Really, we should expand the death penalty. And not have them serve 20 years + on death row. THat's just nuts.
Appeals process. Necessary to make sure we're not executing innocent people. Makes executions more expensive than a few decades of room and board. We've been over this.
This is a thread I started, you got on this, I hadn't yet responded. And why should appeals go on forever? Just do a better job of conviction than say Texas does.
I don't know enough about the specific court mechanics of any particular state with the death penalty to be able to answer that in a precise way. However, if I were to hazard a guess, I would say it's because courts are always, always slow because of the sheer amount of cases they're expected to handle, and because death row cases are probably pretty low priority. It's not like those particular criminals are going anywhere.
Did you also know that they can shoot you if you disobey a, and here's the catch, lawful order during time of war? Your commanding officer can do this, no need to go bother anyone higher up.
Yes. That's why I've stressed war atrocities as decisions made by military authorities, rather than individual soldiers, and deferred to the moral difficulty of choosing between military duty and personal ethics. Which doesn't explain why you'd defer to this, since your argument so far has been that almost certain death in pursuit of the "right thing" is an excellent thing to do.
if you want to break an army, you cut off their supplies. Supplies are provided by a factory town? Burn it down.
Close, materiel is made in a factory. Bomb the factory. If you do it at night, most people are not at work. THe idea is to detroy the factory, causing civilian casualties only stiffens their resolve. This applies until one side decides to commit atrocities of war, such as the Bataan Death March, rape camps, the Blitz or Battle of Britain if you prefer. Or have good information the enemy may develop nuclear weapons very soon.
I don't think that "the bad guys did it first" is justification for abandoning the moral commitment not to kill civilians. I can't see the benefit in responding to war atrocities with escalated war atrocities, which is why I can't see the justification for abandoning the kind of low-casualty tactics you described above for the massacres the US military actually committed.
I'm not sure how to stop a neighborhood from becoming a slum. Remove the poor people so they can live in crappy conditions elsewhere?
[Edit by JeffT, moderator: Removed inappropriate comment] Do you think a gang will take over Dunthorpe, Laurelhurst, Albina, Beverly Hills, Bel Air? Or even Ladd's Addition? NW Portland? It really doesn't take that much to keep them from thinking about moving in, it's much harder to get them out. And it's near impossible if you allow one to run rampant. It makes the place seem like a haven for those who seek shelter from the law.
I didn't get to read what you wrote, but I responded the way I did because I thought your original premise was treating the symptoms of poverty glibly. Protecting just your own home only displaces the problem. In this case, the problem is a fundamentally inhumane distribution of wealth, cemented by a specific culture of generational poverty. I find the "out of sight, out of mind" attitude about this issue cold and somewhat absurd. That is probably why you found my response glib. And I am totally gonna bring that point of view back around to the subject at hand! Eventually. I'm sure. Whenever we get to discussing the nature of terrorism/people who commit terrorist acts, which I'm sure is inevitable.
My understanding of why gangs don't move into well-off neighborhoods is two reasons: (a)police are more likely to actually do something in a "better" neighborhood and (b)the bulk of crime is perpetrated by people in poverty on other people in poverty. The gang already has to be a major social problem before it starts moving into better neighborhoods, at which point it's time to start addressing the underlying issues, 'cause I seriously doubt brute force is gonna move them.
It's also good to do everything you can if you live in an apartment that the landlord is allowing to slip into slum, to use every tool at your disposal, including alerting the TV news.
But if you like meth, nevermind.
No, I don't want to live in a neighborhood dominated by drugs, but I'd still worry about where those people would go otherwise. Getting people evicted from your apartment complex doesn't change the fact that somewhere, someone else's home is being ruined by drugs. I don't see that as a solution.
Are you trying to that the people of Fallujah should have displaced the people pointing guns at them somehow?
Ever heard of the term "stool pigeon"? Tell the people who will be glad to clean your neighborhood for you. Taking up arms yourself should be a last resort.
I think that tactic assumes a lot about the particular social context of the people of Fallujah that doesn't necessarily apply. I don't know an awful lot about Iraqi culture, so I'd be reluctant to assume that that's something that would even seem like an option for them. Especially since the people you think they should've been tattling on were countrymen, possibly men from their own community, who spoke the same language and traded in the same ideologies that they did. I dunno about you, but I trust the familiar with guns a lot more than the unfamiliar with guns.
I can understand, even if I do not like, the citizens of Fallujah not doing much of anything, after having a guy like Saddam in power for so long, and always living in fear that someday a knock on the door in the dead of night would come for you. Sure makes it easier to take a town hostage by using the same tactics.
Keeping your head down may keep you alive, but it also degrades you as a human. That's living like rats, not people.
Different nations and cultures have different ideas of what it means to be a person. I reject the idea that everyone should have to live by our standards of civic duty in order to be fully realized, self-respecting people. Living in a totalitarian regime, struggling with resource scarcity and violence, ideological freedom is rarely most people's first priority. It's some people's, and all the power to them. But it doesn't make their fellows, who work hard to keep their families fed, sheltered, educated and safe, any less like people.
I'm saying this as a first generation American by way of Soviet Ukraine.
I read about Jon Stewart's show. Amazing how being Jewish can color your world view, eh? Especially towards those who seek your complete annihilation.
I don't think he mentioned anything about being Jewish being part of his glee, but that might've been underlying. He seemed to ascribe most of it to be being a New Yorker. And hating terrorism.
Being Jewish myself, that never really factors into my fear of terrorism, since most terrorists want everyone who isn't them dead. It doesn't really matter if they want people of my ethnicity dead especially, since if they get their way most everyone will be dead anyway. That's why they're scary.
It really helps the not-fearing, too, that while Israel has seen more than its share of attacks, the bulk of terrorist action still takes place in Arab and/or Muslim nations. Or India, which is technically more of a Hindi nation.
Seriously though the big Jewish fear is not "What do we do when the evil people overseas people decide to annihilate us?" it's "What about when it happens here?" I admit that my point of view is pretty much exclusively that of a European Jew, but I feel comfortable ascribing it to just about every Jewish population except the super super super tiny ones in India and China.
aaaand that is not even sort of justifiably on topic, and I apologize. But I don't take it back, because I don't want to be misrepresented. :I
I also don't see how the article blamed America for anything, except absorbing a really unpleasant attitude that makes us look less like righteous crusaders and more like bloodthirsty hawks. Admittedly, I read it really fast.
Luv: My comment was meant to point out that putting up barriers in order to keep out the poor and the accompanying violence doesn't actually resolve the underlying problems, which you outlined in your post.
Lychee: I only watched Stewart's. I'll make sure to check out Colbert's now. Thanks for the tip, dude.
Guess who isn't writing papers right now like they should be~
