Right wing conservatives are evil? Well, I have evidence that they are.

First, you'll need a much more specific reply to me. While berb was right, and similar, mine differed from his in that I broke down your argument and showed what was missing.You have a couple premises missing, as well as some sort of evidence.However I will deal with your reply to Berb. I am uncertain how you do not see what homosexuality "produces". You would be correct in saying that it does not produce "children", but that is not the end all of human interaction, reasons for human interaction, and certainly what limits the naturalness of human interaction.Do you go to movies, restaurants, read books, play sports with friends, talk to others, get massages? What do any of these produce? Pleasure. Bonding. Experience.None of them are necessary, or are inherent to the human condition as a whole. Yet they are important. They don't make sense logically, but arise naturally when humans get together (or are even alone). Right?

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Great, that's a good point to start an argument with Buz then. However, whether his God feels that or not, is not refutable by addressing some totally irrelavent point like it happens in nature.Fer chris'sakes people eat shellfish in nature and God hates that too, and thus is considered "unnatural". People sleep with animals and God hates that, considers it "unnatural". Whether it is unnatural-1 does not hinge on whether it is unnatural-2. I did not have a problem regarding what you took issue with. Indeed, I supported all but one of your arguments. What I don't have to "learn to live with" is how you formulate your arguments. Logic is on my side on that.Unless you are asking me to "learn to live with" the fact that you are illogical. I certainly can, and so can others, but your words and thoughts get devalued. You know I am pretty good with logic. I have this perverse feeling you are going to understand what I am saying, when I make myself clearer this time. It is hard for me to understand anyone being irrational.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

An argument that says his use of a word is wrong, because there is another valid definition of the same word which does NOT fit, is both an equivocational fallacy and by extention a strawman fallacy.That is not my opinion, that is a fact. It goes against logic. You are perfectly correct that one can argue his use is inappropriately applied, that is that his God does not exist, or that his God did not mean it, or something along those lines.The Bible does not say that God said H does not happen in nature, it says that it is against the intended use of our sexuality by God. The latter is debatable, but not on the basis of the former.This is not my opinion, that is a fact. It goes against logic. You can look it up on any page of logical errors. If you are arguing that one may look at the Bible and still come away thinking homosexuality is not hated by God, then you are correct that that is a logically possible conclusion.If you are arguing that one can look at someone using one definition of unnatural to refute another as somehow logical, then you are wrong. It is a fallacy. I have been going through this with Faith in two other threads.Unless you are arguing for the ovethrow of modern logical systems related to knowledge, and adoption of weaker rules, you are making a logical error.You are better off switching than fighting on this one. If you want me to post evidence from sites on logic, I will do so.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

You have said this, but repeatedly fail to make a logical argument that this is true. For all of your vaunted skills at reasoning you have continuously refused to spend the time to outline your reasoning. I gave you a very good breakdown of your argument.Where is the reasoning?You then said something about productivity and I showed you that it is as productive as any other human activity. It does not lead to procreation, but neither do relations between people that are infertile, and that includes the elderly. By logic then, that is illogical and unnatural? For a guy that is basically a creo, and has a tagline slamming social darwinism, isn't it a bit illogical to be appealing to social darwinism for supporting a Biblical position?This is not to mention that social darwinism is bunk and evolution cannot be used like this. We cannot simply say de facto homosexuality is a bad survival strategy. As evolution points out, that is up for environmental events to decide.One could easily look at the threat of overpopulation and destruction of resources and come to teh conclusion that the best evolutionary strategy for humans, particularly in China and India, is homosexuality. Actually if you studied evolution and evolutionary history, you would learn that reproduction can also be detrimental to a species. When blocks to survival are removed (lack of predators or other natural "removers") then reproduction leads to overpopulation which can wipe other species out and then ultimately the original species.NO reproduction would be fatal, but insisting all sexuality be reproductive can also be fatal. In the end a portion of the population engaging in nonreproductive activity has no effects on the species at all.By the way, I am curious as to what your argument was focused on... homosexuality as a complete sexuality, or