Off Topic Thread too point uh

.ak

Personally I don't think there should be a death penalty for anything. A country should be viewed on how it treats its prisoners. Any country that delivers the death sentence is barbaric IMO.

Also consider that a lot of the people caught smuggling drugs into the Asian block are usually mules; either conned into it or left without any choice.

Swiwi.

.ak wrote: »

Personally I don't think there should be a death penalty for anything. A country should be viewed on how it treats its prisoners. Any country that delivers the death sentence is barbaric IMO.

Also consider that a lot of the people caught smuggling drugs into the Asian block are usually mules; either conned into it or left without any choice.

OK, I'm back. I'll just throw this out there: a guy is on trial in NZ at the moment for deliberately running a woman over, breaking her legs, taking her back to his place, raping her, slitting her throat, and then dumping her body the next day.

Now NZ hasn't had the death penalty in years, but instead of the tax-payer forking out millions for this guy to rot in prison for the rest of his days, I'm sure there would be no shortage of people ready to put a bullet in his head. I wouldn't be one of them, can't stand killing anything (spiders excepted), wouldn't have the stomach for it, but there's a limit.

Anyone read "Papillon"? Where they leave the cruel guard outside to be slowly eaten alive by those South American ants...

stephen_n

The death penalty is a strange one, in general I'm against it as it sends out the wrong message and is at best vengeance not justice. Yet on the other hand if anyone raped my daughters I'm fairly certain Id kill them as soon as they were released from prison. Maybe it's state vengeance to protect families and thus ending a cycle. I have never been able to be 100% against it though I should be.

.ak

As terrible as that is, I don't believe any culture has the right to remove life. You're lowering yourself to their level imo.

However, I also believe most countries prison systems are ****ed, especially where private ownership comes into it.

Tox56

stephen_n wrote: »

The death penalty is a strange one, in general I'm against it as it sends out the wrong message and is at best vengeance not justice. Yet on the other hand if anyone raped my daughters I'm fairly certain Id kill them as soon as they were released from prison. Maybe it's state vengeance to protect families and thus ending a cycle. I have never been able to be 100% against it though I should be.

Thing is though if somebody does something to warrant getting the death penalty, they wouldn't/shouldn't be leaving prison in their lifetime in a system without the death penalty, so I don't think there's a 'cycle' to stop

Zzippy

I've watched a few programmes about prisons in other countries. I think I'd rather the death penalty than life in one of those hellholes...

pickarooney

Idealistically I'm against it but the pragmatist in me is pretty OK with the death penalty for pure scum the likes of they guy in Swiwi's post. People get killed every second of the day for no reason; I'm not going to cry for someone who more or less deserves it.

stephen_n

Tox56 wrote: »

Thing is though if somebody does something to warrant getting the death penalty, they wouldn't/shouldn't be leaving prison in their lifetime in a system without the death penalty, so I don't think there's a 'cycle' to stop

Yes but outside America where life means LIFE, also what warrants a death penalty? Rapists over here would very rarely serve more than 3-5 years, murderers a max of 15. Problem is though if you start sentencing properly you need a completely different prison system to what we have and it becomes very hard to treat prisoners humanely.

Swan Curry

I think the death penalty's biggest problem is that it doesn't account for miscarriages of justice. If the death penalty hadn't been abolished in the UK, the Guildford Four and the Birmingham Six may well have been dead by the time it was discovered they were framed.

Podge_irl

I don't much care about whether certain people live or die when they have committed certain crimes. That's a world away from a state dispassionately deciding to execute them though.

Questions such as "if it were my daughter" etc should be utterly irrelevant. Of course I'd want vengeance. The state should not be involved in vengeance because the whole point is that the state should be reflective of our best virtues and not our worst. Executing people doesn't solve anything, never has and never will. It's very easy to say "well why care, they're awful people/knew what was coming" and that is to a point a fair question. But really what are we hoping to accomplish by taking their lives? Because the answer is that we will accomplish nothing.

