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The Politics Thread 2019

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9 minutes ago, Beechey said:

 

You'll never eradicate crime, but the goal is to reduce it as much as possible.

 

 

Lock em for longer and that will greatly reduce the reoffending rate ...  :thumbup:

 

Or even better get the judges black cap out a bit more for more serious offences ...    like driving at 20 in a 30mph zone  !!! 

 

 

 

 

IMG_2573.jpg

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16 minutes ago, Countryfox said:

 

The above was last used in 1961 ...   any ideas where ?? ...

 

Crumlin Road, NI.

 

We were still hanging in England 1964.

Edited by Buce
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1 minute ago, Buce said:

 

Crumlin Road, NI.

 

We were still hanging in England 1964.

 

Correct ...  the executioners, guards and priest would pile into the death cell, tie up the condemned mans hands, spin them round, slide back the bookcase and thats what they would see.   All over very quickly before they could panic having not realised what was on the other side of the wall.

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1 minute ago, Countryfox said:

 

Correct ...  the executioners, guards and priest would pile into the death cell, tie up the condemned mans hands, spin them round, slide back the bookcase and thats what they would see.   All over very quickly before they could panic having not realised what was on the other side of the wall.

 

How very humane...

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The Work and Pensions Secretary Amber Rudd has told the BBC that unemployment "could go up" if the UK leaves the European Union without a deal.

She also said the prime minister and cabinet should remember parliament could not be ignored in a push towards what she said was a "far inferior" no-deal Brexit.

The cabinet minister said she was delighted with Tuesday's record employment figures, which showed wages rising faster than prices for nearly a year and a half.

But after her apparent U-turn on no deal ahead of rejoining the cabinet under Boris Johnson, Ms Rudd cautioned against both ignoring the Commons and setting an election date to avoid a parliamentary say on no deal.

Reminded that she had previously said shutting down parliament would be a ridiculous thing to do, Ms Rudd said she remained "a great admirer of parliament and of parliamentary sovereignty".

"I will continue to argue for the executive of the government that I'm part of to work with parliament, not against them," she said.

Asked if she could back a situation where an election was held on purpose so that parliament did not have its say on no deal, she said there had been a lot of speculation.

"I will play my part in cabinet and privately with the prime minister and with ministers in arguing strongly for respecting parliamentary sovereignty.

"And you know, I'm a member of parliament. The prime minister and all cabinet members are members of parliament. We need to remember where our authority comes from."

Ms Rudd was speaking to the BBC in her first full interview after rejoining the cabinet, on a visit to female engineers working on the Thames Tideway infrastructure project.

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26 minutes ago, davieG said:

The Work and Pensions Secretary Amber Rudd has told the BBC that unemployment "could go up" if the UK leaves the European Union without a deal.

She also said the prime minister and cabinet should remember parliament could not be ignored in a push towards what she said was a "far inferior" no-deal Brexit.

The cabinet minister said she was delighted with Tuesday's record employment figures, which showed wages rising faster than prices for nearly a year and a half.

But after her apparent U-turn on no deal ahead of rejoining the cabinet under Boris Johnson, Ms Rudd cautioned against both ignoring the Commons and setting an election date to avoid a parliamentary say on no deal.

Reminded that she had previously said shutting down parliament would be a ridiculous thing to do, Ms Rudd said she remained "a great admirer of parliament and of parliamentary sovereignty".

"I will continue to argue for the executive of the government that I'm part of to work with parliament, not against them," she said.

Asked if she could back a situation where an election was held on purpose so that parliament did not have its say on no deal, she said there had been a lot of speculation.

"I will play my part in cabinet and privately with the prime minister and with ministers in arguing strongly for respecting parliamentary sovereignty.

"And you know, I'm a member of parliament. The prime minister and all cabinet members are members of parliament. We need to remember where our authority comes from."

Ms Rudd was speaking to the BBC in her first full interview after rejoining the cabinet, on a visit to female engineers working on the Thames Tideway infrastructure project.

And also the Pope might be a Catholic and bears may shit in the woods.

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2 hours ago, Countryfox said:

Robert McGladdery ..   battered, strangled and stabbed a girl of 19 to death ..   something to do with who danced with who one night ...   like I said ..  little tinker.

