Escape from Elba
National => Upon Deeper Consideration => Topic started by: josh on December 15, 2020, 08:12:32 PM
-
I would like to use this space to discuss issues more thoroughly and with zero personal attacks.
My hope is for us to explore questions like "how do we establish that X behavior exists?" and "given that X behavior exists, what are its underlying causes," then finally with it, "is it possible to alleviate X behavior, even if we cannot eliminate it, and if so how might we do it? what would not work and what seems to have worked, elsewhere, if anywhere?"
I'm thinking of items like the death penalty, types and levels of taxation (if any), abortion/abortion bans, separation of church and state vs. state religion, racism in society (ours and others), other forms of prejudice, public education (pre-k through post-graduate, including technical), etc.
Opinions are welcome, especially when fleshed out and supported by facts.
But "lol" is not an opinion. Nor is "you should read what you wrote." Similarly, "all you do is lie, deny, and obfuscate" is not permitted.
That kind of response will be deleted the first time. The poster(s) of such things will be given a warning the 2nd time. And they will be suspended for a week the third time.
Thoughts, reactions, ideas?
Any serious questions?
-
The death penalty, like torture, is a horror, not matter how it's executed.
I don't know that abolishing both needs to be fleshed out. Should be self-evident to any decent human being.
Thankfully, it will be used less often after January 20th.
Abolition? I hope we will follow Western Europe. Abolished many years ago, and nobody seems to miss it.
-
The death penalty has its place. There are truly evil, unrepentant humans who forfeit their right to be kept alive.
I'm sure you can think of some who have deserved that penalty.
However,
-
The death penalty has its place. There are truly evil, unrepentant humans who forfeit their right to be kept alive.
I'm sure you can think of some who have deserved that penalty.
However,
That's what life without parole is for.
-
I had some Quaker friends who had a useful conundrum on the matter, something like "Why would our society kill people in order to teach that it is wrong to kill people? "
I would add that, in case of a wrongful conviction coming to light, it is very difficult to resurrect those executed to give them the happy news. I'm with Justice Harry Blackmun on this being a real problem.
-
Barton, you have the two key prongs.
Sure I’d love to see dribbling don, Jared, Ivanka, Steve Miller, mnuchin, Wolf, Mitch, desantis, and several others torn apart by teams of horses then pissed on in their several parts before they are burned on a pyre as an act of national purification, but I’m glad to live in a country that won’t do that despite the fact that it is exactly what they deserve.
-
To the best of my knowledge, while the US has had 10 "executed but possibly innocent" instances, we have had none in which conclusive evidence has been presented to a court of law and a judge has determined that they were innocent.
OTOH, more than 20 death row inmates have been freed upon determination of their innocence by DNA evidence and some more by prosecutorial misconduct or innocence-based pardons and other such causes.
We have killed a number of individuals with mental disabilities, which is certainly questionable practice.
But what are the arguments for the death penalty vs. life in prison?
"He deserved it" seems a pretty common one. "Deterrent effect" is another. "Justice for the victim or the victim's family" is a third. And "saves money" often comes along, as well.
The deterrent argument ought to be fairly easily illustrated (pro or con) at this point, I would think. Ditto the "saves money," though I shudder to think that that would be a valid reason.
The other two are kind of tough arguments to make on something quantitative, I would say. Anybody disagree with that?
-
The death penalty, like torture, is a horror, not matter how it's executed.
I don't know that abolishing both needs to be fleshed out. Should be self-evident to any decent human being.
It seems that way to me, too, Carlos!
But... we have not always been in the majority on that and, indeed, we may not be now!
I confess to being confused:
According to the Gallup Poll in 2019, 55-56% of Americans favored the death penalty for murderers, while 42-43% opposed it (and 2% held no opinion).
https://news.gallup.com/poll/1606/death-penalty.aspx
But according to the Gallup Poll in 2019, 60% of Americans favored life imprisonment for murderers, while 36% preferred the death penalty!
https://news.gallup.com/poll/268514/americans-support-life-prison-death-penalty.aspx
The first link has the 2nd link's information in it, along with a lot more, such as why one might prefer the death penalty, though nothing more recent on that than 2014, with An Eye for An Eye the big winner.
-
Re: death penalty vs life w/o parole
There ARE murders committed from prison - demanded by hard core killers serving time - of underlings on the outside
The "one innocent life taken" does work both ways - and is right as a negative point in both ways
The argument is probably more linked to deterrent vs non, cost and overall societal benefit, even given the fact there could be a mistake made (see Eastwood's True Blood)
DNA helps, of course - less mistakes now than at other points in time - and that will continue to get better and better
Upping our positive use of resources - in order to get it right first time, every time - is the preferred goal.
-
Re: death penalty vs life w/o parole
There ARE murders committed from prison - demanded by hard core killers serving time - of underlings on the outside
Any idea how many of those there have been, Kid? Or do you know a good resource that we could look at for it?
Thanks!
-
I could be in favor of executing a limited subset of murderers who commit especially depraved (or mass) murders, as long as there is close to zero doubt they did it. Such as being caught at the scene as in the case of Dylan Roof the church assassin. Or of there is substantial and uncontradicted physical evidence.
You could even make it part of the sentence that they get 10 years in jail for appeals and such before their execution date. And have a review board that makes sure that guilt is not in doubt.
A big problem with the system as it is, is that it's poor and poorly educated and minorities who get the death penalty. Often legal counsel was inept -- there have been death penalty cases where the attorney never handled such a case before, where the lawyer slept through parts of the trial etc. If the person is clearly guilty or the evidence so stacked against them, any competent lawyer will plea bargain and get their client a long prison term instead of exposing them to the death penalty. Related, if the lawyer fails to bring up some objections or introduce some evidence into trial, that often precludes any appeals on those grounds. So the system as it is punishes the poor with inept or inexperienced counsel.
And there are racial issues as well. Studies have shown that killing a white person leads to more death penalty convictions. That black defendants get the death penalty more than whites. That juries without blacks vote for the death penalty for black defendants more, etc. I assume death penalty is sought more for black defendants and white victims as well.
So given the realities of poor counsel and a weak public defender system, plus the inherent racism in the US criminal justice I find it very hard to practically implement a fair and mistake free death penalty regime. As it stands it's generally poor and poorly educated minorities who get the death penalty. For most defendants, it's not too difficult to plea bargain and/or argue mitigating factors and avoid such.
Then there's also issues of mental competency and youth.
A can of worms all around.
At least under the current regime the death penalty is fairly rare, takes around 20 years for a sentence to be carried out -- but I don't think anyone would argue that it's fair and mistake free.
-
Re: death penalty vs life w/o parole
There ARE murders committed from prison - demanded by hard core killers serving time - of underlings on the outside
Any idea how many of those there have been, Kid? Or do you know a good resource that we could look at for it?
Thanks!
I figure this space to be more essay than back and forth. So I will pass, thanks. Feel free to offer commentary on what I posted - I surely will read it.
-
Re: death penalty vs life w/o parole
There ARE murders committed from prison - demanded by hard core killers serving time - of underlings on the outside
Any idea how many of those there have been, Kid? Or do you know a good resource that we could look at for it?
Thanks!
I figure this space to be more essay than back and forth. So I will pass, thanks. Feel free to offer commentary on what I posted - I surely will read it.
My apologies, Kid. I thought I had been clear, when I wrote "Opinions are welcome, especially when fleshed out and supported by facts."
Your opinion is welcome - I just thought that you might have a source in mind that had informed your opinion. I will wander in search of it, myself.
I don't feel equipped to comment on that part of what you said without some stats. I'll write in response to other parts tomorrow.
Thank you for your post.
-
There are some people who will probably never stop committing crimes, no matter how securely they are segregated during their incarceration, so long as they draw breath. The trumps and the trump in-laws are the most prominent examples of people like this. Executing would be fascist autocrats would be the closest thing to justifying an exception to a ban on the death penalty.
If we’re gonna do it, we should use a firing squad or flamethrowers to make it loud and vividly messy and painful.
-
There are some people who will probably never stop committing crimes, no matter how securely they are segregated during their incarceration, so long as they draw breath. The trumps and the trump in-laws are the most prominent examples of people like this. Executing would be fascist autocrats would be the closest thing to justifying an exception to a ban on the death penalty.
If we’re gonna do it, we should use a firing squad or flamethrowers to make it loud and vividly messy and painful.
For deterrence?
Or for some other reason?
-
I think that the bulk of the research shows that without extremely high apprehension and conviction rates for a class of crimes, deterrence is low regardless of the penalty. I’m not sure executions per se have any deterrent value.
The reason for executing the trumps and the Agnews of this nation is more by way of ritual affirmation of values, watering the tree of liberty with the blood of tyrants, than any deterrence.
The case against performing executions is still stronger than these reasons.
We can keep trump and his complicit offspring in a life of complete solitary confinement in the darkest holes in our nation’s vast prison system, taking them out once a year for a televised delousing and dental checkup to plier out any potential rotting teeth, rather than subjecting them to state sanctioned murder despite the fact that they are clearly the worst of the worst.
-
https://nij.ojp.gov/topics/articles/five-things-about-deterrence (https://nij.ojp.gov/topics/articles/five-things-about-deterrence)
Certainty has a greater deterrent effect than severity, according to this.
-
https://nij.ojp.gov/topics/articles/five-things-about-deterrence (https://nij.ojp.gov/topics/articles/five-things-about-deterrence)
Certainty has a greater deterrent effect than severity, according to this.
Thanks! i will take a look at it tomorrow evening, after class is done. (Tomorrow is Science Fiction - penultimate session for the term.)
-
Have fun. I never did a sci-fi class though I did teach Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep for something called Technology and Society. I had to a mini unit on Noir for my students for it to make sense. I felt old.
http://www.amazon.com/Seveneves-Novel-Neal-Stephenson/dp/1469246864 (http://www.amazon.com/Seveneves-Novel-Neal-Stephenson/dp/1469246864)
http://www.amazon.com/Diamond-Age-Illustrated-Primer-Spectra/dp/0553380966 (http://www.amazon.com/Diamond-Age-Illustrated-Primer-Spectra/dp/0553380966)
Two titles in the Genre worth the look.
http://www.amazon.com/Hyperion-Cantos-Dan-Simmons/dp/0553283685 (http://www.amazon.com/Hyperion-Cantos-Dan-Simmons/dp/0553283685)
An absolute master work
-
The death penalty has its place. There are truly evil, unrepentant humans who forfeit their right to be kept alive.
I'm sure you can think of some who have deserved that penalty.
However,
That's what life without parole is for.
No. That's too nice. Apparently you have a different understanding of the special character of folks like Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, Jeffrey Dahmer, Harold Shipman, or someone like Nikolas Cruz...
-
But what are the arguments for the death penalty vs. life in prison?
Some people will kill until they are killed. That's who they are.
From the FBI: Research (on serial killers) has demonstrated that in those offenders who are psychopathic, scores vary, ranging from a high degree of psychopathy to some measure of psychopathy. However, not all violent offenders are psychopaths and not all psychopaths are violent offenders. If violent offenders are psychopathic, they are able to assault, rape, and murder without concern for legal, moral, or social consequences. This allows them to do what they want, whenever they want.
The relationship between psychopathy and serial killers is particularly interesting. All psychopaths do not become serial murderers. Rather, serial murderers may possess some or many of the traits consistent with psychopathy. Psychopaths who commit serial murder do not value human life and are extremely callous in their interactions with their victims. This is particularly evident in sexually motivated serial killers who repeatedly target, stalk, assault, and kill without a sense of remorse. However, psychopathy alone does not explain the motivations of a serial killer.
Understanding psychopathy becomes particularly critical to law enforcement during a serial murder investigation and upon the arrest of a psychopathic serial killer. The crime scene behavior of psychopaths is likely to be distinct from other offenders. This distinct behavior can assist law enforcement in linking serial cases.
Psychopaths are not sensitive to altruistic interview themes, such as sympathy for their victims or remorse/guilt over their crimes. They do possess certain personality traits that can be exploited, particularly their inherent narcissism, selfishness, and vanity. Specific themes in past successful interviews of psychopathic serial killers focused on praising their intelligence, cleverness, and skill in evading capture.
Also...• Regardless of the motive, serial murderers commit their crimes because they want to. The exception to this would be those few killers suffering from a severe mental illness.
https://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/serial-murder#four (https://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/serial-murder#four)
These are not people who we should warehouse, feed, and provide medical care for. They are incorrigible, and if they escape, like Bundy did, for example, they will continue to kill.
Just take them out, execute, avoid blaming their mother, and move on.
-
Re: death penalty vs life w/o parole
There ARE murders committed from prison - demanded by hard core killers serving time - of underlings on the outside
Yep. Take a look: Gang members imprisoned in South Carolina’s Department of Corrections used contraband cellphones to run a sprawling drug empire that left a trail of violence and death in the Palmetto State, according to a massive federal grand jury investigation unveiled Thursday.
For years, imprisoned members of the Insane Gangster Disciples orchestrated the beating, kidnapping and murder of people who threatened their $50 million-a-year methamphetamine and heroin trafficking operation, federal prosecutors alleged at a press conference outside Broad River Correctional Institution in Columbia.
Other gang members carrying out their orders conducted drive-by shootings, tampered with witnesses and kidnapped, tortured and murdered a York County woman they suspected was a police informant, according to the 147-count indictment.
https://www.postandcourier.com/news/prosecutors-gangsters-in-sc-prisons-ordered-murders-ran-drug-empire-with-cellphones/article_04894756-39a4-11eb-a3c2-0bce083d05c4.html (https://www.postandcourier.com/news/prosecutors-gangsters-in-sc-prisons-ordered-murders-ran-drug-empire-with-cellphones/article_04894756-39a4-11eb-a3c2-0bce083d05c4.html)
That's a good example of why a death penalty should be implemented at times.
-
I can understand an argument that someone who is in prison for life and kills again, either another inmate or someone on the outside via conspiracy (ordering a killing), might be deserving of the death penalty. It is a problem that someone who is never getting out of jail isn't terribly deterred from killing again (especially in a non-death penalty state).
