just a little thing I have been thinking about

[Mystech]

The farmer did not induce the theif to steal, therefore claims no responsibility.

However, he did induce the thief to die, and that's certainly just as tragic as the crime of stealing from the farmer, if not greater.

They're just kids and have no reasonable expectation of being shot. In such a case, the punishment would not fit the crime. With the farmer and thief, it's a different situation.

I'm not entirely certain what the difference is, it seems like a very similar situation to me. What, in your opinion, would weren’t a different outcome in either of these scenarios?

 

[Alpha]

I'm not entirely certain what the difference is, it seems like a very similar situation to me.

Kids are not entirely responsible for their actions. Their parent's/guardians are also partially responsible, and it's up to them to educate them properly. I might also point out that tools can be returned.

What, in your opinion, would weren’t a different outcome in either of these scenarios?

Huh?

 

[SpyMoose]

Can you really believe in a draconian code of ethics where any infraction carys the penalty of death? Why should anyone accept that the penalty for theft is death? The farmer is guilty of at lest manslaughter, and at worst murder, and he is definitely guilty of vigilantism which I imagine the real authorities have very little tolerance for.

 

[Alpha]

Can you really believe in a draconian code of ethics where any infraction carys the penalty of death?

Who? Me? Of course not.

The farmer is guilty of at lest manslaughter, and at worst murder, and he is definitely guilty of vigilantism which I imagine the real authorities have very little tolerance for.

The farmer did not go out and kill him for a crime commited, he did something to protect his property so the crime wouldn't be commited in the first place.
I really can't see a farmer poisoning his crops in real life because that would just be stupid. You lose your crops that way whether they get stolen or not.

 

[SpyMoose]

Actually the thief would have to steal the stuff and subsequently eat it, so the crime would not have been prevented, even so the protection of property, especially such petty theft stuff as some potatoes or onions, is not morally enough to kill someone over. Not even a thief! And I'm sure the authorities would be happy to educate farmer overkill after the fact. If I had a proper explosives permit, do you think it would be all right to plant a mine in my front yard to prevent my neighbor from letting her dog poop on my front yard? Of course not! Because that measure does not fit the crime! Someone’s life is not forfeit just because they have committed a crime!

 

[vslayer]

in america there was a case of a burglar who sued the owner of the house he was breaking into because he fell thru a glass table breaking in. and the burglar won. thos american justice for you

 

[§outh§tar]

"american" and "justice"? In the same sentence? :bugeye:

There is no better justice than taking the law into your own hands. An eye for an eye. I heard this on the History Channel, that the Greeks found that death was the sole retribution for any and all crimes.

 

[laughing weasel]

It depends on weather you mean legally or morally? Morally if you take my stuff and it causes you to die then you just committed a complicated form of suicide. If you rob enough people you will eventually piss someone off enough to kill you therefore your death was a foreseeable consequence of your action. Legally you are not allowed to commit vigilante justice because no one ever gets a fair trial from someone who has just been the victim of a crime. One of the foundations of modern law is a fair trial. He would be guilty of manslaughter with respect to the child’s death. The universe punishes stupid people with death every day. If someone is robbing me then they are not very bright or are just real unlucky to conditions that are not conducive to a long healthy life in this universe.

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

It's absolutely frightening to find so many people here -- who tend to represent the educated, intellectual faction of North America and the rest of the western world -- believing that it's perfectly OK to kill somebody for any reason other than to protect yourself or another.

Goddess almighty, folks, what rock have you been hibernating under for the past couple of centuries. We've gotten past that! It's one of the crowning achievements of contemporary civilization. You do NOT get to kill people except as an absolute last resort of self defense or defense of others.

Killing a person as punishment doesn't work. You haven't punished your victim. He's dead! He has no memory of being punished, no shame at having wronged you so badly that he provoked you into punishing him, no pain, no humiliation, no nothing. He's frelling DEAD!

