they have been incarcerated and rendered incapable of causing harm is a country essentially admitting that it has no confidence in its justice system to support its righteousness. A powerful and just nation can withstand pathological criticism without fear of collapse.
Yea, I already called such states weak.
But there are other reasons than that. For example, in Nepal recently, such safely incarcerated rebel prisoners were just handed over lumpsum under Maoists pressure. Succumbing at such junctures will always leave open situations for more unrest, more corruption and the whole just gets weakened all the more if not nipped at the bud. It is too soon to speak of this particular incident's repurcussions.
Janosh>> Give me an example of a situation where a State HAS to execute an individual because they are just too dangerous. That is a mark of not a liberal state whose rule is based on popular consensus, but rather a totalitarian one whose hold on power is mandated by a minority and is so tenuous that one individual could set the people against the state.
Tim Mcveigh - An example of a libertarian state; though I was largely sympathetic of his manifesto and his sentiments, even I found his means inexcusable.
Another case founded on extreme liberalism: China
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_the_People's_Republic_of_China
I wouldn't hesitate to pronounce one on Mugabe.
And I wouldn't call India weak if it announced a capital punishment against all those evangelists and proselytizers of any faith practising forced conversions of people below the poverty line with money as bait. India in this instance is weak precisely for not having done so.
What to tolerate, how much, and to what extent - lines should be drawn. A completely yuppy govt. is ripe for slavery.
Janosh>> Give me an example where the death penalty acted as a deterrant where life in prison did not.
Liberalist capital punishments have actually produced more rebels and a bad conscience than as deterrant models. But my point was - you were speaking of moral superiority and I was trying to say, the immoral view atleast is honest enough not to equate guilt, punishment and expiation; and whether it turned out valid or not, it was atleast honest to believe it would act as a deterrant. Its the difference between 'sin'[moral] and 'crime'[immoral]. For example, the theft of fire by Prometheus was not regarded as a sin by Zeus but as a crime.
Among the ancient Greeks [the court of Areopagus],
"Wilful murder was punished with death, and other degrees of homicide and malicious wounding were punished with banishment and confiscation of goods. Those who were convicted upon a charge of unintentional homicide, not perfectly excusable, were condemned to leave the country for a year. Treason (prodosia) was punished with death. The goods of traitors who suffered death were confiscated, and their houses razed to the ground. It was not permitted to bury their bodies in the country, but they were cast out into some desolate place. Hence, the bones of Themistocles, who had been condemned for treason, were brought over and buried secretly by his friends, as related by Thucydides. The posterity of a traitor received the treatment of outlaws."
I would say today's age lacks such a pathos. [Antigone]
And I am not sure if all these suicide terrorisms have devalued life in some way or not.
Janosh>> And as for "strengthening the system", what manner to you propose for reforming the judicial system that will result in the a death penalty process incapable of error? Perhaps the death penalty can be meted out by computers, and act flawlessly and without controversy like the BCS?
Fine. Reintroduce the Duel system!
But seriously, the dignity of man and life cannot be restored till a good conscience is restored. Then we have something like ancient Japan, where a man automatically committed sepukku if he thought he committed dishonour - a crime in his eyes and the eyes of his forefathers.
Nobility can't be enforced; it has to awaken.
Anyway, from my point of view, I limit capital punishment to traitors and proselytizers, where such crimes present themselves just all too clearly - an attack on one's soil and spirit.
Oh, the fate of Socrates!
vado>> since when is blowing up a statue a capital offense? criminal? yes. capital offense? i don't think so. the buddha is contrary to the taliban's system.
It depends where you draw the frame. To some that is more than a mere 'statue', and a part of world-heritage, years and years of work and conservation and Afghan identity - the Taliban's usurpation of power is just that and speaks nothing for the history of Afghan
identity - fact. And no Taliban religious book can ever pervert that.
I consider it thus a capital offence to efface a spirit of some people, the identity of a soil, and a treasure bequeathed to the world as a whole.
A strong system in effect would have checked the sprouting of such weak, intolerant men with their nervous discharges of hysterical energy mis-taken for strength and might.
Where are those architects who believe that a stone is just as valuable as human life?!
"Tradition may be defined as an extension of the franchise. Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead."
- G. K. Chesterton
Janosh>> Regarding your example, I think you could better put the blame for the deaths caused by this individual on the Indian Government's policy of engaging in hostage exchange.