But the idea that the death penalty is useful to prevent gang members from running a criminal enterprise (with murder) from jail seems pretty weak. How about simply running the prison better. Why/how do inmates have cellphones they are not permitted to have? Seems prison staff is very likely complicit.
The indictment also highlights South Carolina’s years long struggle to stop the flow of contraband cellphones into its prisons, where they have been used by inmates to spread drugs and violence into the outside world. Since 2013, S.C. Corrections Director Bryan Stirling has unsuccessfully sought the federal government’s permission to stop those communications by jamming cellphone signals within state jails and prisons.
That's one possible solution. Another is to search more and better, including the staff. Also, I'd think it'd be easy to have some simple hardware that could detect cellphone usage from the prison. Also, the phone company might cooperate and let the prison know when calls are made from their institution and the associated numbers.
-
House certain units in a faraday cage in extra remote locations, if you are concerned about inmate communications.
The state should not be in the revenge business. It is never a good basis for policy.
-
You're begging the question by defining it as revenge.
The state should be in the justice business.
Justice for an intentional and premeditated killing could be seen as forfeiting your own life. It's certainly the ancient Judeo-Christian tradition.
Have to say there is something unfair and creepy about a murderer living another 20 years or more in prison, while the victim's life was snuffed out prematurely. Can certainly see how the victim's family feels it's unfair the killer gets to communicate with loved ones and go on living.
But I would limit it to depraved killings, mass murders, no doubt of guilt. First degree -- planned and intentional murders only.
The execution Trump engineered last week: a few guys talk to a couple who stopped to use a pay phone at a convenience store. They ask for a ride, with intent to rob them. Pull out a gun, force the couple into the trunk, pick up some friends, ride around for hours trying to use the couple's ATM card. Then the gang leader decides they have to kill the couple because they've seen his face. A rather tawdry pathetic crime. What was the plan?
So he shoots them in the head and orders a 16 year old in his gang to dump gasoline on the car and burn the evidence. Some evidence suggest that the husband was killed but the wife was still alive after being shot in the head and the smoke killed her. The 16 year who set fire to the car was just executed.
It seems he was planning to be part of a robbery. Someone else escalated it to murder. And he took a somewhat small and unfortunate part in it. Was also just 16 at the time, and said he feared what would happen if he didn't obey the command to torch the car with the bodies in it.
This wouldn't meet my threshold at all. He didn't intend to kill -- he thought the couple was dead. He was under some duress. He was just 16. He only intended to commit a robbery, etc. Even life in prison seems to harsh to me.
20-30 years jail time would be stiff.
-
I think many of the problems with the DP are, in this and other chats, not objections to the concept so much as to its practical and just application in an error-free manner. The inequity between race/class, leading to the SCt justice's adjective "capricious." The effect upon prison employees who have to be the agents of someone's death. The difficulties in precisely defining and measuring psychopathy in every case. The undeserved cushiness of some death row digs. For me, it comes down to the question of infallibility -- could all those areas of error and inequity be remedied in the real world?
The money question is morally hazardous. It also costs society more money to not stuff everyone over 70 in a suicide booth. (or off a cliff, as in that Swedish film, "Midsommar") I doubt much good comes from evaluating human lives from the focus of a profit center.
-
I can understand an argument that someone who is in prison for life and kills again, either another inmate or someone on the outside via conspiracy (ordering a killing), might be deserving of the death penalty. It is a problem that someone who is never getting out of jail isn't terribly deterred from killing again (especially in a non-death penalty state).
But the idea that the death penalty is useful to prevent gang members from running a criminal enterprise (with murder) from jail seems pretty weak.
Dead people make no phone calls. Unless you know differently.
-
Federal prosecutors in Manhattan charged a Kenyan man with plotting to stage an attack in the style of Sept. 11 at the direction of al-Shabaab, a terrorist group that serves as al Qaeda’s principal wing in East Africa.
Cholo Abdi Abdullah, 30 years old, traveled to the Philippines in 2016 to train as a pilot and researched how to hijack an aircraft in preparation for crashing a commercial aircraft into a building in the U.S., Manhattan federal prosecutors said. They said he acted at the direction of an unidentified senior al-Shabaab commander who was also responsible for planning a 2019 attack at a Nairobi hotel.
“This chilling callback to the horrific attacks of September 11, 2001, is a stark reminder that terrorist groups like al Shabaab remain committed to killing U.S. citizens and attacking the United States,” acting Manhattan U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss said in a statement.
Prosecutors charged Mr. Abdullah with providing material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization, conspiring to murder U.S. nationals, conspiring to commit aircraft piracy and other crimes. He faces up to life in prison.
Hardly enough. THAT seems like a death penalty case to me.
-
I would be very surprised if the death penalty could be applied for a conspiracy charge.
Mob guys used to run their organizations from prison via talks with their lawyers and wives. Sure it's easier with a contraband cellphone, but not necessary.
Again, there are other lesser drastic preventative methods than execution to stop convicts from using cellphones while in jail.
-
I would be very surprised if the death penalty could be applied for a conspiracy charge.
Mob guys used to run their organizations from prison via talks with their lawyers and wives. Sure it's easier with a contraband cellphone, but not necessary.
Again, there are other lesser drastic preventative methods than execution to stop convicts from using cellphones while in jail.
What you're allowing to occur us more tale and murder in the streets. The death penalty for these guys ends is highly effective. Dead men make no calls, texts, give orders, consult, etc...
-
Do you define psychopathy as a mental illness?
Would you be willing to be the executioner?
-
Two good questions.
The clinical diagnosis is ASPD, which is considered a mental disorder. Psychopathy is not an official diagnosis. If you look at the traits of ASPD (and the childhood experiences associated with their appearance), it does seem to be an illness, induced by trauma.
To the second question, no. I am not willing to kill someone (euthanasia excepted, maybe, depending on circumstances) and don't wish the State to appoint someone to kill on my behalf. (full disclosure: I feel the same about animals. I won't eat anything I'm not willing to kill and butcher myself.)
I think allowing a euthanasia exception does open the door slightly to some executions, maybe. If someone is so depraved and beyond any possible healing or redemptive action, then it could maybe be a merciful act to end their life. But I oppose doing it for vengeance or bloodlust. Too much of that already in the world.
-
Do you define psychopathy as a mental illness?
Would you be willing to be the executioner?
Psychopaths are incurable. Therefore they will remain fully at risk murderers. Eliminating that risk permanently makes a safer society for people who would be their victims.
And yes, no worries taking out folks like those I have already named.
-
Hey, too applications of this forum at the same time:
I posted a link about today's decision in Dept of Commerce v New York on Trump's plans to exclude undocumented residents from reapportionment of congressional seats.
Regardless of today's process-oriented decision that permits revisiting the issue after we know who is affected, how do you feel about the question?
Here is the SCOTUSBlog page about the case including some very thorough (as ever) discussion of the issues:
https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/trump-v-new-york/
-
Do you define psychopathy as a mental illness?
Would you be willing to be the executioner?
Psychopaths are incurable. Therefore they will remain fully at risk murderers. Eliminating that risk permanently makes a safer society for people who would be their victims.
And yes, no worries taking out folks like those I have already named.
Ok, at least you would do what you preach. Most people wouldn't. Should we also kill other people with incurable diseases?
Now, I'm not sure it's legal to execute someone mentally disabled (mentally ill), even here in the US of A.
Barton, thanks for your clarification that psychopathy clinical diagnosis is ASPD
-
Do you define psychopathy as a mental illness?
Would you be willing to be the executioner?
Psychopaths are incurable. Therefore they will remain fully at risk murderers. Eliminating that risk permanently makes a safer society for people who would be their victims.
And yes, no worries taking out folks like those I have already named.
Ok, at least you would do what you preach. Most people wouldn't. Should we also kill other people with incurable diseases?
Now, I'm not sure it's legal to execute someone mentally disabled (mentally ill), even here in the US of A.
Barton, thanks for your clarification that psychopathy clinical diagnosis is ASPD
Do you often try to read what is not there?
I've clearly stated for whom and why I have no issue with invoking the death penalty.
Perhaps, you can explain why you prefer to let the individuals who are abjectly committed to murder continue to have what they take from others.
-
Do you define psychopathy as a mental illness?
Would you be willing to be the executioner?
Psychopaths are incurable. Therefore they will remain fully at risk murderers. Eliminating that risk permanently makes a safer society for people who would be their victims.
And yes, no worries taking out folks like those I have already named.
Ok, at least you would do what you preach. Most people wouldn't. Should we also kill other people with incurable diseases?
Now, I'm not sure it's legal to execute someone mentally disabled (mentally ill), even here in the US of A.
Barton, thanks for your clarification that psychopathy clinical diagnosis is ASPD
Do you often try to read what is not there?
I've clearly stated for whom and why I have no issue with invoking the death penalty.
Perhaps, you can explain why you prefer to let the individuals who are abjectly committed to murder continue to have what they take from others.
Not at all UNO, but killing them is not the only way not to let them kill others.
-
Do you define psychopathy as a mental illness?
Would you be willing to be the executioner?
Psychopaths are incurable. Therefore they will remain fully at risk murderers. Eliminating that risk permanently makes a safer society for people who would be their victims.
And yes, no worries taking out folks like those I have already named.
Ok, at least you would do what you preach. Most people wouldn't. Should we also kill other people with incurable diseases?
Now, I'm not sure it's legal to execute someone mentally disabled (mentally ill), even here in the US of A.
Barton, thanks for your clarification that psychopathy clinical diagnosis is ASPD
Do you often try to read what is not there?
I've clearly stated for whom and why I have no issue with invoking the death penalty.
Perhaps, you can explain why you prefer to let the individuals who are abjectly committed to murder continue to have what they take from others.
Not at all UNO, but killing them is not the only way not to let them kill others.
It's inarguably 100% effective for those who deserve it. If you don't think they deserve it, explain. If you have a method that is 100% effective, by all means, let's hear it.
-
Do you define psychopathy as a mental illness?
Would you be willing to be the executioner?
Psychopaths are incurable. Therefore they will remain fully at risk murderers. Eliminating that risk permanently makes a safer society for people who would be their victims.
And yes, no worries taking out folks like those I have already named.
Ok, at least you would do what you preach. Most people wouldn't. Should we also kill other people with incurable diseases?
Now, I'm not sure it's legal to execute someone mentally disabled (mentally ill), even here in the US of A.
Barton, thanks for your clarification that psychopathy clinical diagnosis is ASPD
Do you often try to read what is not there?
I've clearly stated for whom and why I have no issue with invoking the death penalty.
Perhaps, you can explain why you prefer to let the individuals who are abjectly committed to murder continue to have what they take from others.
Not at all UNO, but killing them is not the only way not to let them kill others.
It's inarguably 100% effective for those who deserve it. If you don't think they deserve it, explain. If you have a method that is 100% effective, by all means, let's hear it.
I mentioned it before, and it's really not complicated: Life without parole.
I just don't think killing killers makes us much better than them.
That assuming that we never make a mistake in deciding whom to kill.
-
Do you define psychopathy as a mental illness?
Would you be willing to be the executioner?
Psychopaths are incurable. Therefore they will remain fully at risk murderers. Eliminating that risk permanently makes a safer society for people who would be their victims.
And yes, no worries taking out folks like those I have already named.
Ok, at least you would do what you preach. Most people wouldn't. Should we also kill other people with incurable diseases?
Now, I'm not sure it's legal to execute someone mentally disabled (mentally ill), even here in the US of A.
Barton, thanks for your clarification that psychopathy clinical diagnosis is ASPD
Do you often try to read what is not there?
I've clearly stated for whom and why I have no issue with invoking the death penalty.
Perhaps, you can explain why you prefer to let the individuals who are abjectly committed to murder continue to have what they take from others.
Not at all UNO, but killing them is not the only way not to let them kill others.
It's inarguably 100% effective for those who deserve it. If you don't think they deserve it, explain. If you have a method that is 100% effective, by all means, let's hear it.
I mentioned it before, and it's really not complicated: Life without parole.
I just don't think killing killers makes us much better than them.
That assuming that we never make a mistake in deciding whom to kill.
I think you overestimate human nature. Timothy McVeigh, Ted Bundy and Jeffery Dahmer would've liked you.
And, you still haven't explained "If you have a method that is 100% effective" for criminals of their ilk.
And, yes, we are "better than them" because killing them is fully justified.
-
Where the murder(s) were intentional and depraved, there is close to 0% doubt of guilt, defendant had adequate legal representation and fair trials, and racism wasn't involved, then I can go with the death penalty. But that's a pretty limited subset.
Under those conditions I'm willing to say that a Dahmer, McVeigh, et al. forfeited their right to live. I think there are elements of justice for the victim and their family, some degree of deterrence, partly society taking a strong stand against the taking of another's life, etc. My conditions would place a limit on death sentences, and prevent wrongful cases. I'm okay too with no death penalty, but it is hard to make a case why a Dahmer or a guy who shoots up a backyard barbecue and kills a few people should be allowed to live out their natural life behind bars.
-
Where the murder(s) were intentional and depraved, there is close to 0% doubt of guilt, defendant had adequate legal representation and fair trials, and racism wasn't involved, then I can go with the death penalty. But that's a pretty limited subset.
Under those conditions I'm willing to say that a Dahmer, McVeigh, et al. forfeited their right to live. I think there are elements of justice for the victim and their family, some degree of deterrence, partly society taking a strong stand against the taking of another's life, etc. My conditions would place a limit on death sentences, and prevent wrongful cases. I'm okay too with no death penalty, but it is hard to make a case why a Dahmer or a guy who shoots up a backyard barbecue and kills a few people should be allowed to live out their natural life behind bars.
Bo, like I said before, we like to think we're better than they are.
And "close to 0% doubt of guilt" is not close enough in my book.
Because killing another human (like torturing any other living thing) is always wrong.
Justice for the victim and their family? How about revenge in her name? She's not coming back. best we can do is make sure the perpetrator can't do it again.
Deterrence? According to most research, it doesn't work that way. Many murderers prefer death to life behind bars.
I think you overestimate human nature. Timothy McVeigh, Ted Bundy and Jeffery Dahmer would've liked you.
And, you still haven't explained "If you have a method that is 100% effective" for criminals of their ilk.
