There have been many people put to death who were innocent, mostly Black men. And because it sets a bad example. Someone killed my brother in the cruelest way. I've wondered if I was letting him down by not seeking revenge, but Caitlin's article has me thinking I honor my dear brother better by not sullying myself with the perpetrator's filth. We are better than that.
i am sorry for your loss Mu. I understand how you would want to avenge your brother, but I think your way of honoring your brother's memory by not stooping to the horrifically low level of his murderer is something better. Peace to you
Also, the vast majority of psychopaths are not sadistic psychopaths. They're your boss, maybe even one with an easy charm that makes him or her very likeable, or that politician you voted for, or your spouse.
Also, too, be careful with that "born psychopath." If someone is born with a disability, which being a psychopath certainly is, doesn't that to some extent excuse them?
It's interesting you bring up that question. One of the most fascinating characters ever created was Amos in the film and book series "The Expanse" - which is one of the best Sci-Fi series I think I've ever read or watched. Amos is pretty much a psychopath in the books (and in the film) and yet still manages to conduct himself in a moral fashion - based on his attempt to morally fit in and adapt to circumstances. Even though a psychopath may not feel the consequences of their actions, they can still intellectually understand what they are doing.
Perhaps the truly healthy are aware of their shared collective unconscious with all of humanity, as Dr. Jung once speculated, and this stops them from harming others, though they may have been wronged themselves.
The collective unconscious of the psyche is more like the physiology of our human body - organized and remarkably layered with complex features that even many of the healthy do not know much about, but which, to a surprising degree, like the physical body - we depend upon for our daily functioning.
What may also be surprising to some - Jung did not always advocate psychoanalysis for everyone - which can be (and still is today) a lengthy multi-year process, and considerably expensive if consulting with say, a Zurich trained Analyst.
Sometimes, after the first session or two with a potential client, after the client had presented their first couple of dreams to Jung - Jung would decline further consultation, based on what the dreams revealed of the client's unconscious state, which indicated the patient did not need - or was not ready for further deeper analytical treatment. That more traditional psychological approaches of help (or no outside help at all) was the best prescription for the client to move forward with their life.
Abusing the Abused doesn't stop the cycle of Abuse.
I'm sorry if some people do not like to hear it, they want to ignore it, or pretend it is a tiny minority, but it is a FACT that NOT ONE Abuser from the Epstein Files has been arrested in the USA - NOT ONE. The West is RUN by criminals. They shouldn't be deciding what to order for lunch, let alone who lives or dies. Some people may suggest AI Overlords make the decision of what criminals live and who dies. Bad idea.
The ONLY way to stop the cycle of abuse is to end the abuse. Pretending it doesn't exist or having the State decide who lives or dies, does not end the abuse... it continues the cycle.
Trauma begets Trauma, and NO, AI Overlords deciding which criminals live or die is not a solution. Who are the people designing the New Infallible AI Overlord? ABUSERS.
Block all data centers that harm the environment......this means regulation to eliminate the harm. Also make AI a public asset like a library to eliminate harm to the people.
Perhaps most commonly, but psychopaths can certainly abuse without having been abused.
The idea that a human behavioral characteristic (psychopathy, irritability, racism, fearfulness, whatever) can *only* emerge by transmission from a prior "carrier" is not coherent. The behavior has to initiate from *somewhere*, and that place is biological characteristics, even if only when triggered by adverse conditions (which do not necessarily include abuse). Unfortunately, these are currently not sufficiently understood (like most other psychiatric characteristics). There is no such thing as a fully "blank slate".
Absolutely, but we cannot predict who will be a psychopath, while we know that those abused have a good chance to becomes abusers The path of transmission is trauma, which can also be epigenetic, passing down through markers on the DNA of those who did not experience the original trauma. We see this also in entire populations such as the European Jews who were traumatized by the Nazis and have now abused the Palestinians, the Soviet/Russian population which lost 27 million to the Nazis and whose fear or invasion cannot be understood without taking into account the immense trauma of that event, now passed down epigenetically.
We cannot predict, but we can screen and diagnose. High Machiavellian psychopaths are the more insidious threat, but it can be done. We’d need wide spread psychological and ponerological literacy. There are also structural design elements we could institute to prevent psychopaths from attaining authority or positions of power or influence, but before we can have a chance at any of that, it’s the psychological and ponerological literacy that needs to be in place first. Sadly… I don’t foresee that happening under the current system.
Agreed. We have a lot of work to do in biology to get to the answers. If AI is good for anything, it may be able to solve this -- but of course, AI will, first, in all likelihood be controlled primarily by, well... intelligent psychopaths. :/
"The path of transmission is trauma, which can also be epigenetic, passing down through markers on the DNA of those who did not experience the original trauma."
Agreed. I have no problem with our continuing to do good work to remediating environmentally-produced, hereditarily-passed sociopathy. But lets just remember it won't solve the core danger to society, as the full biology is not understood. For all those sociopaths remediated/cured, then paradoxically, a power vacuum is created for non-environmentally-produced intelligent psychopathy to exploit. And it certainly will be exploited. Moreover, we have the ethical problem of how to handle "pre-crime" control.
EDIT: Changed "genetically" to "hereditarily" in 3rd para to more clearly conform to your points, which I agree with.
We can together dismantle the system that currently rewards ambitious psychopaths and build one, as our early ancestors did, to isolate those seek to exploit and abuse rewarding those who show altruism and cooperation Today we see those making weapons and pollutants earning tens of millions while social workers and teachers are punished with low pay. A just system would reverse this order.
Agreed 100%. The death penalty turns the jailers into murderers. But, I might add, that it's weird; the drugs they use to murder the accused murderers. A cocktail of drugs that seem to be painful, invasive and downright disgusting. Why? My old sick cat recently died from a gentle euthanasia. A simply tranquilizer to allow him to pass out. Then the inevitable injection of heart stopping stuff. I wonder why, if we must, can't we give the penalized what the vet gave to my cat? I suspect this is some sort of effing oligarchic ritual, replete with finger signals and incantations and that there are demons in charge of the ritual and that they are pleased to inhale the essence of this anguish. We are not advanced. We are not modern. We are the same fearful creatures that we have always been. We are witch hunters. We are finger pointing blamers. We are terrified of our own beauty.
That doesn't excuse the state from not training people sufficiently to do them properly, as the knowledge is available. Ironically, doing executions properly removes an avenue of attack for criticizing the death penalty that could convince unthinking people, who too often react only viscerally. Expect the red states to now "fix" this.
And then we put the moral onus of state sanctioned murder on the back on an underpaid state worker. The rest of the world has abandoned this barbarism. America is by leaps and bounds the most violent nation on the planet. State violence outstrips any other western or peer nation. Those who support the death penalty are violent people.
In Buddhism, this is called the 12 fold chain of dependent coorigination. Law of Causation.
In my case, I call it "MGJDF syndrome". Multiple Generational Jewish Dysfunctional Family Syndrome.
Played out in spades in Palestine, where the survivors of pogroms culminating in trips to death camps and gas chambers think they can heal themselves by doing to Palestinians what was done to them.
Unfortunately, that is what these genociders, who have not healed their trauma by spiritual practice, think. That inflicting more suffering will heal them. That is how the suffering goes on from generation to generation.
CJ>>"You cannot make a deep study of trauma and human dysfunction and still sustain a belief in the death penalty."
NOT in the least Caitlin! Just look at Netanyahu, Trump, Musk, and hundreds if not thousands of such mass murderers, genociders, and the PURE EVIL that they represent. They have been collectively responsible for millions upon millions of deaths.
I have NO ISSUES believing in the death penalty. Nuance is required to know when to use it and when not to, and how to use it and how not to.
I don't know why, but you seem to approach many issues from a black-and-white perspective...
The trouble with the death penalty is that the worst offenders, responsible for multiple deaths, are free to continue their devastation while the survivors who lash out at the legacy of the offenders pay the ultimate price. And the cycle of injustice continues ad nauseum.
Yes. And you're making my point for me here - thank you. WHEN to use it, HOW to use it, on WHOM to use it on, and so many more considerations. Your complaint is that the worst offenders go free while the people who react against their legacy are the ones who pay the ultimate price. That's a problem with HOW the penalty is applied and to WHOM, and it's an argument for fixing that, not necessarily for saying it can never be justified (which is what I'm arguing against).
That's precisely my point. The death penalty ISN'T ONLY about good/bad or right/wrong (though people love to simplify issues and fall into such black-and-white traps). The details matter just as much (hence the need for nuance).
Abusing the Abused doesn't stop thr cycle of Abuse. There are hospitals for the Criminally Insane. Sentence violent rapist & murderers to Life in prison. The Death Penalty is wrong because the State makes mistakes. The Innocents Project wouldn't exist if the State got it right. The State is also CORRUPT. Poor people get the Death Penalty but EPSTEIN PEDOES walf Free and run ALL Western Govt.
NOT ONE PEDOE has been arrested from the EPSTEIN Files. Billionaires can Abuse whoever they want - AT WILL - Zero consequences... as long as They keep protecting other Pedoes & Worse, and keep the money train going.
How soon before someone suggests getting AI to pick who lives or dies? That will be the Next "Great Idea." Everyone knows that is where this is heading.
"Welcome to the New Dystopian Nightmare brought to you by Z10 PEDOE Billionaire Sociopaths! Our lovely & supreme AI Overlord will determine which criminals the State will kill, right after this brief message! Next up, AI Overlord will crap out a New Magical Soulless Hit Pop song and totally New Pro War Superheroe Movie! But first, watch the cute & fun AI Drones finish their bombing of schools & churches that AI Overlord's massive intellect has determined are Terrorists!"
The ONLY way to really stop abuse, is to break the cycle of abuse. Does everyone who is abused go on to repeat the abuse on another? No. But it is how it continues, and trauma hits everyone differently. The State is filled with criminals who abuse with their authority. Neither the State nor a Computer should be deciding who lives or dies. Life in prison for a Billionaire, or anyone, should be harsh a sentence enough.
The Rothschilds-Epstein Class needs Victims and Money to continue Their cycle of Abuse. When will We The People of the West start denying them?
What the fuck does your comment have anything to do with this particular and very specific discussion? Do you simply like to SPAM and RANT the SAME STUFF in every comment in every article?
YOU not understanding the comment is not the same as "making no sense". If you don't understand my comment, then I doubt you'ld understand what this argument is about in the first place.
I would like to know you views on the death penalty,
Specifically: do you believe that in the 21st century, States have a right to execute people convicted of murder. And does capital punishment fulfills the objective of 1) retribution 2) deterrence 3) justice for the family/friends 4) rehabilitation
From your many responses and comments, I can see that you take an interest in this topic and seem to have knowledge. Thank you
Thank you Naji, for a thoughtful and honest question (unlike all the other comments seen here).
Q. Do I believe that in the 21st century states have a right to execute people convicted of murder?
A. It depends. By "rights" does one mean LEGAL rights? or MORAL rights? (because they are two different things). There is no ONE right answer or an all-encompassing answer. But to summarize (instead of boring you with all the thought that went behind it -> In principle yes, a state can have this right, but only under strict conditions, and many states don't meet them (i.e. they ABUSE this right).
As for questions (1) through (4), the current system of Capital Punishment (death penalty) in the U.S. falls well short on all four, and fails badly on most. So my opinion of the CURRENT system (of capital punishment) is that it is SEVERELY DYSFUNCTIONAL and doesn't serve the purposes it was intended to serve.
But here's the thing that most people miss - the multiple failures of the system don't necessarily mean the idea (reasoning) behind it was faulty. It means that the system was badly designed, implemented, and enforced and does not fulfull the objectives/goals it was meant to.
Some of the conflations and mistakes I keep seeing in this discussion are the following - botched executions, wrongful convictions, poor people getting bad lawyers, who ends up on death row, etc. etc. Those are all problems with HOW the system works. People take them as proof that the death penalty is wrong in principle, but that's a different question, and mixing the two up is how we end up talking past each other.
If the state’s objectives for capital punishment are 1) retribution 2) deterrence 3) justice for the family/friends, then it is easy to measure whether those objectives are achieved when compared to states where capital punishment has been abolished?
I'm not going to SPECULATE on what a state's objectives are - I don't have enough information to make such an assessment.
Here is what I DO KNOW - regardless of what the objectives of individual states might be, regardless of how individual states measure and evaluate their system, the current system of Capital Punishment and Death Penalty in the U.S. has an extremely negative track record (and there's evidence to back this up).
I'm not FOR or AGAINST the Death Penalty (and it's besides the point on what my views are on this). All systems have flaws. What matters (for me) is "do we let these flaws affect human societies to their detriment? Or do we redesign/reimplement the system or even replace it with another system that performs better?"
I can list several scenarios for where Capital Punishment "worked" and ALSO where it failed to "work" (if I define "work" as for the benefit of human societies).