When you kill someone, you are punishing all the people who love him. You think that guy's children are going to be at peace with your neanderthal rationalization, "the damn guy kep' takin' muh damn watermelons so ah had tuh put pizen in the melons 'n' watch 'im die in painful agony tuh get 'im tuh stop"? You don't think they're going to say the same thing I did, "Why didn't you get a dog like everybody else in this neck of the woods, you damn stupid drunken redneck?" You think those kids are going to just say, "Gee, ma'am we're awful sorry about our dad's transgression. The loss of those watermelons must have set you back a bundle, something on the order of a month's property taxes. You certainly had to take drastic action to keep from going bankrupt"?

No, those kids are going to go home and talk about the sadistic lady who killed their father. They're going to cry and moan and look at pictures of their father -- and start drinking. Eventually one of them is going to lose it and say "That damn ignorant redneck lady had no right to do that. If the law is not going to set this right, then by my righteous vengeful Christian God, I sure as hell will." Then he's going to grab his rifle, and maybe a couple of his brothers and sisters will come along with him with their rifles, and the next thing you know your head is blasted into a billion pieces.

Then your children come home and find you and say, "Who the hell did this to our dear sweet mom who never hurt a flea except that dumb Yankee who thought that at ten cents a pound we'd never miss a few watermelons? Let's go get those suckers and the rest of their family. They ain't got no business livin' down here anyway."

People don't accept too many lame excuses for somebody killing their loved ones. They tend to get highly irrational. If you think it's ok to kill somebody for poaching in your garden, imagine all the people out there who think it's really ok to kill somebody who killed someone they loved.

Eventually somebody comes up with an automatic weapon and just blasts the whole house. Including the visitors they didn't think about. Next thing you know a whole neighborhood is razed by people who all lost loved ones to the senseless acts of violence of at least one person in every family in that neighborhood.

This is how places like the Middle East got the way they are. A few wackos think it's ok to kill anyone who pisses them off, and everybody else thinks it's ok to kill anyone who killed a member of their family, and the next thing you know the definition of a "moderate Middle Easterner" is "one who only holds a grudge for ten generations."

You've got to think beyond the immediate satisfaction of fulfilling your violent urge, and consider how other people are going to feel about it. Do you really want to make a whole family feel inconsolably despondent because someone they loved stole your frelling watermelons? Are you willing to put up with the consequences to civilization of them deciding that if it was ok for you, it's ok for them to do it to?

This is what civilization is all about. Curbing our caveman impulses.

YOU DO NOT GET TO KILL PEOPLE WHO PISS YOU OFF.

If you don't agree with that, go spend a few years in the Middle East and then tell us if you don't see the error of your ways. And if you haven't changed your mind, then just frelling stay there.

 

[Alpha]

Someone’s life is not forfeit just because they have committed a crime!

Depends on the crime. The punishment should fit the crime, and in some cases, death may be the only solution to a problem imposed by the crime.

When you kill someone, you are punishing all the people who love him.

You could argue that the person commiting he crime is doing that by their very actions which require said punishment.

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

You could argue that the person commiting he crime is doing that [punishing those who love him] by their very actions which require said punishment.

And who the heck are you to decide that stealing vegetables "requires" the death penalty? I repeat, civilization will not last long if people believe that the proper punishment for theft is death. You're the one who said the punishment should fit the crime, and the only crime for which death can be a fitting punishment is to deliberately cause a death.

I have a hard time defending my libertarian politics because some of it breaks down into incoherence or silliness if you analyze it in too much detail. But one place where it does make sense is dealing with crime. If the major result of a crime can be measured in dollars, then it belongs in the civil courts and the proper judgment is restitution. If somebody steals your watermelons, they owe you the value of the produce plus a reasonable amount for your inconvenience, lost business, damaged fence, etc. If they do it again and again, or if they aren't productive enough to be able to raise the capital to pay you, well then you've got a person who demonstrates that he's not meeting the qualifications for citizenship in your community. He doesn't respect the rights of others and/or doesn't bother to carry his own weight.

At this point you've got a problem that is not one for the civil courts. Maybe you can deport him to a country that thinks that kind of behavior is just dandy. Maybe you can send him to remedial kindergarten and teach him how to get along, or maybe a therapist can find out why he's a jerk and motivate him to straighten out. I really hate the idea of putting people in jail, because it costs so much and because most of them come out worse than they went in.

