Trial by Fire - a case of death penalty in Texas

[garbon]

I have no clue as to what you are now arguing.  I made a post that pointed out the absurdity of starting with a "premise" that was totally at odds with the commonly-understood meaning of a word, by showing that if we simply make up our own meanings for the word "murder" we can go so far as to call a posting on languish murder, and the board sponsors and moderators accomplices to murder.  This was clever and effective, and so obviously not "knee-jerk."

Clever? Word substitution does not take quick wit.
And clearly it wasn't very effective as this discussion is still happening.

[garbon]

Not at all, and the whole "I am rubber, you are glue" argument is childish.

Not sure this is the best description as the "I am rubber, you are glue" phrase typically indicates deflecting a negative attribute from the accused to the accuser. Agelastus's phrasing seems to suggest that he sees both of you acting emotionally, so that's not quite the same.  Although, the end effect is much the same as it makes the discussion about you rather than him.

[grumbler]

Crumbs, Grumbler, that's taking selective quoting too far - the next bit expressly states that I would have difficulty making this a generalisation.

So what you are saying is that it is a crappy argument and withdraw it?  Smart man.

One could make a good argument that "honour killings", which are legal in certain extremely backward jurisdictions, base there legality on exactly the issue of "extreme emotional trauma". Self-defence, in other words in its most basic meaning.

You have lost me here.  In what jurisdictions are honor killings legal, and what makes you think they are there made legal because of the concept of self-defense?  It seems to me that you are grasping at straws here.  That is always a sign of an untenable position.

But before you quote this back at me, I am sure we both agree that those societies are a bunch of backwards barbarians.

I don't know which societies these are, though I expect you are right. Dunno what this has to do with self-defense, though.

Trust me, they are good examples for my country in this respect. I was old enough to see the hysteria around them both, and also to be able to note how ill thought out some aspects of the laws were, due to how rapidly they were put before parliament. I remember mentioning in another thread that one consequence is that Britain has gone from World Class to World Shit in competitive shooting.

Sorry, but Idon't trust you on this.  I also remember the cases, and remember that the public opinion was "we thought this was already illegal!  If it isn't, that was an oversight that should be corrected immediately!"  That isn't an emotional response.

As an aside, I have always been impressed by how many of the Nisei still wanted to fight for America, despite that.

Yeah, that fact is something that alwayys impressed me as well.  442nd RCT FTW!

Of additional interest, many of the members of the 442 (including one of its battalion commanders) were Korean-Americans, unfortunately totally overshadowed by the Nisei story.

And since emotional responses can't really be separated from lawmaking in democracies, I am not going to retreat from my now assumed position that emotion has a place alongside logic in discussions of the death penalty.

Okay.  Just understand that this merely weakens your position.  Logic is universal, while emotion is individual.

Grumbler, you know what you have written here is untrue. If they were targetting civilians deliberately, they would be committing criminal acts. They are targetting installations that unfortunately can have civilians living nearby (or not even nearby, but shit happens.) I know that you didn't quite mean that as written.

I meant it exactly as written, and know from my courses in the Law of Armed Conflict that it is true.  Your rewording of it is untrue, of course, but I cannot help you re-writing my points in a feeble attempt to refute them.

Let's take a case from LoAC textbooks: an enemy soldier is driving civilians in front of him and hiding behind them.  He pops up and shoots at you, then ducks down again behind his human civilian shield.  Can you, under the LoAC, shoot the civilians in front of him to get him?

Nice...since you and I are both well aware that no western democracy's military would get away with deliberately targetting civilians, despite your somewhat imprecise language on the issue (see above), then how is this not a strawman raised by you to obfuscate the issue?

Answer my question, and then we will see which of us knows what the law says.  Note that my case involves deliberately targeting those civilians.

[PDH]

...and a good SMU joke lost in the detritus...

[grumbler]

Clever? Word substitution does not take quick wit.  

Clever doesn't have to be quick! 

And clearly it wasn't very effective as this discussion is still happening.

True, but it is ongoing because, while Agelastus has abandoned his original contention, he is weaseling a bunch of other contentions into line to try to make us believe that he has not abandoned it.

[grumbler]

...and a good SMU joke lost in the detritus...

:shocked:  There are good SMU jokes?

Oh.  You mean good as in jokes, not good as in SMU.

[PDH]

Don't try and earn back any points, Oh Groaning One.

[grumbler]

Don't try and earn back any points, Oh Groaning One.

I had points?

Doh!

[Agelastus]

Clever? Word substitution does not take quick wit.  