Can't help but feel executions immortalise criminals rather than doing anything to help victims. Not that we're proposing having the death penalty. 

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:dunno:

 

The argument against the DP remains as it always was: as long as the conviction and jurisprudence system is at all fallible in cases involving the death penalty, those in favour of it are accepting the inevitability that at some point an innocent person will be executed by the state and accepting that idea as collateral damage.

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We are living in a time where technology is so advanced that finding a conclusive evidence is much easier. A conviction shouldn't happen if the case against the defendant is weak. (Be that a small crime or a big crime) 

 

I believe (with a capital i) that some people deserve to face the death penalty. But again, the evidence has to be conclusive.

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1 minute ago, the fox said:

We are living in a time where technology is so advanced that finding a conclusive evidence is much easier. A conviction shouldn't happen if the case against the defendant is weak. (Be that a small crime or a big crime) 

 

I believe (with a capital i) that some people deserve to face the death penalty. But again, the evidence has to be conclusive.

I've talked about this before, so I'm going to quote what I've said in the past to exactly illustrate my point here:

 

"At a base level, how do we know that someone like (Anders) Breivik did what he did? None of us saw him do it (thank goodness), so none of us have first-hand evidence. What we do have is multiple witness testimonies, other forensic evidence and a confession from the accused that, when all put together suggest that beyond a reasonable doubt he committed the crimes he was accused of.

 

However...witnesses can lie and/or be coerced, evidence can be faked, and a confession can be a boastful fantasy, and the media could be lying to us about the whole thing.

 

Of course, in that particular case the balance of probability weighs heavily, really heavily, in favour of the man having done the terrible stuff he did - certainly heavily enough to put him behind bars for a very long time unless compelling counter-evidence suddenly presents itself. However, none of us here can say, to an absolute certainty, that he committed those crimes. That is what I mean by absolute proof.

 

If you think that this logically leads to a conclusion where no conviction can satisfy a burden of proof that exacting, then you'd be absolutely right. And therein lies the problem with the death penalty - as long as we cannot satisfy the burden of proof to that level (and I'm not sure we ever will be able to barring some miraculous jump in jurisprudence), as long as you use it you are accepting the risk, however small, of executing a person who did not commit the crime they were convicted for.

 

Barring concrete correlation-to-causation evidence that the DP actually saves innocent lives at a much higher rate than it would take them, then I find such a risk unconscionable."

 

That is what I mean about there being a risk - however small - of at some point executing an innocent person by having the DP as an option at all. If folks believe that risk to be so small as to be acceptable and as such the benefits outweigh that drawback, then fair enough - I'd just rather that be flat-out said.

 

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30 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

I've talked about this before, so I'm going to quote what I've said in the past to exactly illustrate my point here:

 

"At a base level, how do we know that someone like (Anders) Breivik did what he did? None of us saw him do it (thank goodness), so none of us have first-hand evidence. What we do have is multiple witness testimonies, other forensic evidence and a confession from the accused that, when all put together suggest that beyond a reasonable doubt he committed the crimes he was accused of.

 

However...witnesses can lie and/or be coerced, evidence can be faked, and a confession can be a boastful fantasy, and the media could be lying to us about the whole thing.

 

Of course, in that particular case the balance of probability weighs heavily, really heavily, in favour of the man having done the terrible stuff he did - certainly heavily enough to put him behind bars for a very long time unless compelling counter-evidence suddenly presents itself. However, none of us here can say, to an absolute certainty, that he committed those crimes. That is what I mean by absolute proof.

 

If you think that this logically leads to a conclusion where no conviction can satisfy a burden of proof that exacting, then you'd be absolutely right. And therein lies the problem with the death penalty - as long as we cannot satisfy the burden of proof to that level (and I'm not sure we ever will be able to barring some miraculous jump in jurisprudence), as long as you use it you are accepting the risk, however small, of executing a person who did not commit the crime they were convicted for.

 

Barring concrete correlation-to-causation evidence that the DP actually saves innocent lives at a much higher rate than it would take them, then I find such a risk unconscionable."

 

That is what I mean about there being a risk - however small - of at some point executing an innocent person by having the DP as an option at all. If folks believe that risk to be so small as to be acceptable and as such the benefits outweigh that drawback, then fair enough - I'd just rather that be flat-out said.

