Stalins Organ
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Posts posted by Stalins Organ
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Meat....can I call you Meat - it seems appropriate for this thread......yes that is indeed a better question.
I think it would have to be enough to render you unconcious to start.
And then also enough so that you would never....ever....ever...recall the slightest part of it....because I think you do need to survive the experience for it to count, and suicide...even many years later...would seem to invalidate any "positive result".
Emrys....it must be nice to be able to be _that_ choosey.
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OK - so which would you actually say no to.... apart from Miss Liverpool?
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That's only because she is human
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.....and not only from the ref & their players.
compare this blog post of female fans from around the world with this pic of a couple of dejected young ladies....
now, honestly.....much as we all like to dis the Brits, you have to feel sorry for those 2...
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Dunno - compared to the bad old English (cf this morning's soccer game in South Africa) the Aussies might well be the new good English...except of course Germany beat them even worse...or better if you are German.....
As for voting for leaders....usually the reason the party changes a leader is the old one is unpopular and they think that they'll lose hte next election if htey don't get rid of him/her.
So it's not true that the public has no say - it just has no formal say.
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GunnerOz - yes anyone counts, and my belated condolonces.
But paradoxically, the fact that we can now show so many people to be innocent - and bring so many to justice when they ahve excaped it for long periods of time - is why I think the system is more reliable and therefore ther is much less chance of the death penalty being applied incorrectly.
and I expect that trend to continue to improve to a point where we can reasonably say that no innocent person will be executed - and when we can say that I think that one of the strongest (if not THE strongest) argument against capital punishment ceases to exist.
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And following the example of the former NZ female PM, she has a really horriffic voice.
but at least she looks like a woman - count yourself lucky!:eek:
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in 'Merkin:
"The Aussies have a shiela in charge"
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Sorry - yeah...on reflection I can see that a censor's note might have been useful, but to be fair I don't putting Kettler's moniker on it would ahve been fair to Kettler!
It's important we remain aware of the lunacy that is out there!
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Well what do yuo expect from a nation of assassins, spies and murderers?? (just to head completely OT on my own thread......)
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I suspect no-one in this debate has had any close relative murdered - I certainly hope not!
I haven't.
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Apparently the US army has discovered that buttons are better than velcro -
Buttons are silent, easy to replace in the field, work just fine in the mud, do not clog up with dirt and do not fray and disintegrate with repeated launderingcue cliches:
plus ça change
back to the future
Waiter there's a fly in my pants......
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What gives a judge or more particularly a jury the right to decide on the subtleties of whether one crime warrants execution and another does not?
society does....or would do if it decided to.
Just as it gives then the right - actually the duty - to decide on subtleties in non-capital cases. That is precisely why "we" have judges and juries - to make such decisions as "we" decide they should make.
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No Jon - my use of "dropping bombs on civilians" means nothing more than "dropping bombs on civilians".
As you yourself say, it is presumptive to conclude I meant something else.
And if punishment is the object of goaling/fining/etc., then what more punishment can be assigned for a crime than death of the perpetrator?
And while you obviously believe that the "risk" of a death penalty is greater than the "risk" of imprsonment to society, stating it as if it were a fact is just another logical fallacy on your part.
I believe there are circumstances where it would be a lesser risk.
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AFAIK dropping bombs on civilians is not outlawed. What is outlawed is targeting civilians.
If they happen to be within the blast radius of a weapon aimed at a military target then that's perfectly legal - whether the weapon hit the target or not.
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You forgot a reason to kill them - they have commited an evil deed that is sufficient for society to want to remove them.
also pretty much every god/holy book says you should do so.
Personally I find the argument that capital punishment has not deterred those who kill to be circular.
It's like saying that speeding fines do not stop speeding, or jail/fines/probation, etc does not stop other crime.
Why not do away with it all?
What is it that you expect to "gain" by punishing anyone for anything?
I know for a fact that the risk of punishment deters me from all sorts of things...but maybe I'm jsut a wimp......
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Hoola I'm an atheist, so what god thinks is of no interest to me...and probably vice versa.
However from the scriptures I am aware of I'm pretty sure that most gods aer quite happy with capital punishment as a general principle!
Keeping them in a dark dank dungeon seem to be pretty much as useless as a deterrant or a means of making the survivors feel better too - sure it will affect some of both....but so will the death penalty.
I see no reason why any given punishment needs to be a panacea for all the issues - it just needs to achieve ends I am satisfied with.
Nope - for me it's just that I don't want to have to pay anything towards their upkeep, and they'll have broken the social contract (implied or explicit - I don't care which) to be allowed to exist.
How about dropping bombs on civilians then?
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I am not talking about the current system - I am talking about a system where I would be prepared to support capital punishment.
So there's no use complaining to me that the current system takes forever, etc., and that in the past there have been all sorts of injustices, etc.
IMO we have the ability to have capital punishment withoouth those shortcomings.
I doubt it will happen....but if it did I would support it.
as far as I'm concerned execution by the state after determination of certain guilt is less arbitrary than execution by another individual upon even reasonable presumption of future guilt.
In both cases a judgement has been made, and execution delivered. Except in 1 the verdict is the result of consideration based on all the gacts and with no doubt as to the guilt of hte condemned....in the other perhaps a split second decision based upon beliefs at het time which are probably not fully examined (for completely practical reasons).
that decision will then be examined after the fact and may be found to be not correct - even if it was made in good faith and the killer is not held responsible
The other case where homicide is sanctioned is, or course, war.
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Damn right! Without them most people would be incapable of any thought at all.
And with them they don't have to - win/win!
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From my point of view there would not be an automatic death penalty, and with modern and improving techniques of forensics "mere" eyewitness identification would almost certainly not be sufficient to ensure there was _no_ doubt as to guilt.
So all the cases from the past where innocent people have been executed are irrelevant.
Edit: If you haven't seen The Secret in Their Eyes (El secreto de sus ojos) I recommend it - it got the foreign language Oscar in 2009 - good murder/mystery/manhunt/forlorn romance flick ...and with a plot that's kinda relevant to the debate
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There's no need to think that the state holds that human life is "sacred" - quite clearly there are cases where you can take a life - you even list one of them in your post.
there is a right to life, but the right to life is not unqualified - individuals are allowed...even encouraged .... to take someone else's life in some clearly defined and pretty well known situations.
I have no problem with the state being able to do so too.
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Only an Aussie would call that penalty a "fair call" - the guy gets his shirt lightly tipped...and 2 seconds later falls to the ground?
Even the Italians are embarrased by it!
Mind you the AW goal was from off side too....but the Kiwi's managed to fail to collapse against 11 mediocre Italian players and their well motivated ref!
Quote of the Week
in General Discussion Forum
Posted
I was watching a History Chennel prog on Sun Tzu last night & dutifully noted that the talking heads were all repeating the same mantra - war is a means to a political end.
Vietnam was the case used to illustrate this - where the military campaign became the end in itself - body counts weer all important, etc., but hte ewar was lost politically despite constant battlefield "victories".
And I couldn't help but think of Afghanistan (and indeed at the end of the programme there were shots of US soldiers in desert kit perhaps inviting the viewer to consier teh question in that context)
So what is the clear political objective in Afghanstan, how is the population being bought on side for it, and how does the military campaign support it?