Clever doesn't have to be quick! 

And clearly it wasn't very effective as this discussion is still happening.

True, but it is ongoing because, while Agelastus has abandoned his original contention, he is weaseling a bunch of other contentions into line to try to make us believe that he has not abandoned it.

Good, the relatives have gone...

Abandoned my original contention? Hardly, and if you think that, then we have been having two different discussions.

I clarified my original phrase by adding the word "deliberate", that should have been there all along, then added one case that was ill-covered by the post I had made.

As for "weaselling contentions", the debate is merely expanding from its base proposition.

And you know what - the death penalty does effectively equate to state sponsored murder, of a particularly brutal and cold-blooded type. I stand by that opinion.

[Berkut]

And you know what - the death penalty does effectively equate to state sponsored murder, of a particularly brutal and cold-blooded type. I stand by that opinion.

That is simply inane.

Murder is a legal term. It has a specific legal meaning, and there is no way execution can possibly fit that definition, by definition.

The word you are looking for his "homicide".

[Barrister]

The legal definition of murder:

229. Culpable homicide is murder

(a) where the person who causes the death of a human being

(i) means to cause his death, or

(ii) means to cause him bodily harm that he knows is likely to cause his death, and is reckless whether death ensues or not;

(b) where a person, meaning to cause death to a human being or meaning to cause him bodily harm that he knows is likely to cause his death, and being reckless whether death ensues or not, by accident or mistake causes death to another human being, notwithstanding that he does not mean to cause death or bodily harm to that human being; or

(c) where a person, for an unlawful object, does anything that he knows or ought to know is likely to cause death, and thereby causes death to a human being, notwithstanding that he desires to effect his object without causing death or bodily harm to any human being.

[Razgovory]

And you know what - the death penalty does effectively equate to state sponsored murder, of a particularly brutal and cold-blooded type. I stand by that opinion.

That is simply inane.

Murder is a legal term. It has a specific legal meaning, and there is no way execution can possibly fit that definition, by definition.

The word you are looking for his "homicide".

I already stated that.  Almost word for word.

I am actually confused as to what A is arguing here.  Saying that Execution of criminals is wrong because it's not a power we should invest in the state, or that it's cruel, or that it's immoral, or that it's wasteful, or that it makes one late for dinner all seem to be valid arguments (I don't subscribe to all of them), but to say it's murder doesn't seem be a valid argument since by definition it can't be.   The State can of course murder people when it acts in contrary to it's own laws.  I do wonder if a state can murder if it acts in contradiction to international law but in accordance to it's own laws.

[Malthus]

The legal definition of murder:

229. Culpable homicide is murder

(a) where the person who causes the death of a human being

(i) means to cause his death, or

(ii) means to cause him bodily harm that he knows is likely to cause his death, and is reckless whether death ensues or not;

(b) where a person, meaning to cause death to a human being or meaning to cause him bodily harm that he knows is likely to cause his death, and being reckless whether death ensues or not, by accident or mistake causes death to another human being, notwithstanding that he does not mean to cause death or bodily harm to that human being; or

(c) where a person, for an unlawful object, does anything that he knows or ought to know is likely to cause death, and thereby causes death to a human being, notwithstanding that he desires to effect his object without causing death or bodily harm to any human being.

Back up, councellor: you are missing the important definition, 'culpable homicide':

Culpable homicide

(4) Culpable homicide is murder or manslaughter or infanticide.

Idem

(5) A person commits culpable homicide when he causes the death of a human being,

(a) by means of an unlawful act;

(b) by criminal negligence;

(c) by causing that human being, by threats or fear of violence or by deception, to do anything that causes his death; or

(d) by wilfully frightening that human being, in the case of a child or sick person.

Exception

(6) Notwithstanding anything in this section, a person does not commit homicide within the meaning of this Act by reason only that he causes the death of a human being by procuring, by false evidence, the conviction and death of that human being by sentence of the law.

In Canada at least, an execution (even procured by false evidence) cannot be murder because it cannot be culpable homicide.

[Agelastus]

Interestig because it is the common one, and not one made up for the sake of an argument?  I suppose you may find that interesting.

----

I have no clue as to how you could think you could successfully interject the strawman concept of "faith" here.  I have no "faith" about this issue whatever.

No strawman here - "trust" and "faith" have emotional components as much as logical, and your second contention relies on your own faith in your deductive abilities rather than hard data, as far as I am aware. I was rather hoping you could point me at a study to back-up your second contention, as I am dubious about it. I can quite easily see more murders being done by released murderers than there are innocent men falsely accused of murder in jail. However, that may be due to my impression of the British legal system, and may not equate directly to the American experience.