homosexual acts? The Bible seems to find honosexual acts to be just as bad whether that is all one does or it is something one engages in every once in a while. Your argument here seems only applicable to those who only engage in homosexuality as there entire sexuality.Just remember that if you are meaning to hit those who engage in nonreproductive sex as their entire sexuality, you are condemning as illogical, unproductive, and unnatural: infertile couples, including the elderly.If you mean it to extend to all homosexual acts, then in addition to the above you are including: masturbation, oral sex, anal sex, and any sex using contraception or not during a time of likely impregnation.You talk about reason being a sign of what separates us from animals. I would like to see some of the demonstrated in your reply. Being able to hit a reply button and type something in response is not indicative of reason. It only indicates you can notice more things and have a longer communication structure. Many animals can recognize how to hit a button in response to a stimulus, and some apes can even communicate. Do better.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Generally no, because it is the creationists who are trying to equivocate on the term "science", meaning that they want their general study of something to be equated with a specific field of study with specific rules.However you can see me making the exact distinction you are asking about, in the current debates I am having with Faith... and indeed partly including a response to you. There you saw me discuss that they are still wanting to do science, but not the same science (not modern science) but instead revert to an older set of criteria for knowledge and discovery.The more important question is do you use your tactic often, and does it work? I have never seen it work (on both sides) and it usually gets called for what it is, making the author of the fallacy look less worthy an opponent. Yes, essentially my first reply to you was not an overt indictment, but asking that people (remember I said "we") not use this line of argument. That would go if it was intentional or not.Your repeated defense of your action, which if the above is true you were simply playing dumb with me, gave me the impression you did not have that motive.In any case, my request stands. Its a cheap ploy and doesn't make your position look good and it is pretty annoying (only sending people down semantic sidepaths).Remember that is not the only place where such issues crop up. In addition to unnatural, the Bible also uses "unclean". Oh man does it use unclean. And if everyone that wanted a Xian to stop saying unclean got into semantic arguments over how they are not less sterile so the Bible is wrong... yikes. Everyone should get it, unclean, unnatural are descriptions of Gods dislike of a state or behavior.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

This simply is not true. Yes they want their "science" considered as equal to "modern science", and they want people to view homosexuality as "unnatural-2". But they don't want people to believe it is "unnatural-1" which is that it does not happen. I mean if it did not happen, what is the condemnation of?Buz and others like him could try and equivocate on that, but it is less likely they would. If they did so I'd certainly be blasting him for it. It is not immoral to you, it is immoral to Buz and his God. You are correct that the dictionary does not mention God. It really doesn't have to. It shows various meanings.If I had a book of Buz's life and in it he said that homosexuality is immoral, then we know he considers it thus. The Bible is the book of God to many people, including Buz and thus it is saying that that God believes it is immoral.You can doubt whether there is a God, that God, and whether that God really means to say homosexuality is immoral, or that the proscription is still in place. The one thing that can't be argued is that he is using a term to say "immoral", rather than that it is actually seen in nature. I think you are focusing in on that too much. However it is obviously my error since it did nothing to furthetr discussion. It was hyperbolic and meant as color, not as a point of argument. I apologize and withdraw the characterization if that will help.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

You don't have to bother responding if you don't agree but have nothing more to add to your description of what is going on. I am simply going to give this bit a further explanation to make my explanation clear. People can decide after that... This part is correct, but this... ...is simply not accurate. They do not want people to believe that things that God does not like are synonymous with things that don't exist in nature, nor vice versa. That would be in the "same way".The only way this is similar is that they want people to believe what they say, period; that their way of doing science is equal to modern science, and that homosexuality is wrong according to God as it is against his intentions. No really, their definition is in the Bible, only the actor who is using the term (in the Bible) is not a human being, and since the dictionary does not usually assume the role of aliens or Gods for sake of discussing their definitions, it does not literally read the same way. To say it is not in the Dictionary is nitpicking beyond belief.I think what you mean to say is that the only authority they have, other than themselves, to show that it is unnatural (ie immoral, against his intent) to the creator of the Universe is the Bible.I tend to think the day we find any moral statements or authority within the dictionary, we are in a lot of trouble. It simply shows what possible meanings a word has, in this case the Bible gives the meaning greater context (which is of course different than objective authority). Well it certainly was unreasonable any way you cut it. It was simply added color using hyperbolic language to describe your (alleged) behavior.