Columbine has been surpassed

[Delfos]

all persons are the absolute owners of their own lives, and should be free to do whatever they wish with their persons or property, provided they allow others the same liberty and avoid harming others by abusing their liberty.
plus the ethics, means they dont kill. you havent stated they favor death penalty. if the one that killed is a libertanian, people cant do anything to him, because he's the owner of his own life, plus same rule applies to the other, doesnt make me belive they wanna kill him after he killed anyone, wich if so, any other one can kill the one that killed him wich killed another being...wait! ah no thats right. Libertanians would provoke a chain of killings in your theory, they would end up destroying themselves, either you just want that the death penalty is acceptable for libertanians, either you didnt understood you master's taughts, either i dont get why they belive in death penalty.

where did you read that? i hope it wasnt on any Nietzsche i havent read yet.

[Solnath]

Libertarians don't believe in taking one's life unless in self defense, because that violates their natural right to live. If the violator took away someone else's right to live, we must take theirs.

What logic does that follow? Where's "self-defence" in revenge?

[Delfos]

lol you got it, self-defense is the magical word. i leave my defense to the law, not to myself, or else i might be breaking the law...if you kill someone in Portugal in self-defense you might end up being accused of murder, wich is the same. as i said, i favor life, not death by revenge.

[Romanar]

lol you got it, self-defense is the magical word. i leave my defense to the law, not to myself, or else i might be breaking the law...if you kill someone in Portugal in self-defense you might end up being accused of murder, wich is the same. as i said, i favor life, not death by revenge.

IME, it takes at least 15 minutes for the police to respond to an emergency.  A lot can happen in 15 minutes.  Ultimately, I rely on myself for defense.

[Myroria]

I wasn't calling executions self-defense. They violated my right to live, so we must violate theirs. It's not perfect, but it's fair.

People aren't stupid, Delfos. We'd just kill the murderer, and leave it at that. A libertarian shouldn't kill another man first with some exceptions (i.e., if he's in the military), because doing so would violate his own principles and thus make him non-libertarian.

And you're implying the most evil, horrible, nasty people should live for their actions. If Hitler didn't commit suicide, should he have lived for killing 6 MILLION people? His life is more valuable then theirs? Did the Nazis at the Nuremburg Trials have a right to live in a nice, safe, jail for the rest of their lives instead of dying as they had done to so many? Should they have gotten food, TV, and comfort instead of death? Should pure evil be considered more worthy of live than 6 million Jews, Roma, and homosexuals?

[Delfos]

yes he should have lived, carrying his accusations from international war court..wasnt that what you'v done with Saddam? poor guy got hanged cuz you delivered to the fearsome oppositors. What did USA after Pearl Harbor? master plan to drop nuke bombs in 2 heavily populated cities in japan...wtf? the japanese have hit military targets, you drop 2 nukes to theire population? thats your concept of revenge! Revenge shall be stronger! If he rapes your wife you rape his and his daughter! isnt that what you'r saying? It's totally different with David's justice, if you steal they cut your hands..yeah it's awful but at least he cant do it again. But no you defend this man should be killed! Why people think they can choose who dies or who doesnt, why cant everyone be alive? 'Because he's a murderer' you become one if you kill him too.

[Ryazania]

So I should let someone kill me first? Thanks, government!

[Solnath]

If everyone had the above attitude, no one would kill anyone.

I can't see how executing someone could be a worse punishment than letting the perpetrator live for years, knowing well what he has done and possibly even torturing him for his crimes, were they severe enough. After all, he'll die after that, won't he?

[Ryazania]

Who says that prisons have to be comfy?

[Solnath]

Technically, Myro.

[Myroria]

Modern ones are. Even supermax prisons give you some comforts, while back in the good ol' Victorian era getting in jail made you never want to shoplift gum, let alone murder.
Posted on: April 25, 2007, 06:32:40 PMAnd I consider the Hiroshima and Nagasaki attacks a war crime, and you can be damned sure that if Nazis invented The Bomb, attacked semi-important American cities, and then lost the war later, they'd be hanged for war crimes. Even so, Hiroshima and Nagasaki weren't "heavily populated" in Japan. We killed less in those attacks than Saddam did, I believe.

