Schwarzenegger starts killing people in real-live.

What if you acidentally killed someone, e.g. ran them over, left your kid in the car, etc.? if it is some charles mason shiz then you should be locked up until you die, not killed. The main problem though is 1) crooked cops and judges 2) worng place/wrong time deal.

Peace, love, kill the hippies

::Don’t feel like editing quote::

A few edits I find neccessary to put into this:

  1. The guillotine does not cause a quick death. Duriung the French revolution, a few notable biologists decided to see if a person is still alive once they have their head cut off. One notable case was a woman (I believe Mary, Queen of Scots, but I’m really not sure) who had her head lopped off with the guillotine. Wittnesses claim her lips continued to move for up to 10 minutesa after her head was severed. A French doctor once hads the oppurtunity to catch observe a head immediately after it had been severed. The face was in fine condition, except for a scratch from hitting the basket. The doctor called out the man’s name, and the head’s eyes opened and stared at the doctor, then closed again. 30 seconds later, the doctor called the man’s name again, and low and behold, the head opened it’s eyes and glared at him for a few moments before closing again. For those who wish for a more accurate account of this, read Stiff, by Mary Roach.

  2. The first execution by electric chair was a spectacular failure. The man took “an agonizingly long amount of time to die.”

  3. What makes a firing squad a quick death? There is still a large amount of blood in the victim, and their head anda sizable amount of the spine is still functional. Just becauser the heart isn’t beating doesn’t make it a fast death.

Just to make this topic a little more inflamitory…

How many of you are “Pro Life” when it comes to Convicted Killers, and “Pro Choice” when it comes to an Innocent fetus?

Who is making life cheap?

These are tough questions, but ones that need to be thought about.

u had it coming…

trust the bugman
:wink:
apples and pears
and by calling the fetus’s ‘innocent’, u’re guilty of obscuring the issue even futher

nice try tho

Aren’t we all innocent until we are proven guilty?

Personally, I think that killing a fetus (weather innocent or not) is a far cry different then killing a person convicted of a crime such as murder.

To me, innocent people falsely conviced are the main paroblem with any justice systems and especially in systems which include capitol punishment.

does this, and bugman’s original question, apply to embryos and zygots as well?
and what about egg- and sperm cells?
just where do u draw the line?

i have this sweeping feeling of deja vu everytime i discuss the death penalty, abortion, the legalisation of marijuana

the original issue here was the conduct of the governor of california and the reaction from people in the other country where he still holds citizenship
it appears that his conduct in this issue may be against the laws of his ‘other’ home country and some measures need to be taken
to address this
stripping him of his austrian citizenship seems to be the popular choice
not one that i can imagine him leaving much sleep over
but then, considering what he did to californians when he let the power companies off the hook, i doubt if he loses sleep over much
there we go, recomplicated
dave, u idiot
:angry:

Actually it depends on the venue. In a U.S court of law, yes, one is innocent until proven guilty. As regards public opinion in the U.S. or elsewhere, on a grand or small scale, one may be considered quite guilty with or without any proof.

That is so true.

I for one am.

I don’t really, truly know. Do you?

Indeed.

…erm me also

…Those who believe that even if a human has done wrong they are totally worthless to society.

I seem to agree with you here.:wink:

Kit

I am anti death penalty, pro choice.

Bugman, let ME ask YOU something. Are YOU pro deathpenalty anti abortion? To act as if we who support a woman’s right to choose are stupid or blind enough to simplify it to the taking of a life without regards to circumstances is stupid in and of its self.

I admit to not having read the article Leo initially linked. But, speaking as one of Governor Schwarzenegger’s constituants, I will venture to say that if he is my governor, he is no longer an Austrian citizen (unless he holds some kind of dual citizenship). Even if he is a dual citizen, he is not bound by Austruan law in California. Just another silly way to get at the pro/anti capital punishment argument.