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Ahhhh, I have actually been avoiding getting into this thread, but all the back slapping and blind bigotry by the anti-death penalty crowd has summoned me...Just as I believe we must sometimes go to war, or that we must sometimes put down animals, or that we must sometimes end a pregnancy, I think there are times when killing a person is a rational and ethical action for a government to take.No, I do not stand outside prisons and chant "burn baby burn", nor do I get upset when gov'ts end executions while they review their criminal justice system. Just because there are some flakes seeking death, does not mean all prodeath penalty advocates seek it out and relish it.Let's go through the myths...1) We should end the death penalty because it is inhumane.answer: Locking people up and depriving them of a life is also inhumane. Punishment of any kind is by nature inhumane. That is the point. Sometimes the question comes down to how long you want to be inhumane, and how much resources you want to spend on being inhumane to another being. There are those who feel we should not spend our time or resources torturing a human being until that person dies.hypocrisy: At the same time lambasting prodeath penalty advocates for being brutish and meanspirited, antiDP types turn around and use "suffering is worse for those receiving life imprisonment" as a reason not to execute. Pick a side and stick with it.2) We should end the death penalty because it doesn't act as a deterrant.answer: That's true. But neither does jail time. Notice how people continue to commit crimes despite penalties of any kind? Deterrance is essentially out as an excuse for any "punishment" and that includes life in prison. What is important is finding what criteria we should be using for sentencing in general. It seems to me rehabilitation and restitution comes first, and for those where there is little chance of that or a rather large chance of something bad happening again, then removal from society (for a period of time). Within that last group, there may be a high chance of continuing problems within prison, or escape to commit the same crimes out of prison. In that case permanent removal seems called for. That we do it for rabid animals and not for people that pose an imminent threat seems bizarre to me.3) We should end the death penalty because innocent people may get killed, and have been killed.answer: What does a sentence have to do with the fact that one has a really shitty justice system? The fact that you are arresting and convicting wholly innocent people says nothing about the merits of the death penalty and everything about a society's lack of concern for justice. Yes, I could see stopping executions to review cases and revamp the system in general, so executing innocent people can't happen. But that does not mean that after a good system is in place executions should never reappear.hypocrisy: As if imprisoning innocent people for life is a good thing? Out of all the innocents convicted, how many are actually caught later? Why does convicting innocent people not call for the removal of all other penalties? Ending the death penalty will not make the system better for anyone. Revamping the system will make the system better for everyone. What's worse is that we are going to pretend that because sometimes we can't tell if a person is guilty or not we can't know about every single case? Why not just tighten the rules for evidence necessary to have a death penalty?4) We should end the death penalty because it gives conflicting signals (it says murder is okay).answer: No, it really does say that murder is wrong and will be punished. That the gov't will protect its citizens (which means we will protect ourselves) from those trying to kill others. If a person with the uniform of another nation's armed service begins attacking and killing people, do we have a right to kill that person? If that same person simply doesn't have the uniform of another nation's armed service, why do we think there is no longer a right to kill that person? If one cannot kill one's own citizens when they attack and kill others, how is war legitimate in defense of one's society? If we can tell the difference there, we can tell the difference with capital punishment.hypocrisy: So it is okay to teach children to imprisoning those you don't like, or have offended you? You can round them up and should not give them the easy way out and make sure the live in agony for a really long time? Ahhh yes, torturing people through imprisonment is a much better lesson we should "teach" everyone. Okay seriously now, do any of you really believe that people learn how to conduct themselves socially, based on the rules regarding sentencing in our gov't?That's my first few swings, lets see what ya got.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

