Atheists are more pro-life than Christians

[Saint Frankenstein]

Please let us agree to have medical science determine when a human life's personhood begins.

Personhood is a philosophical issue, not a medical science issue.

 

[SomeRandom]

Prisoners can repent and get right with God at any time. That doesn't mean they shouldn't finish their sentence. Governments have a duty to mete out justice.

I can agree that locking up a murderer or rapist is beneficial to the safety of the public. But can’t we do more? It just seems a bit simplistic. Other countries seem to do better with rehabilitation than mere “justice.”
Granted perhaps a serial killer might be more of a scientific study than a candidate for rehabilitation, I suppose

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

I can agree that locking up a murderer or rapist is beneficial to the safety of the public. But can’t we do more? It just seems a bit simplistic. Other countries seem to do better with rehabilitation than mere “justice.”
Granted perhaps a serial killer might be more of a scientific study than a candidate for rehabilitation, I suppose

Yes, we should be focusing on rehabilitation, for sure. Unfortunately, some types of people cannot be rehabilitated (like full-blown psychopaths of the Jimmy Savile or Ted Bundy type). Some people are just evil and love it.

 

[SomeRandom]

Yes, we should be focusing on rehabilitation, for sure. Unfortunately, some types of people cannot be rehabilitated (like full-blown psychopaths of the Jimmy Savile or Ted Bundy type). Some people are just evil and love it.

Ahh fair enough. I agree

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

Ahh fair enough. I agree

So I support both - rehabilitate and help those you can, while retaining capital punishment for serious, depraved crimes. However America really needs massive reform of its prisons from the ground up because of the huge amounts of corruption, the out of control violence and gang issues in prison. It's worse in prison than it is on the street for many people, and it's because we let our prisons be hellholes, and now we have private prisons with even less oversight. It's a huge, shameful mess.

The courts and appeals process are a huge, bloated mess, too. It's all a wreck here.

 

[SomeRandom]

So I support both - rehabilitate and help those you can, while retaining capital punishment for serious, depraved crimes. However America really needs massive reform of its prisons from the ground up because of the huge amounts of corruption, the out of control violence and gang issues in prison. It's worse in prison than it is on the street for many people, and it's because we let our prisons be hellholes, and now we have private prisons with even less oversight. It's a huge, shameful mess.

The courts and appeals process are a huge, bloated mess, too. It's all a wreck here.

I’m still not sure how private prisons are even supposed to work. I mean we have a few here on a “20 year trial” which I don’t believe for a second but whatever. But doesn’t that just incentivise the industry to keep people in crime?

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

I’m still not sure how private prisons are even supposed to work. I mean we have a few here on a “20 year trial” which I don’t believe for a second but whatever. But doesn’t that just incentivise the industry to keep people in crime?

Yes, it does. It's the same with military contractors, the mercenary industry (which the US is using more and more of all the time) and the weapons industry (Raytheon, Lockheed, etc) having a stake in keeping the business of war going. It's all a racket.

 

[SomeRandom]

Yes, it does. It's the same with military contractors, the mercenary industry (which the US is using more and more of all the time) and the weapons industry (Raytheon, Lockheed, etc) having a stake in keeping the business of war going. It's all a racket.

Well the US do like to act like they are the “world police”
If you don’t mind me saying so

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

Well the US do like to act like they are the “world police”
If you don’t mind me saying so

The government sells military equipment to police departments all over the country, too. It's all linked.

 

[Suave]

So I support both - rehabilitate and help those you can, while retaining capital punishment for serious, depraved crimes. However America really needs massive reform of its prisons from the ground up because of the huge amounts of corruption, the out of control violence and gang issues in prison. It's worse in prison than it is on the street for many people, and it's because we let our prisons be hellholes, and now we have private prisons with even less oversight. It's a huge, shameful mess.

The courts and appeals process are a huge, bloated mess, too. It's all a wreck here.