Whether the people I cited are subject to the death penalty or not is IRRELEVANT. I brought them up to show that Caitlin's claim, that you can't make a deep study of trauma and still believe in the death penalty, doesn't hold up as a general statement. The principle is the same either way. NUANCE is required, and black-and-white thinking doesn't work.
And I'm sorry, but Caitlin's point is NOT salient. It's a simplistic, emotional response to ONE particular event, and when you expand it to the many variations that show up in real life, it falls apart.
As for "even the very worst can be dealt with", what does that even mean? I assume you mean that even the worst can be dealt with WITHOUT capital punishment, but where's the evidence for that? You haven't offered any. It's just a belief that's being stated as if it were a fact.
And "it doesn't have to resort to their murder too"? Calling it murder already assumes that it's unjustified, which is the very thing we're arguing about. That's not an argument, that's just assuming your conclusion. (It's called - "begging the question" - where the conclusion is smuggled into the premise - which is what you're doing here).
This depends on the circumstances. We live in the last days of a rich, complex society that can afford to lock up large numbers of people for long periods, feeding them without expectation of their doing anything to carry their weight. Not all societies have that privilege, that margin, and ours won't for much longer, as the consequences of unsustainable lifeways are beginning to set in.
Mary, in the US, our incarceration rate is directly related to shareholders value. It is highly profitable to lock people up. The state is charged between $150-$800 per prisoner per day (nationwide median is @. 65,000 per prisoner per year.)
More, Americans are a particularly punitive people. They LIKE the idea of punishing others. They are angered by the idea that support for health, housing and education would prevent crime. They reject all other models that show decarceration with strong social support decreases recidivism, violence, bad generational trauma.
We tower above nearly all other nations in locking people up for as long as possible.
I know all this and in fact I have a theory about why. I think it's our Calvinist history and a subconscious notion that we can outsource punishment for sins by scapegoating. For example, quite a lot of the people in US jails are there for drug crimes--possessing, using or selling illegal drugs. But who uses and abuses more drugs than Americans? They may be procured with a prescription, or be legal for those over 21 (alcohol), but many are the prim matrons addicted to painkillers or antidepressants, the righteous white businessmen denying their alcoholism...I think there is a subconscious belief that if can just punish our sins hard enough, in other people, it will wash us clean. This is what the original scapegoats were, after all--goats onto which the people would ceremonially unload their sins, then drive the goat out of the village or kill it. Some societies relegated poor people to the role of sineater, where the people would put out food supposedly laden with their sins, and the desperate poor would eat it thus supposedly earning the punishment for someone else's sins. There are other examples of this sort of society-wide self-deceit--like the lowest caste in India being relegated the job of carrying away other people's shit, and being considered Untouchable as a result--so they're doing the necessary work no one else wants to do and getting contempt rather than appreciation for it. Caitlin has pointed out that people in the rich world depend on the underpaid work of people in poor countries for much of their luxury. I even saw it pointed out once that Malthus and Ehrlich were not actually wrong in their calculations about overpopulation--it's just that we have managed to outsource the dying onto other species, whose numbers have plummeted as ours (and our livestock) skyrocketed.
But now the bill is coming due, for the US and for humanity. We've run out of road, run out of poor countries and other species to unload the costs onto, while being completely dependent on economic growth. Maybe this is why we've vomited up a figure like Trump--a desperate attempt to keep the golden parade going at the expense of anyone, everyone else. He's way more blatant about it than any previous politician.
I think you have a great point; so many of our National heresies can be traced directly to our Calvinist origins; the poor are poor because they are sinful, the rich enjoy wealth because God loves them best….
Caitlin says imprisonment should be for the purpose of protecting society from dangerous people, not for punishment. I agree--except where it actually works as a deterrent, which in the case of the kind of horrific crimes that result in the death penalty it doesn't. Perhaps it would in the case of those monsters whose actions result in the deaths of millions, like Hitler and Stalin and Netanyahu--but gee, when do we ever see them arrested?
I think Caitlin's point is a bit more nuanced, though I can see your perspective Chang. Perhaps locking Satanyahu, Stump, and Must in cells for the rest of their lives, periodically allowing them out on display for future generations of children to see what happens when you behave as an enemy of mankind, would demonstrate justice without murder.
I appreciate that you can see my perspective, and I do see the point of your idea, but I think it runs into the same question I raised earlier: what's your definition of justice, and what's your definition of murder? THIS is where NUANCE comes in.
Here's what I mean. "Murder" means a killing that's WRONG. So when you call an execution "murder," you're already saying that it's wrong. But whether it's wrong is the very thing we're debating! It's like starting an argument about whether a law is fair by calling it "an unfair law." You haven't proven anything, you've just assumed that you're right.
You said Caitlin's point is more nuanced, but I'm not sure where the nuance is. Her claim was that you CAN'T study trauma deeply and still believe in the death penalty. That's about as black-and-white as it gets. What's the nuanced part?
I also noticed that your proposal has people being put on display so that future generations learn what happens to an enemy of mankind. That's a lesson being taught through punishment, and that's a big part of the "GREATER GOOD" argument for the death penalty too: deterrence, and society showing that some acts are beyond the pale. So it seems like we both agree that punishment should serve a larger purpose, and where we differ is on the method.
And that's really my point. There's a reason there's so much DEBATE about the death penalty in whatever form, and I think it's worth digging into the definitions and the reasoning instead of going with our first reactions, which I'm sure we're all prone to on a subject like this.
Yes, I agree, John. I disagree with Caitlin here. Prior trauma on the part of the perpetrator is not why the death penalty should be abolished. The only reason why it should be abolished--and it's a very good reason--is that it opens the possibility that an innocent person could be put to death by the state, whether by accident or by design. That is quite enough.
I think murder is intentional killing, point blank. And this is wrong in all cases.
Whether the person doing the murder or participating in it argues for its justification is irrelevant, that is, if we are trying to inhabit a society where the worse impulses of humanity are minimalized: and I believe our worse impulses should be minimalized for the full expression (read: sustainable goodness) of our collective being to materialize.
This sentiment doesn't mean we don't allow space for feelings of extreme rage likely to be present in someone if. for instance. one of their own family members is senselessly murdered by a stranger. In that moment, it would be understandable for any human being to feel immense anger at the murderer, the world, the system that allowed this to happen, God, etc.
The question is, how does an intelligent and thoughtful society deal with this occurrence, this utterly gross violation of humanity, considering that we (most of us?) want to live in a world where retribution in the form of murder isn't perpetuated.
Of course, theoretically, there is space for murder in cases of self-defense (though it is still murder) and when the goal is the prevention of more murder (a premptive strike against one's enemies), but do you see how this slope can get slippery very quickly?
When does self-defense become uncontrolled aggression based in ego and fear and when does an action taken in premption become no different than one taken based in fear or hatred for the Other?
This is NOT a discussion about "murder" or "intentional killing". Please look at my argument and understand it before going off on tangents based on whatever is in your mind.
Caitlin says - "You cannot make a deep study of trauma and human dysfunction and still sustain a belief in the death penalty."
And I say -> "This is FALSE". Take the Palestinians or Gazans for instance. They have faced more trauma in recent history than most. Are you telling them that they cannot sustain a belief in the dealth penalty if hypothetically Netanyahu and other Genociders are given the death penalty (that is to be carried out by the state)?
Hence I say NUANCE instead of black-and-white thinking. My argument is simple. Others fail to understand the argument to begin with and assume things that are NOT (and were never) a part of my argument. That's on them.
Okay, so, in addressing your assessment of Caitlin's claim, which was roughly that 'you cant assent to the death penalty once you've considered the generational sources of trauma,' I am taking her idea rhetorically. I think you should as well.
She obviously wasn't making a literal statement, which is why I allowed her room for nuance. Of course you could still believe in the death penalty after accounting for trauma.
However, if we were all having this discussion in person, you would sense the spirit of her statement, which is one based in empathy for human beings.
When Marcellus Williams, a black man not proven to have committed a crime, was recently put to death, I spoke out against it.
Now that another human in Christa Parks has been exposed to the same system that killed Williams, people are realizing the inherent stupidity and barbarity of a state system which has the power to put someone to death.
If the goal is preservation of human life, which I think it should be, then when someone has committed or been responsible for murder, which is intentional killing, assuming it wasn't justified, they should be locked away for life.
Now, will courts always be right in their assessments of the motivations for human behavior? No. They could just as easily convict someone of murder (intentional killing) who has a reasonble claim of self-defense.
So, if we can't trust courts to be right about the motivations of human behavior, how on earth could we expect them to be correct in determining whether someone should die?
Just to solidify my point, Lindsay Clancy shouldn't die for killing her kids, but she damn sure should be locked away for life in some kind of facility so she never has the opportunity to do what she did aqain.
>>"I again am taking her idea rhetorically here. I think you should as well."
There was nothing "rhetorical" about her statement. If you choose to interpret her statement as rhetorical and then argue based on that - then that's on YOU (and it's a different discussion).
This is not a discussion about morality, justice, right/wrong or any of that. It's about NUANCED thinking versus binary black-and-white thinking. The mistake (in treating/thinking about complex topics like capital punishment and death penalty) is to approach them with a lack of the NUANCE it deserves.
Chang, the death penalty is the legitimatized power of the state to murder its citizens. It is never applied to member of the state.
Arguing that some people would be better off dead for the good of greater humanity is different, but those people are rarely executed.
While I wouldn’t mind a good portion of the 99.9% to leave this world, these are not the people subject to the death penalty. The people murdered by the state are incarcerated, they pose no threat, they are the poorest among us. The death penalty is barbaric, and the state should have no power over life and death.
>>"the death penalty is the legitimatized power of the state to murder its citizens"
Is that even true? Murder is an UNLAWFUL killing, so a legal execution isn't murder by definition. You're only calling it murder if you've already decided that it's wrong, and whether it's wrong is the very thing we're debating! You can't win an argument by putting your conclusion into the definition.
You also said that "arguing that some people would be better off dead for the good of greater humanity is different." I never argued that. That's a strawman. Please respond to what I actually said, not to something I didn't.
And you're saying that because (in your opinion) these aren't the people who face the death penalty, the death penalty isn't justified. That doesn't follow. WHO it gets applied to is a question about HOW it's carried out, and that's a separate question from whether it can ever be justified. If it's being applied unfairly, then the answer is to fix that. That's my whole point about nuance.
Finally, "the death penalty is barbaric, and the state should have no power over life and death" is YOUR OPINION, stated as if it were an accepted fact. It isn't an accepted fact. (Be aware that I'm not arguing for or against it here). People have debated this for centuries and STILL do. I notice that almost everything you listed is an objection to HOW, WHO, and WHEN the penalty gets used, and then you treat that as if it proves a moral claim about whether it's ever justified. Those are two different questions, and mixing them up is exactly what I'm arguing against.
The state awards itself a monopoly on violence. The state can, and has, made extrajudicial assassination (including of children) “legal,” torture “legal,” and bribery “legal.” The crimes that states have made “legal” for themselves and for the oligarchy that owns them are too numerous to mention.
That a state has legalized its own criminality does nothing to lesson the crimes they commit.
The death penalty is a hard line for every other Western nation. The legalization of state sanctioned murder hardly falls under any moral or ethical law; child marriage is legal. The denial of maternal care is legal (and providing lifesaving medical care to a dying mother is now a crime in many states.) Executing people even when later evidence has proven innocence is legal. Even slavery is still legal.
Your argument that it is not murder because a criminal state has declared itself exempt from the law is weak as fuck.
>>"The state awards itself a monopoly on violence."
NONE of that has anything to do with what I said. You're arguing against something I never wrote, so here's my argument (since you clearly missed it) -
My first point was that Caitlin's claim, that you can't make a deep study of trauma and still believe in the death penalty, covers EVERYONE, and I gave counter-examples that show it doesn't hold. My second point was that "is the death penalty justified?" is one question, and HOW it's done, WHEN, and to WHOM are different questions. Almost every objection I've gotten is about the second set, and people act like that answers the first. That's what I mean by nuance.
You said "That a state has legalized its own criminality does nothing to lessen the crimes they commit." Where did I say that something being legal makes it right? NOWHERE. I said what the word "murder" means, and that's all. Obviously I know that legal doesn't mean moral. That's the SECOND strawman you've built out of my comment.
Then you pile up assassinating children, torture, bribery, child marriage, and denying maternal care, like that proves something. It doesn't. None of that is the same as executing a convicted killer after a trial, and throwing it all in one heap isn't an argument. You're calling the death penalty a crime because you've already decided that it's wrong, and then using that to prove that it's wrong. That's circular reasoning.
>>"...a hard line for every other Western nation"?
SO WHAT? Everybody agreeing doesn't mean that they're RIGHT. That's not a reason, and you haven't given me one.
And you didn't answer anything I actually said. You stated your OPINION as if it were fact, and said nothing when I pointed that out. WHO it gets applied to is a separate question from WHETHER it's ever justified, and you said nothing about that either. You had nothing on my points, so you ran off to a list of everything else the state does wrong.
