How is 3 decades in prison not permanent harm? Innocents can easily end up in prison for decades...What you don't get is that prisons are full of innocents, thus by your logic, we should do away with the whole prison system, because for god's sake, we don't want to hurt the innocent.
So far I haven't heard a response to this argument, but I don't hold my breath...
An innocent person in prison can be released and compensated for his wrongful imprisonment. A dead person cannot be returned to the living and cannot be compensated in any way, ever. Yes, the time spent in prison is gone forever, but some level of redress is possible.
You keep asserting that"by my logic" all prisoners must go free, but that just does not follow from my position. Reverse that logic...you seem to believe that it is okay to keep guilty people in prison, yet I cannot conclude that you would say "all prisoners should be executed". Why not? Surely if the two punishments are equivalent, then there is no strict need to ever imprison anyone, as it is equivalent to simply execute them, no matter what their crime.
I doubt you believe that, and the reason you don't is very likely that you understand that imprisonment is a lesser punishment than execution. For the very same reason one can eschew the use of execution, but condone imprisonment as a compromise.
Does that mean we imprison the innocent? Yes. Is that inconsistent with my reticence over executing the innocent? No, it is not.
Not the money saving again. So if we close the prisons, just imagine how rich we get.
This is, imo, a silly argument. Of course costs matter, but they are not the only thing that matters. It is a balancing test. You compare the safety of society against the costs and find the reasonable balance. Why can't you grasp that?
To simplify, let's assume there are two levels of safety and three levels of cost:
1 - society is very safe
2 - society is unsafe
and
A - the cost of the criminal justice system is low
B - the cost of the criminal justice system is middling and
C - the cost of the criminal justice system is high cost
Let's consider 3 scenarios now:
(i) We let all criminals walk free for fear of ever punishing an innocent person. That society would be very unsafe, but the prisons would cost nothing, so let's call that (2, A).
(ii) We imprison those convicted (including the innocent), but we never execute them. That society is at (1, B).
(iii) We imprison and execute those convicted, but the cost of execution is high. That society is at (1, C).
You can make a theoretically plausible case that society (i) is better than (ii) or (iii), But you CANNOT plausibly claim that most people would rather be in society (iii) rather than (ii), because (1, B) is simply better than (1, C). Same benefits, lower cost. Cost matters.
On the other hand, it's perfectly obvious why someone in society (ii) might not want to go to society (i). Costs are lower (which is good), but so is safety (which is bad).
Hopefully you get the distinction now.
Not to mention than it is OK to execute people in countries where it is cheaper then life in prison?? (which is most countries)
From my perspective? It can be. If both society (ii) and society (iii) were at point (1, B), then it would be perfectly reasonable for people to prefer (iii) over (ii) (or to be indifferent between them).
The real problem, in my particular view, is that lowering the costs of execution tends to increase the number of innocents one would expect to be executed, and that is a bad thing. In fact, if it is east for the innocent to be executed that society is "unsafe", so in most countries where the cost of execution is low, you are really looking at a society at point (2, B) or (2, A), and I would not myself want to trade safety for cost savings.
There is plenty of sadistic about having a sensitive human being locked up for life. How is the puppy doing in the crate? Has he gone insane yet?
Yes, and if society were made no safer by imprisonment, you might have a point. But prisons do keep society safe, so really you make no valid point here that I can see.
As for the puppy, if the puppy is duly convicted of a crime, then it's hard to feel bad for the puppy. In point of fact, the puppy i lucky, because most dogs that break the law simply get euthanized.
I really hate to repeat myself, and none of my arguments are met with anything serious counter argument...
Your arguments are terrible...largely because you seemingly can't comprehend the arguments of others. If you cannot understand the arguments of your opponents, why bother debating at all?