And, yes, we are "better than them" because killing them is fully justified.
I just mentioned the method in my prior response to you: Life without parole.
-
So, carlos, you must be happy for this guy, who 100 percent guilty of premeditated murder, whereas I consider him having forfeited his existence on the planet permanently.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-12-22/far-right-terrorist-sentenced-life-jail-halle-synagogue-attack/13005526 (https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-12-22/far-right-terrorist-sentenced-life-jail-halle-synagogue-attack/13005526)
And he can get out in 15 years, potentially.
Tell me, does that work for you? Does it make you feel better knowing you're not like him?
Or...are you hoping some invisible creature will be punishing him in the next life?
-
So, carlos, you must be happy for this guy, who 100 percent guilty of premeditated murder, whereas I consider him having forfeited his existence on the planet permanently.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-12-22/far-right-terrorist-sentenced-life-jail-halle-synagogue-attack/13005526 (https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-12-22/far-right-terrorist-sentenced-life-jail-halle-synagogue-attack/13005526)
And he can get out in 15 years, potentially.
Tell me, does that work for you?
Carlos was pretty clear: "life without parole."
-
Does it make you feel better knowing you're not like him?
Or...are you hoping some invisible creature will be punishing him in the next life?
Can it, Ham. Take the personal attacks elsewhere.
-
So, carlos, you must be happy for this guy, who 100 percent guilty of premeditated murder, whereas I consider him having forfeited his existence on the planet permanently.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-12-22/far-right-terrorist-sentenced-life-jail-halle-synagogue-attack/13005526 (https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-12-22/far-right-terrorist-sentenced-life-jail-halle-synagogue-attack/13005526)
And he can get out in 15 years, potentially.
Tell me, does that work for you?
Carlos was pretty clear: "life without parole."
It's okay to let others answer their own questions, Professor.
-
So, carlos, you must be happy for this guy, who 100 percent guilty of premeditated murder, whereas I consider him having forfeited his existence on the planet permanently.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-12-22/far-right-terrorist-sentenced-life-jail-halle-synagogue-attack/13005526 (https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-12-22/far-right-terrorist-sentenced-life-jail-halle-synagogue-attack/13005526)
And he can get out in 15 years, potentially.
Tell me, does that work for you?
Carlos was pretty clear: "life without parole."
It's okay to let others answer their own questions, Professor.
He had.
You ignored it.
And this is a group discussion, Ham. When one of us has an answer for a question about what another poster has said, providing it as a quote is reasonable. I'm sorry that that seems to bother you.
-
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-to-convince-someone-when-facts-fail
How to convince someone when facts fail
Not from this year, but no less valid.
-
Moving on from Professor Josh's Lecture on why one must tow the party line...
THIS is a serious problem. The Chinese had their Cultural Revolution. There is no need to destroy the good names of others in pursuit of any public policy.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/abe-lincoln-was-a-hero-now-hes-a-bad-guy-in-some-sf-education-circles/ar-BB1bUNoA (https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/abe-lincoln-was-a-hero-now-hes-a-bad-guy-in-some-sf-education-circles/ar-BB1bUNoA)
To many, Abraham Lincoln was one of the country’s greatest presidents, the Great Emancipator, a beloved historic figure as well as political mentor to his successors, including Barack Obama, who used the Lincoln Bible for his inauguration.
Yet the renaming of Lincoln High School was a slam dunk for the committee, which didn’t even discuss it, according to video of the meetings.
The members of the committee, appointed by the school board, deemed whether a person’s actions or beliefs met the criteria for renaming, and moved on. The committee’s spreadsheet with notes on their research listed the federal treatment of Native Americans during his administration as the reason.
“The discussion for Lincoln centered around his treatment of First Nation peoples, because that was offered first,” Jeffries said. “Once he met criteria in that way, we did not belabor the point.”
Jeffries, however, said the narrative of Lincoln’s legacy is false.
Regardless of the pop culture myths of Lincoln and his motivations, the Civil War was not fought over slavery or the liberation of Black people, he said.
“The history of Lincoln and Native Americans is complicated, not nearly as well known as that of the Civil War and slavery,” he said. “Lincoln, like the presidents before him and most after, did not show through policy or rhetoric that Black lives ever mattered to them outside of human capital and as casualties of wealth building.”
Others disagree.
“He saved the country from dividing and ruin,” said Harold Holzer, a Lincoln scholar and director of Hunter College’s Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute. “He should be honored for it.”
Lincoln’s involvement with Native Americans is even trickier to unravel.
Lincoln’s administration supported the Homestead Act of 1862 and the transcontinental railroad, which led to the loss of Indigenous peoples’ land. Lincoln himself largely delegated the sometimes bloody response to Native American conflicts while focusing on the Civil War, according to historians.
But Lincoln, whose grandfather was killed by a Native American, oversaw the hanging of 38 Indigenous warriors after a Santee Sioux uprising in Minnesota, but only after he personally reviewed the legal cases against the 303 men sentenced to death. He saved the lives of 265 Indigenous men.
Lincoln, historians say, was focused on the Civil War and therefore did little to change policies related to Native Americans, but had planned to.
“If we get through the war and I live, this Indian system will be reformed,” he said. He never got the chance.
“He was more progressive than most people,” Holzer said. “There was pretty rampant hostility (toward Native Americans) and I think Lincoln rose above it.
“Nobody is going to pass 21st century mores if you’re looking at the 18th and 19th centuries.”
More on Mr. Jefferies: https://sfbayview.com/2019/10/bay-view-voters-guide-endorses-jeremiahs-social-justice-voter-guide-for-san-franciscos-nov-5-election/ (https://sfbayview.com/2019/10/bay-view-voters-guide-endorses-jeremiahs-social-justice-voter-guide-for-san-franciscos-nov-5-election/)
Regarding his tree metaphor, this is some kind of special nut.
-
Bo, like I said before, we like to think we're better than they are.
We are of course a world better than a murderer.
While both involve ending a life, imo it's fatuous to compare the death penalty to a homicide.
We have a fair and open criminal trial, access to an attorney, appeals, a pretty extensive judicial process to determine guilt. And a societal deliberation on what the punishment is for premeditated murder. I don't think that's at all the same as somebody raping and killing or some other Murder One. these are not innocent victims, and the decision to end their life is carefully deliberated.
Also plenty of killers are 100% guilty. As when you start digging up young boys bodies on Bundy's lawn, or catch a killer after a shootout, or all the DNA evidence makes it clear.
-
So, carlos, you must be happy for this guy, who 100 percent guilty of premeditated murder, whereas I consider him having forfeited his existence on the planet permanently.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-12-22/far-right-terrorist-sentenced-life-jail-halle-synagogue-attack/13005526 (https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-12-22/far-right-terrorist-sentenced-life-jail-halle-synagogue-attack/13005526)
And he can get out in 15 years, potentially.
Tell me, does that work for you?
Carlos was pretty clear: "life without parole."
It's okay to let others answer their own questions, Professor.
He had.
You ignored it.
And this is a group discussion, Ham. When one of us has an answer for a question about what another poster has said, providing it as a quote is reasonable. I'm sorry that that seems to bother you.
Thank you Josh.
-
Bo, like I said before, we like to think we're better than they are.
We are of course a world better than a murderer.
While both involve ending a life, imo it's fatuous to compare the death penalty to a homicide.
We have a fair and open criminal trial, access to an attorney, appeals, a pretty extensive judicial process to determine guilt. And a societal deliberation on what the punishment is for premeditated murder. I don't think that's at all the same as somebody raping and killing or some other Murder One. these are not innocent victims, and the decision to end their life is carefully deliberated.
Also plenty of killers are 100% guilty. As when you start digging up young boys bodies on Bundy's lawn, or catch a killer after a shootout, or all the DNA evidence makes it clear.
Bo, that was not my only argument, though I still see the similarity between death penalty and homicide, i. e., both involve death by violence.
The other arguments were
Because killing another human (like torturing any other living thing) is always wrong.
Justice for the victim and their family? How about revenge in her name? She's not coming back. best we can do is make sure the perpetrator can't do it again.
Deterrence? According to most research, it doesn't work that way. Many murderers prefer death to life behind bars.
-
Bo, that was not my only argument, though I still see the similarity between death penalty and homicide, i. e., both involve death by violence].
It's clearly a different level of violence. Injecting a chemical that sedates one out is rather different than the way their victims often die. I'm not sure I'd really count that as violent, but death takes some effort to achieve. Plus the perp gets to prepare for his death, put affairs in order, often has family members or religious counsel nearby. Yes, it's death but they do try to make it relatively gentle.
The other arguments were
Because killing another human (like torturing any other living thing) is always wrong.
I could advocate that racial discrimination is always wrong. But used to remedy past discrimination (ie affirmative action) it can be a positive. That's the context with the death penalty, as a remedy/punishment against past (extreme) bad behavior.
And beyond torturing, I believe simply any intentional killing of animals is wrong.
I'm a pretty hard core vegetarian. Even cockroaches and other bugs I try to catch and let outside (actually I found the trick is to find the cockroach egg sacs, which I put outside). I do kill mosquitoes, who are after my very own lifeblood and fuck with my sleep (I'm allergic to their anti-coagulants).
Justice for the victim and their family? How about revenge in her name? She's not coming back. best we can do is make sure the perpetrator can't do it again.
Death penalty and eye-for-an-eye justice has a long tradition throughout human societies. Maybe it's partly the simple symmetry which appeals to notions of fairness.
Further, families of murder victims frequently say that the execution of the killer provides a sense of closure and justice. Also, when family members are against the death penalty, that should be taken into consideration.
It's too easy to focus on the killer and his rights since he is alive and the victim is long gone. But there is a fundamental unfairness between the killer who gets to live another 20 - 50 years of his life, albeit in prison, sharing family milestones and voting Democratic and eating food and reading books and living. While their victim, had their life and future snuffed out. Really that unfairness seems to me one of the strongest arguments in favor of capital punishment. And you can build in an automatic 10 year period from death sentence to execution, to allow for appeals, new evidence, etc -- which is already the de facto system. The killer getting 10 years more of life than their victim isn't at all fair, but provides some balance and a chance to correct any possible injustice.
Deterrence? According to most research, it doesn't work that way. Many murderers prefer death to life behind bars.
Suicide-bent killers are a big problem. Usually folks care what happens to themselves and won't put their lives in jeopardy. Murderers are often young people, not that well educated, have violent or neglectful backgrounds and don't think much of the consequences. Ie hard to deter. In those/most cases deterrence won't work. Prison in America is such a violent and unpleasant experience, life in jail doesn't sound much better than death. And still our violent max security prisons don't seem to provide much deterrence. So deterrence likely remains mostly theoretical.
-
I'm not actually for or against the death penalty. I just think if it is to be used it should be limited to heinous, intentional murders (multiple killings, depraved behavior, aggravating circumstances -- maybe rape or torture). And there should be no doubt of guilt and legal representation should be adequate. And racial bias can't be allowed in.
Unfortunately I think that's difficult for our society to achieve, or we don't have the will to meet those conditions. So for me, the system is unlikely to be fair and equal.
And I'd limit it to so few executions -- maybe similar to how it is these days in practice -- that the whole process/procedure isn't worth having.
Unfortunately, the way the US is going down the toilet, and economic inequality is widening, and guns are more prevalent, incivility rampant, and violence more accepted throughout our culture, I can't see the murder rate dropping in the future. Maybe this CV year provided some reprieve as potential victims stayed home more.
-
I'm not actually for or against the death penalty. I just think if it is to be used it should be limited to heinous, intentional murders (multiple killings, depraved behavior, aggravating circumstances -- maybe rape or torture). And there should be no doubt of guilt and legal representation should be adequate. And racial bias can't be allowed in.
Unfortunately I think that's difficult for our society to achieve, or we don't have the will to meet those conditions. So for me, the system is unlikely to be fair and equal.
And I'd limit it to so few executions -- maybe similar to how it is these days in practice -- that the whole process/procedure isn't worth having.
Unfortunately, the way the US is going down the toilet, and economic inequality is widening, and guns are more prevalent, incivility rampant, and violence more accepted throughout our culture, I can't see the murder rate dropping in the future. Maybe this CV year provided some reprieve as potential victims stayed home more.
Sorry, Bo. The zealots don't do nuanced opinions like yours.
-
A younger Bo was opposed to the death penalty on the simple basis that the state shouldn't have the power to kill, the power of life or death over its citizens. A nice bright line rule. But later I realized that the State has the power to wage war and compel citizens to participate, to force its people to kill or be killed. And actually plenty of gov't decisions and our economic system result in deaths (tens of thousands starve to death in America each year; homeless freeze on the streets, etc).
Of course, war should be illegal. And wartime killing should be considered manslaughter. And there should be penalties for starting/fighting a war.
Genuine defensive warfare could be permitted to counter aggressive warfare.
But those who start war should be punished (death penalty?)
War is destructive mass murder and always harms huge numbers of civilians and ruins lives and leads to sundry other crimes (rapes, torture, etc.).
And I'd limit it to so few executions -- maybe similar to how it is these days in practice -- that the whole process/procedure isn't worth having.
I meant to write:
limit it so . . . that perhaps the whole process is not worth having.
-
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/young-ravens-rival-adult-chimps-in-a-big-test-of-general-intelligence/
What separates humans from (other) animals, besides the urge to prove that we are different from (other) animals?!
-
I held off on the DP chat, not realizing it would conclude so soon. If I may, I'll just add that I also grew away from what Bo called a "clear bright line" position. My main problem remains with its capricious application. No doubt there are clearcut cases of such depravity that it is a merciful act, both for the killer and for the victim's loved ones, to end the killer's life. I remain opposed to societies getting into the vengeance business. Vengeance seems to reduce us.
Animals and Humans differences
Seems to be a matter of degree, rather than of kind. Some animals have simple language and gestural signals, but humans (with their high cephalization ratio) (brain size in proportion to body size) have developed complex and abstract symbol systems that allow accumulation of knowledge and techniques.