And "weak as fuck"? THAT'S your answer? I NEVER made that argument ("that it is not murder because a criminal state has declared itself exempt from the law"). Not once. YOU made it up, called it weak, and then acted like you'd won something. All you did was beat up your own invention. READ what I actually wrote before you reply to it.
There is never, under any circumstances, any justification for the state to commit murder - whether or not they declare it “legal.” The vast majority of the globe has banished this barbarism.
The is distinctly different than saying the world would be better if some people left it.
Dude - this is not a discussion about states or any of that stuff (though you're making it one). Let me put it this way (since you're obviously all confused with whatever is in your head and your emotions).
Assume Netanyahu and all top-level Genociders are captured and given the death penalty. Are you going to argue with a Gazan or Palestinian that has had his/her children (or even whole family) killed that "they should be against the death penalty for Netanyahu"?
You understand what I'm saying? NUANCE. The death penalty can be the right thing for certain scenarios and the wrong thing for others. NUANCE. But instead, people apply black-and-white thinking.
If your "The state lacks any legitimacy in this matter", then you disagree with the (any) state carrying out the execution of Netanyahu (in this specific scenerio).
NOW are you beginning to understand what this discussion is about? NUANCE vs. black-and-white thinking.
Well, they can be reflective in their own spaces if they want. If they're rebutting my arguement (which most haven't understood to begin with) and they are (with non-sequiturs and strawmans, I might add), then that's "arguing with me".
(Though I understand what you're implying - thanks!)
You are mostly arguing semantics, that is, the definition of the word "murder." You say it means an illegal, or unjustified killing--which are two different things. Others think it means any killing of another human, regardless of justification--and pretty much everyone agrees that killing to defend yourself or another person is justified, and many (most?) would say mercy killing is justified.
Read my comment again. I said "Murder is an UNLAWFUL killing". I NEVER said anything about justified OR unjustified. Don't know why you added the "or unjustified killing" part here...
Justified or unjustified is a SEPARATE argument - and it depends on the person making the opinion - not something that is standard across the board. Same with morality. Justification and morality are DIFFERENT arguments than the one I've been making all along.
If people aren’t “understanding” your argument, perhaps this is a “you” problem.
So far as I can tell, you are very much in favor of the death penalty and will reject any moral, ethical, religious, legal, or evidentiary argument standing against your position.
>>"So far as I can tell, you are very much in favor of the death penalty and will reject any moral, ethical, religious, legal, or evidentiary argument standing against your position."
Are you high? Do you always imagine and assume things? (You have been during this whole thread). You can assume whatever you want about what I think, but you have NO EVIDENCE for any of it and nothing to back up your accusations (though you like making stuff up and pretending that I said or implied those things).
I'm not wasting time with someone that creates their own arguments and then fights against them. You can do this in your own head all day for the rest of your life if you wish. Goodbye!
I’ve come to believe in prison and treatment (some better kind of prison than the US has, and not its mass racial and class incarceration) for punching down, and in assassination and overthrow by the people for punching up. The people above us commit violence and abuse on a titanic scale, and no slow-gear, captured judicial and legislative systems can meaningfully stop their harm.
Regime overthrows due to military violence don’t do the trick either. While the Nuremberg trials are often held up, the main conquering country turned into a world hegemon exploiter and planet-destroyer, and enacted much horror and violence against civilians in the process of “winning” the war.
The great cluster fuck is that the citizenry is too easily propagandized, and generally has too little means of effective violence, to overthrow those above us. That’s true even in a country where guns far outnumber people, and where such level of arming mainly succeeds in producing more citizen-on-citizen violence. And when such overthrows-by-citizens occasionally do succeed in history, the rabbles that emerge are unstable and often rabid in their own right. Humanity just doesn’t seem to be evolved enough to handle the problem of a corrupt ruling class. We haven’t figured it out yet; no one has the solution.
That’s why the occasional victories of people like Luigi Mangione are so important. We might never win a just new world, but seeing a billionaire or abuse-enabler go down removes at least their immediate threat and gives at least some sense of justice and hope to the aggrieved masses.
I tend to agree with your beliefs on this. Personally, I think the whole U.S. prison system is horribly designed, run, and enforced, and the mass incarceration is dystopian (I agree a lot with Chris Hedges on this subject).
I agree. I hesitate to say Luigi should go free--but like most Americans, I cheer his act and the state would not want me on his jury. I have been struggling in the last few years with my long-held pacifist ideas, starting to think we need some pitchforks, torches and guillotines.
Pfffft--Mangione was a PSY-OP, & Brian Thompson's probably lounging on a tropical beach sipping martinis right now (probably w/ Charlie Kirk). I totally agree that the "too-easily propaganized citizenry" has too little means of effective violence to overthrow those above us, BUT, their vast number of guns merely attempts to protect themselves from DIRECT, overt predations from the ruling offenders. The level of propaganda , which is SO great that most of the citizens have no clue, prevents them from getting together & going after the ruling oppressors.
For psychopaths in power or those who would seek to attain positions of power over others? Maybe. I’d rather explore other options, but having some knowledge on the topic of psychopathy, there are probably some for whom there might not be any other options. For one off cases like Christa? Yeah, I’d let her off, especially now that’s she’s survived.
My comment to Caitlin was not about this particular case (of Christa Pike) or even any other case. I was talking from a structural and systemic viewpoint about the idea of Capital punishment and the death penalty in general (and most people seemed to have completely missed the point I was making).
What I was saying is that the idea of "capital punishment/death penalty" and the implementation of it are TWO DIFFERENT things. Hence, NUANCE is required to take the concept of "capital punishment" from the "idea phase" into the "implementation phase". Hence, binary thinking on whether "the idea of capital punishment" is right/wrong is the wrong approach towards it. If the IMPLEMENTATION of capital punishment is faulty (hence the HOW, WHAT, WHO questions), then it needs to be FIXED rather than throw away the concept entirely (which is what Caitlin was suggesting by saying "You cannot make a deep study of trauma and human dysfunction and still sustain a belief in the death penalty").
I'm saying, YES - you CAN sustain a belief in the death penalty (not in the faulty implementation of it, but rather in the concept of it) even if you have made a deep study of human trauma and even if you have personally experienced deep trauma).
For example -
(1) Hideki Tōjō and six other Japanese leaders were sentenced to death by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East and hanged in 1948.
(2) Allied and national courts tried Japanese military personnel after World War II; hundreds were executed, including Generals Tomoyuki Yamashita and Masaharu Homma.
(3) Ion Antonescu, Romania’s wartime leader, was executed by firing squad in 1946 after conviction in a domestic trial.
(4) Jozef Tiso, wartime president of Slovakia, was hanged in 1947 after conviction for collaboration and treason.
(5) Froduald Karamira and 21 others convicted in Rwanda’s genocide-related cases were executed in 1998.
(6) Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan, Khmer Rouge leaders convicted of genocide and other crimes, received life sentences rather than execution; Pol Pot died before trial.
(7) Benito Mussolini was captured and shot by Italian partisans in 1945, without a regular criminal trial.
(8) Nicolae Ceaușescu and his wife Elena were sentenced to death by a Romanian military tribunal and shot in 1989 after a summary trial.
(9) Saddam Hussein, Iraq’s former president, was convicted of crimes against humanity and hanged in 2006.
EACH of the above examples DIRECTLY CONTRADICTS Caitlin's assertion and supports my argument. This is NOT an argument about morality, justice, or emotions. This is an argument about SYSTEMS. Caitlin makes a moral/emotional argument for one that requires a SYSTEMS approach.
I use systems thinking in my work as well, so I understand your meaning. And if you read what I wrote, you’d see I was largely agreeing with while raising case-specific points concerning Christa. Idk if those case examples prove your point; there’s no way to ascertain the degree of understanding of trauma these executioners had. Familiarity with trauma through personal experience doesn’t necessarily translate into a cognitive or empirical method of understanding it. I think Caitlin has a very high degree of compassion and empathy, which is a remarkable feat all its own in a pathocracy such as ours. And largely, I’d agree with her, given the caveats I mentioned above. It’s no small thing to extinguish a life, though certain material elements of our present reality make it a far more common, and sometimes authentically conscientious act than it would in a healthy society.
Based on your response to me, I don't think you understood what I was saying.
Even ONE SINGLE example of a person that "has studied trauma deeply and still believes in the CONCEPT of capital punishment and the death penalty" DISPROVES Caitlin! That's all it takes to disprove Caitlin's assertion. Just ONE example. Note: this is not about "system-design" or implementation. This is about the CONCEPT of Capital Punishment/Death Penalty.
Out of 8 billion people on the planet, if there is even ONE person that has "studied trauma deeply" and STILL BELIEVES in the death penalty, then that invalidates Caitlin's claim saying that "you cannot sustain a belief..."
With her statement, Caitlin is generalizing something that is dependent on the beliefs of 8 billion people (and hence the need for NUANCE) into a black-and-white assertion.
Hmm… I suppose we’d need some way to measure that empirically. We’d need to first ascertain whether or not they have measurable baseline capacity in empathy, metacognition, and stable conscience. That might not be how she defined her terms, but I feel confident in my assumption it’s what she meant. You’re right that a person deficient in the above stated baseline capacities who has studied trauma could still believe in capital punishment. And I’ve even stated that there could be circumstances where it’s necessary. Does that clarify our points of contention?
Not really. It's quite simple. Let me break it down using propositional logic:
S = x has made a deep study of trauma and human dysfunction
B = x still sustains a belief in the death penalty
Caitlin's statement says: ¬(S ∧ B) (i.e. You cannot do S and still B" says the combination of S and B doesn't occur)
So what falsifies Caitlin's assertion is: S ∧ B
Hence, of all the combinations of S and B (there are 4), there is one that falsifies it - where S and B are both true.
Hence, it is WAY EASIER (in reality) to FALSIFY Caitlin's assertion, because I only have to prove ONE particular case true. For Caitlin to prove that her assertion holds, she has to prove it for EVERY case of S & B for 8 million people on the planet - and HERE is where your argument about "measurement" and "empiracal analysis" comes in where it is really needed (to support her assertion, not mine).
The author of this note was focused on the black-and-white claims around the death penalty, and I agree it is not so simple.
However, the specifically named individuals have stuck with me over the last few days.
As I am a systems person, I look at those who instigate policies rather than those who merely seek to “win” under pre-existing policies.
The political influence of Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Larry Ellison and others in the tech oligarchy is the direct result of technology policy from the 1990s. If we want to put names to this, then we need to focus on Bill Clinton, Bruce A. Lehman, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. While I didn’t shed a tear when Steve Jobs died, nor will I shed a tear when these other political figures die, I don’t believe the state (or vigilantes) killing them would solve anything. The policies are still active, and still being spread to other regions through so-called “trade” agreements, by others who are merely "following the rules".
Benjamin Netanyahu was born on October 21, 1949, in Tel Aviv—roughly one year after the peak of the 1948 Nakba. He is the first Israeli Prime Minister that was born after the founding of the Westphalian institution of Israel, which happened with the full support of the Western/Christian dominated United Nations. The colonization of Palestine has been a project of Anglosphere Christians since the 1600s, and in many ways individuals like Oliver Cromwell, Sir Henry Finch, and evangelical Chrisitian philosophers like Arthur Balfour (Author of the Balfour declaration, based on theology he held decades earlier) are far more responsible for current atrocities than those born into it.
Trump is an appropriate mascot for the institutions of the USA: a nepobaby who has failed at business but became an influencer through reality TV and media like the Howard Stern show, and a known predator that owned "Beauty Pagents". If we want to talk about the policy behind the executive branch seen as the leadership for all other branches of the US government, we need to go back further to FDR, Nixon, Clinton, Bush, etc. If we are talking about killing presidents based on domestic and international crimes under an excessively powerful executive branch, there are several still alive that need to be dealt with before getting to Donald J Trump.
Killing these individuals would of course be meaningless, as they are simply following existing policies and culture. It is the policies, systems and ideologies that need to be dismantled, not individuals.
>>"I don’t believe the state (or vigilantes) killing them would solve anything"
I agree with you 100%. And I also understand that many recipients of the dealth penalty are VICTIMS of the systems that created the "thinking-patterns" in their heads that lead to the crimes in the first place.
Well said Chang! The problem with the system is the ritualization of our laws to the point they make about as much sense as if the laws were made by the inhabitants of an insane asylum. All the horseshit involved in prolonging these cases out to thirty of forty years or more is nothing less than greed and insanity. Hanging or shooting is quick and effective and does not waste the millions of dollars that comes out of taxpayer's pockets. It seems that absurdity is the only constant in our society today. Yes the Trumps and the Netanyahus of the world deserve to be tried and executed for genocide. It unfortunately will never happen even if they were to be found guilty because of the absurdity they have engineered into the system.
I agree with the emotion behind what you are saying, but a part of me also understands why other commenters are not understanding what you are saying.
When "the state" kills, "the state" makes what some individuals consider to be mistakes. They are looking at "the state" as if it were another individual, rather than a set of systems.
