^ that's not correct, either. the military isn't always the best tool for that job--but if you're going to nation-build, you're gonna have to, well, build...you can't strictly kill your way to your goal (if that is, in fact, your goal).

however, you can't wage a goddamn war without killing, either, and it blows my mind that there are 2 people on the planet who believe otherwise, much less that there are 2 people in this thread.

[Edited on October 4, 2009 at 7:26 PM. Reason : ]

10/4/2009 7:25:29 PM

yes, but I think we can both agree that the military is not the tool to use for building schools. It can provide security for those building the schools, but it should not be the actual builder.

10/4/2009 8:23:23 PM

sometimes, sometimes not.

just as one example, the military does have significant organic construction capability (engineers, seabees, etc), who specialize in building stuff in austere environments.

that said, the military exists for, is primarily equipped for, and largely trains for killing people and breaking things. All the corps of engineers, seabees, linguists, local culture experts, etc are peripherals that can be useful, but they primarily exist to faciliate things for the killers and destroyers.

[Edited on October 4, 2009 at 8:44 PM. Reason : ]

10/4/2009 8:42:42 PM

Quote :

"however, you can't wage a goddamn war without killing, either, and it blows my mind that there are 2 people on the planet who believe otherwise, much less that there are 2 people in this thread. "

I specifically said without killing innocent people, to be clear. And I also said it wasn't realistic in our world to expect war to be waged this way, but this doesn't mean it couldn't be waged this way.

10/4/2009 11:52:02 PM

True, which makes your entire statement moot for anything other than a sci-fi novel.

Either that, or if you want to wage "war" without a snowball's chance in hell of winning.

[Edited on October 5, 2009 at 12:36 AM. Reason : ]

10/5/2009 12:34:50 AM

Quote :

"True, which makes your entire statement moot for anything other than a sci-fi novel. "

pretty much, which is also why I said it’s something we have to just live with for now, and because it’s so difficult to change, there’s no point in comparing it to the death penalty, which would be fairly trivial to change.

10/5/2009 12:50:04 AM

By "difficult to change", I assume you mean "we haven't yet figured out how to transmit down mind-control beams from satellites".

10/5/2009 1:03:03 AM

By "difficult to change", I assume you mean "we haven't yet figured out how to transmit down mind-control beams from satellites".

10/5/2009 1:03:36 AM

Back on topic...

Quote :

"even in the applications you do feel CP to be warranted, there's still a possibility of killing an innocent person. as long as it exists there is absolutely no way to completely eliminate the chance of someone getting the needle for a crime s/he didn't commit. something as permanent as the death penalty requires a level of proof WAY beyond "a reasonable doubt" that we as people just can't get to. something on the level of all bachelors are unmarried level of proof."

This is horseshit. With all the video cameras and witnesses, and physical evidence, there definitely are cases where a person is proven guilty because they are in fact guilty. There are also definitely cases that people get convicted when they should not have. This is what we need to fix.

I don't get why people are so complacent with allowing innocent people getting life in prison, though. Life in prison is effectively a death sentence anyway, and there have definitely been innocent people who have died in prison. Should we then abolish the entire prison system?

10/5/2009 9:36:40 AM

the justice system is imperfect and we should always strive to improve it with better methodology, ethics, oversight, whatever. this imperfect justice system will lead to false convictions. it's unavoidable. but at least with life imprisonment some of those oversights can be corrected over the years. with the death penalty, once they flip that switch/inject that poison, whatever, it's over. you better hope that justice was served correctly.

10/5/2009 11:16:40 AM

Interesting story out of Ohio (related to death penalty at least):

http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/10/05/ohio.lethal.injection/index.html

Quote :

" WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Ohio's governor granted temporary reprieves to two death row inmates just hours after a federal appeals court blocked the execution of one of them -- adding to the mounting confusion over the state's capital punishment system. Lawrence Reynolds is on death row for killing his neighbor in 1994 during a robbery in suburban Cleveland. Earlier Monday, the state's attorney general's office asked the U.S. Supreme Court to allow Thursday's execution of Lawrence Reynolds Jr. to go forward as scheduled. However, Gov. Ted Strickland announced he would delay Reynolds's execution until March, at the earliest. Another death row inmate, Darryl Durr, scheduled to be executed in coming weeks, also was granted a reprieve until at least April 2010. The conflicting moves came after the botched execution attempt of Romell Broom last month, which raised serious questions about the state's lethal injection procedures. "Additional time is needed to fully conduct a thorough and comprehensive review of an alternative or backup lethal injection protocol that is in accordance with Ohio law," Strickland said in his announcement."

