Jerry Shugart
Well-known member
What's the excuse for letting those who have been proven to be guilty of murder off?
Does O.J. Simpson ring a bell?
Should Children Be Executed If They've...
- Thread starter Arthur Brain
- Start date
What's the excuse for letting those who have been proven to be guilty of murder off?
Does O.J. Simpson ring a bell?
Arthur Brain
Well-known member
None.
See how easy it is to give a straight answer and on topic? What excuse is there to execute a child who obviously doesn't possess the developed mental faculties of an adult?
None
Kit the Coyote
New member
Why do you keep posting sources that dispute your claims? From your document on the chapter on crime rates:
It does not contradict my claims. It says "longest PERIOD of decline. . ." You're only looking at part of the graph, and then making the (bad) argument that since part of the graph has the largest downward trend in the past century, therefore crime has been decreasing for the past century.
On the other hand, I'm using the whole graph (from 1900 to 1998/1999), and looking at the entire graph, and observing that the beginning point is much, much lower than the ending point, even though for about the last 20 years of the graph it shows a downward trend.
In other words, 20 years is not a century.
Let's reduce the graph to something simpler.
The last 3 points show the longest period of decline over the entire period shown.
But that's only a third of the graph. The overall trend is upwards, even though a third of the graph is downwards.
Now, if the starting point had been higher than the the average of the y coordinates, then sure, you could say for the entire graph the trend is downwards.
Back to the graph on the PDF I shared, the same still applies. If the amount of crime was decreasing over time, then most of the points on the graph would show a downward trend. However, this is not what we see. We see that the lowest point is in ~1904, the second lowest point is in ~1963, and we are currently at a low point within the past 30 years (since 1988).
If you were to take all the points of data on that graph, and plot them where x = year and y = number of crimes committed, and then plotted the mean of those points, the line would be going up, not down.
:deadhorse:
Not gonna respond to this.
Two or three witnesses applies equally in the New Testament as it does in the Old.
Or have you forgotten that 1 Corinthians 13:1 is in the NT?
If God says that two or three witnesses (which means you weigh the evidence presented) establishes a matter, why do you think that that standard is lower than any standard man can dream up, such as "absolute proof"?
"Two or three witnesses" establishes guilt. Why set the bar higher than God's standard?
So does any system, including all the current ones, so what's your point?
I think He'd be happy with as few wrongful convictions and as many correct convictions as possible.
Using your standard of "absolute proof of guilt," almost no one would be convicted, because all criminals would have to do is hide or destroy any evidence of their crime, and they would be able to say "you don't have absolute proof."
Whereas using God's standard of "two or three witnesses," all the evidence can be weighed, and a judgment can be made no matter how little or how much evidence there is.
What excuse is there to not execute a child guilty of committing a capital crime?
If animals, which are lower than humans, must be put to death (as well as their owner for not restraining them if the beast is known to be dangerous) for killing someone, how much more should a human being be put to death, no matter the age, for killing someone?
By the way, what do you think the punishment should be for taking the life of a baby in the womb?
Also, still waiting on a reply to this...
Arthur Brain
Well-known member
Um, no, not sure how you think that's helping your case, it's a passage you could do with taking in yourself.
For reasons obvious and explained numerous times now. You assume that what was acceptable for times of old is to be literally applied to the present despite the fact that such methods were pretty much all they had back then. Where it comes to someone's life being on the line then proof should be established before conviction otherwise you end up with executing innocent blood. If God abhors that and you're okay with the inevitable wrongful convictions that would lead to that in your "system", then your problem isn't with me.
As above.
Of course, there'll never be a perfect system but at least there's nobody who can wrongfully be put to death.
If God abhors the shedding of innocent blood then why do you think He'd support a system that you propose that could only increase the wrongful conviction rate because you'd be satisfied for a couple of witnesses to establish guilt? The amount of people who would be innocent and yet executed would escalate, not reduce.
Well no, someone could still be convicted of a crime if the evidence points towards guilt but before the DP could be carried out it would have to be established beyond doubt. If it transpires that the person is innocent on appeal or down the line then they can be released and compensated. If they're dead then an innocent person has been wrongfully killed.