This is ignoring the inevitability of wrongful deaths as well. And the fact that it just doesn't ****ing work by any discernible metric.

errlloyd

I'm not pro the death penalty, but it's because I think it is ineffective, not because I have any morale issue with it. I don't think it is abhorrent. I respect an individual nation's right to use the death penalty.

There are a few things I do wanna say though. Legal style.

The death penalty doesn't save money (in any reasonably civilized country). Life sentences are cheaper. This is because someone on death row needs the highest level of security, they have no incentive not to break out. They need separation, because they have no incentive not to fight and kill other inmates. They can't be made work or do anything useful. They appeal all the ****ing time because they have no reason not to. They appeal to every imaginable court. They get awesome lawyers who work pro bono, or who are funded by anti death penalty groups.

As for wrongful convictions, I feel there is an unfortunate correlation between nations that have the death penalty and nations with low levels of checks and balance in their legal system. By that I mean I think a lot fewer people get wrongfully convicted in Ireland than in Indonesia, so that would be a much smaller problem here. In reality the death penalty should never be a mandatory minimum sentence. Almost all of the wrongful executions came from the fact it was a MM for murder, and even though there was doubt, the judge had no choice.

Finally to drugs. It was 10KGs of Heroin. It wasn't weed or coke or E. I actually hate Heroin. It ruins the life of the person taking it in 90% of cases. 10 KGs is a dreadful amount.

wp_rathead

Im being very off topic in the "Off Topic Thread" here but I'm currently rewatching LotR (Currently on Return of King), must say, something I never noticed before was that the orcs are wonderfully optimistic throughout the movies

There is a reason that the victims of crime don't deal out the punishment. If someone did something awful to one of my family I'd end them violently but it's wrong of me to expect the state to do this, just like it would be wrong for me to ask anyone here to do so.

Asking the state to kill someone, is asking the state to kill in all our name.

There are states that still have the death penalty but a member of the victims family must "pull the trigger" as it were. I personally don't agree with the death penalty though I do believe there are people who deserve to die.

I think life in prison should have a minimum duration, but I also think it should be life - ie: you can get out at 80 if you live that long and have surpassed the minimum duration. I don't believe that life should be 20 years, it's not a like for like punishment for what life sentences are handed out for.

Zzippy

wp_rathead wrote: »

Im being very off topic in the "Off Topic Thread" here but I'm currently rewatching LotR (Currently on Return of King), must say, something I never noticed before was that the orcs are wonderfully optimistic throughout the movies

They have to be, they're Connacht fans!

CatFromHue

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ervtik_7jYQ

I just finished watching a six part hbo documentary called The Jinx. It's quite good. The less you know about it going in, the better.

Buer

Listened to the suicide tape of Bernadette Forde which was played on Newstalk this morning (voiced by an actress). If anyone is completely against assisted suicide or the right to die campaign, it would be very hard to remain staunchly so in the face of it. Absolutely heart wrenching the suffering she had to endure as well as the sheer loneliness and isolation inflicted on her when she realised that informing anyone of her plans may make them complicit in the suicide. She died alone, in fear and pain, because she wanted to protect those that loved her.

Swiwi.

CatFromHue wrote: »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ervtik_7jYQ

Made me laugh, and obviously it's done for effect...but an extremely small minority of no voters are going to fit this demographic!

At a guess, I would say the largest no vote will come from elderly, rural, staunchly Catholic, farming types.

The couple depicted in the video (?middle class, urban, but religious right of right) are not going to be where the voting is decided.

Now, will a video like this persuade a little old granny in Roscommon who goes to mass regularly, and cooks lovely apple pie and makes a great cup of tea...but holds "traditional" views to change her mind?? If anything, it might make her more determined to stick by her guns.

The people who find the video funny are already voting yes, and I doubt it sways too many no voters. But I'm not a marketing man, so who knows?

Swiwi.

Not content with nicking our rugby coaches, I see. This was one of Bracewell's less memorable moments, but pretty funny at the time.

stephen_n

Not sure there is any swaying no voters. The hardest part will be getting the middle ground to vote at all, not sure that was designed as a vehicle for influencing anyone though.

