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[Nadaka]

Simple. The society has not removed the death penalty as a punishment. As it hasn't, it is, de facto, affirming that it is a correct solution.

There is a difference between killing and murder. The death penalty itself is not murder. The death penalty should be reserved exclusively in cases where there is evidence far beyond "a shadow of doubt", and where the perpetrator is a violent repeat offender who can not be reformed. Charles Manson, Osama Bin Laden, Jeffry Dahmer, Andirs Breivik, etc. From my point of view, Troy Davis should never have been on death row for shooting a single police officer. There could be an argument that in the case of Troy Davis, it has been used to murder a possibly innocent man between the police misconduct and the courts ignoring the recantation of witness testimony.

[Bohandas]

Justice is just Vengeance in disguise.

[Nadaka]

Justice is just Vengeance in disguise.

Vengeance as justice is a miscarriage of justice. The problem is people not having a clue what justice means.

[Andir]

(Also, fuck state governments, to hell with them. Their existence is one of the biggest mistakes made by the founding fathers)

Yeah, we should just consolidate the entire Earth into one large government and let the corruption flow right up to the top... /sarcasm

Besides the obviousness of "one big country" squashing the opinions of a few more easily, the amount of disfavor increases as you have less of a voice.  Would you think that California would be able to consider legalizing Marijuana if we consolidated all of Law under the Federal umbrella?  Right now, you have the ability (or should I say the obligation?) to select a State that closely follows your point of view and actively participate in your government.  If we consolidated all laws under Washington D.C. the states would have less ability to change and adapt to their population.  If anything, I think states should be given more leeway in regards to law.

Also, you're overlooking one of the most important (and now corrupt) points of the Federal Government... to protect our rights as people from the will of the State (foreign or domestic).  In a properly functioning United States, the Federal Government would have that one job.  Monitoring and regulating the State.  Unfortunately, today the Federal Government has become a centralized point of lobbyist corruption and everyone (including you) have decided that "one ring to rule them all" is the obvious answer to correct what is the main problem with our country... centralized corruption.

Fuckin' a. Also, Troy Davis would not have been killed if he was white, anybody think otherwise? This is disgusting.

I disagree.  Personally, I believe that line of thinking to be racist, and self defeating (for a black person to think...as if there's no other reason).  As long as this line of thought continues, racism will never end.

If anything, he probably got the publicity because he was black.  I do believe this is not the first time an innocent man has been executed unjustly.

[kaijyuu]

Justice is just Vengeance in disguise.

Vengeance as justice is a miscarriage of justice. The problem is people not having a clue what justice means.

Then tell us what it means.

In my view, justice is an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Blindly returning insults and injuries, rather than working to resolve them, all in an effort to balance the scales.

What separates that from vengeance? Is vengeance merely disproportionate retribution?

[Bauglir]

Feh, the ideal would be a cascading series of levels of government, where higher bodies oversee governmental functions in proportion to how widespread the effects might be. Traffic laws? That shit's city-level. Tax codes for revenue that gets spent nationwide, environmental regulations? Obviously federal. I'm having a difficult time thinking of something appropriate for levels in between, but that's because I imagine I'm still stuck in a paradigm where State governments are obnoxiously corrupt crazybaskets and I don't really have a great deal of experience with what they actually do. I expect this line of thinking to result in something resembling the current system, though, given that it's basically just pragmatism. Just with a reasoning other than this vague and arbitrary "States are better defenders of the peoples' rights!" that doesn't make any sense.

Case in point, Troy Davis.

[Nadaka]

Even though I am mildly in favor of the death penalty, I have to say that that minorities are disproportionately sentenced to death. Most of the people on death row are minorities and when you compare similar crimes, a minority is more likely to be sentenced to death than a white man.

The major problem I have with the "states rights" movement is that it is so often used by those who want to oppress and subjugate people, to turn back the gradual progress of civilization, but are held back by pesky constitutional rights enforced at a federal level. For instance a major politician invoked "states rights" to say that only federal public facilities are prohibited from being "white only", and that states and businesses should be allowed to segregate. The minor issue I have with states rights is that I move around so much that I don't, and can't, have a state that I have a particular loyalty to. I identify as a Person first, then American and I want the world to be a better place for everyone, not just the place I happen to live right now.

[Nadaka]

Justice is just Vengeance in disguise.

Vengeance as justice is a miscarriage of justice. The problem is people not having a clue what justice means.

Then tell us what it means.

In my view, justice is an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Blindly returning insults and injuries, rather than working to resolve them, all in an effort to balance the scales.

What separates that from vengeance? Is vengeance merely disproportionate retribution?

Justice is most simply about making right what is wrong. From wikipedia:
Justice is a concept of moral rightness based on ethics, rationality, law, natural law, religion, fairness, or equity, along with the punishment of the breach of said ethics.