Humans and some higher mammals, and maybe some avians, do share some form of consciousness that could be called self-awareness. That is, we and such species share something beyond just feeling and reacting: a sense that we exist as distinct beings. And that others do, too. Higher mammals, especially social mammals, have something that ethologists (animal behaviorists) call "a theory of mind, " which is the awareness that other individuals have intentions, desires, etc. And that these inner states of mind may be similar to theirs. (in autism, this awareness is somewhat reduced, severely hampering social interactions)
Well, that's a couple areas where we see some separation, but mainly by degree rather than some supernatural boundary line. Later.
-
I should also add that police with their guns and freedom to use them also represent state power of life and death.
-
I thought that some of us would find this lecture on Tocqueville, Democracy, and Religion interesting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCOrhokHZyI
Professor Kahan is speaking "at" the Benson Center for the Study of Western Civilization, known as a conservative institution. Kahan is not necessarily at the center of their political leanings - I think you will find this purely scholarly -- not objective, but also not trying to score points.
He starts at about 6:30 into the recording and runs a bit more than an hour.
-
If you think ravens being able to play the shell game is impressive, check out pigeons moonlighting as radiologists. This blew my mind a few years ago:
To sum up, with 2 weeks of training, pigeons could detect malignancy in mammograms at 85% accuracy, or the equivalent of trained human doctors. Give them 25 days of training and they were up to 90% accurate.
How are pigeons able to read mammograms? They spend much of their day staring at granular patterns on the ground to detect seeds. They're specialists with amazing visual recall.
A very good article with some pics of the set-up:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/pigeons-can-spot-breast-cancer-medical-images-180957323/
A shorter summary:
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/25/science/pigeons-detect-breast-cancer-tumors.html
The full study:
Pigeons as Trainable Observers of Pathology and Radiology Breast Cancer Images (https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0141357)
I feed a few dozen spotted turtle doves in my garden, and I often greet them:
"Hey little radiologists."
How do the pigeons do it?
They were planning to do follow-up experiments to try to determine what exactly the birds observed to make their decisions. Which could aid humans in doing a better job.
-
If you think ravens being able to play the shell game is impressive, check out pigeons moonlighting as radiologists. This blew my mind a few years ago:
To sum up, with 2 weeks of training, pigeons could detect malignancy in mammograms at 85% accuracy, or the equivalent of trained human doctors. Give them 25 days of training and they were up to 90% accurate.
Why aren't we just using them, then?! (Not a question for you, just one prompted by your post.)
-
You ever try to get medical malpractice insurance on a bird?
Actually the specter of lawsuits is a big disincentive.
Also, we're used to dogs in law enforcement, even giant rats detecting land mines, but having animals perform medical tests is hard for many to wrap their heads around.
The early speculation was that probably you could use pigeons to do mundane repetitive radiology tasks. Newly designed x-ray machines or new mammography software have to be tested extensively to prove they are accurate and allow for correct diagnoses at a high level. Ordinarily you'd have to pay a trained radiologist to sit there for days and weeks grinding through mammograms to generate enough data. Tedious work for a highly paid and trained doctor. This might be the kind of repetitive radiology reading pigeons could do with a couple of low-paid lab researchers handling things.
I was amazed at the whole concept, but especially how quickly these birds learned to be expert radiologists. 2 weeks and they were very good; 3 weeks and experts. Of course these were already lab pigeons familiar with the concept of working for food rewards. But reading mammograms? Detecting breast cancer is not easy for well-trained radiologists. And pigeons were naturals. Just amazing.
-
You ever try to get medical malpractice insurance on a bird?
Actually the specter of lawsuits is a big disincentive.
Also, we're used to dogs in law enforcement, even giant rats detecting land mines, but having animals perform medical tests is hard for many to wrap their heads around.
I asked because there are hospitals using dogs for cancer detection, albeit not many. I don't imagine malpractice insurance on dogs is substantially easier to acquire than on pigeons, despite their preferred placement in our hierarchy of animals.
-
I still see the similarity between death penalty and homicide, i. e., both involve death by violence.
And how do you feel about abortion?
-
A bit of a stretch to call a lethal injection violence imo, but in any case it's many levels below the violence a killer deploys on their victims.
As for animal practitioners, there is a whole infrastructure of dog training, people are used to teaching them, etc. While training pigeons to do tasks is a specialty field probably at a limited level for lab research. Could be scaled up. And one advantage is the pigeons could do their radiology reads in a research lab, so they don't need to interact with patients, as dogs need to to sniff out cancer.
I spotted an article last week that headlined dogs sniffing out CV infections form armpits, but I didn't click through. I assumed if it is viable we'll be hearing more about it soon enough.
-
A bit of a stretch to call a lethal injection violence imo, but in any case it's many levels below the violence a killer deploys on their victims.
So, if a fellow just went around sticking needles into people, that wouldn't be assault?
And if a murderer did that to kill people, it would be better than if they killed them "with violence." Huh.
-
Yeah, context never matters.
Not sure why my doctor isn't arrested for serial assault.
Or boxers aren't arrested for assault.
-
Yeah, context never matters.
Not sure why my doctor isn't arrested for serial assault.
Or boxers aren't arrested for assault.
The suggestion I am making is that if it is violent when done by a random person, whether murder or "just" assault, then it is still violent when the government does it to murderers.
Having watched a couple videos of our executions, they are violent - injection, electrocution, firing squad, hanging... it's all violent.
I suspect that we could give a non-violent execution if we wanted to, but we just don't seem to have that urge.
-
Looks like only Bo and I have nuanced opinions on the DP.
Seems most of us have already determined for ourselves that we are either for or against DP and are not likely to change our thinking with regard to it's exercise.
I am suggesting another new topic, with perhaps more room to explore new avenues of shared thought: Can people be taught character traits like determination to succeed and to persevere? Or is there an overriding biological nature that determines such traits in humans?
-
I still see the similarity between death penalty and homicide, i. e., both involve death by violence.
And how do you feel about abortion?
Ambivalent, and you?
But I would not think of imposing my opinion on a woman by penalizing her if she chose to do something I find hard to accept.
Looks like only Bo and I have nuanced opinions on the DP.
Magister dixit.
-
Looks like only Bo and I have nuanced opinions on the DP.
Seems most of us have already determined for ourselves that we are either for or against DP and are not likely to change our thinking with regard to it's exercise.
No, but I can see why it could be presented that way.
My argument with Bo was not about the death penalty but with what I thought was a pretty narrow definition of violence.
-
I am suggesting another new topic, with perhaps more room to explore new avenues of shared thought: Can people be taught character traits like determination to succeed and to persevere? Or is there an overriding biological nature that determines such traits in humans?
My suspicion is that it varies from person to person how strongly wired they are.
Further, I suspect it is easier to drag somebody from inclined toward what we think of positive traits to the negative than the other way around, just as it is easier to diminish their physical, intellectual, and emotional potential through application of substances (alcohol, nicotine, etc.) and/or deprivation of positive intellectual or emotional stimulation.
We know from identical twin studies that their being raised together leads to divergent personalities, while being raised apart and not knowing each other leads to convergent personalities.
We know from family studies that siblings raised by the same parents by no means turn out with the same moral senses!
-
Here's your death penalty case
https://www.foxnews.com/us/missouri-girl-4-found-dead-after-beating-police-say
-
Here's your death penalty case
https://www.foxnews.com/us/missouri-girl-4-found-dead-after-beating-police-say
2nd degree murder? No, I don't think that one will see either party get death, let alone serve as an exemplar for the issue.
-
I feed a few dozen spotted turtle doves in my garden, and I often greet them:
"Hey little radiologists."
Funny.
I'm thinking if you did that in a public park, you'd get interesting looks from people.
I'd guess crows and ravens would also be good at that. They're also among the smartest bird species.
In any discussion of animal minds, I always recommend the famous philosophic paper by Thomas Nagel, "What Is It Like to be a Bat. "
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Is_It_Like_to_Be_a_Bat%3F
-
Regarding Uno's sidebar on inherited v learned behavioral traits, I think pretty much any geneticist, evolutionary biologist, sociobiologist, or zoologist would tell you that, with hominin species and a lot of other primates and mammals generally, the answer is usually "both. " Genes code for specific proteins, and are not generally tied to specific character traits, but clusters of allied genes do interact with environmental influences and so there are tendencies in individuals such that some are more readily shaped by certain influences than others.
A group of genes, for example, may lead to a slightly larger brain region called the amygdala. And persons with a larger amydala do tend to have a more intense fear response especially to people they don't know. This has been found to correlate with certain political leanings.
-
When trying to understand the thoughts and/or experience of being an animal a major problem is that we process any such understanding and effort into language which is of course foreign to animals and outside their mindset.
At times I try to glean what my cats are thinking and how they are experiencing things. It's quite difficult to get too far beyond sensory input and some basic emotions. But any actual pattern of thought or sense of how their mind works is extremely elusive/illusive.
It's also fascinating and frustrating to try to imagine what a cat's dreaming might be like. I like the dog's dreams in The Triplettes of Bellville.
-
I still see the similarity between death penalty and homicide, i. e., both involve death by violence.
And how do you feel about abortion?
Ambivalent, and you?
But I would not think of imposing my opinion on a woman by penalizing her if she chose to do something I find hard to accept.
Looks like only Bo and I have nuanced opinions on the DP.
Magister dixit.
NO issues with abortion on demand. I always find it weird and inconsistent that someone would be pro-life and support the DP, as so many do.
Same with the the pro-abortion crowd who scream about not wanting to take a life of someone who has murdered, raped, abetted murder and rape and is committed to doing so.
A woman and her mate have a right to decide if they want to end a pregnancy, without the government's interference, and the government has a definite responsibility to protect the public from further predation by those convicted of heinous murder.
-
I am suggesting another new topic, with perhaps more room to explore new avenues of shared thought: Can people be taught character traits like determination to succeed and to persevere? Or is there an overriding biological nature that determines such traits in humans?
My suspicion is that it varies from person to person how strongly wired they are.
Further, I suspect it is easier to drag somebody from inclined toward what we think of positive traits to the negative than the other way around, just as it is easier to diminish their physical, intellectual, and emotional potential through application of substances (alcohol, nicotine, etc.) and/or deprivation of positive intellectual or emotional stimulation.
We know from identical twin studies that their being raised together leads to divergent personalities, while being raised apart and not knowing each other leads to convergent personalities.
We know from family studies that siblings raised by the same parents by no means turn out with the same moral senses!
Have you read any of the work of Angela Duckworth on grit? I find it interesting, and I think that some of us are more wired to persist in the face of difficulty. But she seems to think it is a trait that can be taught.
I am not so sure. I know for sure, though, that many people are ignorant and unsuccessful by choice.
-
Here's an interesting one, heading to the SCOTUS:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/cheerleaders-vulgar-message-prompts-first-131037750.html (https://www.yahoo.com/news/cheerleaders-vulgar-message-prompts-first-131037750.html)
Social Media has led to tremendous amounts of social bullying, and that is a huge problem in schools, especially in an age where suicides have greatly increased among teens.
Schools want to be able to extend their campuses, virtually, too.
-
Here's an interesting one, heading to the SCOTUS:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/cheerleaders-vulgar-message-prompts-first-131037750.html (https://www.yahoo.com/news/cheerleaders-vulgar-message-prompts-first-131037750.html)
Social Media has led to tremendous amounts of social bullying, and that is a huge problem in schools, especially in an age where suicides have greatly increased among teens.
Schools want to be able to extend their campuses, virtually, too.
Schools' reach has been greatly extended in the past 20 years, as illustrated by the boy who got suspended for his outrageous, but not profanity laden, banner during a parade in Alaska.
"BONG HITS 4 JESUS" is not promoting illegal drug use, no matter how SCOTUS perceived it!
Morse v. Frederick, (551 U.S. 393 (2007)), is a United States Supreme Court case where the Court held, 5–4, that the First Amendment does not prevent educators from suppressing student speech that is reasonably viewed as promoting illegal drug use at or across the street from a school-supervised event.[1][2] In 2002, Juneau-Douglas High School principal Deborah Morse suspended Joseph Frederick after he displayed a banner reading "BONG HiTS 4 JESUS" [sic] across the street from the school during the 2002 Winter Olympics torch relay.[3] Frederick sued, claiming his constitutional rights to free speech were violated. His suit was dismissed by the federal district court, but on appeal, the Ninth Circuit reversed the ruling, concluding that Frederick's speech rights were violated. The case then went on to the Supreme Court.
Chief Justice Roberts, writing for the majority, concluded that the school officials did not violate the First Amendment. To do so, he made three legal determinations: first, that "school speech" doctrine should apply because Frederick's speech occurred "at a school event"; second, that the speech was "reasonably viewed as promoting illegal drug use"; and third, that a principal may legally restrict that speech—based on the three existing First Amendment school speech precedents, other Constitutional jurisprudence relating to schools and a school's "important, indeed, perhaps compelling interest" in deterring drug use by students.
-
I am suggesting another new topic, with perhaps more room to explore new avenues of shared thought: Can people be taught character traits like determination to succeed and to persevere? Or is there an overriding biological nature that determines such traits in humans?
My suspicion is that it varies from person to person how strongly wired they are.
Further, I suspect it is easier to drag somebody from inclined toward what we think of positive traits to the negative than the other way around, just as it is easier to diminish their physical, intellectual, and emotional potential through application of substances (alcohol, nicotine, etc.) and/or deprivation of positive intellectual or emotional stimulation.
We know from identical twin studies that their being raised together leads to divergent personalities, while being raised apart and not knowing each other leads to convergent personalities.
We know from family studies that siblings raised by the same parents by no means turn out with the same moral senses!
Have you read any of the work of Angela Duckworth on grit? I find it interesting, and I think that some of us are more wired to persist in the face of difficulty. But she seems to think it is a trait that can be taught.
I am not so sure. I know for sure, though, that many people are ignorant and unsuccessful by choice.
I'm pretty familiar with her work as well as the work on conscientiousness. Wikipedia has two sentences that resonate for me in this area:
However, meta-analyses have found no evidence that grit is linked to superior performance. Moreover, Duckworth's operationalization of grit has been criticized as a mere renaming of the previously established construct of conscientiousness.
The first of these is more key to me than the second, as the second is "merely" about her possession of the "intelligence" that Harvard's Howard Gardner neglected: marketing! (He, too, renamed some previously established constructs and got famous for it.)