But this discussion hasn't gotten to that point. Everybody's so excited about killing the melon thief that they haven't even postulated an alternative. What if you order him to pay for the melons? What if he can't or doesn't? What if he pays up and then steals more melons? These issues haven't arisen.

What people like about the death penalty is its ostensible simplicity. Snuff the perp. End of problem. It just doesn't work like that, is all. The perp has family and some of them are going to be really mad at you. Then when they kill you and your husband and children and dog, all of your other relatives and your children's boyfriends and girlfriends are going to be really mad at them, and the cycle of violence starts.

There was recently a murder trial in Virginia, a man was convicted of killing a woman. Her parents attended the sentencing hearing and argued for the death penalty. The convict's family were there too. One of them said, "Look lady, by older brother didn't have a valid reason for killing your daughter. But as far as I'm concerned, you don't have a valid reason for killing a member of our family either. He can stay in prison where he can't hurt anybody else, but at least we can still be a family. Why do you want me, a person who had no involvement in this crime at all and who had nothing to do with my brother growing up to be a murderer, to feel the way you do right now? What is that going to accomplish? Neighborhoods full of inconsolably sad people? If you want to kill him and make me spend the rest of my life crying, then you're no better than he is."

I'm glad I don't live in that neighborhood, because when vengeance killings start, the bullets go flying every which way and people with no involvement in the feud get killed.

Please don't try to turn the entire United States into one of those neighborhoods.

 

[laughing weasel]

In fairy land we all get along and every one has enough to eat without having to work to hard. In fairy land no one loses a farm that has been in the family for seven generations. In fairy land no one takes more than they need and everyone has everything that they want. It is too bad that we live on earth a place that has so much but everyone has to work to hard to get the basics of survival that one year’s crop failure is all it takes to wipe out a small farm. Why doesn’t a thief deserve the death penalty did he do it by accident did he or was he insane? If you commit a crime then whatever punishment SOCIETY inflicts on you is justified. When society fails to punish criminals then vigilante justice will creep back in because while vigilante justice is not the best or most efficient form of justice it is the most easily accessible.

 

[laughing weasel]

I still oppose the death penalty but I disagree with it for religious reasons. No one is capable of deciding whose life has no value. That is why we have laws and a society based on the rule of reason. I do fear that with the laxity of sentencing and the resulting perception of fear that results that this may not continue for long.

 

[Alpha]

And who the heck are you to decide that stealing vegetables "requires" the death penalty?

When did I say or imply that?

You're the one who said the punishment should fit the crime, and the only crime for which death can be a fitting punishment is to deliberately cause a death.

I haven't disagreed with this...

No one is capable of deciding whose life has no value.

Choosing to go with the death penalty isn't a judgement of the value of the person's life. It's a judgement that the person is unsafe/unfit for society (any society, including prison).

 

[one_raven]

If the theif is eating the crops himself then it would be a very small amount of loss (how much can one person really eat?).
If the theif is caught stealing an amount of food no more than one person can eat by the police, should the theif be punished by the death penalty?

If it is more than one person can reasonably eat, then the theif is likely stealing for profit, therefore selling the deadly crops to unsuspecting consumers.
Do they deserve to die?

Regardless of whether or not you support the death penalty in general concept, supporting the death penalty for petty theft is so far beyond absurd it is scary that anyone would even consider it as an option.

Also, as someone mentioned already, it is not a theft deterrent, since the theif does not get stopped in the act, it is retribution after-the-fact. It's simple revenge.

Let's say a theif steals 3 purposely tainted carrots, eats them and subsequently dies.
That would be about the financial equivalent of stealing a pack of gum.
If you think that capital punishment is a reasonable response to stealing a single pack of gum, then I honestly believe that you need serious psychiatric attention.

 

[Tiassa]

(Go ahead, baby ... Title me!)

in america there was a case of a burglar who sued the owner of the house he was breaking into because he fell thru a glass table breaking in. and the burglar won. thos american justice for you

And in the United States it's legal to shoot a Japanese man if he asks you for directions.