Individualism and Universalism, especially when combined, blocks thought.
The term "capital punishment" is very specifically about a government institution killing one of their own "citizens" based on that "individual" violating the policies of that government. There is an instinctive distrust of the government when it comes to specific kinds of killing, but unfortunately it often stops there and doesn't follow into asking questions about the underlying systems (again, because thinking anything relevant has to do with individuals, and thinking universalism is anything other than Eurosupremacy, blocks thought).
I disagree with the notion of Westphalian sovereignty, where a single set of government institutions (what some equate with the word "state" or "country") are granted exclusivity over life within a boundary drawn on a map. Outside (and existing prior to and parallel with) the notion of Westphalian sovereignty are Relational concepts of sovereignty where a peoples (think Greek word genos) govern themselves and as groups negotiated non-exclusively with other groups when they interacted.
Within Westphalian sovereignty, the policies of the exclusive institutions are absolute. What life is worthy or not is defined in institutional policy. Murder is subjectively defined as only those deaths not granted permission by (or carried out by) those institutions. When the government (through policy or bureaucracy) demands law enforcement or the military to kill, it is not considered murder.
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Let us look at the list of individuals you provided. The state (In your case, I'm guessing the USA) considers these individuals high-value (some are US citizens, some under a US protectorate and/or US ally). Our individual idea of what is PURE EVIL at an individual or systemic level doesn't matter, even if you are a citizen (I was Assigned Canadian At Birth). You would have to believe these institutions (Like Canada or the United States) were democracies, and that our fellow citizens actually controlled the government, in order to believe that we had a say in deciding what was virtue vs vice.
While I may agree with you that what is happening is PURE EVIL, I do not blame the individuals. All of those "individuals" are merely examples of success within the existing system, and it is the existing systems that need to be understood to be the source of the PURE EVIL rather than fixating on individuals.
I would also not want some individual-focused theater as if it were a solution.
Russell McOrmond, mine is not a response based on emotion, but rather a simple DISTINCTION between NUANCE and black-and-white thinking.
Just as there is no ONE true/false right/wrong morality or justice, etc. there is no ONE true/false or right/wrong understanding of "capitatal punishment" or "death penalty".
The problem arises when people start thinking of things (like Capital Punishment) in black-and-white terms instead of the nuances such a complex topic deserves.
I disagree. They are motivated by self-interest and sadism, a cold calculation unlit by compassion, which they are not capable of. It's your compassion that stirs the anger that causes such fantasies. Although mine tend to go in the opposite direction, not wanting a bloody spectacle but for them to be erased--not just killed humanely but to never have existed (yes I know that isn't possible).
Says who? You just ASSERTED that and gave nothing to back it up. Then you turn around and say that the wrong person is often killed, which is a complaint about HOW the system works, and that is EXACTLY where the nuance is. If the system is convicting the wrong people, then FIX it. That's true whether or not the death penalty exists.
And "nothing except bloody vengeance"? That's just ignoring the other arguments for it, like deterrence, protecting society, and justice for the person who was killed. You can disagree with those, but you can't pretend that they aren't there. Retribution and vengeance aren't the same thing either.
Complaining about HOW the death penalty gets applied doesn't settle WHETHER it's justified. You're mashing two different questions together and acting like you've made an argument.
NUANCE includes examining something through multiple perspectives. NUANCE does't have a mine/yours. What they're doing is binary thinking (and they've already picked a side without looking at all the variations and variables on the subject).
Oh, that's CUTE. Did you think that was a gotcha? "PURE EVIL" was my description of what those people have done, and I used them as counter-examples to Caitlin's claim that you can't make a deep study of trauma and still believe in the death penalty. The NUANCE I'm arguing for is about WHEN, HOW, and to WHOM the death penalty gets applied. Those are two completely different questions, and you mashed them together because it made for a good one-liner.
Having a harsh judgment of what someone DID has nothing to do with being careful about how and when punishment gets applied. The more serious the penalty, the MORE careful you have to be.
Sarcasm isn't a rebuttal. You haven't said one thing about either of those points, and I'm done wasting my time on someone who won't.
You are not "careful". You are spiteful, vitriolic, revengeful, helplessly aggressive towards anyone not applauding you. You are deluded in thinking yourself in any way superior, or even different, to those "PURE EVIL" people.
You are not. You are in their large old sorry "I know just the right people to kill" club. You should be friends.
I get the trauma criminal justice etc. I don't get the execution which is depraved and more barbaric where botched. Surely she should just be left now. The crazy state had its chance. The torture of attempted murder is enough.
Sultana. This is a very shallow statement. Should you let the murderer who breaks into your home to rob and kill you continue? Or should you use all necessary force including lethal to protect yourself and your family? Should you pay millions to keep this murderer alive in prison or expeditiously end the problem? When you can give me the name of a murderer who was executed and then repeated the crime I will then oppose the death penalty.
I want to grow up from being human sometimes. Killing to stop killing? R-E-A-L-L-Y??? What sense does that make? What sense does anything make about the way we do "society"? I agree Caitlin, as we evolve we no longer tolerate cruelty.
I can't make sense of why most of these critters get elected; it's beyond me. As for taxes, we need a massive movement of tax resistors. It's a noble act, to be sure.
I love your intention. However we can do this if we strategize a bit. Firstly we need to reclaim our sovereignty. We gave that away when we started "voting for representatives". We are grown ups and can represent ourselves. What's the matter with us to need a representative? And grown ups make the terms they don't just wait for a babysitter to make the terms. The terms can be, "we ain't funding your wars", and other crimes that they think we have to tolerate. One strategy I love the most is people with bank loans stop paying interest. Usury is the thing that keeps us captive and it's never issued into the economy. So stop paying it but go a step further - keep 50% for yourself for being bold and give 50% of it away to someone you know, someone who knows your name. That helps lift others and gets us into thinking in terms of me/we rather than me/me plus it gets their support. Win, win, win except for the banksters - it will be them who lose out and isn't that what we want? We don't need to sacrifice to even the score.
"...underneath all the savagery and sadism and exploitation and abuse, we were always ultimately just confused and damaged children stumbling through a giant universe that we did not understand."
I like how I once heard it said, "You are not the worst thing that you've ever done."
The judicial system in the US is a total mess. One killer in California who murdered upwards of 100 women gets to spend his time filing multiple appeals until finally dying of old age. Other less fortunate people get botched executions. Society is undergoing a cultural and social collapse which will make the Middle Ages look like child's play. Enjoy this period of respite for what is coming is worse........
It'll never collapse. Oh, democracy, freedom, and equality certainly will -- but we cockroaches will be managed by our owners, who will use "AI" to control every facet of our lives, including a slow kill-off that will be made to appear force majeure. The evolving Matrix is a lot more real than you imagine.
you (chang cohaski) are highjacking this thread because you think you are making some profound point. You are not. Innocent men have been executed because the US state and the judicial system (and most states if not all) are biased. Both class biased and race biased. The rich are not executed by and large. And you thinking this is irrelevant shows the problem, which is yours and your understanding of capital punishment and its obscene application. Now im done. Threads become too long. If anyone supports the death penalty after proof innocent men were executed --- 203 men on death row were exonerated....then I fear you are probably beyond help) https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/policy-issues/policy/innocence
My earliest moral-awakening memory is from reading “Cell 2455 Death Row, by Caryl Chessman. I didn’t have to even finish the book, though I did, to become a lifelong anti- death penalty advocate.
The state makes mistakes; the state has design features and failures inherent in the processes surrounding everything in the judicial system, and beyond.
It perpetuates the myth that punishment of a “perpetrator”equals justice for the victims, and this is claimed regardless if the person punished is the actual offender.
It makes each of us complicit in state-sanctioned murder, increase the acceptability that violence is a legitimate way to accomplish desirable goals that goes beyond just this issue.
Imagine. She lured her victim Slemmer into the woods with two accomplices, brutally attacked her using a box cutter, meat cleaver, and asphalt, carved a pentagram into her skin, and kept a piece of her skull as a trophy AND YET, the death penalty as morally abhorrent. Shall we rehabilitate this victim of society or karma for a vile human being? My preference the latter.
I totally understand your position and agree with it on some level, but she was also very young, very sick, and very traumatized. I know it is a complicated subject, but she was just 20 years old, probably coming fresh out of a hellish childhood, and she needed to lash out in some way.
She is now 50 years old, has probably not had much in terms of mental health assistance and been subjected to whatever horrors prison life on death row does, and there is still a very good chance she is a very different person.
There is, of course, the possibility she is still a monster, so I admit that freely, but just think of how much you have changed since 30 years ago, if you have that time under your belt, or even 5 or 10 years. Especially if you were on death row for 30 years. I can think of a lot of things I would no longer do since that age, even without the threat of death row and prison.
I think the thing that did her in was the pentagram sign. That is what lies at the heart of all this and her extra harsh punishment, or else she would not be the first women executed in Tenesse in 100+ years. She's a witch! She floats, just like wood, so definitely witch! Mass murderers get less than her. I mean no disrespect to the family of the people hurt in this as I can't imagine the hurt of this, but my critique is of the system, and the way it failed us all, both victim and abusers. There is good evidence the state knew of Pike's horrible situation as a child and did nothing to help, so it is good to keep in mind catastrophes are not usually caused by 1 single person. They are caused by people's society/culture as a whole, and that is a tough pill to swallow sometimes
My wife and I were both brought up in violence and abuse. Neither one of us has ever harmed another human being. This is because we have experienced the terror and shame of abuse and would never expose another person to what we endured. Your upbringing is no excuse for your own actions.
No one is the full author of their own mind, despite all the powerful illusions to the contrary. You reacted in your ways given a large set of conditions (including biology), others react in other ways. That's why a trial allows the presentation of mitigating factors, and a jury then judges whether they exonerate or not.
re: "That's why a trial allows the presentation of mitigating factors, and a jury then judges whether they exonerate or not." Or so we hope. Though often this is not the case.
Yes; and lots of trials get steered into "plea bargaining." And DAs don't give Grand Juries all the facts of the case. And judges withhold evidence from juries. etc. etc. etc.
The problem with the death penalty is not in regards to those who deserve it, but those who don't. If we were absolutely sure the death penalty was always 100% accurate - then it could be argued to be a just consequence to a particularly heinous crime. But we all know the death penalty is not 100% accurate, and innocents have been executed.
In addition, because of all the legalities involved, the death penalty is a much more costly form of punishment (and obviously not rehabilitative) than life long incarceration.
Sickness is rarely acute. It's time induced and many events esp formative years. It's tragic on so many levels. I do believe however humans should not be having children as often as they do. Perhaps we need the natural world to build up its banks rather than having 10bn people.
There have been many people put to death who were innocent, mostly Black men. And because it sets a bad example. Someone killed my brother in the cruelest way. I've wondered if I was letting him down by not seeking revenge, but Caitlin's article has me thinking I honor my dear brother better by not sullying myself with the perpetrator's filth. We are better than that.
I wish you peace, Mu.
Thank you. I appreciate that very much, Wombat.
i am sorry for your loss Mu. I understand how you would want to avenge your brother, but I think your way of honoring your brother's memory by not stooping to the horrifically low level of his murderer is something better. Peace to you
Thank you very much, Aamir. That means a lot to me.
no problem Mu, anytime
Abuse seems to be a transmissible disease.
"The healthy man does not torture others - generally it is the tortured who turn into torturers." ~Carl Jung
"Generally"--except for the handful of born psychopaths, maybe?
Also, the vast majority of psychopaths are not sadistic psychopaths. They're your boss, maybe even one with an easy charm that makes him or her very likeable, or that politician you voted for, or your spouse.
Also, too, be careful with that "born psychopath." If someone is born with a disability, which being a psychopath certainly is, doesn't that to some extent excuse them?
It's interesting you bring up that question. One of the most fascinating characters ever created was Amos in the film and book series "The Expanse" - which is one of the best Sci-Fi series I think I've ever read or watched. Amos is pretty much a psychopath in the books (and in the film) and yet still manages to conduct himself in a moral fashion - based on his attempt to morally fit in and adapt to circumstances. Even though a psychopath may not feel the consequences of their actions, they can still intellectually understand what they are doing.
Yes, which is an estimated 1-2% of the human population. Which means 98% of humans do have some range of moral feeling.
Perhaps the truly healthy are aware of their shared collective unconscious with all of humanity, as Dr. Jung once speculated, and this stops them from harming others, though they may have been wronged themselves.
The collective unconscious of the psyche is more like the physiology of our human body - organized and remarkably layered with complex features that even many of the healthy do not know much about, but which, to a surprising degree, like the physical body - we depend upon for our daily functioning.
What may also be surprising to some - Jung did not always advocate psychoanalysis for everyone - which can be (and still is today) a lengthy multi-year process, and considerably expensive if consulting with say, a Zurich trained Analyst.
