The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history. - Orwell
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at http://theharshcouch.com/thc/2015-05-19/
The Harsh Couch - 2015.05.19 Breakdancing Frank Lowy
wibbly
#1
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at http://theharshcouch.com/thc/2015-05-19/
Listening now as I missed the livecast.
What’s with all the breeder talk? I thought this was the Harsh Couch, not the Smeared with a Half Eaten Peanut Butter Sandwich with A Few Lost Lego Pieces under the Cushions Couch.
I liked Dr Gob’s rock solid logic of jury selection in a death penalty case.
I may be biased, as I’m pro-convenience based killing, whether it’s:
- the death penalty properly administered (often a problem, mistrials and all, people later exculpated by evidence) on the sort of people I’m cool with killing (that’s probably also a problem, my standards may not align with others’); or
- abortion even when the foetus is a good way beyond the clump of cells stage and close to being capable of independent existence (wikipedia tells me the independently viable case is somewhere around 26 - 28 weeks and many states here in the US appear to allow abortion up to 24 weeks)
(edit: for consistency in convenience killing, I’m also cool with euthanasia and gently putting very sick/injured people who don’t have the ability to consent to euthanasia out of their misery)
In the case of death penalty, long appeal processes (in some jurisdictions at least) can render implementation difficult. I also suspect that life imprisonment without the prospect of release (for those truly guilty) can be worse punishment than death from the convicted’s perspective. Perhaps a long period on death row with uncertainty as when the axe will fall and dashed hopes is the most torturous and effective punishment.
But I’m not too much of a “make them suffer” theory of punishment sort of guy. I’m more of a societal convenience and utilitarian sort of guy.
If you are really, really certain the convicted did it (ie risk of mistrial low) and its the sort of crime that demonstrates a fundamental fucked-up-ness of thinking that it’s just too much effort to reverse, kill them and spend society’s limited resources where they can be used better eg helping refugees from fucked up places, putting money into early education.
On my view, you could run an argument for banning the death penalty in places like the US because the lengthy appeals process means a lot more costs are incurred, plus the victims’ wait for closure can be prolonged, than if you just locked the convicted up and threw away the key. Plus, you’re losing the chance for exculpatory evidence in less-than-clear cases of guilt (which seem to happen a lot here in the US).
If I was to think compassionately, I’d probably focus on the victims (both immediate and indirect eg their families) of the convicts’ actions in cases of murder and sexual assault. “Victims’ rights” was a fairly new movement when I was at law school and looked at with a bit of intellectual contempt and suspicion. However, these are the people who’ve suffered most and we shouldn’t ignore that, outside my convenience angle, the next point of utility value of punishment is the potential to bring some closure to those victims.
And in some cases, those victims may not want the death penalty invoked. Or they may come to regret it later. In the latter case, perhaps better to remove any say they have in the decision and just rely on my convenience approach.
I suspect Dr Gob will not find my reasoning as rock solid as his logic, which only related to jury selection within a particular paradigm and was not advocating the death penalty.
Will Harry ever come back?
I’m worried that his children have gotten all olde European religion on him and slain him. Or at least, they’ve engaged in some sort of Titanomachy, banishing Harry into darkness, leaving him nothing but a residual in the mythos. An echo of a long dead divine hierarchy that only whispers through origin tales.
Perhaps Harry is fated to rise resurgent in some kind of end-of-days battle? Possibly after the kids’ bedtime?
wibbly
#5
Harry says we make him too tired early in the week.
We think he’s soft.
[In other news, we’re in talks to rebrand The Harsh Couch as a “death cult” in the hope that this will bring us a few hundred new government-funded listeners. Presumably the funding for this could come from the foreign aid budget.]
It would at least get you a good amount of social media buzz. #deathcult doesn’t look entirely monopolised yet.