A general note and a story that still makes me laugh:

An associate of my father's over the years has always been obnoxious inasmuch as he doesn't stop talking about himself. It's the strangest thing. I should say "didn't". I haven't seen the man in years, so who knows?

At any rate, he basically loved to regale stories of stupidity and criminality, like the time he set off a bomb at the Seattle ferry docks decades ago. Or the time he set his car on fire trying to smoke out a rival high school parking lot (oil on the manifold). And you'd never guess it. He always seemed the hardworking, quiet type.

One of the stories he told me was about a neighbor dog, when he was in high school. The dog liked to mess with people's garbage cans, so one night this guy rigged up a device intended to teach the dog a lesson. He swears he only meant to give the dog a nasty shock, so he rigged up something with a car battery and a section of chain-link fence beneath the garbage can. The dog died, he found its smoking carcass in his driveway the next morning. Live and learn. Unless, of course, you were the dog.

Can you imagine if the dog had stayed home and one of the neighborhood kids tripped the trap?

Of course, who knows? And who cares? I heard those stories driving around with him one summer doing ... uh ... something for my dad's company. I don't actually remember. I think it was mounting pads on the walls of basketball courts. Nonetheless, it's almost as funny as the time I got kicked out of physics class. I still can't recount that stupid episode without falling over.

 

[laughing weasel]

He would only steal it once right? If he is aware of the possible consequences and chooses to buck the system then his crime is stupidity and the universe carries some pretty harsh penalties for being stupid see http://www.darwinawards.com/ for examples. I will still argue that no crime deserves the death penalty I believe that life imprisonment while not as cost effective is far more humane. I believe that intervention at the earliest level possible is the best chance to restore the individual to a functional life and produce a productive citizen in a strictly non-Orwellian way of course.

 

[SpyMoose]

Laughing weasel, your position is pretty hard for me to interpret. It sounds like you are trying to simultaneously argue that the thief deserves to die, and then that he doesn’t because of religious reasons. Then you back down and mention that the thief should get the hardest punishment possible short of death? Is that right?

I'm not surprised, but I am appalled at the number of people who I see supporting this idea that the farmer should be able to kill the thief. I cant help but wonder what cause this callousness towards the idea killing that I see in so many people around me. I don't know how to express it better than I already have, why should your life be forfeit for committing a crime?


Also, I find Fraggle Rockers posts on this thread to be mildly arousing.

 

[coolsoldier]

The biggest problem with the farmer poisoning his crops is not when he kills the thief. The problem is when he poisons his customers, or his kids, or the fisherman downriver. The question at hand is much larger than whether he has the right to kill the thief. That's the biggest problem with vigilante justice -- it's too easy to injure bystanders.

The issue of whether or not he has the right to poison the thief (assuming he could single out only theives, which he can't) is more complex than most people here give credit. For instance, does he have the right to give the thief minor poisons -- say giving him stomach cramps, or diarrhea? Does he have the right to kill or injure him in the act of preventing the theft? What if he calls the cops, and the cops injure the thief in the act of arrest?

Personally, while I maintain that killing another person is never OK, the lines get blurry in cases of injury, prevention, the process of law enforcement, etc.

The thing is, the farmer, like most people, doesn't care about the philosophy of when it's OK to kill or injure criminals -- he just wants the fucktard die. That's the mindset of a murderer, and the law should treat it as such.

 

[Cyperium]

alright, what if a farmer wants to prevent his vegetables from being stolen by a thief, he sprays poison on all his crops and the thief steals some one day and dies of poisoning, should the farmer be responsible for the thief's death?

the above situation is hypothetical

I can't decide, what do you think?

If the farmer ******** the crops with the purpouse to kill a thief, then to his view he is responsible for the thiefs death. But he could say that he didn't intend to kill anyone, in which he would be charged for something else, regarding that animals could be killed and other potential damage to nature, I don't think it's legal to poison crops to such a degree that it would kill a human.

******** = p-o-i-s-o-n-e-d

I totally disagree with the need to blank that one out.