Sometimes, after the first session or two with a potential client, after the client had presented their first couple of dreams to Jung - Jung would decline further consultation, based on what the dreams revealed of the client's unconscious state, which indicated the patient did not need - or was not ready for further deeper analytical treatment. That more traditional psychological approaches of help (or no outside help at all) was the best prescription for the client to move forward with their life.
Abusing the Abused doesn't stop the cycle of Abuse.
I'm sorry if some people do not like to hear it, they want to ignore it, or pretend it is a tiny minority, but it is a FACT that NOT ONE Abuser from the Epstein Files has been arrested in the USA - NOT ONE. The West is RUN by criminals. They shouldn't be deciding what to order for lunch, let alone who lives or dies. Some people may suggest AI Overlords make the decision of what criminals live and who dies. Bad idea.
The ONLY way to stop the cycle of abuse is to end the abuse. Pretending it doesn't exist or having the State decide who lives or dies, does not end the abuse... it continues the cycle.
Trauma begets Trauma, and NO, AI Overlords deciding which criminals live or die is not a solution. Who are the people designing the New Infallible AI Overlord? ABUSERS.
Stop the Cycle,
BLOCK ALL DATA CENTERS. Peace.
Block all data centers that harm the environment......this means regulation to eliminate the harm. Also make AI a public asset like a library to eliminate harm to the people.
"Abuse seems to be a transmissible disease."
Perhaps most commonly, but psychopaths can certainly abuse without having been abused.
The idea that a human behavioral characteristic (psychopathy, irritability, racism, fearfulness, whatever) can *only* emerge by transmission from a prior "carrier" is not coherent. The behavior has to initiate from *somewhere*, and that place is biological characteristics, even if only when triggered by adverse conditions (which do not necessarily include abuse). Unfortunately, these are currently not sufficiently understood (like most other psychiatric characteristics). There is no such thing as a fully "blank slate".
Absolutely, but we cannot predict who will be a psychopath, while we know that those abused have a good chance to becomes abusers The path of transmission is trauma, which can also be epigenetic, passing down through markers on the DNA of those who did not experience the original trauma. We see this also in entire populations such as the European Jews who were traumatized by the Nazis and have now abused the Palestinians, the Soviet/Russian population which lost 27 million to the Nazis and whose fear or invasion cannot be understood without taking into account the immense trauma of that event, now passed down epigenetically.
We cannot predict, but we can screen and diagnose. High Machiavellian psychopaths are the more insidious threat, but it can be done. We’d need wide spread psychological and ponerological literacy. There are also structural design elements we could institute to prevent psychopaths from attaining authority or positions of power or influence, but before we can have a chance at any of that, it’s the psychological and ponerological literacy that needs to be in place first. Sadly… I don’t foresee that happening under the current system.
Thank you. Good points to learn further about this. Yes, both in science and as a society we don't yet know enough, yet crises are here and growing.
"we cannot predict who will be a psychopath"
Agreed. We have a lot of work to do in biology to get to the answers. If AI is good for anything, it may be able to solve this -- but of course, AI will, first, in all likelihood be controlled primarily by, well... intelligent psychopaths. :/
"The path of transmission is trauma, which can also be epigenetic, passing down through markers on the DNA of those who did not experience the original trauma."
Agreed. I have no problem with our continuing to do good work to remediating environmentally-produced, hereditarily-passed sociopathy. But lets just remember it won't solve the core danger to society, as the full biology is not understood. For all those sociopaths remediated/cured, then paradoxically, a power vacuum is created for non-environmentally-produced intelligent psychopathy to exploit. And it certainly will be exploited. Moreover, we have the ethical problem of how to handle "pre-crime" control.
EDIT: Changed "genetically" to "hereditarily" in 3rd para to more clearly conform to your points, which I agree with.
We can together dismantle the system that currently rewards ambitious psychopaths and build one, as our early ancestors did, to isolate those seek to exploit and abuse rewarding those who show altruism and cooperation Today we see those making weapons and pollutants earning tens of millions while social workers and teachers are punished with low pay. A just system would reverse this order.
That’s because it often is.
Agreed 100%. The death penalty turns the jailers into murderers. But, I might add, that it's weird; the drugs they use to murder the accused murderers. A cocktail of drugs that seem to be painful, invasive and downright disgusting. Why? My old sick cat recently died from a gentle euthanasia. A simply tranquilizer to allow him to pass out. Then the inevitable injection of heart stopping stuff. I wonder why, if we must, can't we give the penalized what the vet gave to my cat? I suspect this is some sort of effing oligarchic ritual, replete with finger signals and incantations and that there are demons in charge of the ritual and that they are pleased to inhale the essence of this anguish. We are not advanced. We are not modern. We are the same fearful creatures that we have always been. We are witch hunters. We are finger pointing blamers. We are terrified of our own beauty.
These executions are botched because medical professionals are ethically prohibited from taking part in them due to their Hippocratic oath.
That doesn't excuse the state from not training people sufficiently to do them properly, as the knowledge is available. Ironically, doing executions properly removes an avenue of attack for criticizing the death penalty that could convince unthinking people, who too often react only viscerally. Expect the red states to now "fix" this.
And then we put the moral onus of state sanctioned murder on the back on an underpaid state worker. The rest of the world has abandoned this barbarism. America is by leaps and bounds the most violent nation on the planet. State violence outstrips any other western or peer nation. Those who support the death penalty are violent people.
And we're told this is a merciful way of execution, like the electric chair that often went wrong.
I wonder if it will be the same crew that get a eighth try at taking her life.
In Buddhism, this is called the 12 fold chain of dependent coorigination. Law of Causation.
In my case, I call it "MGJDF syndrome". Multiple Generational Jewish Dysfunctional Family Syndrome.
Played out in spades in Palestine, where the survivors of pogroms culminating in trips to death camps and gas chambers think they can heal themselves by doing to Palestinians what was done to them.
Utter delusion.
Revenge cleanses? Interesting
Unfortunately, that is what these genociders, who have not healed their trauma by spiritual practice, think. That inflicting more suffering will heal them. That is how the suffering goes on from generation to generation.
CJ>>"You cannot make a deep study of trauma and human dysfunction and still sustain a belief in the death penalty."
NOT in the least Caitlin! Just look at Netanyahu, Trump, Musk, and hundreds if not thousands of such mass murderers, genociders, and the PURE EVIL that they represent. They have been collectively responsible for millions upon millions of deaths.
I have NO ISSUES believing in the death penalty. Nuance is required to know when to use it and when not to, and how to use it and how not to.
I don't know why, but you seem to approach many issues from a black-and-white perspective...
The trouble with the death penalty is that the worst offenders, responsible for multiple deaths, are free to continue their devastation while the survivors who lash out at the legacy of the offenders pay the ultimate price. And the cycle of injustice continues ad nauseum.
>>"The trouble with the death penalty is..."
Yes. And you're making my point for me here - thank you. WHEN to use it, HOW to use it, on WHOM to use it on, and so many more considerations. Your complaint is that the worst offenders go free while the people who react against their legacy are the ones who pay the ultimate price. That's a problem with HOW the penalty is applied and to WHOM, and it's an argument for fixing that, not necessarily for saying it can never be justified (which is what I'm arguing against).
That's precisely my point. The death penalty ISN'T ONLY about good/bad or right/wrong (though people love to simplify issues and fall into such black-and-white traps). The details matter just as much (hence the need for nuance).
Abusing the Abused doesn't stop thr cycle of Abuse. There are hospitals for the Criminally Insane. Sentence violent rapist & murderers to Life in prison. The Death Penalty is wrong because the State makes mistakes. The Innocents Project wouldn't exist if the State got it right. The State is also CORRUPT. Poor people get the Death Penalty but EPSTEIN PEDOES walf Free and run ALL Western Govt.
NOT ONE PEDOE has been arrested from the EPSTEIN Files. Billionaires can Abuse whoever they want - AT WILL - Zero consequences... as long as They keep protecting other Pedoes & Worse, and keep the money train going.
How soon before someone suggests getting AI to pick who lives or dies? That will be the Next "Great Idea." Everyone knows that is where this is heading.
"Welcome to the New Dystopian Nightmare brought to you by Z10 PEDOE Billionaire Sociopaths! Our lovely & supreme AI Overlord will determine which criminals the State will kill, right after this brief message! Next up, AI Overlord will crap out a New Magical Soulless Hit Pop song and totally New Pro War Superheroe Movie! But first, watch the cute & fun AI Drones finish their bombing of schools & churches that AI Overlord's massive intellect has determined are Terrorists!"
The ONLY way to really stop abuse, is to break the cycle of abuse. Does everyone who is abused go on to repeat the abuse on another? No. But it is how it continues, and trauma hits everyone differently. The State is filled with criminals who abuse with their authority. Neither the State nor a Computer should be deciding who lives or dies. Life in prison for a Billionaire, or anyone, should be harsh a sentence enough.
The Rothschilds-Epstein Class needs Victims and Money to continue Their cycle of Abuse. When will We The People of the West start denying them?
🚫ALL DATA CENTERS ✌️
What the fuck does your comment have anything to do with this particular and very specific discussion? Do you simply like to SPAM and RANT the SAME STUFF in every comment in every article?
Now you’re making no sense
YOU not understanding the comment is not the same as "making no sense". If you don't understand my comment, then I doubt you'ld understand what this argument is about in the first place.
Are you an AI bot being trained?
Are you a stupid moron? Wait, don't answer that - that was rhetorical!
I would like to know you views on the death penalty,
Specifically: do you believe that in the 21st century, States have a right to execute people convicted of murder. And does capital punishment fulfills the objective of 1) retribution 2) deterrence 3) justice for the family/friends 4) rehabilitation
From your many responses and comments, I can see that you take an interest in this topic and seem to have knowledge. Thank you
Thank you Naji, for a thoughtful and honest question (unlike all the other comments seen here).
Q. Do I believe that in the 21st century states have a right to execute people convicted of murder?
A. It depends. By "rights" does one mean LEGAL rights? or MORAL rights? (because they are two different things). There is no ONE right answer or an all-encompassing answer. But to summarize (instead of boring you with all the thought that went behind it -> In principle yes, a state can have this right, but only under strict conditions, and many states don't meet them (i.e. they ABUSE this right).
As for questions (1) through (4), the current system of Capital Punishment (death penalty) in the U.S. falls well short on all four, and fails badly on most. So my opinion of the CURRENT system (of capital punishment) is that it is SEVERELY DYSFUNCTIONAL and doesn't serve the purposes it was intended to serve.
But here's the thing that most people miss - the multiple failures of the system don't necessarily mean the idea (reasoning) behind it was faulty. It means that the system was badly designed, implemented, and enforced and does not fulfull the objectives/goals it was meant to.
Some of the conflations and mistakes I keep seeing in this discussion are the following - botched executions, wrongful convictions, poor people getting bad lawyers, who ends up on death row, etc. etc. Those are all problems with HOW the system works. People take them as proof that the death penalty is wrong in principle, but that's a different question, and mixing the two up is how we end up talking past each other.
If the state’s objectives for capital punishment are 1) retribution 2) deterrence 3) justice for the family/friends, then it is easy to measure whether those objectives are achieved when compared to states where capital punishment has been abolished?
I'm not going to SPECULATE on what a state's objectives are - I don't have enough information to make such an assessment.
Here is what I DO KNOW - regardless of what the objectives of individual states might be, regardless of how individual states measure and evaluate their system, the current system of Capital Punishment and Death Penalty in the U.S. has an extremely negative track record (and there's evidence to back this up).
I'm not FOR or AGAINST the Death Penalty (and it's besides the point on what my views are on this). All systems have flaws. What matters (for me) is "do we let these flaws affect human societies to their detriment? Or do we redesign/reimplement the system or even replace it with another system that performs better?"
I can list several scenarios for where Capital Punishment "worked" and ALSO where it failed to "work" (if I define "work" as for the benefit of human societies).
But those people you cite are not subject to it anyway. They are the ones who decide when and where to use it.
Caitlin makes the most salient and considered point here. Even the very worst can be dealt with. It doesn't have to resort in their murder too.
Whether the people I cited are subject to the death penalty or not is IRRELEVANT. I brought them up to show that Caitlin's claim, that you can't make a deep study of trauma and still believe in the death penalty, doesn't hold up as a general statement. The principle is the same either way. NUANCE is required, and black-and-white thinking doesn't work.
And I'm sorry, but Caitlin's point is NOT salient. It's a simplistic, emotional response to ONE particular event, and when you expand it to the many variations that show up in real life, it falls apart.
As for "even the very worst can be dealt with", what does that even mean? I assume you mean that even the worst can be dealt with WITHOUT capital punishment, but where's the evidence for that? You haven't offered any. It's just a belief that's being stated as if it were a fact.
And "it doesn't have to resort to their murder too"? Calling it murder already assumes that it's unjustified, which is the very thing we're arguing about. That's not an argument, that's just assuming your conclusion. (It's called - "begging the question" - where the conclusion is smuggled into the premise - which is what you're doing here).
