The Death Penalty should be applied equally to all ages

[JudgeRightly]

There was no evasion, I answered you from the get go,

No. You finally answered after several pages of refusing to say what letting the guilty escape punishment teaches. Until then, you kept evading the actual point by answering what should happen, rather than what such allowance teaches, and only at the end admitting that it ‘would set a bad precedent.’ Even now, your denial is just more evasion meant to distract from the issue.

that a person with sufficient development

‘Sufficient development’ sounds neat until you actually try to explain what it means and where the line is. Sufficient to know what one is doing? Sufficient to know it is wrong? Sufficient to grasp every consequence? In reality, it is an arbitrary standard with no clear grounding in the real world. It is the kind of idealistic abstraction that does not survive contact with reality.

And reality is precisely the problem. Criminals do not politely respect your abstractions. They exploit them. They will either use others who fall below the threshold as tools, or try to present themselves as falling below it in order to evade serious punishment.

That is exactly what happens once accountability becomes a sliding scale: the threshold stops functioning as a principle and starts functioning as a loophole.

should not be allowed to get away with a crime.

Which, once again, is not the point in dispute. The question was never merely whether someone should get away with crime, but what is taught to the offender and to society when they do.

And you have now finally answered it, at least in part: letting the guilty escape punishment sets a bad precedent.

The rest should follow as obvious, unless you need things spoon fed and on a silver platter? Heck, I'll do that in future if ya want - join the dots so to speak?

The answer should have followed immediately from the question. The point is that you refused to give the obvious answer for several pages, and only at the end conceded it.

There's a whole lot of rambling word salad following but my position remains constant, and yes, it's in complete opposition to yours. I maintain that only people of sufficient development can be held accountable for a crime, let alone be executed for one.

Your position does not actually remain constant at all. What remains constant is only your desire for a standard flexible enough to bend around your emotional reactions. That is exactly why you keep reaching for phrases like ‘sufficient development’: they sound principled, but in practice they let you move the line whenever a case feels too uncomfortable.

That's what current law dictates

And that is the most literal appeal to authority imaginable. Current law is one of the very things under dispute, so citing it settles nothing. The fact that current law says something does not make it just, wise, or good.

so is that based solely on emotive argument? Well, no, it isn't, far from it and you'd hardly need to be a professor of neuroscience to figure this out.

No. The fact that current law says it does not prove the law is rational rather than emotive. Law can be shaped by sentiment just as easily as by reason, and invoking ‘neuroscience’ afterward does not change that.

I highly doubt that even you, advocating for what you do here, would seriously argue that a newborn baby could be held accountable for a capitol crime. (Heck though, given the premise of your thread though perhaps you do?) Given how utterly insane and indefensible such a position actually is,

No. That is just a reductio ad absurdum. My example was an extreme but plausible edge case meant to test the principle at the margins. Your jump to newborns is not a serious extension of that; it is an absurd caricature dragged in to provoke revulsion instead of thought.

then it shouldn't take any sort of leap of imagination to wonder why we don't execute five year old kids.

Nor should it take any sort of leap of imagination to see that your discomfort with the hard case does nothing to erase the point you already conceded: that letting the guilty escape punishment sets a bad precedent.

It's not purely emotive (though yes, such an execrable position provokes strong emotive reactions, for those of us that can feel them at any rate)

The strength of your reaction does not determine whether your conclusion is true.

You point to a a singular case

And a singular case is enough to test a principle. The law is not only there to react after something becomes common, but to establish boundaries before rare evils become normalized.

as if that could anywhere be the norm

The fact that it is not the norm is not a refutation of my position. It is, if anything, evidence of the stabilizing moral and legal inheritance of Christianity, which treated murder with the seriousness it deserves and helped produce the sort of ordered society you now take for granted.

And your statement also ignores places where this kind of criminality is already far closer to normal, Britain being an obvious example. Rape gangs were allowed to operate for years because authorities lacked the will to enforce justice consistently. That is what happens when law becomes selective, cowardly, and subordinate to social pressure.