Which would often be wrong, miscarriages of justice would rise and innocent people would be put to death. For times where it was only the system available then mistakes would have happened then also but nowadays there's much more available to establish or at least the likelihood of guilt.
Because they're a child and too young to be deemed capable of the same thought processes as an adult. It's why we have laws that prevent children from drinking, driving etc. Do the math.
:AMR:
In what way is it different?
Any system will acquit the guilty. It's just math over time.
I know you believe that to be true. So do I. Being emphatic in belief doesn't establish it as truth, however. And therein is found the problem in establishing how many times a guilty man goes free.
I'm not sure how the study could be compiled given the subjective nature of the thing, outside of a relative few cases where a verdict was procured in violation of procedural considerations that should have excluded otherwise damning evidence.
I think it's important to distinguish between the common and the uncommon but familiar. We're more intimately and constantly connected in this age. It takes a good bit more to shock us. And there's a historic indifference to certain segments of the population where a disproportionate amount of violent crime is taking place (there being in that population a disproportionate degree of poverty).
The actual rates don't support your notion. They would have a few decades ago, as I noted, when murders were double digits and drug and other crimes were at a premium. Really, you can look to drugs and their impact on Baby Boomers as driving most of the surge that has since been steadily on decline. At present, our murder rates are comparable to the 1960s.
According to PEW violent crime has fallen sharply over the past quarter century. If you wanted an epidemic you'd see it reach its height in the early to mid 90s.
According to the FBI (link), in 1993 you were looking at around 750 violent crimes per 100k citizens. By 2016 that number was around 390. Or, violent crime fell about 48% between 93 and 2016, even with some upticks.
In 1993 the number of property crimes stood at around 80 per 1k and was at 20 per 1k in 2016.
Property crimes per household was at around 350 per 1K in 93 and was down to 119 per 1k in 2016.
The problem is that public perception is skewed. From the Pew link:
"In a survey in late 2016, 57% of registered voters said crime in the U.S. had gotten worse since 2008, even though BJS and FBI data show that violent and property crime rates declined by double-digit percentages during that span."
ok doser
lifeguard at the cement pond
in what way did Thompson and Venables not possess the developed mental faculties of an adult?
ok doser
lifeguard at the cement pond
artie and rusha (and others) claim to be against abortion, presumably because they recognize that the unborn child is a human being
i don't believe i've ever seen any of them (liberals who claim to be against abortion) describe what they believe to be an appropriate punishment for the woman who kills her unborn child :think:
i don't believe i've ever seen any of them (liberals who claim to be against abortion) describe what they believe to be an appropriate punishment for the woman who kills her unborn child :think:
genuineoriginal
New member
Edit: never mind, you fixed it already
genuineoriginal
New member
The image I wanted to use got mangled by the censorship filter because the URL contained a word that was not allowed.
I had to keep searching for something else.
Kit the Coyote
New member
You are right my casually saying century was wrong. I stand corrected We see that peak in the early 90s. Your chart only goes to 1998 but from the stats, we looked at earlier that downward trend in crime and murder rates has continued. There has been a brief bump the last two years in murder rates but that has started down again this year. So at least for the 21st century, we are seeing crime rates go down. Even as the rate executions have gone down and the delays in implementing them have increased.
http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm
Kit the Coyote
New member
Admittedly they are likely other factors but we are making a direct correlation between the systemic delays in capital punishment and the encouragement of murder so the observation is not without merit.
Kit the Coyote
New member
So folks, its been fun visiting here as a token heretic but I'm moving on. I may come back later.
I leave you all with my favorite fare well blessing:
May you be poor in misfortune,
Rich in blessings,
Slow to make enemies,
quick to make friends,
But rich or poor, quick or slow,
May you know nothing but happiness
From this day forward. Fare Well.
I leave you all with my favorite fare well blessing:
May you be poor in misfortune,
Rich in blessings,
Slow to make enemies,
quick to make friends,
But rich or poor, quick or slow,
May you know nothing but happiness
From this day forward. Fare Well.
Arthur Brain
Well-known member
You'd hardly be a "token heretic" around here, maybe a village one...
Hope to see you around in the not too distant.
:cheers:
:Clete:
See you then, possibly. :cheers:
I almost chose Hamlet Heretic at the beginning...but then I figured it might confuse people.