Teaching grit does not seem to work appreciably better than teaching resilience, another vital (IMO) aptitude.
It's too bad. I wish they seemed more teachable than they do. {i]Empathy[/i] seems more teachable than those two traits do!
-
I still see the similarity between death penalty and homicide, i. e., both involve death by violence.
And how do you feel about abortion?
Ambivalent, and you?
But I would not think of imposing my opinion on a woman by penalizing her if she chose to do something I find hard to accept.
Looks like only Bo and I have nuanced opinions on the DP.
Magister dixit.
NO issues with abortion on demand. I always find it weird and inconsistent that someone would be pro-life and support the DP, as so many do.
Same with the the pro-abortion crowd who scream about not wanting to take a life of someone who has murdered, raped, abetted murder and rape and is committed to doing so.
A woman and her mate have a right to decide if they want to end a pregnancy, without the government's interference, and the government has a definite responsibility to protect the public from further predation by those convicted of heinous murder.
Your opinion on the DP doesn't really seem nuanced, but you choose to say it is, so good for you.
-
I am suggesting another new topic, with perhaps more room to explore new avenues of shared thought: Can people be taught character traits like determination to succeed and to persevere? Or is there an overriding biological nature that determines such traits in humans?
My suspicion is that it varies from person to person how strongly wired they are.
Further, I suspect it is easier to drag somebody from inclined toward what we think of positive traits to the negative than the other way around, just as it is easier to diminish their physical, intellectual, and emotional potential through application of substances (alcohol, nicotine, etc.) and/or deprivation of positive intellectual or emotional stimulation.
We know from identical twin studies that their being raised together leads to divergent personalities, while being raised apart and not knowing each other leads to convergent personalities.
We know from family studies that siblings raised by the same parents by no means turn out with the same moral senses!
Have you read any of the work of Angela Duckworth on grit? I find it interesting, and I think that some of us are more wired to persist in the face of difficulty. But she seems to think it is a trait that can be taught.
I am not so sure. I know for sure, though, that many people are ignorant and unsuccessful by choice.
I'm pretty familiar with her work as well as the work on conscientiousness. Wikipedia has two sentences that resonate for me in this area:
However, meta-analyses have found no evidence that grit is linked to superior performance. Moreover, Duckworth's operationalization of grit has been criticized as a mere renaming of the previously established construct of conscientiousness.
The first of these is more key to me than the second, as the second is "merely" about her possession of the "intelligence" that Harvard's Howard Gardner neglected: marketing! (He, too, renamed some previously established constructs and got famous for it.)
Teaching grit does not seem to work appreciably better than teaching resilience, another vital (IMO) aptitude.
It's too bad. I wish they seemed more teachable than they do. {i]Empathy[/i] seems more teachable than those two traits do!
I think that both Duckworth and Gardner shouldn't be blamed for what they've tried to bring to the educator's toolkit. The problem with most education "reformers" is that they glom onto frameworks for thinking about ways to educate as education itself.
Duckworth and Gardner have shown that we should continue to be looking at children as individual learners, as individuals who bring a certain orientation to the world, with certain innate strengths as learners, and the education we provide should work to develop those strengths by exploiting the learner's interests.
So, for example, when we have students who present as Gardner would call them "bodily kinesthetic" or "Spatial" learners, we should be aiming our teaching with that in mind. We should be praising effort for all students for moving towards a goal---teaching how to create short-term and long-term goals and how to celebrate them, and I think that reflects Duckworth's contribution to examining our students. But, I don't think that either theorist has captured the entire dynamic nature of all learners.
Nor do I think anyone can. I do think, though, that we need to encourage systemic change that affords individual educators to have the flexibility to meet individual students' needs by teaching in a manner similar to what I outlined in the last paragraph.
a) Figure out what a students strengths and weaknesses are---for THEM.
b) enlighten the student first.
c) engage the student through his/her/their interests
d) be sure to imbed self-assessment into the process
e) use that self-assessment and teacher assessment to demonstrate student progress and where adjustments need to be made by both teacher and student.
f) consistently promote effort. There may be reasons for something being difficult to learn, but there are reasons to continue to work towards a goal, if it has true relevance to the learner. The teacher enables that relevance by working within student interests.
So, for example, suppose I wanted to teach the concept of a circle as a set of points that share the same distance from a center point, and the student was that bodily kinesthetic learner of Gardner's Multiple Intelligences. Let's say I also know that this student is highly motivated to play hockey. We might literally examine hockey rinks and the number of circles that are contained within them, and the rules for hockey face-offs require staying on the perimeter of the circle until the puck is dropped, and then we might gather several students, placing one as the center of that circle and using a tether/rope/ribbon of some sort of exactly the same length place other students around our "center" equidistantly to create the circle. From there we might then look at ice rink models to examine the circles of each---or, if we could go to an actual rink---or the basketball court to measure the circles, there.
And assessment would work from there, with questions designed to afford the student a chance to investigate various circles as we find them in the everyday environment, and then to the more abstract circles encountered on paper or through computer graphics.
And perhaps, then we'd extend it further to ask a student to design a rink of their own by modeling it in some fashion of his choosing.
And move on from there. And when that student struggles with any part of this process then I'd ask them to review what they know, what they still want to find out, and how far we've come to date, and that is the student's effort that has produced what he has accomplished towards the ultimate goal of fully grasping a the concept of a circle, it's use in every day life, its purpose in design, how to measure one, how to find its area, its perimeter, and how to see it used to create cylinders like a...puck.
All along, of course, this is a very simple example (and it could use more thought, btw) of trying to use Gardner and Duckworth in concert as frameworks for teaching. But the approach is more in line with John Dewey's theories than Gardner's or Duckworth's contributions alone. To me their work has value in letting me as a teacher thinking both broadly in terms of how I can create the kind of learning experience to which individual students will respond and develop.
But, does that teach determination? Maybe. And can the learner generalize the concepts and apply to other situations that may not be of particular interest to him/her/them? Perhaps, if assessment, carefully thought-out assessment, comes in to play.
My experience tells you that this can work well in terms of student engagement and student learning, but only when faculty is given the freedom to teach this way. Too many teachers today are trapped in systems that do not afford this kind of work. Sadly.
I spent the last decade of my career expanding my thoughts in this area and trying to apply this essential method to my work. But I don't think I actually taught grit as much as I stressed finding a way to persevere when stressed.
I used to tell my kids "if you're not uncomfortable, you're not learning".
I wanted them to understand that learning was worth the effort. And that is why I never stressed grades. What I'd say about grades is, "don't learn this to produce and A on a test, or to get a good report card, or to please your parents, or to please me. This is for you to learn for you. At the end of the day, grades don't matter. Learning matters. Make it matter to you, and you'll never have to worry about grades."
Okay, I strayed from grit discussion alone.
Empathy? Harder to teach in the virtual world, don't you think?
-
I still see the similarity between death penalty and homicide, i. e., both involve death by violence.
And how do you feel about abortion?
Ambivalent, and you?
But I would not think of imposing my opinion on a woman by penalizing her if she chose to do something I find hard to accept.
Looks like only Bo and I have nuanced opinions on the DP.
Magister dixit.
NO issues with abortion on demand. I always find it weird and inconsistent that someone would be pro-life and support the DP, as so many do.
Same with the the pro-abortion crowd who scream about not wanting to take a life of someone who has murdered, raped, abetted murder and rape and is committed to doing so.
A woman and her mate have a right to decide if they want to end a pregnancy, without the government's interference, and the government has a definite responsibility to protect the public from further predation by those convicted of heinous murder.
Your opinion on the DP doesn't really seem nuanced, but you choose to say it is, so good for you.
Snark doesn't become you, carlos.
Bottom line, there are truly evil people, proven to be evil, and showing they'd like to continue to perpetrate that evil. If we have perfectly show that to be the case, such as in the likes of the Ted Bundys of the world, there is no need to keep them above ground.
There shouldn't be an automatic DP, IMO. And prosecutors make mistakes---but not in cases like those I detailed before.
I'd also like to eliminate the concept of prosecutors being elected to their positions. They should be concerned with enforcing the law, and only enforcing the law. Putting a political layer over that process clouds judgement and creates incentives to seek wins over justice, to promote body counts over counting on equal protection before the law.
Abortion is a personal choice and should remain so, but it ends a potential life---a life that was given by the parents, and one they should be able to prenatally end, if they know that they can't afford to, for economic or other reasons, provide for that child.
That is nuanced. And it's been clearly articulated.
We haven't really gotten that kind of clarity from your expressions on these subjects.
But I am willing to wait until perhaps your zealotry fades a bit, either through time or perhaps after you garner more education on the true nature of man.
-
It could have been a lot sooner. Sadly, the wimps of the world kept this asshole alive.
https://www.npr.org/2020/12/31/951918219/samuel-little-the-nations-most-prolific-serial-killer-dies-at-80 (https://www.npr.org/2020/12/31/951918219/samuel-little-the-nations-most-prolific-serial-killer-dies-at-80)
-
Abortion is a personal choice and should remain so, but it ends a potential life---a life that was given by the parents, and one they should be able to prenatally end, if they know that they can't afford to, for economic or other reasons, provide for that child.
As parents who cannot conceive wait to adopt such child....
That may be "nuanced" but I am not sure you can properly defend it
-
Abortion is a personal choice and should remain so, but it ends a potential life---a life that was given by the parents, and one they should be able to prenatally end, if they know that they can't afford to, for economic or other reasons, provide for that child.
As parents who cannot conceive wait to adopt such child....
That may be "nuanced" but I am not sure you can properly defend it
Rape and incest pregnancies should be always allowed to be terminated, in my opinion. That said, it isn't a simple choice to abort vs offer a child up for adoption.
Consider that ...among American women for whom carrying a child to term would be safe, adoption is a remarkably unpopular course of action. Though exact estimates for all women are hard to come by, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that among never-married women, about 9 percent chose adoption before 1973, when Roe v. Wade legalized abortion. (The figure was higher for white women: 19 percent.) By the mid-1980s, the figure had dropped to 2 percent, and it was just 1 percent by 2002, the last year the CDC data captured. In 2014, only 18,000 children under the age of 2 were placed with adoption agencies. By comparison, there are about 1 million abortions each year.
The available research on adoption’s relative unpopularity is still limited. But the sociological studies that exist suggest that some women who are deciding between adoption and abortion find adoption to be more emotionally painful than abortion. And the reason complicates the narrative around abortion on both sides.
For the most part, women are not choosing abortion instead of adoption. In fact, both adoption and abortion rates have fallen over time, while births to unmarried women have risen over the past few decades. This suggests to some researchers that women are choosing between abortion and parenting, and more and more, unmarried women are choosing parenting. “Women just generally aren’t interested in adoption as a reproductive choice,” says Gretchen Sisson, a sociologist at the Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health research group of the University of California at San Francisco. “It’s an extremely rare pregnancy decision.”
The move away from adoption is part of the historical trend toward reduced societal stigma for unwed mothers...
...many pregnant women who don’t wish to become mothers seem to have a dim view of the adoption process, according to a study that Sisson and her colleagues published in 2017 in the journal Women’s Health Issues. The researchers relied on the Turnaway Study, a five-year, longitudinal look at women who sought abortions at 30 U.S. clinics from 2008 to 2010. The authors interviewed 956 women, 161 of whom went on to give birth, and 15 of whom chose adoption. They also had more in-depth conversations with 31 of those women, 16 of whom received abortions, and the rest who did not.
The authors note that the women seem to consider their options sequentially: They first seek abortion, and if they can’t afford or access one, they might then consider adoption. A week after being denied an abortion, 14 percent of the women said they were considering putting the baby up for adoption instead. But ultimately, only 9 percent of the women who were denied an abortion chose adoption. The majority simply went on to parent.
Meanwhile, none of the 16 women who got abortions were at all interested in adoption at any point. Some of their reasons were practical: “Adoption was often ruled out because they felt it was not right for them, because their partner would not be interested, because they had health reasons for not wanting to carry to term, or because they believed there were already enough children in need of homes,” the authors write.
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2019/05/why-more-women-dont-choose-adoption/589759/ (https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2019/05/why-more-women-dont-choose-adoption/589759/)
-
Abortion is a personal choice and should remain so, but it ends a potential life---a life that was given by the parents, and one they should be able to prenatally end, if they know that they can't afford to, for economic or other reasons, provide for that child.
As parents who cannot conceive wait to adopt such child....
That may be "nuanced" but I am not sure you can properly defend it
We have many more children awaiting adoption than we have parents waiting to adopt, Kid.
If it were otherwise, your argument would have a ton of weight.
Number of children waiting to be adopted in the United States from 2007 to 2019
Number of children
2019 122,216
2018 125,285
2017 123,450
2016 116,391
-
We have many more children awaiting adoption than we have parents waiting to adopt, Kid.
Not so much the infants
UNO also erred when he said the "man and the woman have the right to decide..."
Nope. Man cant make the woman have the baby - even if it is half his. True?
And more to the point - woman can abort without man's sig.
-
We have many more children awaiting adoption than we have parents waiting to adopt, Kid.
Not so much the infants
Citation?
And even if so, assuming you are not claiming all infants are adopted, what do you suppose happens to them?
-
https://www.cnn.com/videos/tv/2021/01/02/cheerleaders-first-amendment-case-could-go-to-scotus.cnn
Should schools be allowed to punish students for their off-campus speech? Or does the 1st Amendment protect such speech?
Does it vary depending on what was said or how it was said or is it an absolute, one way or the other?
-
Here's an interesting one, heading to the SCOTUS:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/cheerleaders-vulgar-message-prompts-first-131037750.html (https://www.yahoo.com/news/cheerleaders-vulgar-message-prompts-first-131037750.html)
Social Media has led to tremendous amounts of social bullying, and that is a huge problem in schools, especially in an age where suicides have greatly increased among teens.
Schools want to be able to extend their campuses, virtually, too.
https://www.cnn.com/videos/tv/2021/01/02/cheerleaders-first-amendment-case-could-go-to-scotus.cnn
Should schools be allowed to punish students for their off-campus speech? Or does the 1st Amendment protect such speech?
