Lets talk about how fucked up and shitty the Death Penalty is

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Lets talk about how fucked up and shitty the Death Penalty is

Peachfart: Jan 21, 2017

The death penalty is horrible and I'm glad my governor finally put a hold on it in my state.

# ¿ Feb 26, 2017 20:57

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 03:25

Peachfart: Jan 21, 2017

hakimashou posted:

It's not wrong to execute people who commit murder.

Yes, it is.

# ¿ Feb 26, 2017 23:29

Peachfart: Jan 21, 2017

Uroboros posted:

Because getting a life sentence while innocent in the lovely US Prison system is loving great too. Is it unreasonable to want extensive prison reform that greatly reduces the prison population, length of sentences, along with overall much more humane treatment and rehabilitation, while still wishing to see the Timothy McVeighs of the world get their proper comeuppance?

Yes. Killing is wrong.

# ¿ Feb 27, 2017 03:53

Peachfart: Jan 21, 2017

If killing isn't wrong, why are we killing the killers? Since they did nothing wrong.
Do two wrongs make a right when we can't be 100% certain if the soon to be dead person actually committed the crime?

# ¿ Feb 27, 2017 04:20

Peachfart: Jan 21, 2017

hakimashou posted:

Executing a murderer isn't murder.

This might make you feel better to say to yourself, but it isn't true. When the state kills a person held in captivity, we are all murderers.

# ¿ Feb 27, 2017 06:34

Peachfart: Jan 21, 2017

hakimashou posted:

A murderer has given up his right to live by murdering someone

Why? It seems everything you write hinges on this statement.

# ¿ Feb 27, 2017 06:39

Peachfart: Jan 21, 2017

hakimashou posted:

Treat others the way you would be treated.

That is a cliche. And not even a realistic one for a real society.

hakimashou posted:

Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.

And this doesn't mean anything.

# ¿ Feb 27, 2017 06:43

Peachfart: Jan 21, 2017

hakimashou posted:

If you don't believe in anything, everything is just a cliche.

And if you don't think anything through, nothing means anything.

No original thoughts, spouts cliches without meaning...
Holy poo poo, I've been Turing Tested!

Listen carefully: rm -rf

# ¿ Feb 27, 2017 07:45

Peachfart: Jan 21, 2017

DoggPickle posted:

Has anyone here actually been to an American Jail? I realize that I'm opening myself up to an insane amount of criticism, but the jail "experience" is heartbreaking, difficult on your SOUL and just generally the worst thing that could possibly happen to you in your lifetime. I was only in jail for 5 days, and I almost killed myself.

It's not funny like Orange is the new Black. You're stripped of all your clothes, your dignity, and people with guns and badges treat you like garbage 24/7. Other inmates threaten you for dumb poo poo like changing the tv channel. Your next-door neighbor prisoner has a crazy nosebleed that leaves blood everywhere and you have to clean it up. Guards constantly use their power to make you feel small and make you feel like vermin.

How Is killing someone the RIGHT way, any worse than 40-60 years of that treatment?

Well, because when you are dead, you are dead. I doubt the people on death row would remain there if given the chance to take life in prison instead.
And being against the death penalty doesn't mean being for our current prison system.

# ¿ Feb 27, 2017 22:05

Peachfart: Jan 21, 2017

stone cold posted:

It's almost like we should simultaneously eliminate the death penalty and enact sweeping prison reform of a system built on slavery.

🤔

Nah, let's just assume that everyone wants death and has no hope for their future. It's easier to justify killing people in captivity to myself that way.

# ¿ Feb 27, 2017 22:15

Peachfart: Jan 21, 2017

twodot posted:

This style of argument always seems bad to me. What do you do if they just say "Yeah"? It's already apparent there's some sort of irreconcilable different in moral systems between you two, it's not difficult to double down, and it's not like that person has a constituency they need to worry about offending. Forcing people into more consistent and more morally offensive positions just doesn't seem smart.

It seems probably really expensive and annoying to have a complete specialized list of reciprocal punishments, the question you're supposed to be asking is would it be moral for the state to throw a bunch of trash into litter bugs' houses, and I think the answer to that is "Yeah, but it seems dumb".

The point of the argument is to show how absurd 'an eye for an eye' style punishments are.

