tweakabelle
Posts: 7522
Joined: 10/16/2007 From: Sydney Australia Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Kirata ~ FR ~ One curious thing to consider about capital punishment is that even those who support it don't want to do it. Instead, we've invented all manner of contraptions to separate us from the act. K. I'm not sure that the reluctance you describe is the case. Judging from the posts here, there doesn't appear to be any shortage of people lining up to pull the plug on whoever is on Death Row in their locality. Indeed there seems to be a positive appetite, an enthusiasm to perform the deed exhibited by those posters. It's easy to talk of course and it's probably just some small-minded people trying to big note themselves, especially as we all know that there isn't a snowball's chance in Hell of them ever being called upon to actually perform the deed and execute someone. From where I sit, they look like they're involved in some weird macho pissing contest. It does seem to be a feature of this topic that many (but not all) pro-death people substitute emotional reactions for thinking processes in their contributions to the topic. One poster even concedes that there is no deterrent value in capital punishment, claiming instead that it 'justice', as though taking a life somehow equalises things, instead of merely producing another corpse. Justice isn't a zero-sum game. Clearly, he's not talking about justice, he is talking vengeance. And if there is no deterrent value in capital punishment, what rational reason remains for advocating it? Some anti-capital punishment people display emotional thinking too. It doesn't take a Freud to decipher this thinking. The idea of taking a life is abhorrent to most people in most circumstances so they are reluctant to countenance taking life in their name. They're uncomfortable with someone being killed on their behalf. What is it about this subject that evokes such emotional reactions, instead of calm, measured rational thought? What emotions are speaking to us beneath the various viewpoints being offered here? And if we strip away the emotional reactions what facts remain for our consideration?
< Message edited by tweakabelle -- 5/2/2014 11:50:11 PM >
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