And your statement of thinking Hitler deserved life only shows how utterly, comedically idiotic you are. He killed SIX MILLION PEOPLE. Letting him live would be saying that HIS LIFE IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN THEIRS. Is that what you believe, Delfos? That a genocider (?) is more important than the genocidees?

[The Empire]

The only thing prisons of any kind is good for is to provide a meeting-ground for criminals so they can educate eachother.
The theory of making examples doesn't work, it's prooven time and time again, especially in the US as you have one of the worlds strictest punishments and at the same time a rate of violent crime that surpasses every other nation in history.
The reason that theory doesn't work is because the criminal counts on NOT GETTING CAUGHT and then the penalty doesn't matter at all until they are cornered, then they throw caution to the wind.

[Cartwrightia]

This thread is a perfect living example of two well known facts about free-for-all debates.  First of all, people involved in arguments frequently base their arguments on half- or complete un-truths:

The United States is the only nation in the world ruled by a piece of paper

Now, European-style democracies, they don't have as much of a need for an armed population, as the executive is far less powerful in most democracies.

The Corps is the most hallowed group of men (and women) that ever fought in the name of freedom, and can kick the shit out of any army on this planet, nevermind your own country you're constantly reffering to

Secondly, people will revert to ad hominem arguments within a blink of an eye, rather than dazzling their opponent with an actual argument, well thought out and well executed:

I just got two words for you: fuck off.

(sorry, is it Switerzerland or Sweden?)

You babies

shows how utterly, comedically idiotic you are

Is it too much to ask that we bring this thread back around to where it was meant to be?  Discussing gun laws and capital punishment seems to be a logical extension of any discussion on the VT massacre, but mud slinging about other nations' armies and using bad history to back it all up is pretty embarrassing for the rest of us who have to watch it. 

Equally embarrassing are the generalisations used on all sides of this "debate".  'America' or 'Europe' does not consist of one person, you cannot generalise about either of them.  Equally, none of you can claim to speak for 'your' country - given that we all live in pluralist democracies that would be impossible, and all the RL societies represented in this region are better for that.

So, if you wish to carry on soberly and objectively discussing gun laws, death penalties and the VT massacre in general, please do so.  Given that this is a democracy, you can also just ignore everything I've said and carry on in the same vein.  But, for what it's worth (and I'm not pig-headed enough to imagine that it is much), I have to say that a number of people who I previously thought fairly highly of have gone very far down in my estimation because of attitudes, methodology and language displayed in this thread.

[Delfos]

the concept is the same, we'r debating the the right to kill or to live or to whatever. but myro rather to insult than debate.

If the prisons are that comfy, why dont you live in one? I guess Guantanamo is very comfy, they lock up guys for 5years of trial, must be very comfy.

hold your guts before insulting anyone, only shows how ignorant you are if you cannot accept other opinions and points of view.

[Willebrord Snell]

Well, it looks like I'm going to be off topic locally, but on globally.

I found it really disturbing that:

1) With obvious mental problems, and a history of violent/suicidal fantasies, this guy had no problems whatsoever getting his hands on guns in a completely legal and above-board way.

2) He (an English major) killed a bunch of engineering students and a professor(s?).  That really hurt.

One more thing, someone earlier said he was here on a student's visa, when in actuality he was here legally, had a green card, and had lived here for a very large portion of his life.

This isn't just about the problems with gun control in the US, it's also how we treat and view mental illness.  Think about it, almost every other disease (barring STDs) garners you sympathy and compassion, but we still have this knee jerk reaction that "crazies" are somehow personally responsible for how their brain chemistry is fubared, and they become pariahs.  The stigma is still incredible, and I can't see it changing anytime soon.

Anyway, just wanted to interject, go back to the "US, my country right or wrong" vs "Europe stereotyping/baiting the silly Americans" argument that was doing such a great job of reconciling the two points of view.