From what I have seen so far, I get the impression that Arnold is listening, and responding to, the people. We got no such joy from Gray Davis. He was so deep in the pocket of the prison guard’s union he was banging against its nads.

Death penalty? Aye, the hard part is being sure the suspect is truly guilty. But sometimes it’s not so hard. DNA evidence, video, etc. When it’s that clear-cut, I say fry-em. Scott Peterson? I would say no. The evidence was too circumstantial.

Though even if I were anti-death penalty, I would not relate this to an opinion on abortion. Abortion is about choice. It’s not about whether killing embryos or fetuses is a negative, I think everyone agrees on that. It’s about whether the owner of the body in question gets a say in the matter. It’s definitely not a black & white issue either. If it’s black & white to you, the answer is simple. Don’t frigging have one.

MrBooglejuice put up a bunch of unrelated crime and punishment facts, then seemed to sum it up at the end as a huge testament against the death penalty. Sorry, what you had there were a bunch of unrelated statistics. Canada has no death penalty, and their first-degree murder cases are on the decline. This proves what? That there are about a million other variables involved. Nobody knows why that rate is declining.

I agree that a death penalty is ineffective as a deterrent. I don’t care. As a member of the law-abiding majority of my society, my opinion is I don’t need them around.

The other day, a guy in Sacramento came home for lunch to find a burglar in his upscale home. The burglar shot him four times, and then escaped, only to be caught a few hours later trying to wade across the American River. He was only there to rob the house. Why’d he have to kill the guy? This happened about 2 miles from my house, which is in a relatively low crime area. That guy is evil. After a fair trial, if he is eligible for the death penalty, I will be happy if he gets it.

And yes, he probably can’t afford a lawyer either. I think the vast majority of all murder suspects can’t afford one, though I have no idea of the statistics. That’s why he has the right to one. Just like Social Security. It may not be perfect, but at least he gets something.

Here’s a statistic I have no trouble understanding. America has the most (guessing) guns in private ownership, and it also has the most people shooting each other. Hmm. Does this mean guns are bad? The NRA will say no. To me it means not having guns is good though. But I think it’s culture, not availability of guns, that gets so many people shot. And changing culture is not easy to prove, or change, by reading lots of statistics.

I can agree that this man is evil and does deserve to be severely punished, although why the death penalty over life imprisonment?

I guess the first debate would be over which one is a more severe punishment. I can say from a personal standpoint that given the option between being humanely killed or locked up for the remainder of my life, I would choose death.

But then you have too look at the economics of the two options.
Statistically, capital punishment is far more expensive than incarcerating someone for 100 years, so its not saving any money.

Then there is also ALWAYS the possibility of a mistake. One hardly can think of a worse fate than to be convicted of a crime one did not commit.

I still do not have a strong opinion on the topic, but this thread made me want to find out more about it. I spent some time researching, and so far I cannot see why capital punishment is better than life imprisonment.

That’s what I always say… I for one would much rather die than spend the next fifty years or so of my life in a prison cell. in prison for life, there’s no hope of ever getting out, and you know that this is how it’ll be forever until you die. And there is no reason to live in that.
of course, I’ll never find myself in that situation, soo…

Not really relevant, but a colleague of mine is a neighbor of the poor guy. Apparently his wife and young child arrived home very shortly after he was murdered but fortunately after the killers had left.

Just to make it clear, I am all for choice. With the realization that if you deny someone else their rights, there are consequences.

I also find it hard to dehumanize a child that isn’t born yet. There are currently people that are fighting tooth and nail to continue allowing third trimester abortions. I can’t imagine aborting, what at that time is a viable life with or without the mother. My 2nd daughter who is currently 2 weeks old is still 3 weeks shy of her target birthday. That would put her right in the middle of the third trimester when she was born. She was 4lbs 15oz and came home from the hospital the next day. Shouldn’t the baby have a choice? Hell, why not make abortion retroactive to 18. These kids aren’t working out the way we thought, lets terminate them before they are viable adults. Or, I am at a different place in my life and you just don’t fit in, or things are a little tight and someone is going to have to be cut loose, or just about any other reason should do, hell its a womens right. Again don’t take this the wrong way, i’m all for choice.