Save for habitual serial killers, please let us abolish capital punishment against non serial killers. Please let us consider reforming our criminal justice system to mostly emulate the Norwegian criminal justice system. Norway has a decent legal justice system where nobody can be sentence to more than 21 years imprisonment. Also, their prisons treat everybody with dignity and respect. The prison guards are mostly unarmed and they often socially interact with inmates during meals or recreational activities. Norwegian inmates get job training, and well-educated so that they are far less likely to be criminal re-offenders. Norway's homicide rate is around 10 times lower than the U. S. Homicide rate.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

please let us abolish capital punishment against non serial killers.

Nope. I support it for serial rape, severe animal torture and cruelty (only psychopaths do the sorts of things to animals I'm thinking of as examples of this, anyway), serious treason (there goes the Bush, Jr administration) and severe financial crimes that wreck economies. So not just murder.

 

[Suave]

Nope. I support it for serial rape, severe animal torture and cruelty (only psychopaths do the sorts of things to animals I'm thinking of as examples of this, anyway), serious treason (there goes the Bush, Jr administration) and severe financial crimes that wreck economies. So not just murder.

I'm certainly against serial raping being a capital offense, because there's been dozens of wrongfully convicted persons who were falsely accused of being serial rapists.

Reference: Serial Rapists and Wrongful Conviction - Oxford Clinical Psychology

Keep in mind, capital punishment is final, there'd be no way to compensate anybody wrongfully executed for crimes he was wrongfully convicted of.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

I'm certainly against serial raping being a capital offense, because there's been dozens of wrongfully convicted persons who were falsely accused of being serial rapists.

Reference: Serial Rapists and Wrongful Conviction - Oxford Clinical Psychology

Keep in mind, capital punishment is final, there'd be no way to compensate anybody wrongfully executed for crimes he was wrongfully convicted of.

Yes, and there's been people wrongly convicted of murder. That is terrible. But the principle remains, regardless. We just must always do what we can to improve things. It's really about ethics and principles, to me. I do not expect the government to enact my ideas, that's for sure.

 

[Suave]

Yes, and there's been people wrongly convicted of murder. That is terrible. But the principle remains, regardless. We just must always do what we can to improve things. It's really about ethics and principles, to me. I do not expect the government to enact my ideas, that's for sure.

Because many people have been wrongly convicted of murder, I am against capital punishment for almost any convicted murderer, perhaps save for the few heinous serial killers.

 

[Valjean]

Prisoners can repent and get right with God at any time. That doesn't mean they shouldn't finish their sentence. Governments have a duty to mete out justice.

Justice being vengeance.
Governents seek to maintain order by monopolizing the violent retribution that would otherwise lead to endless feuding.
It's not "justice" that goverments seek, but order.

 

[Valjean]

Yes, we should be focusing on rehabilitation, for sure. Unfortunately, some types of people cannot be rehabilitated (like full-blown psychopaths of the Jimmy Savile or Ted Bundy type). Some people are just evil and love it.

Some people are unable to experience empathy. They don't love evil, they're just not wired for coöperative social interactions or altruism. They're neurologic social defectives.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

Justice being vengeance.
Governents seek to maintain order by monopolizing the violent retribution that would otherwise lead to endless feuding.
It's not "justice" that goverments seek, but order.

Even a corrupt, murderous warlord can "maintain order". Our aims should be higher than that mere baseline.

 

[Valjean]

Save for habitual serial killers, please let us abolish capital punishment against non serial killers. Please let us consider reforming our criminal justice system to mostly emulate the Norwegian criminal justice system. Norway has a decent legal justice system where nobody can be sentence to more than 21 years imprisonment. Also, their prisons treat everybody with dignity and respect. The prison guards are mostly unarmed and they often socially interact with inmates during meals or recreational activities. Norwegian inmates get job training, and well-educated so that they are far less likely to be criminal re-offenders. Norway's homicide rate is around 10 times lower than the U. S. Homicide rate.

And their recidivism rate is minuscule.

 

[SomeRandom]

The government sells military equipment to police departments all over the country, too. It's all linked.

Yikes! Do you have police over there or a military?

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

Yikes! Do you have police over there or a military?

They're both a bit of both at this point, lol.