 

Therein lies the problem, man. Where is the line drawn between enough evidence to administrate the death penalty compared to a lifetime of imprisonment? Can we say that the evidence is strong enough to put the defendant in a prison for the rest of his/her life (which many argue that it's a harsher sentence than the death penalty) but not enough to administrate the death penalty? 

 

No one should face the death penalty without having, like you said, an absolute proof against them but shouldn't that apply to lifetime imprisonment? A lifetime in prison should mean that the accuser had against them an absolute proof.

 

 

What I'm trying to say is, If a person is against the death penalty as a concept then fair enough. But IMO, I can't see how an evidence can be strong enough to put someone in prison for a lifetime but not strong enough to administrate the death penalty.

Edited by the fox
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7 hours ago, leicsmac said:

I've talked about this before, so I'm going to quote what I've said in the past to exactly illustrate my point here:

 

"At a base level, how do we know that someone like (Anders) Breivik did what he did? None of us saw him do it (thank goodness), so none of us have first-hand evidence. What we do have is multiple witness testimonies, other forensic evidence and a confession from the accused that, when all put together suggest that beyond a reasonable doubt he committed the crimes he was accused of.

 

However...witnesses can lie and/or be coerced, evidence can be faked, and a confession can be a boastful fantasy, and the media could be lying to us about the whole thing.

 

Of course, in that particular case the balance of probability weighs heavily, really heavily, in favour of the man having done the terrible stuff he did - certainly heavily enough to put him behind bars for a very long time unless compelling counter-evidence suddenly presents itself. However, none of us here can say, to an absolute certainty, that he committed those crimes. That is what I mean by absolute proof.

 

If you think that this logically leads to a conclusion where no conviction can satisfy a burden of proof that exacting, then you'd be absolutely right. And therein lies the problem with the death penalty - as long as we cannot satisfy the burden of proof to that level (and I'm not sure we ever will be able to barring some miraculous jump in jurisprudence), as long as you use it you are accepting the risk, however small, of executing a person who did not commit the crime they were convicted for.

 

Barring concrete correlation-to-causation evidence that the DP actually saves innocent lives at a much higher rate than it would take them, then I find such a risk unconscionable."

 

That is what I mean about there being a risk - however small - of at some point executing an innocent person by having the DP as an option at all. If folks believe that risk to be so small as to be acceptable and as such the benefits outweigh that drawback, then fair enough - I'd just rather that be flat-out said.

 

There are some “bang to rights” examples that are way beyond any question of doubt and so “evil” as to warrant the death penalty imo. For example some of the recent shooting sprees in the US.

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12 hours ago, LiberalFox said:

Can't help but feel executions immortalise criminals rather than doing anything to help victims. Not that we're proposing having the death penalty. 

You think they immortalise them any more than the actual action (normally some remorseless brutal killing) they performed?

 

I don't think our system or the Norwegian system or any others actually help the victims do they? 

 

 

1 hour ago, Buce said:

 

 

 

“Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement.” ―  J.R.R. Tolkien. The Fellowship of the Ring

 

 

And then he went on to almost exterminate several races.

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1) Given people can still recall (and discuss here) the name of the last person executed suggests that it does give them some sort of fame.

2) Teaching that killing is wrong, by killing, is..... :doh:

3) There have been a significant number of "murderers"  released in Oz in recent years because the recent modern evidence has since proven them innocent.

4) It is proven that it is NOT a deterrent

 

 

 

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7 minutes ago, FIF said:

And then he went on to almost exterminate several races.

 

Flippant, as ever.

 

The quote (as I'm sure you know) referenced Frodo's assertion that Gollum should be killed for his sins, which is different to killing in battle against forces that are intent on killing you.

 

 

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6 hours ago, the fox said:

Therein lies the problem, man. Where is the line drawn between enough evidence to administrate the death penalty compared to a lifetime of imprisonment? Can we say that the evidence is strong enough to put the defendant in a prison for the rest of his/her life (which many argue that it's a harsher sentence than the death penalty) but not enough to administrate the death penalty? 

 

No one should face the death penalty without having, like you said, an absolute proof against them but shouldn't that apply to lifetime imprisonment? A lifetime in prison should mean that the accuser had against them an absolute proof.