This depends on the circumstances. We live in the last days of a rich, complex society that can afford to lock up large numbers of people for long periods, feeding them without expectation of their doing anything to carry their weight. Not all societies have that privilege, that margin, and ours won't for much longer, as the consequences of unsustainable lifeways are beginning to set in.
Mary, in the US, our incarceration rate is directly related to shareholders value. It is highly profitable to lock people up. The state is charged between $150-$800 per prisoner per day (nationwide median is @. 65,000 per prisoner per year.)
More, Americans are a particularly punitive people. They LIKE the idea of punishing others. They are angered by the idea that support for health, housing and education would prevent crime. They reject all other models that show decarceration with strong social support decreases recidivism, violence, bad generational trauma.
We tower above nearly all other nations in locking people up for as long as possible.
I know all this and in fact I have a theory about why. I think it's our Calvinist history and a subconscious notion that we can outsource punishment for sins by scapegoating. For example, quite a lot of the people in US jails are there for drug crimes--possessing, using or selling illegal drugs. But who uses and abuses more drugs than Americans? They may be procured with a prescription, or be legal for those over 21 (alcohol), but many are the prim matrons addicted to painkillers or antidepressants, the righteous white businessmen denying their alcoholism...I think there is a subconscious belief that if can just punish our sins hard enough, in other people, it will wash us clean. This is what the original scapegoats were, after all--goats onto which the people would ceremonially unload their sins, then drive the goat out of the village or kill it. Some societies relegated poor people to the role of sineater, where the people would put out food supposedly laden with their sins, and the desperate poor would eat it thus supposedly earning the punishment for someone else's sins. There are other examples of this sort of society-wide self-deceit--like the lowest caste in India being relegated the job of carrying away other people's shit, and being considered Untouchable as a result--so they're doing the necessary work no one else wants to do and getting contempt rather than appreciation for it. Caitlin has pointed out that people in the rich world depend on the underpaid work of people in poor countries for much of their luxury. I even saw it pointed out once that Malthus and Ehrlich were not actually wrong in their calculations about overpopulation--it's just that we have managed to outsource the dying onto other species, whose numbers have plummeted as ours (and our livestock) skyrocketed.
But now the bill is coming due, for the US and for humanity. We've run out of road, run out of poor countries and other species to unload the costs onto, while being completely dependent on economic growth. Maybe this is why we've vomited up a figure like Trump--a desperate attempt to keep the golden parade going at the expense of anyone, everyone else. He's way more blatant about it than any previous politician.
I think you have a great point; so many of our National heresies can be traced directly to our Calvinist origins; the poor are poor because they are sinful, the rich enjoy wealth because God loves them best….
which is directly contradicted by the words of Jesus, and these people all say they're Christians.
Caitlin says imprisonment should be for the purpose of protecting society from dangerous people, not for punishment. I agree--except where it actually works as a deterrent, which in the case of the kind of horrific crimes that result in the death penalty it doesn't. Perhaps it would in the case of those monsters whose actions result in the deaths of millions, like Hitler and Stalin and Netanyahu--but gee, when do we ever see them arrested?
I think Caitlin's point is a bit more nuanced, though I can see your perspective Chang. Perhaps locking Satanyahu, Stump, and Must in cells for the rest of their lives, periodically allowing them out on display for future generations of children to see what happens when you behave as an enemy of mankind, would demonstrate justice without murder.
>>"...justice without murder" ?
I appreciate that you can see my perspective, and I do see the point of your idea, but I think it runs into the same question I raised earlier: what's your definition of justice, and what's your definition of murder? THIS is where NUANCE comes in.
Here's what I mean. "Murder" means a killing that's WRONG. So when you call an execution "murder," you're already saying that it's wrong. But whether it's wrong is the very thing we're debating! It's like starting an argument about whether a law is fair by calling it "an unfair law." You haven't proven anything, you've just assumed that you're right.
You said Caitlin's point is more nuanced, but I'm not sure where the nuance is. Her claim was that you CAN'T study trauma deeply and still believe in the death penalty. That's about as black-and-white as it gets. What's the nuanced part?
I also noticed that your proposal has people being put on display so that future generations learn what happens to an enemy of mankind. That's a lesson being taught through punishment, and that's a big part of the "GREATER GOOD" argument for the death penalty too: deterrence, and society showing that some acts are beyond the pale. So it seems like we both agree that punishment should serve a larger purpose, and where we differ is on the method.
And that's really my point. There's a reason there's so much DEBATE about the death penalty in whatever form, and I think it's worth digging into the definitions and the reasoning instead of going with our first reactions, which I'm sure we're all prone to on a subject like this.
The state is biased ffs. Innocent men have been executed
>>"The state is biased ffs. Innocent men have been executed"
Irrelevant to the discussion. Go and read my first comment again, as you apparently haven't understood what I'm objecting to in Caitlin's article.
Yes, I agree, John. I disagree with Caitlin here. Prior trauma on the part of the perpetrator is not why the death penalty should be abolished. The only reason why it should be abolished--and it's a very good reason--is that it opens the possibility that an innocent person could be put to death by the state, whether by accident or by design. That is quite enough.
I think murder is intentional killing, point blank. And this is wrong in all cases.
Whether the person doing the murder or participating in it argues for its justification is irrelevant, that is, if we are trying to inhabit a society where the worse impulses of humanity are minimalized: and I believe our worse impulses should be minimalized for the full expression (read: sustainable goodness) of our collective being to materialize.
This sentiment doesn't mean we don't allow space for feelings of extreme rage likely to be present in someone if. for instance. one of their own family members is senselessly murdered by a stranger. In that moment, it would be understandable for any human being to feel immense anger at the murderer, the world, the system that allowed this to happen, God, etc.
The question is, how does an intelligent and thoughtful society deal with this occurrence, this utterly gross violation of humanity, considering that we (most of us?) want to live in a world where retribution in the form of murder isn't perpetuated.
Of course, theoretically, there is space for murder in cases of self-defense (though it is still murder) and when the goal is the prevention of more murder (a premptive strike against one's enemies), but do you see how this slope can get slippery very quickly?
When does self-defense become uncontrolled aggression based in ego and fear and when does an action taken in premption become no different than one taken based in fear or hatred for the Other?
This is NOT a discussion about "murder" or "intentional killing". Please look at my argument and understand it before going off on tangents based on whatever is in your mind.
Caitlin says - "You cannot make a deep study of trauma and human dysfunction and still sustain a belief in the death penalty."
And I say -> "This is FALSE". Take the Palestinians or Gazans for instance. They have faced more trauma in recent history than most. Are you telling them that they cannot sustain a belief in the dealth penalty if hypothetically Netanyahu and other Genociders are given the death penalty (that is to be carried out by the state)?
Hence I say NUANCE instead of black-and-white thinking. My argument is simple. Others fail to understand the argument to begin with and assume things that are NOT (and were never) a part of my argument. That's on them.
Okay, so, in addressing your assessment of Caitlin's claim, which was roughly that 'you cant assent to the death penalty once you've considered the generational sources of trauma,' I am taking her idea rhetorically. I think you should as well.
She obviously wasn't making a literal statement, which is why I allowed her room for nuance. Of course you could still believe in the death penalty after accounting for trauma.
However, if we were all having this discussion in person, you would sense the spirit of her statement, which is one based in empathy for human beings.
When Marcellus Williams, a black man not proven to have committed a crime, was recently put to death, I spoke out against it.
Now that another human in Christa Parks has been exposed to the same system that killed Williams, people are realizing the inherent stupidity and barbarity of a state system which has the power to put someone to death.
If the goal is preservation of human life, which I think it should be, then when someone has committed or been responsible for murder, which is intentional killing, assuming it wasn't justified, they should be locked away for life.
Now, will courts always be right in their assessments of the motivations for human behavior? No. They could just as easily convict someone of murder (intentional killing) who has a reasonble claim of self-defense.
So, if we can't trust courts to be right about the motivations of human behavior, how on earth could we expect them to be correct in determining whether someone should die?
Just to solidify my point, Lindsay Clancy shouldn't die for killing her kids, but she damn sure should be locked away for life in some kind of facility so she never has the opportunity to do what she did aqain.
>>"I again am taking her idea rhetorically here. I think you should as well."
There was nothing "rhetorical" about her statement. If you choose to interpret her statement as rhetorical and then argue based on that - then that's on YOU (and it's a different discussion).
This is not a discussion about morality, justice, right/wrong or any of that. It's about NUANCED thinking versus binary black-and-white thinking. The mistake (in treating/thinking about complex topics like capital punishment and death penalty) is to approach them with a lack of the NUANCE it deserves.
I totally agree with you. Being against the death penalty is an absolute with nuance.
Chang, the death penalty is the legitimatized power of the state to murder its citizens. It is never applied to member of the state.
Arguing that some people would be better off dead for the good of greater humanity is different, but those people are rarely executed.
While I wouldn’t mind a good portion of the 99.9% to leave this world, these are not the people subject to the death penalty. The people murdered by the state are incarcerated, they pose no threat, they are the poorest among us. The death penalty is barbaric, and the state should have no power over life and death.
>>"the death penalty is the legitimatized power of the state to murder its citizens"
Is that even true? Murder is an UNLAWFUL killing, so a legal execution isn't murder by definition. You're only calling it murder if you've already decided that it's wrong, and whether it's wrong is the very thing we're debating! You can't win an argument by putting your conclusion into the definition.
You also said that "arguing that some people would be better off dead for the good of greater humanity is different." I never argued that. That's a strawman. Please respond to what I actually said, not to something I didn't.
And you're saying that because (in your opinion) these aren't the people who face the death penalty, the death penalty isn't justified. That doesn't follow. WHO it gets applied to is a question about HOW it's carried out, and that's a separate question from whether it can ever be justified. If it's being applied unfairly, then the answer is to fix that. That's my whole point about nuance.
Finally, "the death penalty is barbaric, and the state should have no power over life and death" is YOUR OPINION, stated as if it were an accepted fact. It isn't an accepted fact. (Be aware that I'm not arguing for or against it here). People have debated this for centuries and STILL do. I notice that almost everything you listed is an objection to HOW, WHO, and WHEN the penalty gets used, and then you treat that as if it proves a moral claim about whether it's ever justified. Those are two different questions, and mixing them up is exactly what I'm arguing against.
The state awards itself a monopoly on violence. The state can, and has, made extrajudicial assassination (including of children) “legal,” torture “legal,” and bribery “legal.” The crimes that states have made “legal” for themselves and for the oligarchy that owns them are too numerous to mention.
That a state has legalized its own criminality does nothing to lesson the crimes they commit.
The death penalty is a hard line for every other Western nation. The legalization of state sanctioned murder hardly falls under any moral or ethical law; child marriage is legal. The denial of maternal care is legal (and providing lifesaving medical care to a dying mother is now a crime in many states.) Executing people even when later evidence has proven innocence is legal. Even slavery is still legal.
Your argument that it is not murder because a criminal state has declared itself exempt from the law is weak as fuck.
>>"The state awards itself a monopoly on violence."
NONE of that has anything to do with what I said. You're arguing against something I never wrote, so here's my argument (since you clearly missed it) -
My first point was that Caitlin's claim, that you can't make a deep study of trauma and still believe in the death penalty, covers EVERYONE, and I gave counter-examples that show it doesn't hold. My second point was that "is the death penalty justified?" is one question, and HOW it's done, WHEN, and to WHOM are different questions. Almost every objection I've gotten is about the second set, and people act like that answers the first. That's what I mean by nuance.
You said "That a state has legalized its own criminality does nothing to lessen the crimes they commit." Where did I say that something being legal makes it right? NOWHERE. I said what the word "murder" means, and that's all. Obviously I know that legal doesn't mean moral. That's the SECOND strawman you've built out of my comment.
Then you pile up assassinating children, torture, bribery, child marriage, and denying maternal care, like that proves something. It doesn't. None of that is the same as executing a convicted killer after a trial, and throwing it all in one heap isn't an argument. You're calling the death penalty a crime because you've already decided that it's wrong, and then using that to prove that it's wrong. That's circular reasoning.
>>"...a hard line for every other Western nation"?
SO WHAT? Everybody agreeing doesn't mean that they're RIGHT. That's not a reason, and you haven't given me one.
And you didn't answer anything I actually said. You stated your OPINION as if it were fact, and said nothing when I pointed that out. WHO it gets applied to is a separate question from WHETHER it's ever justified, and you said nothing about that either. You had nothing on my points, so you ran off to a list of everything else the state does wrong.
And "weak as fuck"? THAT'S your answer? I NEVER made that argument ("that it is not murder because a criminal state has declared itself exempt from the law"). Not once. YOU made it up, called it weak, and then acted like you'd won something. All you did was beat up your own invention. READ what I actually wrote before you reply to it.
There is never, under any circumstances, any justification for the state to commit murder - whether or not they declare it “legal.” The vast majority of the globe has banished this barbarism.
