Ho! Ho! Ho! I'm Kennethamy Claus and I've got a bag full of Red Herrings for all the good boys and girls on Philsophy Forum dot com!

-sigh-

Someday, you'll stay on-topic in a thread and it will probably wither every tree on Earth.


-ITL-

All my time on this forum Ive never seen a single poster cry foul so often. Let alone call something a red herring that isn't. There are quite a few posters here that got quite a bit of inflammatory remarks made towards them but they never cried about it.

But what did putting it into quotes indicate? What was I supposed to understand by that? I suppose that you used quotes to indicate something to your reader-didn't you?

I was once in a restaurant, and I saw one door marked, ""Women", and another marked, "Men". What do you suppose that meant?

As I wrote, we do not consult people on what their punishment should be because they would clearly not be impartial or disinterested judges. The fact that someone does not think he should be punished in some particular way in no way is a reason not to punish him in that way.

Where on earth can you find a disinterested judge??? We all have a certain interest in justice...We all have a certain interest in peace, and we all have a certain interest in price...We all look on law with a certain prejudice or fear....Why not look to the trial of Socrates... Did he not have a say in his punishment which was a slap the jury did not take well... One size fitzall justice does not work...Crimes are individual and in fact may often be the expression of individuality if we can believe our own myths of heroes as outlaws, and yet we think justice is equality of punishment... Certainly people should be consulted about their punishment as they are consulted about their guilt, and this is especially true of lesser crimes because the worst possible situation is one where the prisoner is released with an injured sense of justice, as so many are...We do not need to look for justice for the condemned nearly so much as we need to find it high or low in society because it is a rare bird... And when it gets to the point of a trial in an unjust society, with a victim who may never have known justice, and a prisoner who may never have known justice, and a jury and judge who may never have known justice how are any of these going to produce justice out of whole cloth??? It is a well known saying in law that the judge does not determine justice, but law... In England the parlement makes the law and the justices enforce the law, but done right, as it is supposed to occur, justice never enters the court room...

We look to the Greeks, though more so to the Romans for our model of government, and we should do it to a greater extent in some regards...The Athenian Greeks in their Supreme court had a ratio of representatives to represented of 1 to 250, which was their least representative body...In our most representative body we began with 1 to 30k, and now have a ratio of one representative to over six hundred k...If the government could better hear the people when they ask for justice it is likely the gross injustices we see throughout our society and prison system would end...

Whether or not you can find a perfectly disinterested and impartial judge, one thing is for sure, he will not be the accused. It is fallacious to argue that since the ideal is impossible to find, it makes no difference what you do. If no one can get a perfect score in a game, there is no difference between a zero and a 99. As has been said, the perfect is the enemy of the good.

You don't have to put words in my mouth because I already have plenty..I say justice is a form of a relationship, and it does not ever exclude the accused or condemned... We cannot know with truth certainty, and we cannot be impartial judges... We all have a chip on the table, and we all have something at stake, and we should search for justice as a community understanding we are working aginst an impediment always...Would it not give you pause to hear from the mouth of a defendent that he is not guilty and not deserving of death??? Sure, if he seemed only cowardly then we would as soon hold him in contempt and kill him... But if the person is innocent and even against certain testimony claims innocence, then what have we to lose but our own innocence??? We can afford to lock people up for life, and it is not punishment but protection from him...We do not have wide spred poverty, and this is not the middle ages which could barely support the working people and the draft animals...It is not essential to kill anyone, and it is essential for society to be without sin...If America could see itself as it is, vulgar, immoral and insane the air would go out of our empire...If we were shown what we are by invaders, we would quake in terror knowing we deserve our deaths...To know our power as a nation and as individuals we should be virtuous, and that demands much consideration...Today we have the perception of virtue without the proof...Look at us compared to the Muslims... They fear God and do not fear death... We do not fear God and so fear death...We make a show of valuing life while we take it, and we demean the life we say we defend...

You don't think that a judge in a law court who is not personally involved in a criminal case is likely to me more impartial than the criminal who is about to be sentenced. Why not?

To get by in society we must all suffer and accept some injustice, and there are many who benefit from injustice, even in the lowest rungs of society... It is impossible to be a fair judge because so little of what we know is ever compared against objective reality for a sense of truth...And we have all come to fear violence so badly that we are over inclined to accept injustice for the promise of peace...Most of my forms and ideas were handed to me whole, and I could spend a life time checking and testing them against reality with little progress... Most of us, lawyers judges, criminals and executioners get our ideas complete and use them not to think as is their purpose, but instead of thought, as though they were thought...

The state does not have the right to take life. If it does (which it does) it is only because the people allow it.