Does it vary depending on what was said or how it was said or is it an absolute, one way or the other?
Sounds familiar, Josh.
I think schools have a responsibility to create a safe environment for learning. Now that virtual school is becoming a norm, that challenge will certainly get to be more difficult. I think it might depend on where it was said.
Do we want the government moderating student's speech off-campus? Not me.
Don't think schools have a vested interest in doing so, unless they can prove that they are doing so to stop an assault---and even then, the police would have to be involved with that---4th amendment issues, seem to arise as much as 1st, when you think about it.
But I'm not a lawyer. So it will be interesting to see how this case is argued.
-
Here's an interesting one, heading to the SCOTUS:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/cheerleaders-vulgar-message-prompts-first-131037750.html (https://www.yahoo.com/news/cheerleaders-vulgar-message-prompts-first-131037750.html)
Social Media has led to tremendous amounts of social bullying, and that is a huge problem in schools, especially in an age where suicides have greatly increased among teens.
Schools want to be able to extend their campuses, virtually, too.
https://www.cnn.com/videos/tv/2021/01/02/cheerleaders-first-amendment-case-could-go-to-scotus.cnn
Should schools be allowed to punish students for their off-campus speech? Or does the 1st Amendment protect such speech?
Does it vary depending on what was said or how it was said or is it an absolute, one way or the other?
Sounds familiar, Josh.
I think schools have a responsibility to create a safe environment for learning. Now that virtual school is becoming a norm, that challenge will certainly get to be more difficult. I think it might depend on where it was said.
Do we want the government moderating student's speech off-campus? Not me.
Don't think schools have a vested interest in doing so, unless they can prove that they are doing so to stop an assault---and even then, the police would have to be involved with that---4th amendment issues, seem to arise as much as 1st, when you think about it.
But I'm not a lawyer. So it will be interesting to see how this case is argued.
Yes, the same case. I think I even responded to yours, though I would have to look. I think I discussed a prior SCOTUS case involving a kid and his Bongs 4 Jesus sign - which came down against the kid, as it was a school sponsored event (going to the parade) and the sign was ostensibly promoting illegal drug use (pretty questionable).
This one, as the girl points out, was not a school event nor was she wearing anything with the school's name on it.
Bullying, as you pointed out, is a big problem - on line and off. Schools have seldom been very good at responding to it even when it was taking place in their hallways and classrooms (nor have teachers been exempt from being the bullies). I don't know that having 'policing' power over social media conduct is going to lead to greater effectiveness on the school's part.
This is not obviously a response to the legal question, though as ever the dictum against having laws you cannot enforce comes to mind.
Legally, defining bullying (or harassment, for that matter) is problematic, but the harassment guideline is not a bad one and it may be that we "just" need to bring it down to that level, much as I cringe at that notion. Making the place a hostile environment should not be permitted. I just think the school probably needs to be reporter, not enforcer, as you suggested.
-
“This is a story about a woman who is profoundly mentally ill as a result of a lifetime of torture and sexual violence,” said Sandra Babcock, faculty director of the Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide and a consultant to Montgomery’s legal team. “Lisa is not the worst of the worst – she is the most broken of the broken.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/05/lisa-montgomery-death-row-execution-history
What would her execution accomplish?
-
Some sense of closure for the family of the victim.
-
“This is a story about a woman who is profoundly mentally ill as a result of a lifetime of torture and sexual violence,” said Sandra Babcock, faculty director of the Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide and a consultant to Montgomery’s legal team. “Lisa is not the worst of the worst – she is the most broken of the broken.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/05/lisa-montgomery-death-row-execution-history
What would her execution accomplish?
Lisa Montgomery fatally strangled a pregnant woman, Bobbie Jo Stinnett, cut open her body, and kidnapped her baby. In December 2004, as part of a premeditated murder-kidnap scheme, Montgomery drove from her home in Kansas to Stinnett’s home in Missouri, purportedly to purchase a puppy. Once inside the residence, Montgomery attacked and strangled Stinnett—who was eight months pregnant—until the victim lost consciousness. Using a kitchen knife, Montgomery then cut into Stinnett’s abdomen, causing her to regain consciousness. A struggle ensued, and Montgomery strangled Stinnett to death. Montgomery then removed the baby from Stinnett’s body, took the baby with her, and attempted to pass it off as her own. Montgomery subsequently confessed to murdering Stinnett and abducting her child. In October 2007, a jury in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri found Montgomery guilty of federal kidnapping resulting in death, and unanimously recommended a death sentence, which the court imposed. Her conviction and sentence were affirmed on appeal, and her request for collateral relief was rejected by every court that considered it. Montgomery is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on December 8, 2020, at U.S. Penitentiary Terre Haute, Indiana.
It would affirm the jury's decision.
As it should.
-
I still see the similarity between death penalty and homicide, i. e., both involve death by violence.
And how do you feel about abortion?
Ambivalent, and you?
But I would not think of imposing my opinion on a woman by penalizing her if she chose to do something I find hard to accept.
Looks like only Bo and I have nuanced opinions on the DP.
Magister dixit.
NO issues with abortion on demand. I always find it weird and inconsistent that someone would be pro-life and support the DP, as so many do.
Same with the the pro-abortion crowd who scream about not wanting to take a life of someone who has murdered, raped, abetted murder and rape and is committed to doing so.
A woman and her mate have a right to decide if they want to end a pregnancy, without the government's interference, and the government has a definite responsibility to protect the public from further predation by those convicted of heinous murder.
Your opinion on the DP doesn't really seem nuanced, but you choose to say it is, so good for you.
Snark doesn't become you, carlos.
Bottom line, there are truly evil people, proven to be evil, and showing they'd like to continue to perpetrate that evil. If we have perfectly show that to be the case, such as in the likes of the Ted Bundys of the world, there is no need to keep them above ground.
There shouldn't be an automatic DP, IMO. And prosecutors make mistakes---but not in cases like those I detailed before.
I'd also like to eliminate the concept of prosecutors being elected to their positions. They should be concerned with enforcing the law, and only enforcing the law. Putting a political layer over that process clouds judgement and creates incentives to seek wins over justice, to promote body counts over counting on equal protection before the law.
Abortion is a personal choice and should remain so, but it ends a potential life---a life that was given by the parents, and one they should be able to prenatally end, if they know that they can't afford to, for economic or other reasons, provide for that child.
That is nuanced. And it's been clearly articulated.
We haven't really gotten that kind of clarity from your expressions on these subjects.
But I am willing to wait until perhaps your zealotry fades a bit, either through time or perhaps after you garner more education on the true nature of man.
I have not checked this forum for a while.
Only to find upon return that you keep going back to the same arguments, plus some condescending assessment of my positions, talk about snark!
This discussion with you has become an unending circular run. I give up, you've exhausted me!
-
Impossible issue...
May she rest in peace.
-
This discussion with you has become an unending circular run. I give up, you've exhausted me!
Welcome to the Internet! :)
-
I was rewatching the film Precious last week. And the unrelentingly harsh backstory and family life of Clarice Precious is fairly similar to what Lisa Montgomery endured growing up. Early and periodic incestuous rapes, beatings, etc.
The crime Montgomery committed almost screams Mental Illness. She'd actually been involuntarily sterilized a few years earlier, so the mysterious sudden arrival of a baby was an obvious red flag.
-
Try not to lose sleep over it.
-
While I might not grieve for LM, it's worth asking if the state should be killing the mentally ill. Is it worth saving the taxpayers money for lifetime room/board in a maximum security facility, if we cross that line? It's one thing to execute someone who is capable of being morally responsible -- we can argue that they had sufficiently free will to choose a different course of action. Did LM have the cognitive capacity to choose otherwise, or understand the moral implication of her choice? If no, then the criminal may be the adult(s) who made her this way.
-
While I might not grieve for LM, it's worth asking if the state should be killing the mentally ill. Is it worth saving the taxpayers money for lifetime room/board in a maximum security facility, if we cross that line? It's one thing to execute someone who is capable of being morally responsible -- we can argue that they had sufficiently free will to choose a different course of action. Did LM have the cognitive capacity to choose otherwise, or understand the moral implication of her choice? If no, then the criminal may be the adult(s) who made her this way.
Is the world safer with her or without her?
-
Uh, exactly the same ...
-
Uh, exactly the same ...
I would agree. She's not Clint Eastwood in Escape from Alcatraz.
-
Over in the Biden Administration, I drew a line:
1. Do not talk about people's real lives without their explicit permission in a disparaging fashion. There are two arbiters of that - the person whose life is being discussed and me.
2. Do not expose, seek to expose, or pretend to expose any member's real life facts. There are only two arbiters of that - the person whose life is under discussion and me.
3. Do not threaten another person, on the site or off. Do not propose that a US politician should die or, if you are from another country, a politician of your own country. I am the sole arbiter of that.
In the event that one of those things happens, I will indicate that it needs to stop. If it does not stop, I will given the offender a timeout of one sort or another for 5 days.
A repeat offense after the 5 day timeout will get a longer ban.
Seeking to get around that ban, going forward, will bring a report to the ISP of the offender.
In your opinions, are those too loose, too stringent, too something else? What changes would you make in them, if it were your call?
It implicitly allows the ongoing lies and insults that seem a staple of the political spaces and sometimes the sports spaces. It doesn't seek to control language - swears will continue to appear with great regularity.
Are those both okay?
-
Heh
No. Of course not.
But maybe I am just a conservative loon.
-
Heh
No. Of course not.
But maybe I am just a conservative loon.
Can you expand on your thoughts, rather than just an "of course not?"
-
I'd vote for no ad hominems. To clarify -- you can insult someone, but you can't use the insult as a foundation for saying their argument has no merit. IOW, you can't say, You're a pigfucking moron, ergo your statement is wrong. You have to meet bad logic with good logic, bad evidence with good evidence, otherwise it's just a waste of time.
-
yeah.......
not helpful.
-
yeah.......
not helpful.
You really need to be less vague, Kid.
-
https://www.sciencealert.com/study-finds-mums-with-straight-as-manage-the-same-number-of-employees-as-dads-who-failed
We talk about discrimination against women, but I don't think I've seen this mentioned.
Does this seem like a significant problem to you?
And if it is, how would you go about addressing it?
-
Over in the Biden Administration, I drew a line:
1. Do not talk about people's real lives without their explicit permission in a disparaging fashion. There are two arbiters of that - the person whose life is being discussed and me.
2. Do not expose, seek to expose, or pretend to expose any member's real life facts. There are only two arbiters of that - the person whose life is under discussion and me.
3. Do not threaten another person, on the site or off. Do not propose that a US politician should die or, if you are from another country, a politician of your own country. I am the sole arbiter of that.
In the event that one of those things happens, I will indicate that it needs to stop. If it does not stop, I will given the offender a timeout of one sort or another for 5 days.
A repeat offense after the 5 day timeout will get a longer ban.
Seeking to get around that ban, going forward, will bring a report to the ISP of the offender.
In your opinions, are those too loose, too stringent, too something else? What changes would you make in them, if it were your call?
It implicitly allows the ongoing lies and insults that seem a staple of the political spaces and sometimes the sports spaces. It doesn't seek to control language - swears will continue to appear with great regularity.
Are those both okay?
The problem isn't the rules. The problem is the arbitrary enforcement of the rules. For example, you enforced them before you posted them.
You now have rules, but you're not a good judge, IMO.
-
PUMP THE BREAKS ON THESE STUPID gender reveal parties: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGGGRujuQNE (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGGGRujuQNE)
-
An informed opinion on Texas independent power grid. Some facts may surprise you.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/24/opinions/texas-electric-power-russo/index.html
-
Cool. Thanks for the link.
-
So I thought perhaps we could use this forum here to post links to interesting articles. Could intro them with a few sentence summary or some commentary, but the focus would be on directing folks to useful and thought-provoking articles that otherwise they'd likely miss.
For me, that was the biggest benefit of the Trump/Biden Admin threads, the links to further reading. And I'd encourage people to put links here to especially good articles even if they've posted them first in the Biden Admin thread.
Sort of a For Further Reading thread.
My two contributions for now:
Krug Man on the Euro Vaccine Fiasco
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/18/opinion/coronavirus-vaccine-europe.html
I've been wondering why they've been stumbling badly. Though I'm not as convinced as Krug that it's due to an inherent flaw in the EU.
&
There have been several post-mortems on the Syrian civil war to mark the 10th anniversary of its eruption. I'll roll with Juan Cole for thoroughness:
https://www.juancole.com/2021/03/outbreak-revolution-prolonging.html
-
A more detailed explanation of Euro-failings re vaccination:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/20/world/europe/europe-vaccine-rollout-astrazeneca.html
Only about 10 percent of Europeans have received a first dose, compared with 23 percent in the United States and 39 percent in Britain.
The EU is said to be about 5 weeks behind the US, and while 5 weeks might not sound like a lot, vaccines have only been a reality for about 16 weeks, so that's a significant lag:
Three or four main points which help explain why/how the EU stumbled:
1. The US partnered with vaccine developers/makers and splashed around cash (give Trump some credit), while the EU was content to merely be a customer and a cheap one at that:
European governments are often seen in the United States as free-spending, liberal bastions, but this time it was Washington that threw billions at drugmakers and cosseted their business.
Brussels, by comparison, took a conservative, budget-conscious approach that left the open market largely untouched. And it has paid for it.
In short, the answer today is the same as it was in December, said Dr. Slaoui. The bloc shopped for vaccines like a customer. The United States basically went into business with the drugmakers, spending much more heavily to accelerate vaccine development, testing and production.
“They assumed that simply contracting to acquire doses would be enough,” recalled Dr. Slaoui, whom President Donald J. Trump hired to speed the vaccine development. “In fact what was very important was to be a full, active partner in the development and the manufacturing of the vaccine. And to do so very early.”
2. Lack of EU coordination and squabbles over vaccine liability:
Drugmakers expected the same concessions in Europe, but the back and forth over liability was the major stumbling block, Ms. Gallina said. European negotiators had to reconcile disparate liability laws across multiple countries, finding common ground among 27 leaders.