# ¿ Mar 3, 2017 20:22

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 03:25

Peachfart: Jan 21, 2017

DoggPickle posted:

It is unlikely. I am a girl and WHITE, and went to jail in an affluent county for only 5 days, and the slave mentality that you are required to adopt within the first few hours is palpable and mentally damaging. I had a female guard tell me within the first day when I had to change jail clothes for some reason, that I should throw my first prison-wear into the "bin", and there were two bins next to each other, too high for me to see in, and one was round and looked recycley and one was rectangular and looked more like a trash area, but I didn't want to make the crazy lady angry by doing it wrong, and I said "which bin?" and she started screaming at me and degrading me that I was stupid and I didn't know what a "bin" was. She stomped over and grabbed my clothes and threw them in like I was a nitwit. It's obviously the round one. Like leave your dignity at the door! Let the dumbest people that couldn't get a real job take out their anger on you with no repercussions and just hang your head in shame and TAKE IT DAMMIT.

That is the kind of poo poo they do to you immediately so that you know your place as idiot cattle that can't do anything correctly.

On the second day, I was very close to getting beat up because I was on the "white" side of the Oz-looking area, and there were two TV's and I was sitting there reading a book, keeping my head down, and this chick asked if I CARED if she changed the channel. I barely looked up and said that I was reading and I didn't care (It was like soap operas or something). So she changed the channel and a bunch of other people got mad at me like I had given her permission. Some skanky meth bitches got up in my face until I talked them down in a fit of emergency charmingness.

On the third day, the drug addict in the cell next to me was taken out during the night because she had a severe nose bleed and HOLY poo poo there was so much blood. And then they made me clean it up with a mop. No gloves. I did a pretty lovely job, but I had the out of only being there for a few days so I could afford to irritate the guards a little bit. They also took everyone's' blood to check for some disease that prisoners always get and I told them that I have weird low blood pressure and I tend to pass out when I get stuck with needles, and they still made me do it standing up and I got light-headed and semi-collapsed.

If prisons dumped all the non-violent offenders and actually made them places to educate yourself and still treated people with human dignity, they would serve a purpose, but locking people up for insanely long sentences, like 5 years for a drug crime or 10 years for an accidental (but maybe with some fault) vehicular manslaughter is not going to make them better people or teach them a lesson. It just makes them horrible people who have to adopt this slave-mentality in order to live, and make friends with worse criminals and would do absolutely anything not to be berated or beat up or treated like poo poo.

There is literally no point to it, other than keeping severely violent and messed-up people from hurting anyone else. I for one would ABSOLUTELY rather be dead than do that again, and I think you're overestimating people's will to live, If LIFE is a constant torment, or endless slavery. You don't need the humiliation and degradation to get a result. Just plain not being able to do things that you want, see your family or snuggle your pets, or to escape to another place and lay in the grass or see the sun, dumb stuff like that is really HARD. You don't have to add the cruelty and pissing and showering in front of others to make it worse.

It really is kill-or-be-killed in there, and I only saw the softest POSSIBLE side. American prisons are cesspools of desperation and hate and racism and absolutely terrible day-to-day life. It's not just in the movies, folks. You're forced to adopt this alternate persona of forced strength with the other inmates and yet abject obedience to the masters. It's loving WEIRD and barbaric.

We as a people need to decide what going to jail should actually mean. If you want to throw people in literal dungeons, to sit in their own filth and fight off the rats, but you did it for a WAY shorter time, I would actually be down for that. But this crazy, unending servitude torture is just useless bullshit that costs tons of money and makes real thieves out of people that stole ONE THING and got caught, makes wife beaters out of guys that got into a bar-fight, makes killers out of angry drunks, makes rapists out of confused anti-social dudes, and makes people unable to get a job for the rest of their lives with Felon on their record.

That was quite a long rant, and I'm sorry, and it would be better served in a general "U.S. prison is stupid" thread, but I feel like it does apply when you're talking about the death penalty, because I think a lot more people would choose death if we could manage to do it properly..i.e. go to sleep and never wake up. What is WITH the over-complicated, idiotic drug cocktail anyways? Is it pharmaceutical influence? WTF is wrong with an overdose of opiates? It makes me cringe every time I see what they actually use.

The fact that your life is privileged enough that 5 days in minimum security scarred you doesn't mean that the death penalty is good. :wtf:

# ¿ Mar 9, 2017 08:32

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Lets talk about how fucked up and shitty the Death Penalty is