You will notice this will be the second time I am hitting the direct reply button to you. This is because I am trying to be a bit more mature in all of my responses, and you seem to have calmed down a bit.However this does not guarantee I will keep doing so. I asked you before to read my posts in their entirety before responding as what tends to happen is that you have a response to one sentence which is meaningless given my next sentence, though you have left an impression you believe my position hinges on the first sentence. That is more work for me than I need, and adds to the confusion in responding. Essentially it leaves me with a bunch of strawmen to deal with.Unfortunately this has happened again. I will respond to your reply, but from now on please read my entire message first, and then respond to each actual point, rather than practically every sentence. This is a non sequitor. I can think of justifications. But in any case this is a straw man. I am not arguing for the execution of innocent people at all. I am admitting it deters essentially nil crimes. The reason for having executions, and indeed any retributive or eliminative sentences, is not to deter crime. In any case, I am not for the execution of innocent people at all so again, this is a straw man. It is this kind of stuff which does not help our debates. How am I supposed to answer an ad hominem, or insinuating non sequitor like this? The fact is I was addressing individual arguments in turn and in isolation and simply had not reached that argument yet. So you manage to turn my non-ignoring of the issue, into some sort of evidence I had been ignoring it all along. My answer to this issue, ends up negating its relevance to any of the previous arguments. That is correct, but does not address my point. What this indicates is how to adjust a system that contains a death penalty, not that one should view a death penalty as incorrect or unjustifiable. This still does not make the errors of the system reflect on any particular sentence. I'm sorry but this is a logical point. One really does have nothing to do with the other, unless there is absolutely no way to ensure that only the guilty end up getting executed. I am not quick to jump to the end. Neither do you have evidence to make this statement. The preventive measures I think should be in place regarding executions would generally eliminate the finding of "mistakes".I am first and foremost for the reform of the entire justice system. It is currently extremely flawed, and that is with or without a death penalty. Part of that reform would be adjusting rules regarding the death sentence.I have only said that I am for the death penalty, I did not say under the current rules of when it can be applied. Not only is this entirely a non sequitor (as you have built it) it is patently false. It is impossible to make certain it never kills an innocent person? You can't think of rules which could be in place to prevent that possibility? You cannot think of any case where guilt has been established 100%? So you dispute the common anti-death penalty position that life in prison is worse than killing them? Sorry, that was bad sentence construction on my part. The sentence in question was part of an overall argument regarding the idea that a sentence can be blamed for the poor quality of the system it is used in. This was trying to to get at the notion that at least with life imprisonment we "keep their case in play". The question was of all the innocent people actually sentenced, how many of those cases are revealed to be mistakes. If not all, then we are accepting that innocent people get locked away.Obviously you have already addressed this point in another sentence. You feel that it is do away with the entire justice system, or accept that innocent people should be punished, but always keep their cases open just in case. That is a valid position of course, but not one I hold, and in any case not one that rebuts my position. To be pedantic, anarchy is not a problem, and could be quite pretty. When you go out into the country with a few friends (lets say the boundary waters of Minnesota) you enter into a state of true anarchy. It is chaos that would be a problem, and likely not very pretty.The question of whether anarchy naturally dissolves into chaos is an open question.I am also not sure why I should be concerned whether society as we know it must be preserved. Societies change over time. Unless you can show it would be worse, I am not seeing why this is necessarily bad.But this is all getting off topic. I am only a utopian anarchist, feeling there are compelling reasons for instituting gov'ts and so don't want to get into a huge debate on anarchy.I'm more interested in debating that if we form gov'ts and need to create protections for citizens within it, why executions are not appropriate under any condition. And it seems to me an argument could be made that a society which imprisoned many innocent people could be much worse than a society that convicte few innocents, yet executed some accidentally now and then. Of course even that is not necessary with proper rules to avoid accidents. Again, what is the point of this insult? I fully supported my governor's actions on halting executions in my state, until its system could be revamped and cases rereviewed. It was something I was very glad about, especially