By the time such things become common, the foundations have already been eaten away.

or if it supports your position.

It supports my position by showing that the hard case is not imaginary, and that your attempt to dismiss it as absurd was premature.

Tragic, for sure but your answer is to execute the kid?

Yes, because to do otherwise would set a bad precedent, as you already admitted it would.

And that is the part you keep trying to run away from. Once you admit that letting the guilty escape punishment sets a bad precedent, then your whole case becomes a plea for an exception, not a refutation of the rule.

Emotional revulsion at a hard case does not refute the principle of equal justice.

Who probably didn't understand fully what they'd done and the ramifications of it by any stretch?

Not fully understanding what one has done and its ramifications does not make the case better. If anything, it makes it worse, because it shows how little moral foundation stands between that person and grave evil.

That is part of what the law is for. As Paul says, the law is a tutor. It teaches people where the lines are, and it teaches them that certain acts have certain consequences.

But once the law becomes vague enough, people stop learning clear moral boundaries and start learning that accountability is negotiable.

And when you stop punishing grave crimes appropriately, the law stops teaching restraint and starts teaching lawlessness.

Or, as you finally admitted, it sets a bad precedent.

What you advocate is sickening, illogical and indefensible on every level, not just emotive.

That's just a string of assertions, not a demonstration of how or why. If the position were truly illogical and indefensible, you would show where the logic fails instead of just piling on adjectives. So far, all you have actually done is concede the very principle you were resisting: that letting the guilty escape punishment sets a bad precedent.

Tell me, have you ever been moved by anything, reduced to tears? You obviously don't have to answer that, I'm just curious. FTR. I hope you have been. It would show some humanity.

You have moved from arguing the issue to insinuating that anyone who disagrees with you must be emotionally deficient.

In other words, just more evasion to distract from the issue.

 

[JudgeRightly]

A different perspective on Renee Good:

 

[VladtheDestroyer]

Do you think that the DP should be applied to five year old's and younger?

It should apply to anyone who commits murder, rape ect.

 

[Arthur Brain]

No. You finally answered after several pages of refusing to say what letting the guilty escape punishment teaches. Until then, you kept evading the actual point by answering what should happen, rather than what such allowance teaches, and only at the end admitting that it ‘would set a bad precedent.’ Even now, your denial is just more evasion meant to distract from the issue.

So you do need the obvious actually spelled out for you then? Duly noted. I've constantly said that a person (again, the caveat of being old enough to possess understanding etc remains) should not be allowed to get away with a crime for what are obvious reasons. I'm sorry I credited you with the intelligence whereby I presumed the obvious didn't need adding.

‘Sufficient development’ sounds neat until you actually try to explain what it means and where the line is. Sufficient to know what one is doing? Sufficient to know it is wrong? Sufficient to grasp every consequence? In reality, it is an arbitrary standard with no clear grounding in the real world. It is the kind of idealistic abstraction that does not survive contact with reality.

And reality is precisely the problem. Criminals do not politely respect your abstractions. They exploit them. They will either use others who fall below the threshold as tools, or try to present themselves as falling below it in order to evade serious punishment.

That is exactly what happens once accountability becomes a sliding scale: the threshold stops functioning as a principle and starts functioning as a loophole.

It's not "neat", it's science and there's nothing abstract about it. If you had even a basic knowledge regarding neurological development you'd understand this. The pre frontal cortex, judgement centres of the brain are in their 'infancy' so to speak. Just as a child hasn't remotely hit the peak of physical development at five, the same apples mentally. Hence, why we have laws that take the obvious into account and why we don't hold kids as accountable for crimes as we do adults. All your blather about abstractions is just sheer nonsense.

Which, once again, is not the point in dispute. The question was never merely whether someone should get away with crime, but what is taught to the offender and to society when they do.