“In a crisis, it always becomes clear that the E.U. is not a country,” said Jacob Kirkegaard, of the German Marshall Fund. He said the bloc approached vaccine procurement like a contract negotiation when in fact “it was a zero-sum game with limited supply.”
3. The EU backed some drug companies that failed vaccine-wise, while cheaping out:
European institutions are, by design, risk-averse. One of the founding tenets of the European Union is called the precautionary principle: The bloc errs on the side of caution when risks are unclear.
That, some analysts have said, hurt the bloc. German leaders argued for a heftier bet on vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech and CureVac, but they were based on unproven messenger RNA technology and were more expensive. The bloc had just settled a thorny economic rescue package, and there was little appetite among members for more risk or spending.
It didn’t help that Europe backed the wrong horse in some cases. It spent billions on a vaccine candidate from French drugmaker Sanofi and Britain’s GSK that was delayed by over a year after disappointing results.
So the bloc relied heavily on AstraZeneca for its early rollout plans, a bet that had repercussions from the beginning. Italy, for example, embraced Europe’s bet on AstraZeneca doses because they were cheaper and did not require extreme storage temperatures. But then Italian regulators recommended against giving the vaccine to the elderly until more data were available, leaving a country with the oldest population in Europe more vulnerable to the pandemic.
4. The EU delayed almost 3 weeks in approving the AZ vaccine.
I put lengthy quotes since it's a NYTimes article.
I simply stop it from downloading and get it all free.
-
Good thought-food. I want to read these and then get a better handle on how US federal gov approach to R&D compares to EU generally. I have vague bits of knowledge of this, but not enough. I like the whole For Further Reading idea as part of UDC. Good alternative to the way the Web makes just lightly nibbling information here and there so easy. Depth is often a casualty.
-
Good thought-food. I want to read these and then get a better handle on how US federal gov approach to R&D compares to EU generally. I have vague bits of knowledge of this, but not enough. I like the whole For Further Reading idea as part of UDC. Good alternative to the way the Web makes just lightly nibbling information here and there so easy. Depth is often a casualty.
I've been thinking about this and the best way to go about it.
A part of me wants to simply create a new space labeled For Further Reading, but I think it's just overkill. Perhaps relabeling the thread something like FFR - R&D (or whatever subtopic we've been on) would work, if we could be bothered to do it.
-
Earlier today, in the Biden forum, I posted that the US Corn Belt has lost a third of its topsoil.
Is this a problem that should be addressed by the landowners, without governmental involvement?
Is this a problem that should be addressed by the state, because it crosses land boundaries?
Or is this a problem that should be addressed by the federal government, because it crosses state boundaries?
I am assuming that it should be addressed, rather than ignored.
-
The owners are at the mercy of the banks. If the feds can step in and really subsidize green agri, no-till methods, prairie strips (belts of restored prairie between crops), cover crops, green manure, and so on, that gives the farmer means to work with the banks and not be forced by them into the quick-and-dirty cropping. I also give props to groups like Nature Conservancy that develop funds to assist farmers with sustainable practices and such. Also, water management is a huge issue and is, of course, one that goes across state lines. Green agriculture methods can save enormous amounts of water, and take pressure off aquifers and riparian sources. Sometimes you need responsible federal management. We're talking about feeding people here, so it's not like some highly abstract argument needs to be put forth for the importance of agri reform.
-
Kim Stanley Robinson, SF Author, argues in WaPo that a global population decline could be a good thing:
“The world is ill-prepared for the global crash in children being born which is set to have a ‘jaw-dropping’ impact on societies,” the BBC reported last summer. This media staple got a boost a couple of weeks ago from a New York Times article headlined “Long Slide Looms for World Population, With Sweeping Ramifications.” While trying to find some bright spots (lower demand on resources!), the article mostly focused on the “hard to fathom” negative implications.
"I’d prefer to fathom the good stuff. And that goes well beyond a reduction in the demand on resources — welcome as that would be. No matter how clean our technological systems and lifeways, fewer humans would mean fewer demands on the biosphere."
Thoughts/reactions?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/06/07/please-hold-panic-about-world-population-decline-its-non-problem
-
I have held Kim's view for many years. As he notes, a healthy sustainable pop figure is impossible to determine, but there is no doubt that three billion people who want a Western prosperity lifestyle could be borne by ecosystems far better than nine billion. And there's also a quality of life issue, when the wild places aren't so packed with people seeking nature that its restoring quiet and beauty are nearly obliterated.
His economic points are good ones, grounded in what really improves people's lives and not what makes capitalists moist.
-
Well, KSR just nailed it. I've read some of his science fiction, so I know he ponders ecological issues quite a bit.
I think, to survive, humans have to recognize that the philosophy of endless growth inherent in capitalism is also the philosophy of a colony of cancer cells.
And a smaller working-age population does also mean less unemployment and a higher valuation on labor. A world where workers are being wooed with higher wages is one with "economics as if people mattered," to borrow E. F. Schumacher's phrase.
Mental health would improve in a less populated world where urban centers had more green spaces close at hand. I'm not sure the Deep Ecologists are wrong about a world with only a few hundred million people, though that seems unlikely to me unless something catastrophic happens.
-
Up above, in the Biden admin forum, we were discussing top marginal tax rates. I observed that for a bit more than a decade in the 1950s and 1960s the top marginal tax rate was 91% or 92% - on income greater than $1.5 million in modern dollars.
The question was asked by Ham whether I thought it was fair, to which I replied that I was not suggesting that. I then asked him what he thought a fair top marginal tax rate would be and at what income level did he think it should kick in.
He's thinking about that, but noted he thought the question of what constituted income was a bigger question. I've disagreed that it is bigger, but totally agree that it is important!
So... what do you folks think the top tax rate should be on income, at what income level should it start, and what should be counted as income for that purpose?!
-
Another complication, here, Josh is what is the dollar worth where you live? $100,000 in KS is a lot more than $100000 in CA or MA.
That should be factored in, somehow. And it's not, IMO.
-
From Jay Kuo on FB:
A common question I hear people ask, usually to mock poor, white conservatives, is “Why do these people vote against their own self-interest?” In many ways, it is a valid and perplexing question. Poor whites stand the most to gain from economic policies like Biden’s, which grant child credits to families, freeze taxes for those making under $400K, provide Covid-19 relief to hardest hit areas, rebuild crumbling infrastructures such as bridges and highways in rural communities, and offer lowered costs for Medicare, to name just a few. All of these would tend to help the reddest of the red states and their inhabitants.
Yet these regions typically show the highest loyalty to Trump and the GOP. Many point to endemic racism, to the culture wars over abortion and trans rights, and to notions of individuality and freedom wrapped up in things like the anti-mask movement and the preservation of an unfettered second amendment right to own guns of all kinds.
But perhaps these are just indicia of a more generalized principle: People don’t vote their *self* interest, they vote their *group* interest.
Political opinions are not reasoned through and arrived at, they are more typically worn like badges of honor that identify you with your group, whether its party, religion or community. The more proudly you display them (think bumper stickers and T-shirts) the stronger you signal your loyalty to the group.
Uncomfortable facts that run contrary to a professed belief (such as that the GOP wants to gut the Affordable Care Act on which you and your family depend) are resisted by the group so effectively that *any* contrary statements, even if totally incorrect, often will be cited and clung to in order to justify the belief (e.g. my rates would have gone up even more under ObamaCare, which is socialism!) This quest for evidence can grow increasingly absurd, to the point where people believe the most fantastical of lies (think QAnon) in order to support their groupthink. This is in fact the cornerstone of cultish behavior.
If you’re hoping to win poorer folks on the far right over, it’s not useful to argue in the abstract that the Democrats will help them out the most. But there is a wide section of the population that is persuadable. That persuasion is not so much based on facts around economic policies, but on how those same policies are demonstrably actually helping *other* people out in their communities, people they might like and respect. If someone in their own community says that the child care tax credit or the ACA saved their family, community members may listen.
Another very effective way to get the message through is to have celebrities, such as actors, singers and well-known authors, carry the torch. People *want* to see themselves aligned with the people they admire. This is why it actually does matter quite a bit for people like Taylor Swift or BTS to take a political stand. For those who don’t spend a lot of time thinking about politics, but know that they respect these artists tremendously, new political opinions can form as the mind races to justify why they like them. (This is also why cancel culture and deplatforming is such a hot issue for radical conservatives.)
It also nearly goes without saying that telling people they are stupid for voting against their own pocketbook isn’t going to persuade them. They also aren’t dumb so much as manipulated, and in fairness liberals do much the same retrenching when faced with facts that run counter to their political ideology and set of beliefs about their leaders. The problem with liberalism is that it seeks to establish itself based on reason and fact, when these things demonstrably are not the things the typical human brain uses to arrive at a decision, whether it’s what to eat for lunch or who to vote for.
I make enough money lately as a business owner to put myself in a higher tax bracket, and yet I vote against my own economic self-interest all the time. I do this because I believe in the ideals of my own group, which espouses equality of opportunity and fairer division of wealth. These values are apparently more important to me than my own pocketbook. Am I delusional? I would like to think not. I can make a post-hoc argument about how my self-interest is really served by supporting redistributive economic policies and high marginal taxes, but that really just is confirmation of a pre-existing desire to see myself as a person with certain values. I cannot argue with the idea that I regularly place the ideals of my group (liberal Democrat) above my own economic self-interest.
The same goes for those on the other side of the political spectrum. Understanding where this stubborn and seemingly illogical behavior arises, and how best to address and deal with it, is essential for us to win a majority of voters to our side.
-
Taxing families who should be wealthy into poverty is wrong and crazy.
And we need for Americans to be rich and powerful and to have a voice in the world. Our power does not come from our President, our power comes from our people, and we need for our people to be wealthy and strong and well educated.
There are families who are world famous who are poor now because the chief money-earners were over-taxed. They should have been wealthy, and they should have went to the best schools, etc, but it just did not happen. The Great Grandkids are working at fast food restaurants for other people with zero education and some have experienced jail.
They should have went to Harvard, etc, they should have had the best that America had to offer. And we want for Americans to be prosperous, and these are good Americans who have loyalty to America, they would not have sent all of the jobs to China like Bill Gates and others did. They would have created jobs in the USA for Americans.
If you hit the jackpot and become a huge star, you need to be able to make money to help your family for future generations, you want for your children to attend the best schools, and to be able to travel the world and have opportunities. If your Grandchildren end up on welfare and have to go to community college, then I would definitely say that the taxes were too high back then.
You want for your future generations to be Senators, etc. My Great Grandfather was Chief of Police of Denver, Colorado, those are the kind of jobs you want for your children to have and for future generations. And you want for future generations to be successful business people, etc. To tax people so high that their descendants end up on welfare and in jail is a crime. They should have all went to Harvard, etc.
Salute,
Tony V.
-
Taxing families who should be wealthy into poverty is wrong and crazy.
And we need for Americans to be rich and powerful and to have a voice in the world. Our power does not come from our President, our power comes from our people, and we need for our people to be wealthy and strong and well educated.
There are families who are world famous who are poor now because the chief money-earners were over-taxed. They should have been wealthy, and they should have went to the best schools, etc, but it just did not happen. The Great Grandkids are working at fast food restaurants for other people with zero education and some have experienced jail.
They should have went to Harvard, etc, they should have had the best that America had to offer. And we want for Americans to be prosperous, and these are good Americans who have loyalty to America, they would not have sent all of the jobs to China like Bill Gates and others did. They would have created jobs in the USA for Americans.
If you hit the jackpot and become a huge star, you need to be able to make money to help your family for future generations, you want for your children to attend the best schools, and to be able to travel the world and have opportunities. If your Grandchildren end up on welfare and have to go to community college, then I would definitely say that the taxes were too high back then.
You want for your future generations to be Senators, etc. My Great Grandfather was Chief of Police of Denver, Colorado, those are the kind of jobs you want for your children to have and for future generations. And you want for future generations to be successful business people, etc. To tax people so high that their descendants end up on welfare and in jail is a crime. They should have all went to Harvard, etc.
Salute,
Tony V.
Nobody in the US is being or has ever been taxed into poverty who "should have been wealthy," Tony.
Nobody.
That includes Roy Rogers' family - I don't know how they went from $10s of millions to broke, but it wasn't from taxes.
-
Roy Rogers's kids: https://www.wideopencountry.com/roy-rogers-children/ (https://www.wideopencountry.com/roy-rogers-children/)
Some tragic deaths among them, but none, it seems from being overly taxed.
-
On the "bobo" class, and how America's class divisions, and ideological bases, have changed. One of the best long reads I've had this year.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/09/blame-the-bobos-creative-class/619492/
-
On the "bobo" class, and how America's class divisions, and ideological bases, have changed. One of the best long reads I've had this year.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/09/blame-the-bobos-creative-class/619492/
Haven't read it yet, but getting the September articles on August 4th really feels like pushing things...
-
https://www.public.asu.edu/~jmlynch/273/documents/FreudEinstein.pdf
In 1932, Einstein and Freud had an exchange of letters that has come to be known as the "Why war?" letters.
Some of us might find them interesting.
-
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2021/0909/What-happens-when-protesters-take-over-for-the-police
I recommend the deep read.
-
https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/28/opinions/roald-dahl-antisemitism-netflix-perry/index.html
This is presented not because of Dahl, himself, but because of the underlying question of the place in society of figures with flaws and their place - and their works' place - in our society.
Whether it is the objection to the Founding Fathers' race and gender biases and its twin of the objections to those objections or Orson Scott Card's anti-gay stance and whether to boycott his works and the movie(s) made from them, our schools, parents, and kids are called to consider and respond to these issues.
Is it the same as banning books, or only a 2nd cousin? Does including these authors intentionally allow us to address the notion that people can be flawed whether brilliant or not and/or to talk about how pervasive prejudice can be and some of how it spreads? Or does our very inclusion cause that spread?!
-
(apostrophes removed intentionally)
Im pretty much of the school of artistic works stand or fall on their own merits. I like several Woody Allen films, he is a great writer/director. Ive read and liked Speaker for the Dead, and Enders Game, and maybe will reread them some day (still mean to get to Xenocide, too) and I havent really looked into what his antigay stance is, or what nuances if any lie there. Ive read and enjoyed the books of PG Wodehouse, Agatha Christie, Dahl, Yukio Mishima, Nietzsche, Mark Twain, and dozens of other writers who have been slammed for poisoned ideas, and not felt that my tender mind was irreparably polluted or that they were agents of spreading toxicity.