knowing full well how shitty the Illinois justice system is. Indeed I am still not convinced the system is "good" enough to allow the resumption of executions.Just because I am pro death penalty does not make me a blood thirsty idiot. Perhaps you should stop jumping to the end. I am in full agreement. Now tell me why a revamp cannot construct a system where the death penalty is only allowed for 100% guilty people, or that we can never have a case of proving guilt 100%. This time the mistake in what I was saying is on your end. Or maybe because it was in the form of a question it was harder to understand? Here it is again (in statement form)...Just because we cannot know 100% guilt in 100% of the cases, does not in any way suggest that we cannot know 100% guilt in any of the cases. You are slamming a particular sentence as if it bears the burden for being misapplied. The fact is we can apply it appropriately and exclude cases where it might not.I am defending executions, not the present systems (which differe state to state anyway) on how and when they can be applied. That is simply not true. You cannot think of a set of rules whereby an innocent person cannot be executed? All I have to say is just because you can't doesn't mean others cannot. Agreed, which is why this is a strawman. If you had nothing else to say about that point, I wish you had not used it as an excuse to repeat an argument for something else that you have already repeated several times before... made worse since it was a strawman in every other argument as well. There is a fallacy called ad nauseum, it is something you routinely use and I wish you would stop using it with me.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Okay, well I can respect that. We have different positions but they are not really open to debate since they spring from different moral centers, not factual ones.I do have a few questions though, which would be more about feeling out the extent of your position, than actually challenging it (though maybe it will in some small way). I understand and respect this position. However there is a question which arises about immediacy.If a rabid dog, or let's say a feral and quite hostile animal of some kind, was caught and caged, would you feel it is still correct to kill the animal rather than trying to stay safe while continuing to feed it until it dies of natural causes?Personally I think it is time to put it down.If you agree, then why does this also not apply to humans who have gone "feral and quite hostile" and are likely to try and kill again, and society is reduced to having to try and stay safe while feeding that person until they die of natural causes.In the end all things will die. Some people actively kill other humans, like other animals, and so become a threat to life. In commiting acts of murder they have already taken the step of renouncing law or commitment to the ideals you yourself espouse. That itself is not a reason to abandon your ideals, but opens the door to questioning how long you are responsible for maintaining the health and welfare of those people. Since they will die at some point anyway, and you must remove them from society to prevent them from killing again until they die (though that is not perfect and they can still commit murders), why is it not justified to end their life before they can commit more murders? We are essentially in agreement. The traditional three R's have been restitution, rehabilitation, and retribution (or better called revenge). I do not personally believe in retribution, but acknowledge there are some good arguments for it. Instead I believe in restitution, rehabilitation and for those that will take time to rehabilitate "removal" from criminal elements as well as society until rehabilitation can be achieved.However unlike you I do not believe that rehabilitation is always possible, and that it can be known it is unlikely, or likely not productive. For those that state there is a chance of killing someone innocent when there are executions, there is always a much greater chance of releasing a killer (or a killer escaping) who will kill again when one eliminates both executions and life imprisonment without parole.Personally I do not see how society would be better or healthier for releasing the likes of John Wayne Gacy, Jeffrey Dahmer, or Albert Fish, even if they managed to go the rest of their lives without killing someone. It is actively introducing a risk factor into society that is not palatable to me, and an insult (justice wise) to the families of their victims (not to mention the victims).But this last paragragh is my subjective opinion. It does not rebut your opinion.