The is distinctly different than saying the world would be better if some people left it.
The state lacks any legitimacy in this matter.
Dude - this is not a discussion about states or any of that stuff (though you're making it one). Let me put it this way (since you're obviously all confused with whatever is in your head and your emotions).
Assume Netanyahu and all top-level Genociders are captured and given the death penalty. Are you going to argue with a Gazan or Palestinian that has had his/her children (or even whole family) killed that "they should be against the death penalty for Netanyahu"?
You understand what I'm saying? NUANCE. The death penalty can be the right thing for certain scenarios and the wrong thing for others. NUANCE. But instead, people apply black-and-white thinking.
If your "The state lacks any legitimacy in this matter", then you disagree with the (any) state carrying out the execution of Netanyahu (in this specific scenerio).
NOW are you beginning to understand what this discussion is about? NUANCE vs. black-and-white thinking.
Chang, you came to argue points in a written debate. Some people are reflective and not arguing with you. Chill.
Well, they can be reflective in their own spaces if they want. If they're rebutting my arguement (which most haven't understood to begin with) and they are (with non-sequiturs and strawmans, I might add), then that's "arguing with me".
(Though I understand what you're implying - thanks!)
You are mostly arguing semantics, that is, the definition of the word "murder." You say it means an illegal, or unjustified killing--which are two different things. Others think it means any killing of another human, regardless of justification--and pretty much everyone agrees that killing to defend yourself or another person is justified, and many (most?) would say mercy killing is justified.
Read my comment again. I said "Murder is an UNLAWFUL killing". I NEVER said anything about justified OR unjustified. Don't know why you added the "or unjustified killing" part here...
Justified or unjustified is a SEPARATE argument - and it depends on the person making the opinion - not something that is standard across the board. Same with morality. Justification and morality are DIFFERENT arguments than the one I've been making all along.
If people aren’t “understanding” your argument, perhaps this is a “you” problem.
So far as I can tell, you are very much in favor of the death penalty and will reject any moral, ethical, religious, legal, or evidentiary argument standing against your position.
You do you, boo.
>>"So far as I can tell, you are very much in favor of the death penalty and will reject any moral, ethical, religious, legal, or evidentiary argument standing against your position."
Are you high? Do you always imagine and assume things? (You have been during this whole thread). You can assume whatever you want about what I think, but you have NO EVIDENCE for any of it and nothing to back up your accusations (though you like making stuff up and pretending that I said or implied those things).
I'm not wasting time with someone that creates their own arguments and then fights against them. You can do this in your own head all day for the rest of your life if you wish. Goodbye!
I’ve come to believe in prison and treatment (some better kind of prison than the US has, and not its mass racial and class incarceration) for punching down, and in assassination and overthrow by the people for punching up. The people above us commit violence and abuse on a titanic scale, and no slow-gear, captured judicial and legislative systems can meaningfully stop their harm.
Regime overthrows due to military violence don’t do the trick either. While the Nuremberg trials are often held up, the main conquering country turned into a world hegemon exploiter and planet-destroyer, and enacted much horror and violence against civilians in the process of “winning” the war.
The great cluster fuck is that the citizenry is too easily propagandized, and generally has too little means of effective violence, to overthrow those above us. That’s true even in a country where guns far outnumber people, and where such level of arming mainly succeeds in producing more citizen-on-citizen violence. And when such overthrows-by-citizens occasionally do succeed in history, the rabbles that emerge are unstable and often rabid in their own right. Humanity just doesn’t seem to be evolved enough to handle the problem of a corrupt ruling class. We haven’t figured it out yet; no one has the solution.
That’s why the occasional victories of people like Luigi Mangione are so important. We might never win a just new world, but seeing a billionaire or abuse-enabler go down removes at least their immediate threat and gives at least some sense of justice and hope to the aggrieved masses.
I tend to agree with your beliefs on this. Personally, I think the whole U.S. prison system is horribly designed, run, and enforced, and the mass incarceration is dystopian (I agree a lot with Chris Hedges on this subject).
I agree. I hesitate to say Luigi should go free--but like most Americans, I cheer his act and the state would not want me on his jury. I have been struggling in the last few years with my long-held pacifist ideas, starting to think we need some pitchforks, torches and guillotines.
Pfffft--Mangione was a PSY-OP, & Brian Thompson's probably lounging on a tropical beach sipping martinis right now (probably w/ Charlie Kirk). I totally agree that the "too-easily propaganized citizenry" has too little means of effective violence to overthrow those above us, BUT, their vast number of guns merely attempts to protect themselves from DIRECT, overt predations from the ruling offenders. The level of propaganda , which is SO great that most of the citizens have no clue, prevents them from getting together & going after the ruling oppressors.
For psychopaths in power or those who would seek to attain positions of power over others? Maybe. I’d rather explore other options, but having some knowledge on the topic of psychopathy, there are probably some for whom there might not be any other options. For one off cases like Christa? Yeah, I’d let her off, especially now that’s she’s survived.
My comment to Caitlin was not about this particular case (of Christa Pike) or even any other case. I was talking from a structural and systemic viewpoint about the idea of Capital punishment and the death penalty in general (and most people seemed to have completely missed the point I was making).
What I was saying is that the idea of "capital punishment/death penalty" and the implementation of it are TWO DIFFERENT things. Hence, NUANCE is required to take the concept of "capital punishment" from the "idea phase" into the "implementation phase". Hence, binary thinking on whether "the idea of capital punishment" is right/wrong is the wrong approach towards it. If the IMPLEMENTATION of capital punishment is faulty (hence the HOW, WHAT, WHO questions), then it needs to be FIXED rather than throw away the concept entirely (which is what Caitlin was suggesting by saying "You cannot make a deep study of trauma and human dysfunction and still sustain a belief in the death penalty").
I'm saying, YES - you CAN sustain a belief in the death penalty (not in the faulty implementation of it, but rather in the concept of it) even if you have made a deep study of human trauma and even if you have personally experienced deep trauma).
For example -
(1) Hideki Tōjō and six other Japanese leaders were sentenced to death by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East and hanged in 1948.
(2) Allied and national courts tried Japanese military personnel after World War II; hundreds were executed, including Generals Tomoyuki Yamashita and Masaharu Homma.
(3) Ion Antonescu, Romania’s wartime leader, was executed by firing squad in 1946 after conviction in a domestic trial.
(4) Jozef Tiso, wartime president of Slovakia, was hanged in 1947 after conviction for collaboration and treason.
(5) Froduald Karamira and 21 others convicted in Rwanda’s genocide-related cases were executed in 1998.
(6) Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan, Khmer Rouge leaders convicted of genocide and other crimes, received life sentences rather than execution; Pol Pot died before trial.
(7) Benito Mussolini was captured and shot by Italian partisans in 1945, without a regular criminal trial.
(8) Nicolae Ceaușescu and his wife Elena were sentenced to death by a Romanian military tribunal and shot in 1989 after a summary trial.
(9) Saddam Hussein, Iraq’s former president, was convicted of crimes against humanity and hanged in 2006.
EACH of the above examples DIRECTLY CONTRADICTS Caitlin's assertion and supports my argument. This is NOT an argument about morality, justice, or emotions. This is an argument about SYSTEMS. Caitlin makes a moral/emotional argument for one that requires a SYSTEMS approach.
I use systems thinking in my work as well, so I understand your meaning. And if you read what I wrote, you’d see I was largely agreeing with while raising case-specific points concerning Christa. Idk if those case examples prove your point; there’s no way to ascertain the degree of understanding of trauma these executioners had. Familiarity with trauma through personal experience doesn’t necessarily translate into a cognitive or empirical method of understanding it. I think Caitlin has a very high degree of compassion and empathy, which is a remarkable feat all its own in a pathocracy such as ours. And largely, I’d agree with her, given the caveats I mentioned above. It’s no small thing to extinguish a life, though certain material elements of our present reality make it a far more common, and sometimes authentically conscientious act than it would in a healthy society.
Based on your response to me, I don't think you understood what I was saying.
Even ONE SINGLE example of a person that "has studied trauma deeply and still believes in the CONCEPT of capital punishment and the death penalty" DISPROVES Caitlin! That's all it takes to disprove Caitlin's assertion. Just ONE example. Note: this is not about "system-design" or implementation. This is about the CONCEPT of Capital Punishment/Death Penalty.
Out of 8 billion people on the planet, if there is even ONE person that has "studied trauma deeply" and STILL BELIEVES in the death penalty, then that invalidates Caitlin's claim saying that "you cannot sustain a belief..."
With her statement, Caitlin is generalizing something that is dependent on the beliefs of 8 billion people (and hence the need for NUANCE) into a black-and-white assertion.
Hmm… I suppose we’d need some way to measure that empirically. We’d need to first ascertain whether or not they have measurable baseline capacity in empathy, metacognition, and stable conscience. That might not be how she defined her terms, but I feel confident in my assumption it’s what she meant. You’re right that a person deficient in the above stated baseline capacities who has studied trauma could still believe in capital punishment. And I’ve even stated that there could be circumstances where it’s necessary. Does that clarify our points of contention?
>>"Does that clarify our points of contention?"
Not really. It's quite simple. Let me break it down using propositional logic:
S = x has made a deep study of trauma and human dysfunction
B = x still sustains a belief in the death penalty
Caitlin's statement says: ¬(S ∧ B) (i.e. You cannot do S and still B" says the combination of S and B doesn't occur)
So what falsifies Caitlin's assertion is: S ∧ B
Hence, of all the combinations of S and B (there are 4), there is one that falsifies it - where S and B are both true.
Hence, it is WAY EASIER (in reality) to FALSIFY Caitlin's assertion, because I only have to prove ONE particular case true. For Caitlin to prove that her assertion holds, she has to prove it for EVERY case of S & B for 8 million people on the planet - and HERE is where your argument about "measurement" and "empiracal analysis" comes in where it is really needed (to support her assertion, not mine).
The author of this note was focused on the black-and-white claims around the death penalty, and I agree it is not so simple.
However, the specifically named individuals have stuck with me over the last few days.
As I am a systems person, I look at those who instigate policies rather than those who merely seek to “win” under pre-existing policies.
The political influence of Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Larry Ellison and others in the tech oligarchy is the direct result of technology policy from the 1990s. If we want to put names to this, then we need to focus on Bill Clinton, Bruce A. Lehman, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. While I didn’t shed a tear when Steve Jobs died, nor will I shed a tear when these other political figures die, I don’t believe the state (or vigilantes) killing them would solve anything. The policies are still active, and still being spread to other regions through so-called “trade” agreements, by others who are merely "following the rules".
Benjamin Netanyahu was born on October 21, 1949, in Tel Aviv—roughly one year after the peak of the 1948 Nakba. He is the first Israeli Prime Minister that was born after the founding of the Westphalian institution of Israel, which happened with the full support of the Western/Christian dominated United Nations. The colonization of Palestine has been a project of Anglosphere Christians since the 1600s, and in many ways individuals like Oliver Cromwell, Sir Henry Finch, and evangelical Chrisitian philosophers like Arthur Balfour (Author of the Balfour declaration, based on theology he held decades earlier) are far more responsible for current atrocities than those born into it.
Trump is an appropriate mascot for the institutions of the USA: a nepobaby who has failed at business but became an influencer through reality TV and media like the Howard Stern show, and a known predator that owned "Beauty Pagents". If we want to talk about the policy behind the executive branch seen as the leadership for all other branches of the US government, we need to go back further to FDR, Nixon, Clinton, Bush, etc. If we are talking about killing presidents based on domestic and international crimes under an excessively powerful executive branch, there are several still alive that need to be dealt with before getting to Donald J Trump.
Killing these individuals would of course be meaningless, as they are simply following existing policies and culture. It is the policies, systems and ideologies that need to be dismantled, not individuals.
>>"I don’t believe the state (or vigilantes) killing them would solve anything"
I agree with you 100%. And I also understand that many recipients of the dealth penalty are VICTIMS of the systems that created the "thinking-patterns" in their heads that lead to the crimes in the first place.
Here is my comment of what I think about the death penalty/capital punishment ->https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/meditations-on-the-botched-execution/comment/352201420
Well said Chang! The problem with the system is the ritualization of our laws to the point they make about as much sense as if the laws were made by the inhabitants of an insane asylum. All the horseshit involved in prolonging these cases out to thirty of forty years or more is nothing less than greed and insanity. Hanging or shooting is quick and effective and does not waste the millions of dollars that comes out of taxpayer's pockets. It seems that absurdity is the only constant in our society today. Yes the Trumps and the Netanyahus of the world deserve to be tried and executed for genocide. It unfortunately will never happen even if they were to be found guilty because of the absurdity they have engineered into the system.
I agree with the emotion behind what you are saying, but a part of me also understands why other commenters are not understanding what you are saying.
When "the state" kills, "the state" makes what some individuals consider to be mistakes. They are looking at "the state" as if it were another individual, rather than a set of systems.
Individualism and Universalism, especially when combined, blocks thought.