But this nation of petty imbeciles is not regularly outraged about the taking of innocent life: as long as it fits within the parameters of the status quo, they don't care at all.

anything is justifiable anyone can justify anything, justification is an act of rationalization this act has to be neither universally just nor rational, it simply satisfies the minimal requirements for just in the mind or collective minds of those committing the action.

Why has what you write anything to do with the question you are supposed to be replying to? Here is the question again:

You don't think that a judge in a law court who is not personally involved in a criminal case is likely to be more impartial than the criminal who is about to be sentenced. Why not?

Anyone can attempt to justify anything. But whether that attempt is successful, is clearly a very different question. There is an important distinction between attempting to justify, and succeeding in justifying. Just as there is between playing a game, and winning the game. Or, trying to pass an exam, and passing an exam. Or running a race, and winning a race.

I think it is entirely possible for all involved to be more partial than the prisoners... Only the convict knows the circumstances of his life, and of the affair at issue, and all others must draw a conclusion on ofthen slight evidence...But; we all have a finger on the scale of Justice... We all have a horse in the race, and a dog in the hunt, and the metaphores one can apply to the problem is extensive...

People once believed that when blacks were allowed to judge blacks that fairness would result... Since black people are more often the victims of crimes that whites and often suffer a want of police protection they are more inclined than others to hand down a guilty verdict, and offer a hard sentence...

If you want an example of justice look to tribal societies... In days past, and this is true for Europe, and for America, that a person who killed might, if he escaped immediate justice might have his life spared with an examination of circumstances and guilt and a payment of blood money, which we are yet paying today in places like Iraq, or Afghanistan....In Anglo Saxon England, even killing in self defense did not exempt one from paying blood money, but the main point is that all of this was decided upon with a meeting of families, a moot, a doom, or a thing... The threat of vengeance was terrible, and the need for peace was universal...And it helped that people accepted fate or kismet as a real force in human affairs... They believed that no man could kill another unless it was fated, so while they had to punish the will that made the fact come about, that punishment did not always require blood for blood...

We cannot believe that families meeting for justice, and deciding upon guilt and punishment were more impartial than ourselves...What we should try to realize that unless the murderer can excuse their action with mental defect or psychosis, that there are usually extenuating circumstances... The state takes the part of the victim, but what if the victim was in fact a victimizer???Because in western society we have shifted the natural balance toward peace instead of justice all involved in the law are prejudiced against anyone who takes matters into their own hands...

---------- Post added 11-27-2009 at 12:33 PM ----------


As can often be seen, murderers sometimes have a reason and a justification for their actions, but it usually holds no water... Their reasons should be heard, and ought to be taken into account, and best of all is for them to be brought to an acceptence of the sentence they recieve... Too often people use as a form of suicide...If for moral reasons or want of courage they cannot kill themselves, they kill in order to be killed... Suicide by proxy is what I think it is called, and it is real...

The problem is not with "capital punishment" in theory.
The problem is with "capital punishment" in practice.

It you are poor, mentally challenged, male, ethnic minority you are much more likely to be executed for the same crime versus your white caucasian educated affluent defendent.

Furthermore when you allow capital punishment on the basis of circumstantial evidence and despite the protests of innocence on the part of the accused mistakes are made (DNA evidence proves it).

I strongly support capital punishment in theory but abhore the results in practice. If capital punishment is to be retained the list of crimes for which it can be applied should be sharply curtailed (political assasination, mass murders, torture murders) and the evidence required should be much more than circumstantial. Even then this "tool of justice" would probably be abused.

Is capital punishment an effective deterrent, surprisingly probably not for murder. Executing public officials for corruption does seem to have an effect in China though.

The State is not "someone" at all. It is a political entity. And, it is supposed to be neutral. Sometimes, of course, what is supposed to be is not.

Oh, I don't know. It seems to me that torturing, raping, and then killing a little child, is a good candidate for an action that is clearly wrong, as well as "wrong for" most people. Which is to say, something that most people believe is wrong. And, I am sure we can both think of other actions of that kind which are clearly wrong, and not just believed wrong.

I'd like to add that torturing, raping, and then killing a little child is wrong whether it seems that way to you or not, and that is so even if neither of us believed it.

Really??? You mean that to do a kindness to some one in need is not just on its face, or that to wrong some one without reason is not unjust???

There is a difference of opinion regarding the justice of the death penalty, and it is a serious thing the state does against the will of many people, so it cannot be just because what people want is always good, which is the only authority they have to give to state, or government in any fashion, to do good in their name because no one has the authority on their own to do evil...What is good should be agreed just before the fact, and the dp is always justified after the fact; but what enters into the decission???Is it the totality of ones life that is judged, what they endured, what the desired, and what they felt about it all... One fraction of a person's life is judged, and no account is made for circumstances...A man was once raped by a man in Florida, and as soon as he was able he killed his attacker, and for that he was himself executed by the state...Can we justify it??? Clearly it was justified to the extent that the powerful ever need more justice than the power to do what they wish....But; justice is not what people say, but what people agree they can do... It is not a one sided coin... Justice can only be had if shared... What ever the dispute, what is justice for one is justice for the other...

