Re: Apple IIe seen in Discovery Channel documentary "2057: The Body"

[pausch@saaf.se (Paul Schlyter)]

In article <1178979677.989053.148790@u30g2000hsc.googlegroups.com>,
 <bieling@terra.es> wrote:

> On May 12, 12:11 pm, pau...@saaf.se (Paul Schlyter) wrote:
>
>> The US could also cease using
>> capital punishment - it's barbarian and remniscient of the middle ages.
>> No enlightened nation should keep using it - particularly not in the
>> 21st century!
> 
> Many individuals get involved in a long public process before someone
> eventually gets it. Therefore nowadays things are at least a bit
> different.
> 
> Also, I, as an individual, am legitimated to kill someone under
> certain circumstances, and I'm sure that even you would do it under
> certain circumstances.

True -- and sometimes we wouldn't merely be legitimated to do it,
it would be our duty to kill -- if entering the army and then
participating in a war.....

> I'm not sure why/if the society has to behave differently than an
> individual under certain circumstances, but I believe that it's ok to
> let the people choose either way.

Policemen too certainly have the right to shoot someone who seriously
threatens them, even if the person dies afterwards.

But you're missing the point.  I wasn't talking about selfdefence in
an emergency situation.  I was talking about punishment after a proper
trial.  That's a very different situation: the judge and the court
aren't threatened to life by the convict during the trial (and if they
were, the guards wouldn't be doing a proper job), therefore they
cannot claim selfdefence in an emergency situation.

> The opinion/belief you express is yourself's. Other people's beliefs
> can be both rightful and opossite to yours at the same time. And, if
> there were a referendum tomorrow in your own country and people said
> yes, wouldn't it be legitimated ?

I'm quite convinced capital punishment would be voted down if there was
such a referendum.  But we wouldn't have the right to keep such a
referendum, unless we first left the European Union.

> --Jorge.

And do you know the #1 reason against capital punishment?  Judges and
courts sometimes make mistakes, causing innocent people to be
sentenced to severe punishment.  It happened yesterday, it happens
today, and it can, and probably will, happen tomorrow.  The legal
system isn't infallible and will never be infallible.  And if an
innocent person is sentenced to death and executed, and the mistake is
revealed years later, the execution cannot be undone.  If he instead
is innocently sentenced to lifetime in prison, he can at least be
released when the mistake is revealed, and given economic compensation
for the time he was innocently jailed.

-- 
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