I oppose the death penalty precisely because I have thought about it dispassionately, read up on it a great deal, and drew conclusions based on the best evidence I could find.  It isn't an emotional issue with me, and I could be convinced my conclusions are wrong (either because of faulty facts or faulty reasoning).  that is the advantage of being dispassionate about such things.

I find it impossible to believe that anyone is completely unemotional in their assessment of the death penalty, given the horrific nature of many murders.

You mean you don't think you can separate the emotional from the logical.  I certainly can.  I don't grieve over the executions that take place, and while I am angered by cases of apparent injustice like the one we are discussing, I don't blame the death penalty itself for such occurrences.  I blame the logic-defeating powers of politics and bureaucracy, which is why I want to limit government powers to those unable to be exerted outside government so those political and bureaucratic imperatives cannot work further against my interests.

I was unaware that you are a Vulcan or a robot, Grumbler... Besides, you just admitted to anger over the perceived injustice.

Moreover, I don't believe anybody here has "blamed the death penalty itself" for such occurrences, but rather the people involved. I am interested in just how far you wish to limit government powers, though. At face value, that looks almost like an anarchist outlook in the last two lines.

They are poles apart, I think.  I oppose state-sponsored murder for very different reasons than I oppose state-sponsored non-murder killings.

I disagree, but since in this case it seems as if "ne'er the twain shall meet", I suppose this point is moot.

Your claim for opposing the DP is that it is murder.  Their reason for opposing it is, by your admission here, different.

Quite correct. But since I never said there reason was the same as mine, I fail to see what I am admitting. You are grasping at a straw here to try and beat me with, and failing.

I have no clue as to what you are now arguing.  I made a post that pointed out the absurdity of starting with a "premise" that was totally at odds with the commonly-understood meaning of a word, by showing that if we simply make up our own meanings for the word "murder" we can go so far as to call a posting on languish murder, and the board sponsors and moderators accomplices to murder.  This was clever and effective, and so obviously not "knee-jerk."

It was sarcasm and a pretty trite attempt at ridicule, of a type you had done before. And my point was if you had simply posted, "you're position does not match the commonly accepted definition of murder", rather than typing a response that was more insulting than clever, then we would not be having this argument.

"Grumblerisation argument" is a term I think I will adopt for a discussion that devolves into point by point post quoting, as you do tend to use the technique more than others on the forum.

It is both stupid and pointless to develop an argument like "the death penalty is murder and those who carry it out are murderers" when the argument depends on a definition of murder that everyone knows is false and easily disproven.

I expressed my personal opinion on the subject of murder. Moreover, as a generalised description of murder, it is actually fairly apt.

Not at all, and the whole "I am rubber, you are glue" argument is childish.

So, in essence, was your post.

How the law stands in the US or anywhere else is irrelevant to your argument that the DP is murder.  Were you correct, then those who carried out executions in your country or any other before the DP was ended could be tried as murderers, for they had killed people and not in self-defense.

How the law stands now is not irrelevant; if enough people share my view in the future, then the law will be changed. Moreover, your point is, to be blunt, pointless, as it is highly unlikely any such law could be, or would be, applied retroactively.

So the DP is then self-defense?  That is the broad definition.  You can choose the broad definition, in which case you are wrong, or the narrow one, in which case you are wrong.  What you cannot do is weasel and say it is just broad enough to include all acts which which even yopu cannot define as murder, but narrow enough to leave the DP alone as murder.

I believe you are the one who stated that the death penalty could be described as society's legitimate self defence, not I; moreover, since this is a statement neither of us are in agreement with, trying to misuse it as a bat to beat me with is foolish. Stop putting your words in to my mouth (or rather, text.)

Besides, how on earth do you draw a reference to the death penalty from the various political contortions Britain and the USA went through in order to justify the second Gulf War in terms of self-defence? I actually think it is quite silly that we had to go through all that, but the modern world demands it.

Wow.  That is a probably the worst example you could have used!    It is one of the most-ignored Biblical injunctions ever!  Rightfully so, of course, because all animals must kill to survive.

While it may have been ignored in the specific, the general moral message has been a part of western thought and society for at least sixteen centuries. It is therefore one of the best examples to use, as it has had reat influence even on otherwise violent societies. Consider the "Truce of God" concept in medieval France, for example.

[DGuller]

This debate over semantics is like executing Mr. Willingham all over again.