Somehow, I don't think that consulting someone on his own sentence who is parti pris is an intelligent thing to do.

No system can provide it's citizens with justice, there will always be corruption. To look for justice is to search for something in vain.

Second it has been widely shown that the expenses of up-keeping and implementing equipment for killing these criminals is often more expensive that it is to give them life in prison.

Why has what you write anything to do with the question you are supposed to be replying to? Here is the question again:

You don't think that a judge in a law court who is not personally involved in a criminal case is likely to be more impartial than the criminal who is about to be sentenced. Why not?

Now, our gentle and moderate reader would no doubt like to object that it is not fear of the free-standing individual that prompts the outcry against this terrorist, but moral indignation-for he has taken "innocent" life in his quest to have his ideas heard, and that is wrong in every situation.

A nation of petty imbeciles, this is an interesting statement the reveals exactly who the author is just by being the archetype of a stereotype. This whole post shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the functional purpose of the state. Apathy does not an imbecile make. The primary purpose of the state is to free its constituents from the majority of these decisions and free them from the responsibility of the execution of law. A nation of people going about their day to day lives is a normal nation of people. Also for good measure, people that do not agree with you are not by default imbeciles.

Anyone can attempt to justify anything. But whether that attempt is successful, is clearly a very different question. There is an important distinction between attempting to justify, and succeeding in justifying. Just as there is between playing a game, and winning the game. Or, trying to pass an exam, and passing an exam. Or running a race, and winning a race.

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The state of course does not have the right to kill people, and it does at the same time. The state as an institutional entity grants rights. Without the state the only rights one would have is those that s/he could secure for herself. Thus the sate has the right as an institutional entity to revoke rights as well. So a state being an institutional entity has no rights, it needs no rights, it is a body of law and that law's execution.

Of the people by the people and For the people or similar mantras concerning modern states are statements of potential not statements of actuality. The state by its nature operated autonomously especially when it is 'democratic'. Short of major revolutions the changes in the state 'by the people' or any one persona really only come when the majority of the voting populace have adopted an ideal in their lives independent of political arena.

The quoted statement also denys the state the ability to declare and wage war. Without that ability how long would a state remain? How would that state protect its interests, and the interests of its consituents? how would that state police itself internally?

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A nation of petty imbeciles, this is an interesting statement the reveals exactly who the author is just by being the archetype of a stereotype.

The reasons are heard in what is called a "criminal trial" in a court of law.What makes you think accused murderers are not tried?

If you mean by "possible" "likely", it is not at all possible that the accused will be anything but prejudiced about what sentence they should be given.

manored;106478 wrote:

And I dont believe there is a government in the world that is not a case of something that was not supposed to be as it is =)



Obviously we cannot live in society if we all use our own concepts of justice, but even if a common ground exists, that wont make our own concepts go away, and sometimes we will break the law due to then. If that was not true, there would be no rebels.

What choice have we but to use our own concept of justice, or the local concept, or the Christian concept, or the Ethnic concept of justice... Our government began highly representatiive considering the means of the land to support such a government...Now we do not have a fraction of the representation and it is accepted that money can freely talk to our representatives... The problem is that government is where we talk to each other and resolve our differences of opinion...The government is not only unrepresentative, but it is allowed to divide districts in order to keep the people powerless and without a voice... Disticts are made 'safe' by gerrimandering to deliberatly deny half of the peoople the representative of their choice...What we have in Washington is two one sided conversations...We do not have the opportunity for a real nationwide dialogue..We have two parties telling us what we think, so what choice have we but to work on our own version of justice???

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It really depends of the legal system and what it offers. For instance it could ask the prisioner if it the prefers death penalty of life imprisionement, what would be a reasonable question, I think.

No person who disputes the facts in a case and maintains his innocence should be killed... Life is not just a sentence, but is a condition none can give, and once taken cannot return... To be around death and dying is to recognize what an enormous thing life is, and how terrible is murder....

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I completly agree with this. Seeking justice is vain, we should, rather, seek an acceptable situation.

Actually that is what justice is...It is not a moral abstraction, and not an absolute...Justice is what people agree to in a situation as just...You cannot gag one party to a dispute, and think justice will come out of the discusion...

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Fido frequently answers something only loosely related, better get used to it if you wanna hold discussions with him =)