You miss the point. There wouldn't be any hostage exchange or such policy if the offender had been executed straight away.
Janosh>> In Palestine, terrorist attacks are frequently justified as retribution for the killing of an individual by the State. So it goes both ways.
That's no excuse; a State should do its job, and prepare and plan accordingly for such foreseeable terrorist attacks.
May I simplify your argument so as to show it's elegance?:
Killing by the State is okay and justifiable, except under the following conditions:
-When it is undertaken by a Nazi State intent on commiting genocide...
-When it is undertaken by Pinochet's State intent on stifling dissent...
-When it is undertaken by Idi Amin's State....
-When it is undertaken by Stalin's State....
-When it is undertaken by Pol Pot's State...
-When it is undertaken by the United States against some innocent Vietnamese villagers...
-When it is undertaken by the United States against Saccho and Vanzetti...
-When it is undertaken by the Afghan State upon a convert to Christianity...
If I understand you propertly, what binds all of these exceptions together is that the State in question didn't use the CORRECT justification for killing. Praytell what is this correct justification that is suitable for all occassions?
Shouldn't the Objectivist Club be having its Memorial Day picnic right now?
Janoush,
Is capital punishment justified if it is deemed just by a country's popular consensus?
Sotthi,
If Timothy McVeigh's aims were reasonable, why does it matter what his tactics were?
OE:
Nope. In fact, I'm arguing that it is never justified, and opens the door to an morally unwinnable debate as to when death is an appropriate sentence. An irreversible sentence can not be based on arguments that are so prone to political manipulation.
Just earlier you were saying that capital punishment comes about as a result of a lack of popular consensus, when a totalitarian regime requires it to maintain order. Now you are suggesting that political debate is incapable of resolving the issue. You seem to be suggesting that because the debate is 'morally unwinnable', we should stop capital punishment out of default? Is this really your argument?
What about in cases of war or public danger? Is it then acceptable for a state to condone killing?
We are not talking about war, we are talking about capital punishment, a case of an individual who has been been incarcerated and rendered incapable of causing harm. There is no justification for killing that individual except for revenge, which is an essentially primal, irrational instinct with no social benefit.
I did not say "that capital punishment comes about as a result of a lack of popular consensus". What I asserted is that it is the last resort of a regime who does not believe that it can win a political debate on merit, only by force.
this is very civilized. i am proud of us.
I asked the question about war in order to understand your reasoning. Youre now implying that capital punishment is wrong, because it is based only on revenge, and has no social benefit. Are you implying that killing is justified when there is some social benefit? How do you measure that?
Interesting question, and I have to say I haven't the slightest idea of how one determines what is a "just war"... the arguments are quite different when you are talking about an enemy who might actually pose a threat to a coutnry's citizens as opposed to one safely encapsulated in our penal system.
Janosh>> May I simplify your argument so as to show it's elegance?
My argument has been very simple to begin with. Capital Punishment is valid in certain cases. And I'll make it even more simpler.
"The evil of the strong harms others without giving thought to it - it has to discharge itself; the evil of the weak wants to harm others and to see the signs of the suffering it has caused." [Nietzsche]
One kind of state acts out of strength and another kind acts to prove its strength.
One kind considers the breach and violation of its honour as crime and punishes them for it, and another kind punishes to dishonour the criminal.
The list you provide is not mine and there can't be a single take of whether one considers a given state as weak or strong. I, for instance would not put all those listed under a single heading because they are expressions of different political-philosophical moralities, though they may all appear totalitarian. And what state is truly liberal, truly democratic anyway? That kind of thinking is a farce.
Janosh>> An irreversible sentence can not be...
Again, what in life is reversible? Time moves only in one direction. A man who has spent five years and his judgement suddenly reversed or acquitted, cannot get back those five years. Irreversible crimes (even Bamiyan is lost forever) are to be met with irreversible sentences. One must be a pig to chew and tolerate everything.
You write,
>>the arguments are quite different when you are talking about an enemy who might actually pose a threat to a coutnry's citizens as opposed to one safely encapsulated in our penal system.
The murder of Daniel Pearl was carried out by one Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, a known terrorist who spent time in Indian prison masterminding this plot.
Physical safety within prison walls does not preclude plotting crimes from within. Capital punishment may even be a more humane death than putting someone through a lifetime of torturous, maddening, severe inhumane confinement.
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