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Actually not really. I really enjoy diversity of thought and opinion. I suppose there are times where I wish everyone felt the same things I did, it sure would be convenient, but most of the time I don't.You are correct in your description of how people can try and convince others that their own moral position may be more appealing (due to some emotional reason) than the others' moral position, or that the others' moral position contains some logical or factual inconsistencies.However the idea that we are "better" by trying to preserve life is a pretty generic background belief, which leaves few areas of discussion. I can discuss how it may be applied to any particular situation, but not really whether your background belief is in error itself. I understand that it can be hard to kill something, but sometimes it really is a necessity, or a practical reality. I think the above position is only possible in a tamed world... that is all natural threats have been eliminated. In the end we all die, and if preservation of life is important, there is a pretty solid argument for killing those entities who consistently kill others, rather than simply waiting for them to die.If a rabid animal was attacking a person in front of you, would it be okay to kill it then? Perhaps your issue is more to do with killing in cold blood (no temper), than killing at all.Many that are for the death penalty, still see the threat posed by the individual and do not want to bind themselves to arbitrary rules of having to catch them in another act, before being able to actually deal with the threat. Without question. It would be sad this sort of thing happens, but there simply is no question in my mind.If there was a bacteria which was killing people, and would always kill people, would you be for eliminating it?It may seem odd to equate a human with an animal, or a bacteria (or virus), but when it comes to threats to life they are the same. At least to me.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

No it does not. I am not talking about mere suspicion that a person might kill. It is that the person has killed, without reason, and is prone to kill again given their psych makeup. It is anticipatory of another offence, but the gears do not go into motion until an act has been commited.Let me break this down.A person is caught in the process of murdering, or just having murdered, someone and is acting violent... is it okay to kill this person at this time?If no, then we are talking about a different initial moral view point, and what else I have to say will not carry weight. If so, then continue...Instead of catching the person in the act, we catch them after the fact and we manage to subdue them without killing them. If they continue to act violently (and are seen to have a history of violence) and we already know they have killed, why is it not justified to kill them outside the time when they are actively violent and killing?I share your interest in not having anticipatory sentencing for any crimes, I just do not see this as anticipatory (depending on the rules set).

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Thanks, though that is immaterial to the argument. You will find I misspell many things, especially when I type fast or it is late at night (and some even if I type early and slowly). Some of my most common are using mys instead of mis, and prosyletize instead of proselytize. Spelling was not necessarily my strongest point. Abandoning is with an "n". The entirety of the sentence is mere ad hominem. Just because it is not possible to know if all people scheduled for execution are actually innocent, does not in any way shape or form lead to the conclusion we cannot know that some of them are 100% guilty. You are making a logical error.I am for reforming laws pertaining to execution such that they cannot be applied in situations of less than 100% certainty. I am not supportive of most systems currently in existence. You need to build an argument for this. Currently this is mere assertion.How does the existence of a death penalty necessitate that it will be applied in situations of less than certainty? I think I have done an accurate job of reading what you have said, as well as what I have argued. Other than this statement to the contrary, you have provided no evidence for me to believe I have not understood you or me. You should note that what I was responding to was your statement... Your comment was in reference to my statement regarding innocents killed in executions. How can I be ignoring it when I am addressing it? You are attacking me by suggesting that I am ignoring it, when clearly I am not... you simply had just reached the point of where I began to discuss it.Please don't do this anymore. This has to be the worst strawman fallacy I have ever seen commited. And what does any of this have to do with stroking my ego? Please explain what I said was true and then behaved as if false. I await your evidence for this. Your assertions are tantalizing. This does not address my statement: You need to make a logical argument of why a particular system's failings reflect on the use of a sentence in general. Your statements are provocative and suggest moving to a judgement, rather than proceeding with a sentence after careful and necessary time spent in judgement.If your question is why should we kill someone that we have captured, rather than containing them until they die of natural causes, I think I have already explained my position. It is possible to create a system whereby executions are only applied to people that 100% did commit murder. Your repeated insinuations that it is impossible have my curiosity... what is your evidence for this fact.In any case I will withdraw my use of the word "generally" as it appears to have caused confusion over what I was advocating. AD NAUSEUM. Your repetition of a claim, especially a mere assertion, does not make it more acceptable, much less more correct. Please detail your argument of why the above statement is true.And by detail your argument I mean something better than this... This is a pretty bad argument. Let me try an clean it up a bit:A trial is an investigation based on observation, science says it is impossible to observe everything. Perfect knowledge requires observing everything, and so a trial cannot be said to have perfect knowledgeT requires O
