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



mdj wrote:
On May 14, 5:43 pm, pau...@saaf.se (Paul Schlyter) wrote:


I don't agree it's the ultimate argument at all. It's certainly a good
logical position to take against those who are supporters of capital
punishment, but from my point of view, the whole point of the justice
system is *not* to punish the guilty, but to protect the innocent: If
you choose to violate the laws of our society, we will deprive you
(for length of time x) the right to participate in it because the
needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

Does your "protection of the innocent" also include those who are
innocently sentenced to severe punishments by courts making mistakes?


My ideology certainly does :-) Our own judicial system falls short of
my expectations in recompensing falsely imprisoned people. I find
arguments about how much money an individual should receive after
spending 30 years behind bars for murdering their own children (for
example) to be quite distasteful, when you consider the psychological
damage that's just been wrongly inflicted.


To me the ultimate argument against capital punishment is that not
killing each other is a cornerstone of civil society. Logically
speaking, the societies we now enjoy would not exist without; it's
irrational to have state sactioned exceptions to sociological axioms.

That's another very good argument against capital punishment.


Despite being full of spelling and grammatical errors :-S

"Same breeds same" as the saying goes, and it's obvious "who" should
be leading by example and breaking the cycle.

I agree with all this, but would like to point out that the state
(at least over here) is just the expression of what most people
agree with.

So the ability to move away from capital punishment as a state
policy means being able to convince most people that it is an
inappropriate policy.

Different people are convinced by different arguments, so what's
needed is a suite of consistent arguments supporting a position.

For some, an argument from principle is sufficient, but for many
the issue is more pragmatic.

Many people who believe in capital punishment do so thinking that it
is appropriate for those who have committed certain heinous crimes,
but they would hesitate to apply it if there were a significant risk
of killing an innocent person.  An increasing body of evidence is
coming to light that shows that the justice system is, in fact, quite
capable of finding a significant percentage of innocent people guilty.

For many people, that risk is enough to forego radically irreversible
sentences.  (Notwithstanding that "less final" sentences are also
irreversible to some degree).

-michael

NadaNet file server for Apple II computers!
Home page:  http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/

"The wastebasket is our most important design
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