Card, in particular, does not seem to me, based on what I have read of him, to be advancing any homophobia (or xenophobia, heh) in his writing. Indeed, his antigay stance is quite surprising to me. So maybe I will just ignore that part of him, as I will ignore the racism, misogyny, and other prejudices that were pretty much baked in to just about every writer who was working before the late twentieth century.
-
(apostrophes removed intentionally)
Im pretty much of the school of artistic works stand or fall on their own merits. I like several Woody Allen films, he is a great writer/director. Ive read and liked Speaker for the Dead, and Enders Game, and maybe will reread them some day (still mean to get to Xenocide, too) and I havent really looked into what his antigay stance is, or what nuances if any lie there. Ive read and enjoyed the books of PG Wodehouse, Agatha Christie, Dahl, Yukio Mishima, Nietzsche, Mark Twain, and dozens of other writers who have been slammed for poisoned ideas, and not felt that my tender mind was irreparably polluted or that they were agents of spreading toxicity.
Card, in particular, does not seem to me, based on what I have read of him, to be advancing any homophobia (or xenophobia, heh) in his writing. Indeed, his antigay stance is quite surprising to me. So maybe I will just ignore that part of him, as I will ignore the racism, misogyny, and other prejudices that were pretty much baked in to just about every writer who was working before the late twentieth century.
I strongly recommend Xenocide and, for that matter, Enders Shadow and that sequence. Children of the Mind is very skippable, IMO.
Songmaster is among his works that more vividly display his antigay stance, though still not as blatantly as all that.
Art stands on its own merits is certainly an understandable take on things.
-
(apostrophes removed intentionally)
Im pretty much of the school of artistic works stand or fall on their own merits. I like several Woody Allen films, he is a great writer/director. Ive read and liked Speaker for the Dead, and Enders Game, and maybe will reread them some day (still mean to get to Xenocide, too) and I havent really looked into what his antigay stance is, or what nuances if any lie there. Ive read and enjoyed the books of PG Wodehouse, Agatha Christie, Dahl, Yukio Mishima, Nietzsche, Mark Twain, and dozens of other writers who have been slammed for poisoned ideas, and not felt that my tender mind was irreparably polluted or that they were agents of spreading toxicity.
Card, in particular, does not seem to me, based on what I have read of him, to be advancing any homophobia (or xenophobia, heh) in his writing. Indeed, his antigay stance is quite surprising to me. So maybe I will just ignore that part of him, as I will ignore the racism, misogyny, and other prejudices that were pretty much baked in to just about every writer who was working before the late twentieth century.
UM...What did Woody Allen do wrong, btw?
As for Roald Dahl, well how can we not condemn him? Remember that Anti-Semitic phrase so often repeated by the BFG? You know, "Schnozzcumbers!" That was a direct reference to the Jews!
Clearly his books should be banned.
-
(apostrophes removed intentionally)
Im pretty much of the school of artistic works stand or fall on their own merits. I like several Woody Allen films, he is a great writer/director. Ive read and liked Speaker for the Dead, and Enders Game, and maybe will reread them some day (still mean to get to Xenocide, too) and I havent really looked into what his antigay stance is, or what nuances if any lie there. Ive read and enjoyed the books of PG Wodehouse, Agatha Christie, Dahl, Yukio Mishima, Nietzsche, Mark Twain, and dozens of other writers who have been slammed for poisoned ideas, and not felt that my tender mind was irreparably polluted or that they were agents of spreading toxicity.
Card, in particular, does not seem to me, based on what I have read of him, to be advancing any homophobia (or xenophobia, heh) in his writing. Indeed, his antigay stance is quite surprising to me. So maybe I will just ignore that part of him, as I will ignore the racism, misogyny, and other prejudices that were pretty much baked in to just about every writer who was working before the late twentieth century.
UM...What did Woody Allen do wrong, btw?
"On December 24, 1997, Woody Allen, the 62-year-old Academy Award-winning writer-director of such movies as Annie Hall and Hannah and Her Sisters, marries 27-year-old Soon-Yi Previn, the adopted daughter of his former partner Mia Farrow, in a small ceremony in Venice, Italy."
History dot com
-
(apostrophes removed intentionally)
Im pretty much of the school of artistic works stand or fall on their own merits. I like several Woody Allen films, he is a great writer/director. Ive read and liked Speaker for the Dead, and Enders Game, and maybe will reread them some day (still mean to get to Xenocide, too) and I havent really looked into what his antigay stance is, or what nuances if any lie there. Ive read and enjoyed the books of PG Wodehouse, Agatha Christie, Dahl, Yukio Mishima, Nietzsche, Mark Twain, and dozens of other writers who have been slammed for poisoned ideas, and not felt that my tender mind was irreparably polluted or that they were agents of spreading toxicity.
Card, in particular, does not seem to me, based on what I have read of him, to be advancing any homophobia (or xenophobia, heh) in his writing. Indeed, his antigay stance is quite surprising to me. So maybe I will just ignore that part of him, as I will ignore the racism, misogyny, and other prejudices that were pretty much baked in to just about every writer who was working before the late twentieth century.
UM...What did Woody Allen do wrong, btw?
"On December 24, 1997, Woody Allen, the 62-year-old Academy Award-winning writer-director of such movies as Annie Hall and Hannah and Her Sisters, marries 27-year-old Soon-Yi Previn, the adopted daughter of his former partner Mia Farrow, in a small ceremony in Venice, Italy."
History dot com
Did you have a point?
-
(apostrophes removed intentionally)
Im pretty much of the school of artistic works stand or fall on their own merits. I like several Woody Allen films, he is a great writer/director. Ive read and liked Speaker for the Dead, and Enders Game, and maybe will reread them some day (still mean to get to Xenocide, too) and I havent really looked into what his antigay stance is, or what nuances if any lie there. Ive read and enjoyed the books of PG Wodehouse, Agatha Christie, Dahl, Yukio Mishima, Nietzsche, Mark Twain, and dozens of other writers who have been slammed for poisoned ideas, and not felt that my tender mind was irreparably polluted or that they were agents of spreading toxicity.
Card, in particular, does not seem to me, based on what I have read of him, to be advancing any homophobia (or xenophobia, heh) in his writing. Indeed, his antigay stance is quite surprising to me. So maybe I will just ignore that part of him, as I will ignore the racism, misogyny, and other prejudices that were pretty much baked in to just about every writer who was working before the late twentieth century.
UM...What did Woody Allen do wrong, btw?
"On December 24, 1997, Woody Allen, the 62-year-old Academy Award-winning writer-director of such movies as Annie Hall and Hannah and Her Sisters, marries 27-year-old Soon-Yi Previn, the adopted daughter of his former partner Mia Farrow, in a small ceremony in Venice, Italy."
History dot com
Did you have a point?
Opinions are welcome, especially when fleshed out and supported by facts.
But "lol" is not an opinion. Nor is "you should read what you wrote." Similarly, "all you do is lie, deny, and obfuscate" is not permitted.
Add "did you have a point?" to the list of pointless comments that are not welcome.
-
Re Woody
I'm not sure I want to bother explaining why romancing a stepdaughter then marrying her is considered gross and exploitative. Maybe there are remote Pacific Islands where it's not. Manhattan is not one of them. I'm not going to pass judgment on the other allegations of sexual molestation, though they are pretty disturbing and would make me think twice about letting him babysit.
Dahl was virulently antisemitic. I think I'm going to be okay with people not buying his books. But banning remains something I can't advocate. In fact, it may be worthwhile for some to read him precisely because his work may yield insight into a mindset that was sadly pretty common in the previous centuries. His book, The Witches, as Josh's linked article noted...
"created a caste of hook-nosed women who can literally print money and who like to kidnap and murder innocent children. The characterization appears to draw directly from the blood libel slander, the medieval and modern conspiracy theory that Jews annually kidnap and murder Christian children."
Yeah, I don't need to put that on the grandkids birthday gift list. But maybe when they're older, it would be good that their generation doesn't forget the kinds of distorted and paranoid thinking that Dahl epitomized...and where that thought process can lead.
-
Right now, the worlds second-most powerful state, China, is committing genocide against its own people and dismantling the freedoms of a city of several million, but the West continues to trade with it almost as if nothing is happening. Even as Western governments busily sanction Russian oligarchs, they continue to let Saudi oligarchs buy up their companies, sports teams, and homes, despite the fact that their leader, according to U.S. intelligence, approved the butchering of a journalist in one of his embassies. In Syria, long after Barack Obama declared that Bashar al-Assad (must go) and predicted that he would, the dictator remains in power, backed by Putin. Across the Middle East and North Africa, the Arab Spring has largely petered out into a new set of brutal dictatorships, save for one or two exceptions. In Africa and Asia, Chinese and Russian influence is growing and Western influence is retreating. It may be comforting to say that Putins troubles in Ukraine now prove the enduring power of the old order, but it is difficult to draw that conclusion when looking at the world as a whole...
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2022/03/western-unity-putin-russia-ukraine/627013/
-
What if planet Earth was a no-fly zone?
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220519-what-if-we-all-stopped-flying
-
https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2022/07/building-house-expensive-market-inflation-nimby/670596/
How can you help make housing affordable in your community? Start with zoning laws that allow builders more options, and say no to "vetocracy."
-
I feel that this thread could be the "Grownups" thread, where the non-troll members could discuss current events. The title itself seems to function as a troll repellent. Anyway, post em if you got em, and I will keep looking in. Probably am done with the main politics (Biden) thread for now. Just not worth strapping on the hip waders.
-
https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2022/07/building-house-expensive-market-inflation-nimby/670596/
How can you help make housing affordable in your community? Start with zoning laws that allow builders more options, and say no to "vetocracy."
Our community recently agreed to relax the 3 acre zoning minimum for builders willing to put in 55+ housing, in the hopes of creating more affordable units. The costs of building aren't any lower, of course, but it ought to help some.
And there is a new law requiring towns along a corridor of the commuter rail lines to have a certain number of apartment units -- something denser than anything many of the outlying communities (like ours) have ever had. The law is being challenged in court - it makes far less sense for a town like ours that has no public transit that would get one from here to the nearest train station than for those with bus routes that would serve this purpose and there is no sign that that obvious next step is being considered.
-
Coordinating transit in a rational way with zoning is going to be a bear.
-
(https://static01.nyt.com/images/2022/08/03/upshot/up-abortion-referendum-map-promo-promo/up-abortion-referendum-map-promo-promo-threeByTwoMediumAt2X.png?format=pjpg&quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale)
-
What if planet Earth was a no-fly zone?
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220519-what-if-we-all-stopped-flying
We did stop flying for several days after 9/11. It was eerily quiet, among other things.
-
So it appears we have, with the collapse of the Red Wave, escaped at least one form of Hobbesian nightmare.
What others do you think we must prepare for? Solar flare taking out the grid? Nuclear war? Collapse of the bee population? Malicious design and release of bioengineered pathogen? Pest infestation destroys world coffee crop?
-
I could be in favor of executing a limited subset of murderers who commit especially depraved (or mass) murders, as long as there is close to zero doubt they did it. Such as being caught at the scene as in the case of Dylan Roof the church assassin. Or of there is substantial and uncontradicted physical evidence.
You could even make it part of the sentence that they get 10 years in jail for appeals and such before their execution date. And have a review board that makes sure that guilt is not in doubt.
A big problem with the system as it is, is that it's poor and poorly educated and minorities who get the death penalty. Often legal counsel was inept -- there have been death penalty cases where the attorney never handled such a case before, where the lawyer slept through parts of the trial etc. If the person is clearly guilty or the evidence so stacked against them, any competent lawyer will plea bargain and get their client a long prison term instead of exposing them to the death penalty. Related, if the lawyer fails to bring up some objections or introduce some evidence into trial, that often precludes any appeals on those grounds. So the system as it is punishes the poor with inept or inexperienced counsel.
And there are racial issues as well. Studies have shown that killing a white person leads to more death penalty convictions. That black defendants get the death penalty more than whites. That juries without blacks vote for the death penalty for black defendants more, etc. I assume death penalty is sought more for black defendants and white victims as well.
So given the realities of poor counsel and a weak public defender system, plus the inherent racism in the US criminal justice I find it very hard to practically implement a fair and mistake free death penalty regime. As it stands it's generally poor and poorly educated minorities who get the death penalty. For most defendants, it's not too difficult to plea bargain and/or argue mitigating factors and avoid such.
Then there's also issues of mental competency and youth.
A can of worms all around.
At least under the current regime the death penalty is fairly rare, takes around 20 years for a sentence to be carried out -- but I don't think anyone would argue that it's fair and mistake free.
Indeed.
The death penalty is a croc.
The premeditated, cold-blooded killing of human beings by the state is barbaric.
It was barbaric in Auschwitz, and it's just as barbaric today.
Walk the human into the chamber of death alive, and wheel them out dead...time modern America moved on from that. Ask Sabrina Butler, I'm sure she will agree.
Ask the Innocence Project, they will certainly agree.
-
https://www.npr.org/2022/12/09/1141635119/the-first-gen-z-member-of-congress-was-denied-a-d-c-apartment-due-to-bad-credit
Ending rental application fees is a good start. For the non-affluent some of the current practice is predatory.
And for members of Congress from the working class, they shouldn't have to couch surf the first few months in DC, or resort to sleeping in their offices. Maybe consider affordable housing as essential to the health of any city, find legal and legislative tools to reward builders who do the right thing and create affordable spaces. I have a lot of hope for the raised consciousness of Gen Z.
-
How modern zombie narratives have distanced themselves from the Haitian origins. And why. Fascinating read.
https://www.salon.com/2023/03/19/zombie-zonbi-haiti-origins/
-
https://www.thetrace.org/2023/12/firearm-suicide-gun-owners-nra-research/
Longish article, copublished by The Atlantic and The Trace. I posted The Trace link, since it is paywall free.
A story of a gun lover and suicide.