S says that OE is impossible
PK requires OE
Thus, while T can have O, it cannot have OE and thus PK.I have this down right? I'll assume I do, and you can tell me if I missed something later.You are using a form of equivocation on perfect knowledge and observing everything. Its not exactly that, but a form of it.In reality courts do not need to observe everything, nor have perfect knowledge in the sense that science rebuts. All a court needs to have is "perfect knowledge" regarding the guilt or innocence of an accused murderer, and that only requires the specific observations necessary to join the murderer to the specific act of murder.This is not an impossibility, especially from a scientific standpoint. It is only from a sophist-semantic standpoint, or perhaps a metaphysical-religious standpoint, that it is an absolut impossibility.Your points about agendas is something which is interesting, but ultimately not germaine to the argument. It does not show that the death penalty is inherently going to kill innocents. What this does show is criteria needs to be set to avoid possible frame-ups from landing a person on death row. That is something I already agree with. Thanks again. Not sure why you would have to tell me twice in the same reply since its not like you reminded me once and then I repeated it. Of course I am likely to repeat the misspelling anyway. I am not so careful with that.What I am usually pretty good with is logic. I did not mean strawman as it wasn't a strawman. Whether you believe it is impossible for guilt to be determined 100% is not a misrepresentation of my position. My criticism was that as your argument was constructed pretty much as a non sequitur (heheheh, I almost misspelled it again).Here it is again... As I said this is constructed as a sort of non sequitur. You have some general principle that it simply "is impossible", which does not come logically from anything else you have presented. It isn't clean cut, but its pretty much that kind of thing.I guess it may more accurately be called a blank assertion. No, mine was not a non sequitor. I was asking you a question. The argument which many antiDP advocates use is that life in prison is worse for the prisoner than an execution. You were saying that it is better. Why is not important. If a murderer can view his nonDP sentence as less bad than an execution because he has a chance to keep appealing on technicalities, then the argument made by antiDP elements is challenged. Yawn... Did you bother reading my whole statement? No, you pulled it apart into specific sentences you could attack and mean nothing to the whole.By the way, with laws in place people get into fights and kill each other, whoops I guess that shows laws don't work. Golly logic sure is fun for sophists. You said and I quote: Yes, that insults me as it suggests that what I was saying would:
1) mean that people are not better off not getting killed
2) not include a recognition that the Illinois justice system (among others) was not adequate for use of the death penalty and that I was indifferent to their plight.In fact, my support for the death penalty meant I did not take it lighly and agreed with the suspension of executions until cases were reviewed and the system revamped.Your comment came off as nothing but an insult. Nobody has thought of them, or no state has instituted them? I say them because you can have many different systems with equal level of protections. If you honestly think I'd get a Nobel Prize, maybe I will try and publish.I didn't think it was so hard to find cases of absolute certainty and then figure out what is the difference between them and cases without absolute certainty. You really need to check yourself. Right. In the cases you cannot prove guilt 100% then no death penalty. In the cases you can, then there's a death penalty. Just because you can't do something every single time, does not mean you can't do something at all. I'll let you figure out what kind of fallacy that is. On top of being a fallacy it is annoying. Please do not do that. That is also fallacious and annoying.Please bring a better game to this debate.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Yes. Why can't it?Here's something for you to think about. Jeffrey Dahmer. Is there any question that he was 100% guilty? If you do not think so, I'd love to hear why that is. If so, you cannot think of how to create rules such that only cases as clear cut as these are open for a death sentence?

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Oh please don't go bad on me. I have already made quite clear I am not for the death penalty for revenge (i.e. punishment).I also said quite clearly after "rabid dog", "or let's say a feral and quite hostile animal". That means I recognized there was a difference with rabies.Regardless of what we do for rabid animals, we do put down hostile animals whether they are rabid or not... right? I find this all extra insulting as my statement did not directly mention the rabies analogy and specifically said "feral and quite hostile".You may not like my position but you can certainly do better than this.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)