How long should Dzhokhar Tsarnaev get behind bars?

[grumbler]

Which one is emotional?

Sorry, don't have time to hand-hold the slower students while class is still in session.  See me after class for help working out which argument is based on emotion.

[alfred russel]

Which one is emotional?

grumbler hasn't felt an emotion since seeing Alaric and the goths sack Rome. That killed his ability to feel emotions, though to be honest he had been emotionally stunted while surviving the destruction of the Roman fleet in a storm during the First Punic War. So many good men lost.

Since then he is like data in Star Trek, only able to guess what an emotion truly is.

[lustindarkness]

Which one is emotional?

Sorry, don't have time to hand-hold the slower students while class is still in session.  See me after class for help working out which argument is based on emotion.

I watched a short film recently that started like that. The student, a young male is struggling with class. The teacher, a middle age female offers to help him after class. He does some work for extra credit. It was in a up and coming artist short film website, pornhub.

[Neil]

Isn't that old 'Killing them will just make them martyrs' thing the sort of thing that villains say in movies and TV as an excuse not to kill the heroes so that they can escape, regroup and then win?

If your argument is being used by Cobra Commander, you might want to take a second look at it.

[celedhring]

I'm against the DP on principle, and that's why I'd rather this man not be killed, but I don't get the "martyr" objection. It's not like muslim terrorists seem to have much trouble finding something to get riled about and try to kill us.

[Martinus]

Which one is emotional?

Sorry, don't have time to hand-hold the slower students while class is still in session.  See me after class for help working out which argument is based on emotion.

None of his posts seems to be based on emotion, so I am going to conclude that, as usual, you are talking out of your ass.

[Eddie Teach]

Cal's only emotions are hungry and sated.

[grumbler]

I'm against the DP on principle, and that's why I'd rather this man not be killed, but I don't get the "martyr" objection. It's not like muslim terrorists seem to have much trouble finding something to get riled about and try to kill us.

Being against the DP on principal is fine.  Saying that it is "fundamentally wrong for the state to put people to death" is emo.  Personally, I oppose the DP because I don't trust bureaucrats to properly implement it (yes, that argument could be used for imprisonment as well, but at least the latter is a recoverable error). 

The martyr objection is a valid one, I think.  I don't think that it is strong enough to overcome the benefits to the survivors and relatives of the victim of having justice served, but it certainly is a consideration.  Existing Muslim terrorists don't need martyrs, perhaps, but having martyrs helps recruiting.  It also helps motivate potential terrorists to go down fighting rather than surrender.  As I say, that's not strong enough IMO to counter the benefits of executing the guy, but it should be considered.

[grumbler]

Which one is emotional?

Sorry, don't have time to hand-hold the slower students while class is still in session.  See me after class for help working out which argument is based on emotion.

None of his posts seems to be based on emotion, so I am going to conclude that, as usual, you are talking out of your ass.

That's okay by me.  I don't give a rat's ass what you conclude.

[dps]

I say, the more terrorists we turn into martyrs, the better.

[Razgovory]

I think Grumbler is mistaking principle for emotion.  Whether or not he will be executed doesn't really matter much.  It'll just cost more.

[Martinus]

I think Grumbler is mistaking principle for emotion.

Yeah, pretty much. Then again, he is devoid of both.

[grumbler]

I think Grumbler is mistaking principle for emotion.

Yeah, pretty much. Then again, he is devoid of both.

Ooh!  A dogpile!  When Grallon joins, we will have the hat trick!

[Barrister]

I don't know if the "only making them martyrs" matches our experience 14+ years into the War on Terror.

As far as I can tell the dead terrorists aren't causing us any trouble.  No one seems to be venerating OBL these days.  It's the living ones that are causing problems - The Khalid Sheikh Mohammeds, the Omar Khadrs.  By being alive they continue to generate attention and to be a cause celebre.

Look, if one is morally opposed to the death penalty then I get that.  That's a moral discussion one can have.

But if you're going to accept that the state does have the ability to put someone to death, if you don't use that penalty on Tsarnaev I'm not sure when you ever would use that power.

[Zanza]

I found it strange that they could just decide to try him under federal laws, apparently mainly so they can even go for the death penalty in Massachusetts and then pick a jury that is obviously not representative of the state as they excluded all those that are opposed to the death penalty, which is probably a sizeable proportion. I guess all of that is perfectly legal under American law, but it feels a bit like deliberately picking a jury to get a certain result instead of using what I would assume is the standard procedure for murder trials in Massachusetts.