The term "capital punishment" is very specifically about a government institution killing one of their own "citizens" based on that "individual" violating the policies of that government. There is an instinctive distrust of the government when it comes to specific kinds of killing, but unfortunately it often stops there and doesn't follow into asking questions about the underlying systems (again, because thinking anything relevant has to do with individuals, and thinking universalism is anything other than Eurosupremacy, blocks thought).
I disagree with the notion of Westphalian sovereignty, where a single set of government institutions (what some equate with the word "state" or "country") are granted exclusivity over life within a boundary drawn on a map. Outside (and existing prior to and parallel with) the notion of Westphalian sovereignty are Relational concepts of sovereignty where a peoples (think Greek word genos) govern themselves and as groups negotiated non-exclusively with other groups when they interacted.
Within Westphalian sovereignty, the policies of the exclusive institutions are absolute. What life is worthy or not is defined in institutional policy. Murder is subjectively defined as only those deaths not granted permission by (or carried out by) those institutions. When the government (through policy or bureaucracy) demands law enforcement or the military to kill, it is not considered murder.
****
Let us look at the list of individuals you provided. The state (In your case, I'm guessing the USA) considers these individuals high-value (some are US citizens, some under a US protectorate and/or US ally). Our individual idea of what is PURE EVIL at an individual or systemic level doesn't matter, even if you are a citizen (I was Assigned Canadian At Birth). You would have to believe these institutions (Like Canada or the United States) were democracies, and that our fellow citizens actually controlled the government, in order to believe that we had a say in deciding what was virtue vs vice.
While I may agree with you that what is happening is PURE EVIL, I do not blame the individuals. All of those "individuals" are merely examples of success within the existing system, and it is the existing systems that need to be understood to be the source of the PURE EVIL rather than fixating on individuals.
I would also not want some individual-focused theater as if it were a solution.
>>"I agree with the emotion behind..."
Russell McOrmond, mine is not a response based on emotion, but rather a simple DISTINCTION between NUANCE and black-and-white thinking.
Just as there is no ONE true/false right/wrong morality or justice, etc. there is no ONE true/false or right/wrong understanding of "capitatal punishment" or "death penalty".
The problem arises when people start thinking of things (like Capital Punishment) in black-and-white terms instead of the nuances such a complex topic deserves.
Yes. Netanyahu immediate to mind along with the whole cadre of elites.
There is no nuance in judicial killing. The wrong person is often killed, and it offers nothing except bloody vengeance.
The part of me that wants to see Netanyahu, Trump et al torn limb from limb is no better than they are.
I disagree. They are motivated by self-interest and sadism, a cold calculation unlit by compassion, which they are not capable of. It's your compassion that stirs the anger that causes such fantasies. Although mine tend to go in the opposite direction, not wanting a bloody spectacle but for them to be erased--not just killed humanely but to never have existed (yes I know that isn't possible).
>>"There is no nuance in judicial killing"
Says who? You just ASSERTED that and gave nothing to back it up. Then you turn around and say that the wrong person is often killed, which is a complaint about HOW the system works, and that is EXACTLY where the nuance is. If the system is convicting the wrong people, then FIX it. That's true whether or not the death penalty exists.
And "nothing except bloody vengeance"? That's just ignoring the other arguments for it, like deterrence, protecting society, and justice for the person who was killed. You can disagree with those, but you can't pretend that they aren't there. Retribution and vengeance aren't the same thing either.
Complaining about HOW the death penalty gets applied doesn't settle WHETHER it's justified. You're mashing two different questions together and acting like you've made an argument.
The ones you mention are in fact applying the death penalty, just with their "nuance" instead of yours.
NUANCE includes examining something through multiple perspectives. NUANCE does't have a mine/yours. What they're doing is binary thinking (and they've already picked a side without looking at all the variations and variables on the subject).
Sorry if I missed the _multiple perspectives_ in your (non-binary, I'm sure) "PURE EVIL" verdict.
Oh, that's CUTE. Did you think that was a gotcha? "PURE EVIL" was my description of what those people have done, and I used them as counter-examples to Caitlin's claim that you can't make a deep study of trauma and still believe in the death penalty. The NUANCE I'm arguing for is about WHEN, HOW, and to WHOM the death penalty gets applied. Those are two completely different questions, and you mashed them together because it made for a good one-liner.
Having a harsh judgment of what someone DID has nothing to do with being careful about how and when punishment gets applied. The more serious the penalty, the MORE careful you have to be.
Sarcasm isn't a rebuttal. You haven't said one thing about either of those points, and I'm done wasting my time on someone who won't.
I have said something about you.
You, who makes all these claims.
You are not "careful". You are spiteful, vitriolic, revengeful, helplessly aggressive towards anyone not applauding you. You are deluded in thinking yourself in any way superior, or even different, to those "PURE EVIL" people.
You are not. You are in their large old sorry "I know just the right people to kill" club. You should be friends.
HaHaHa - personal attacks are exactly what I expected from people like you that have had their arguments nulled and exposed.
Your emotional reactions and refusal to engage with the arguments exposes you for the FAKE moral virtue signaller that you are.
Thank you for presenting everyone with a good example of what "projection" looks like.
I get the trauma criminal justice etc. I don't get the execution which is depraved and more barbaric where botched. Surely she should just be left now. The crazy state had its chance. The torture of attempted murder is enough.
Likely will fall under cruel and unusual punishment that any good lawyer could argue - assuming she isn't a vegetable now.
Killing is evil.
Sultana. This is a very shallow statement. Should you let the murderer who breaks into your home to rob and kill you continue? Or should you use all necessary force including lethal to protect yourself and your family? Should you pay millions to keep this murderer alive in prison or expeditiously end the problem? When you can give me the name of a murderer who was executed and then repeated the crime I will then oppose the death penalty.
I want to grow up from being human sometimes. Killing to stop killing? R-E-A-L-L-Y??? What sense does that make? What sense does anything make about the way we do "society"? I agree Caitlin, as we evolve we no longer tolerate cruelty.
The old lefty expression is "Why do we kill people to show people that killing people is wrong?"
True. Wish they would back that up with not funding it themselves.
??
By paying taxes, and voting for people who kill people.
I can't make sense of why most of these critters get elected; it's beyond me. As for taxes, we need a massive movement of tax resistors. It's a noble act, to be sure.
I love your intention. However we can do this if we strategize a bit. Firstly we need to reclaim our sovereignty. We gave that away when we started "voting for representatives". We are grown ups and can represent ourselves. What's the matter with us to need a representative? And grown ups make the terms they don't just wait for a babysitter to make the terms. The terms can be, "we ain't funding your wars", and other crimes that they think we have to tolerate. One strategy I love the most is people with bank loans stop paying interest. Usury is the thing that keeps us captive and it's never issued into the economy. So stop paying it but go a step further - keep 50% for yourself for being bold and give 50% of it away to someone you know, someone who knows your name. That helps lift others and gets us into thinking in terms of me/we rather than me/me plus it gets their support. Win, win, win except for the banksters - it will be them who lose out and isn't that what we want? We don't need to sacrifice to even the score.
"...underneath all the savagery and sadism and exploitation and abuse, we were always ultimately just confused and damaged children stumbling through a giant universe that we did not understand."
I like how I once heard it said, "You are not the worst thing that you've ever done."
The judicial system in the US is a total mess. One killer in California who murdered upwards of 100 women gets to spend his time filing multiple appeals until finally dying of old age. Other less fortunate people get botched executions. Society is undergoing a cultural and social collapse which will make the Middle Ages look like child's play. Enjoy this period of respite for what is coming is worse........
It'll never collapse. Oh, democracy, freedom, and equality certainly will -- but we cockroaches will be managed by our owners, who will use "AI" to control every facet of our lives, including a slow kill-off that will be made to appear force majeure. The evolving Matrix is a lot more real than you imagine.
you (chang cohaski) are highjacking this thread because you think you are making some profound point. You are not. Innocent men have been executed because the US state and the judicial system (and most states if not all) are biased. Both class biased and race biased. The rich are not executed by and large. And you thinking this is irrelevant shows the problem, which is yours and your understanding of capital punishment and its obscene application. Now im done. Threads become too long. If anyone supports the death penalty after proof innocent men were executed --- 203 men on death row were exonerated....then I fear you are probably beyond help) https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/policy-issues/policy/innocence
My earliest moral-awakening memory is from reading “Cell 2455 Death Row, by Caryl Chessman. I didn’t have to even finish the book, though I did, to become a lifelong anti- death penalty advocate.
The state makes mistakes; the state has design features and failures inherent in the processes surrounding everything in the judicial system, and beyond.
It perpetuates the myth that punishment of a “perpetrator”equals justice for the victims, and this is claimed regardless if the person punished is the actual offender.
It makes each of us complicit in state-sanctioned murder, increase the acceptability that violence is a legitimate way to accomplish desirable goals that goes beyond just this issue.
No to the death penalty for anyone, anywhere!
fundamentally,
no human being is perfect,
each of us is given a unique set of conditions,
which we react to or cope differently, and
everyone is a cause and an effect at once and at every moment
in the middle of what you called a food chain.
ultimately,
those who have the power and responsibility
determine where to draw the line
between guilt and innocence,
between life and death.
"do not kill,
judge the deed, not the person,
don't be proud/arrogant,"
wise ones have taught us.
right now,
we must claim the power and responsibility
to draw a bright line in the sand, and
condemn genocide as the ultimate crime against humanity.
The death penalty traumatises not only those who execute it and the societies that use it.
In tge US it is symptomatic of that nations inherent savagery.
First and foremost: I completely agree with you about the need to obliterate the utterly barbaric institution of the death penalty.
That having been said, your piece is one that needs a long time thinking, probably never to reach definitive conclusions.
Imagine. She lured her victim Slemmer into the woods with two accomplices, brutally attacked her using a box cutter, meat cleaver, and asphalt, carved a pentagram into her skin, and kept a piece of her skull as a trophy AND YET, the death penalty as morally abhorrent. Shall we rehabilitate this victim of society or karma for a vile human being? My preference the latter.
I totally understand your position and agree with it on some level, but she was also very young, very sick, and very traumatized. I know it is a complicated subject, but she was just 20 years old, probably coming fresh out of a hellish childhood, and she needed to lash out in some way.
She is now 50 years old, has probably not had much in terms of mental health assistance and been subjected to whatever horrors prison life on death row does, and there is still a very good chance she is a very different person.
There is, of course, the possibility she is still a monster, so I admit that freely, but just think of how much you have changed since 30 years ago, if you have that time under your belt, or even 5 or 10 years. Especially if you were on death row for 30 years. I can think of a lot of things I would no longer do since that age, even without the threat of death row and prison.
I think the thing that did her in was the pentagram sign. That is what lies at the heart of all this and her extra harsh punishment, or else she would not be the first women executed in Tenesse in 100+ years. She's a witch! She floats, just like wood, so definitely witch! Mass murderers get less than her. I mean no disrespect to the family of the people hurt in this as I can't imagine the hurt of this, but my critique is of the system, and the way it failed us all, both victim and abusers. There is good evidence the state knew of Pike's horrible situation as a child and did nothing to help, so it is good to keep in mind catastrophes are not usually caused by 1 single person. They are caused by people's society/culture as a whole, and that is a tough pill to swallow sometimes
My wife and I were both brought up in violence and abuse. Neither one of us has ever harmed another human being. This is because we have experienced the terror and shame of abuse and would never expose another person to what we endured. Your upbringing is no excuse for your own actions.
No one is the full author of their own mind, despite all the powerful illusions to the contrary. You reacted in your ways given a large set of conditions (including biology), others react in other ways. That's why a trial allows the presentation of mitigating factors, and a jury then judges whether they exonerate or not.
re: "That's why a trial allows the presentation of mitigating factors, and a jury then judges whether they exonerate or not." Or so we hope. Though often this is not the case.
True. The presentation and/or the jury can "go wrong".
Yes; and lots of trials get steered into "plea bargaining." And DAs don't give Grand Juries all the facts of the case. And judges withhold evidence from juries. etc. etc. etc.
The problem with the death penalty is not in regards to those who deserve it, but those who don't. If we were absolutely sure the death penalty was always 100% accurate - then it could be argued to be a just consequence to a particularly heinous crime. But we all know the death penalty is not 100% accurate, and innocents have been executed.
In addition, because of all the legalities involved, the death penalty is a much more costly form of punishment (and obviously not rehabilitative) than life long incarceration.
You can't understand her because, in imagining her actions, you are walking in your own shoes, not hers.
Have the accomplices been executed, or are they waiting their day on the execusioners table?
Yes she's sick
I don't think anyone's questioning that, it's just that some of us think that how she got that way matters. You disagree and that's fine.
Sickness is rarely acute. It's time induced and many events esp formative years. It's tragic on so many levels. I do believe however humans should not be having children as often as they do. Perhaps we need the natural world to build up its banks rather than having 10bn people.
Tell that to her family