10/5/2009 10:11:43 PM

Hooooly shit.


Did anyone else see the Anderson Cooper interview with the defense attorney in this case?

10/15/2009 10:44:35 PM

^Summary?

[Edited on October 15, 2009 at 10:49 PM. Reason : or just a direct link to something about it?]

10/15/2009 10:49:17 PM

The dude's lawyer sounds like a dumbass redneck, and went on AC360 ranting and raving about how his client was a shithead, and he had done his job as a defense attorney by challenging the state's evidence, and that clearly the guy was guilty--I mean, he checked it himself--if you pour lighter fluid all over carpet and set it afire, it looks just like the burnt carpet in this guy's house.

You'd have to see the interview for yourself--Cooper wasn't really baiting him or going out of his way to make him look like a ridiculous fucking moron. He was doing a pretty fine job of it on his own.

10/15/2009 11:09:53 PM

It's being aired again right now.

10/15/2009 11:36:59 PM

^^ it's human incompetence, ignorance, and bias like that, on the parts of defense, prosecutors, judges, juries, and media that make me want to end the death penalty, ASAP.

As I said on page 1, i'm not necessarily morally against the death penalty, but as long as there is a chance for, at best, incompetence, and at worst, corruption of the people making these decisions, we should just take the option off the table.

10/16/2009 1:06:26 AM

^You have just pinpointed the reason why most libertarians are opposed to expanded government programs in general.

Not that I'm trying to debate about it or even consider myself a libertarian anymore, but I'm just mentioning that for someone who (from what I've seen) tends to fall on the opposite side of the fence from the limited-government crowd, you pretty much just gave a bread-and-butter argument against government expansion and regulation.

10/16/2009 1:11:04 AM

^ maybe so (i'm not a Libertarian), but I can still use Special Pleading and suggest that with the death penalty, "it's different."
The death penalty is literally a matter of life and death... Libertarians may have an argument and point of government incompetence or corruption in certain programs, but at least for the most part, it's "only money" that's wasted, and not lives.

edit:
furthermore, the argument I made was against people, not against governments. "but ah!" you say, "governments are made of people!". Well, yeah, but last I checked, so is private enterprise, free markets, etc. The government has no monopoly on incompetent or corrupt people, and given the incentive structures and lack of scrutiny and policing in the vast majority of private companies and industry, I don't think it would be a stretch to suppose corruption runs even deeper and nastier in private than public businesses.

[Edited on October 16, 2009 at 1:27 AM. Reason : .]

10/16/2009 1:13:41 AM

Innocent people die in prison as a result of incompetence and/or corruption in our judicial system. We must abolish prisons immediately instead of address the incompetence and/or corruption. I mean, it's life and death we're talking about here. Once they die in prison, there's no way they could appeal.

10/16/2009 8:29:25 AM

Quote :

"The dude's lawyer sounds like a dumbass redneck, and went on AC360 ranting and raving about how his client was a shithead, and he had done his job as a defense attorney by challenging the state's evidence, and that clearly the guy was guilty"

do you mean the "dude" being the man who was falsely executed?

and that his own defense lawyer was saying this stuff?

damn... was this a court-appointed defense attorney?

10/16/2009 11:50:25 AM

^^ the slippery slope argument doesn't work when you're literally talking about actively killing people.

But, to your larger point, yes, I would be OK with the death penalty if the whole process was heavily revamped, which, by necessity probably, would make the whole process even longer and more expensive. I mean, i'm talking about multiple levels of sentencing approval (not just multiple appeal levels), expert evidence review, only scientifically proven and valid evidence methods used (you'd be surprised at how much shit, from witness testimony to fingerprint matching to certain types of DNA sequencing have never been proven effective in double-blind experiments), at least district or state-level judges applying the sentence (no more small-town, backwoods, got my degree before Jim Crow ended rednecks making these decisions), etc etc. Of course all this is way expensive and time consuming, but I see this particular issue as do it right, or don't do it at all.

10/16/2009 8:26:23 PM

^^

Quote :

"do you mean the "dude" being the man who was falsely executed? and that his own defense lawyer was saying this stuff? damn... was this a court-appointed defense attorney?"

Yes on all counts (well, we don't know that he was falsely executed).

Basically, picture a more caustic and angry Hank Hill as a court-appointed lawyer.



Here you go:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/10/16/793871/-Todd-Willinghams-Defense-Lawyer-Embarrasses-Texas-Justice-System-on-National-TV;-Juror-Has-Doubts

[Edited on October 16, 2009 at 9:04 PM. Reason : found the video]

10/16/2009 9:02:53 PM