And you have now finally answered it, at least in part: letting the guilty escape punishment sets a bad precedent.

The answer should have followed immediately from the question. The point is that you refused to give the obvious answer for several pages, and only at the end conceded it.

Which was answered with the same caveat attached.

Your position does not actually remain constant at all. What remains constant is only your desire for a standard flexible enough to bend around your emotional reactions. That is exactly why you keep reaching for phrases like ‘sufficient development’: they sound principled, but in practice they let you move the line whenever a case feels too uncomfortable.

Yeah, it does and is. I don't have any desire for a "flexible standard" to meet any emotional requirements, nor do I need one. The law reflects common sense on the issue as pointed out previous and in earlier exchanges on this issue.

And that is the most literal appeal to authority imaginable. Current law is one of the very things under dispute, so citing it settles nothing. The fact that current law says something does not make it just, wise, or good.



No. The fact that current law says it does not prove the law is rational rather than emotive. Law can be shaped by sentiment just as easily as by reason, and invoking ‘neuroscience’ afterward does not change that.

Hardly, it's proven that neurological development hasn't maturated by any stretch at age five and any sensible and grounded law is going to reflect that.

No. That is just a reductio ad absurdum. My example was an extreme but plausible edge case meant to test the principle at the margins. Your jump to newborns is not a serious extension of that; it is an absurd caricature dragged in to provoke revulsion instead of thought.

Hey, I'm just taking your thread premise to it's inexorable conclusion. You contend that the death penalty should be applied to all ages, right? So, if that's hyperbole then just how young should it be applied? 2? 3? Newsflash, JR but what do you suppose the general reaction to your contention that executing kids as young as five would be, say in an Evangelical church even? Revulsion for the most part is what...

Nor should it take any sort of leap of imagination to see that your discomfort with the hard case does nothing to erase the point you already conceded: that letting the guilty escape punishment sets a bad precedent.

Um, there was no concession on my part from the start JR.

The strength of your reaction does not determine whether your conclusion is true.

Sure doesn't prove it false either.

And a singular case is enough to test a principle. The law is not only there to react after something becomes common, but to establish boundaries before rare evils become normalized.

How do you suppose our laws are arrived at, not just in our own respective countries but throughout the West? A bunch of folk in a boardroom somewhere just debate emotively until they can agree on things and then they're passed? Not how it works. That's why no country in the West executes five year old children by way of.

The fact that it is not the norm is not a refutation of my position. It is, if anything, evidence of the stabilizing moral and legal inheritance of Christianity, which treated murder with the seriousness it deserves and helped produce the sort of ordered society you now take for granted.

And your statement also ignores places where this kind of criminality is already far closer to normal, Britain being an obvious example. Rape gangs were allowed to operate for years because authorities lacked the will to enforce justice consistently. That is what happens when law becomes selective, cowardly, and subordinate to social pressure.

By the time such things become common, the foundations have already been eaten away.

Seriously man, if you're gonna talk about Britain (which is absolutely fine) you wanna get your "news" from some credible sources and not some wingnuts on social media.

It supports my position by showing that the hard case is not imaginary, and that your attempt to dismiss it as absurd was premature.



Yes, because to do otherwise would set a bad precedent, as you already admitted it would.

And that is the part you keep trying to run away from. Once you admit that letting the guilty escape punishment sets a bad precedent, then your whole case becomes a plea for an exception, not a refutation of the rule.

Emotional revulsion at a hard case does not refute the principle of equal justice.

Nope, trying to twist my words won't help. I've stated that allowing a person to get away with a crime would set a bad precedent - with the ongoing and obvious caveat - that they're of sufficient age and understanding to be held accountable for one.

Not fully understanding what one has done and its ramifications does not make the case better. If anything, it makes it worse, because it shows how little moral foundation stands between that person and grave evil.

Sure it can. If a baby literally spits his/her dummy out and one of their parents trips over it and falls out of a window, we don't charge that baby with murder. What you advocate has no moral foundation at all.