I am against the death penalty, but I do understand why people are in favor of it. A lot of citizens are somehow convinced that it will make our society “safer”–others believe that the offender “deserves” it.

I’m against it because I believe that under all circumstances, to take another life is an act of madness. Anyone who can callously kill another human being, like the example given in Sacramento, is truly mad. Most likely irreversibly so. They should be removed from society because to kill so blatantly like that means they have reached a point of no return.

However, to kill this killer, I think, makes society as mad as the mad man. I think society owes it to all citizens to remain completely sane and reasonable, and this includes the unpopular notion of resisting the instant gratification of revenge, which when you strip capital punishment down to it’s bare bones, does come down to revenge.

I think of it this way–if some lunatic were to break into my house and brutally murder my wife and my two children, I know, believe me, I know that I would do everything possible to track down the vermin and kill him slowly and with my bare hands. I would be out of control–and thus, I would be mad. The murder would transform me into a lunatic, crazed with revenge, obsessed with killing the killer. For highly understandable reasons, I would have become a crazy man. However, that is not the way a civilized society as a whole should react. A society should be above revenge, should be above madness–and it would owe it to me, the distraught victim, to remain level headed in the face of such a serious offense to humanity.

A lot of people these days use the expression “Evil” as in “Good VS Evil”–but I don’t believe in that. I don’t think Evil exists as some kind of floating mysterious thing that makes people do horrible things, no more than I believe “Good” exists, flying around like a good Fairy Godmother that makes you give a dollar to the homeless man. A person may do a “good” deed, or they may do something that can be described as “evil”–but Good and Evil–too black and white for me, and it’s a belief system that makes it easier to justify capital punishment…and war.

However, I DO believe in the Sane and the Insane. And insanity is widespread these days and exists in many forms. Sometimes it’s hardly noticable. Sometimes it’s harmful. Sometimes insanity can cause a person to do something absolutely horrible, something evil, like killing.

Insanity, caused by an unbelievable number of factors, will let a person decide to comitt murder, or even start a war of they feel like it and they have the power. And because the collective nature of a society, it is crucial that a society remain “Sane” (even if many within the community are “Insane”) because an Insane Society is nothing more than a mob. And there is nothing reasonable about a mob…

I agree with you that evil and good are not floating around influencing our behavior. I see the words more as adjectives used to describe the behavior or action one chooses.

Some choices that are labeled good or evil can certainly be debated and often are right here on this very forum. For example… Is giving a homeless man a dollar good or evil? I would consider it evil. How can that possibly help that person? Does it improve his self esteem? Does it make him more capable of supporting himself? It only makes his problems worse.

There are endless support networks available to those that fall on hard times. They actively search out people to help. Some people need a helping hand, not a handout. Some of these guys are professional panhandlers counting on your desire not to get involved and just give them a dollar and dimiss them with the belief that you have done something good.

Hell, don’t listen to me, I must be in an argumentitive mood. Or maybe it’s the Devil making me do it.

I totally agree with you–I was just using the dollar/homeless man example as something that some people would consider “good”. But I think you are right, it’s not going to make any difference to that person as far as turning their life around–I myself don’t do it because of the very reasons you stated.

LOL!:smiley:

During last elections Arnie was’nt allowed to vote. And from what I’ve heared he still is Austrian. And AT is part of the EU where NL and DE made it possible to make their citizens bound by law worldwide. If you like the +/- 7 years old kids of Thailand the way wacko-Jacko seem to do… find out what happens as soon you return to the EU. At the end you may wish there was a death-penalty in EU.

Also about “being sure” there is no such in Dutch law. The highest degree you can get is “nearly sure” and you will always be called ‘suspect’. Even the killer of moviemaker Theo van Gogh who’s pro-forma trail has just started when I finish this line.