Swiwi.

stephen_n wrote: »

Not sure there is any swaying no voters. The hardest part will be getting the middle ground to vote at all, not sure that was designed as a vehicle for influencing anyone though.

Yeah, I think there will be very few people voting no because they are scared/frightened of the outcome. I would think most people voting no will be doing so out of religious/"moral" reasons. Changing those peoples minds will be pretty difficult I imagine. However, there is always a core of undecided/middle ground voters, but how to tackle them (since it's a rugby forum after all...) is another matter. I don't have a ready solution.

stephen_n

Don't think there is one, which will make the vote closer than it should be. There's a huge push to register young voters though, which I think is the governments attempt to assure the vote is carried. The garda were in my daughters school today registering voters, which I have never heard of before. Think that video was just more about putting the issue in people's minds, that was released about 10 months ago.

Swiwi.

(A wee - or should that be oui - article on Ireland for any francophones on the forum: http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/2015/05/LAMBERT/52906

Also this: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/apr/29/instagram-ban-eggplant-emoji-sexters-fruity-alternatives

Reminds me of when I was working in A&E in rural NZ, and a family man came in with one of these "lost". His home retrieval efforts were in vain. Off to theatre for endoscopic recovery. Surgeon said it was particulary unpleasant: plastic vegetable followed immediately by a few days backlog of...

Wang King

Swiwi. wrote: »

(A wee - or should that be oui - article on Ireland for any francophones on the forum: http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/2015/05/LAMBERT/52906

Also this: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/apr/29/instagram-ban-eggplant-emoji-sexters-fruity-alternatives

Reminds me of when I was working in A&E in rural NZ, and a family man came in with one of these "lost". His home retrieval efforts were in vain. Off to theatre for endoscopic recovery. Surgeon said it was particulary unpleasant: plastic vegetable followed immediately by a few days backlog of...

Please Swiwi, we don't need to know all your adventures... Ffs, you'll be telling us next you were in the Famous Five and you're the reason poor Timmy left!

Zzippy

Swiwi. wrote: »

(A wee - or should that be oui - article on Ireland for any francophones on the forum: http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/2015/05/LAMBERT/52906

Also this: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/apr/29/instagram-ban-eggplant-emoji-sexters-fruity-alternatives

Reminds me of when I was working in A&E in rural NZ, and a family man came in with one of these "lost". His home retrieval efforts were in vain. Off to theatre for endoscopic recovery. Surgeon said it was particulary unpleasant: plastic vegetable followed immediately by a few days backlog of...

What. The. F*ck did I just read?!!!! :eek:

mfceiling

Swiwi. wrote: »

(A wee - or should that be oui - article on Ireland for any francophones on the forum: http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/2015/05/LAMBERT/52906

Also this: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/apr/29/instagram-ban-eggplant-emoji-sexters-fruity-alternatives

Reminds me of when I was working in A&E in rural NZ, and a family man came in with one of these "lost". His home retrieval efforts were in vain. Off to theatre for endoscopic recovery. Surgeon said it was particulary unpleasant: plastic vegetable followed immediately by a few days backlog of...

Cheers swiwi, I now know what an emoji is. I do not know how you would ever need to use one, or in what context one should be used, but my life is now a bit better after finding out that fascinating piece of information!!

pickarooney

I still don't understand what the big deal is in paying for your water supply.

CatFromHue

CatFromHue wrote: »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ervtik_7jYQ

When I saw the title for this I just presumed it had something to do with Welsh Rugby. Did click for a few seconds!

CatFromHue

pickarooney wrote: »

I still don't understand what the big deal is in paying for your water supply.

Me neither.

To me it's a perfect charge, or it was when it was pay for what you use.

Podge_irl

CatFromHue wrote: »

Me neither.

To me it's a perfect charge, or it was when it was pay for what you use.

Yeah. Changing it to a flat price just completely eliminated the entire bloody point.