Dolgo wrote:Mexico Superior wrote:People keep bringing up the death penalty, but capital punishment wouldn't be very helpful. The death penalty wouldn't impact Islamic extremists, because they believe that being killed in Jihad is a free ticket to their paradise. According to their interpretation of Islam, if you die in Jihad your sins are automatically forgiven (I'm probably over simplifying). To be executed by what they see as an anti-Islamic government, for carrying out an act in the name of Allah, would be totally acceptable in their minds. If anything death is preferable to life. If they die as a result of Jihad, they died for Allah, while fighting against the infidel. How is being a martyr, and a guaranteed ticket to paradise a deterrent? They have very little intention of simply going on about their lives after they do something like this. This terrorist was killed by the police of what he believed was an anti-Islamic power, while carrying out an act in the name of Allah. As far as he, and those who believe the same as he does, he is in paradise right now, being rewarded.
Obviously this is not the interpretation of all Muslims, but it is the one many extremists follow.
The death penalty is not about the perpetrator, nor is it merely about its potential deterring effect. It's about asserting the monopoly of violence that the state (should) hold.
Such nonsense. The state can imprison you for life, at its own expense. That is a greater demonstration of force than killing you, which any punk with a knife could do. And not trivially, it demonstrates restraint in the use of force.
In the event a citizen of the state is unlawfully killed, the state must re-assert its power by taking the life of the murderer. This also gives the public a greater sense of justice and sends the message that certain crimes will carry the ultimate punishment.
Your definition of "greater justice" is suspect, and actually rejected by most countries. Particularly most
democratic countries! If the people wanted murderers killed by the state, wouldn't democratic countries generally do it? Actually the US is out on a limb here, which I can only explain by philosophical individualism combining with a cultural inclination to make problems go away quickly and simply.
Well there's doing everything as cheaply as possible, and if this was the 1980's I would consider that a sufficient explanation for the US wanting to retain the sociopathic method "use of lethal force against individuals". But it's a quarter century later and you're still for it, despite it being more expensive to the state than life imprisonment.
Australia abolished the death penalty in 1973, and the last execution was in 1967. That moment when a former penal colony which asked for independence without fighting a war, and still has the Queen of England as sovereign ... doesn't need execution to assert its power over the citizens. *smug*
As for religious extremists, there's no easy way around that. Certainly they would feel like a hero regardless of what was done against them. In the end, their existence cannot be tolerated by society once they commit murder. After being found guilty in a court of law, the just decision of the state is to sentence them to capital punishment.
There is an easy way around that. It's to give their children extra support in school, and adapt the school environment for them so they feel welcome, and just for any other kids present to them a model of society which is BETTER and more stimulating and more gratifying to them, than home life. Some kids don't need this, but in my opinion around half of kids in developed nations need and deserve something better than the life their own parents model for them. All of schooling should be re-oriented towards this, and away from formal education: school is a hard-won opportunity
for government to model the society which children will have to live in when they leave their parents home. A necessary compromise is to give up standardization: all schools can't be the same, some must be allowed lower formal learning standards, to present a more varied choice to students (or their advocates) and there must also be some third party, a schooling advocate, who gives support to each student in choosing which school or class is best for them. Schools have their own agendas, they would cherry-pick students if they could. Parents and the religious mentors who influence them, also have an agenda, and in far too many cases have a vision of how they want their child to grow up. There needs to be a third party, an advocate for each child, and when we as a society have mastered AI, each child WILL have their own advocate to strengthen their will and knowledge, give trusted advice on life decisions, and grow up alongside each child. Perhaps there will be problems later in life, as people rebel against their childhood AI mentor, but that is a small price to pay for all the trouble we have now with "rites of passage" into adulthood. The future is bright, for individualism AND for social cohesion, and I'm sorry if my rant makes the present seem so dim.
Every problem in human society is caused by bad parenting. And though I'm sure I'd have been a good parent (at least to one child) I am glad I never took that moral risk. Parents, go easy on the religious teaching please! However sure you are of your religion, let your child find their own purpose in life. Extreme religion will force them to fight battles that probably you didn't ever have to, it's no more ethical than press-ganging child soldiers.