I would strike religion from the concept of justice and add the reform of those who breach those ethics. Simple vengeance against criminals doesn't fix whatever caused them to commit a crime and possibly exacerbates it. That fails to prevent future crime and possibly even causes it.

[Andir]

Just with a reasoning other than this vague and arbitrary "States are better defenders of the peoples' rights!" that doesn't make any sense.

Case in point, Troy Davis.

I hope you are not attributing me to saying: "States are better defenders of the peoples' rights!"  I'm not parsing what you wrote clearly for some reason.  I did, in fact, state that the Federal Government has that job (according to The Constitution).

I identify as a Person first, then American and I want the world to be a better place for everyone, not just the place I happen to live right now.

That's a good thing.  But pushing power away from your position to a centralized power further away defeats this premise.  If you think as a person, distributing power further grants you power to take care of those needs and wants.  Ideally, in the US, your pleas for humanity would fall on the Federal Government while the states took care of day to day operations.  The Federal Government should be overturning unconstitutional laws the States create by judicial review.

Like I said though, The Federal Government is corrupt currently and we keep granting more and more power to the corruption.  It's like having a shield you use to protect yourself from some evil, but  you put spikes on the inside to try to punish someone else for using it.  All it's going to do is make the shield more useless to you as you keep adding things to it.

[Pnx]

For the record on the Shephard point, I went for the dumb blonde bimbo look because I was expecting the voice acting to fit the role. I was surprised when I found the voice actor actually came off as being tough, and actually much better than the male Shephard.

So on the death penalty thing, I'd like to point out that the UN considers it a human rights violation.
I know the UN is chiefly ignored in the United States, but that's not the same as saying it should be ignored.

Personally I don't actually claim to know if it's right or wrong. I tend to think I'm overly forgiving, I'm someone who looks at Hitler and just says, "He's a very sad man and I feel sorry for him." I'm not really sure if this is the right attitude to have, but I find it extremely hard to be vengeful and vindictive. Even when it's warranted.
What does erk me though, is the amount of people willing to support the death penalty when they are unwilling to actually execute someone themselves, and I find it hard to believe that many of those who say they would, would be able to take a needle, jab it into her or him, while he or she begs for mercy, and the family watches.
Thing is, while I'm not vindictive, I can be rather cold. I sometimes feel war is necessary, and the loss of life is sometimes necessary. But I feel someone should take responsibility for these actions, human life is not something to be tossed away lightly.

[Bauglir]

Just with a reasoning other than this vague and arbitrary "States are better defenders of the peoples' rights!" that doesn't make any sense.

Case in point, Troy Davis.

I hope you are not attributing me to saying: "States are better defenders of the peoples' rights!"  I'm not parsing what you wrote clearly for some reason.  I did, in fact, state that the Federal Government has that job (according to The Constitution).

Yeah, sorry about that. I kind of wandered away from something relevant and more into a rant against typical rhetoric, and the latter isn't something you'd endorsed.

More rambling on that same topic, and so not really aimed at you. I think it's naive to think that there's any difference between an individual ceding authority to a State government or a federal one, mostly. I certainly don't want to argue that the federal government is any better, in principle. The only governmental group meaningfully close to the people is one in which you directly participate, which is obviously impractical on a large scale.

In my experience, authority follows an inverse squares law, it's just that distance is measured in degrees of separation between a person and the people making decisions.

[TheBronzePickle]

I personally wonder, why with the internet at the availability it is currently, we don't actually go back to a system of absolute democracy. Even if it's not actually all that secure, any corruption would be severely diluted by the fact that the entire raving horde of the internet would be fighting over every little thing.

If nothing else, it would make life a hell of a lot more interesting. And our internet a hell of a lot better, since one thing everyone with actual power on the internet would invest over half the world's GDP on internet.

[Andir]

Pure Democracies have a very important drawback.  Silencing the minority.  If your opinion on Gay Marriage doesn't comply with the Christians... there's no amount of debate that will change that.  Currently, there's a fighting change to get your state to endorse it (even if the Federal support is lacking...it's still support.)  In a Federally run country, or a Pure Democracy, that fight is much harder.

[Bohandas]

Justice is just Vengeance in disguise.

Vengeance as justice is a miscarriage of justice. The problem is people not having a clue what justice means.

Then tell us what it means.

In my view, justice is an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Blindly returning insults and injuries, rather than working to resolve them, all in an effort to

Spoiler: balance the scales (click to show/hide)

What separates that from vengeance? Is vengeance merely disproportionate retribution?

Exactly! I didn't say that vengeance really justice, I said that "justice" is really vengeance. Vengence is the true face of both.

BTW, On a slightly different tack, I've always felt that that standard artistic representation of "blind justice" would make more sense if she were drinking a bottle of anti-freeze instead of waearing that blindfold.

[Vector]

Equity is the highest form of justice.

--Aristotle.

Think on that for a couple of minutes, would you?