 

 

What I'm trying to say is, If a person is against the death penalty as a concept then fair enough. But IMO, I can't see how an evidence can be strong enough to put someone in prison for a lifetime but not strong enough to administrate the death penalty.

 

Well, the simple answer is that it's a lot easier to unlock a door than it is to bring somebody back to life.

 

Aside from that argument, there's also the following, as others have alluded to:-

 

1. No evidence so suggest that the death penalty is any greater deterrent than life in prison. America is example enough of that. Plus the fact that so many criminals kill themselves before they are caught/sentenced, or even kill themselves in prison suggests the same. Unless it's Epstein in which case even he was surprised by his suicide. 

2. How can any state proclaim that murder is wrong, if the punishment is murder? Who administers the lethal injection/pulls the lever/fits the noose etc? Why is it morally acceptable for that person to kill?

3. As @Buce mentions, there are countless examples of mistrials, false imprisonment etc. Along with those cases already mentioned, there was also an infamous one of Barry George who was alleged to have killed Jill Dando and spent years in prison only to eventually be let off.

4. It makes a public spectacle of killing and the killer become a martyr to some. It's like going back 100+ years in time. It's barbaric. 

5. We would be joining a list of pretty shady countries who still have the death penalty. The US is only Western country for starters. 

6. For those penny savers out there - it's expensive. 

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1 hour ago, ozleicester said:

1) Given people can still recall (and discuss here) the name of the last person executed suggests that it does give them some sort of fame.

2) Teaching that killing is wrong, by killing, is..... :doh:

3) There have been a significant number of "murderers"  released in Oz in recent years because the recent modern evidence has since proven them innocent.

4) It is proven that it is NOT a deterrent

 

 

 

1) I have no idea of anyone who has been given the DP but I do know the names of several mass murderers who if they had been executed for their crime I wouldn't be at all concerned. I truly can't believe the actual penalty would particularly add to their "fame" and I'm not sure I care that much. The Moors murderers have plenty of fame/notoriety and it was renewed every year or so due to calls for their release or newspaper stories.

2) I don't think that the DP is about teaching that killing is wrong. It's about eradification and not wasting penal resources and space.

3) seems a good argument for never putting anyone in prison in the first place. Just tell them off in case they did it and give them a new identity so that they can live in peace.

4) Again the deterrent argument is irrelevant. The only true deterrent available at the moment would be worldwide sterilisation and even then it'd take about a 100 years to work.

 

I don't think that the DP is ideal, we don't have an ideal solution, should we re-instate the DP - probably not but I don't really like humanity that much anyway so not sure I care.

 

1 hour ago, Buce said:

 

Flippant, as ever.

 

The quote (as I'm sure you know) referenced Frodo's assertion that Gollum should be killed for his sins, which is different to killing in battle against forces that are intent on killing you.

 

 

 

Victory attained by violence is tantamount to a defeat for it is momentary.

 

What kind of victory is it when someone is left defeated? What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty and democracy.

Flippant is my middle name. (or is it my first name? Flippant in France).

Edited by Guest
a little flippancy
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28 minutes ago, David Guiza said:

 

 

Well, the simple answer is that it's a lot easier to unlock a door than it is to bring somebody back to life.

 

Aside from that argument, there's also the following, as others have alluded to:-

 

1. No evidence so suggest that the death penalty is any greater deterrent than life in prison. America is example enough of that. Plus the fact that so many criminals kill themselves before they are caught/sentenced, or even kill themselves in prison suggests the same. Unless it's Epstein in which case even he was surprised by his suicide. 

2. How can any state proclaim that murder is wrong, if the punishment is murder? Who administers the lethal injection/pulls the lever/fits the noose etc? Why is it morally acceptable for that person to kill?

3. As @Buce mentions, there are countless examples of mistrials, false imprisonment etc. Along with those cases already mentioned, there was also an infamous one of Barry George who was alleged to have killed Jill Dando and spent years in prison only to eventually be let off.

4. It makes a public spectacle of killing and the killer become a martyr to some. It's like going back 100+ years in time. It's barbaric. 

5. We would be joining a list of pretty shady countries who still have the death penalty. The US is only Western country for starters. 

6. For those penny savers out there - it's expensive. 

As a matter of interest, why is it expensive? Surely not more expensive than keeping someone in prison for the rest of their lives (or whatever).

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