That is part of what the law is for. As Paul says, the law is a tutor. It teaches people where the lines are, and it teaches them that certain acts have certain consequences.

But once the law becomes vague enough, people stop learning clear moral boundaries and start learning that accountability is negotiable.

And when you stop punishing grave crimes appropriately, the law stops teaching restraint and starts teaching lawlessness.

Or, as you finally admitted, it sets a bad precedent.

What you advocate would set an appalling precedent and again, it wasn't an admission or a concession on my part, no mater how you may like to dress it up as one, it was obvious. There is nothing Biblical to support your position on this matter either.

That's just a string of assertions, not a demonstration of how or why. If the position were truly illogical and indefensible, you would show where the logic fails instead of just piling on adjectives. So far, all you have actually done is concede the very principle you were resisting: that letting the guilty escape punishment sets a bad precedent.

Heck, a first year grad student could explain the obvious science that evades you,. Once again, I have conceded nothing and would only concede the principle if I were to argue that young kids could be executed. Never happening...

You have moved from arguing the issue to insinuating that anyone who disagrees with you must be emotionally deficient.

In other words, just more evasion to distract from the issue.

The reaction you would get for what you advocate regarding this subject would elicit revulsion from most, even just within evangelical Christianity circles. Emotions are God given, right? They're there for a reason?

 

[Arthur Brain]

A different perspective on Renee Good:

Hmm, yeah, a really juvenile and cretinous one.

 

[Arthur Brain]

It should apply to anyone who commits murder, rape ect.

Well, I doubt a five year old would be physically capable of rape, but you think that a child as young as five can be accountable for murder? How about four? Three? Two...?

 

[JudgeRightly]

So you do need the obvious actually spelled out for you then? Duly noted.

When I ask a straight question, I want a straight answer.

You failed to do that for several pages, and now you're trying to pass it off as "spelling out the obvious," as though I didn't already know the answer to the question.

I've constantly said that a person (again, the caveat of being old enough to possess understanding etc remains) should not be allowed to get away with a crime for what are obvious reasons.

And there is the real issue: your caveat is the very thing in dispute.

You keep acting as though saying “sufficient age and understanding” settles the matter, when all it actually does is smuggle in the exception you want without defending it.

I'm sorry I credited you with the intelligence whereby I presumed the obvious didn't need adding.

More sneering is not an argument.

Stop it. Think rationally.

It's not "neat", it's science and there's nothing abstract about it.

Calling it “science” does not make the abstraction disappear. The abstraction is not whether brains develop, but how you turn that fact into a legal and moral threshold.

If you had even a basic knowledge regarding neurological development you'd understand this.

That is just condescension in place of argument. Understanding that brains develop is not the same thing as granting your legal conclusion.

The issue is not whether neurological development exists. The issue is whether your conclusion actually follows from it.

The pre frontal cortex, judgement centres of the brain are in their 'infancy' so to speak. Just as a child hasn't remotely hit the peak of physical development at five, the same apples mentally.

And none of that answers the actual question. Yes, children are less mentally developed than adults. No one disputes that. What is in dispute is whether that fact gives you a coherent and non-arbitrary standard for carving out exceptions to justice.

A child being less mentally developed than an adult does not tell you where accountability begins, what degree of understanding is sufficient, or why your preferred threshold is anything more than a sliding line dressed up in scientific language.

Hence, why we have laws that take the obvious into account and why we don't hold kids as accountable for crimes as we do adults. All your blather about abstractions is just sheer nonsense.

No, the abstraction remains exactly where I said it was.

Pointing to neurological development does not answer the real question. It does not tell you where accountability begins, what degree of understanding is sufficient, or why your preferred threshold is anything other than a sliding line dressed up in scientific language.

Children are less developed than adults. No one disputes that. What is in dispute is whether your vague standard of “sufficient development” is a coherent basis for carving out exceptions to justice.

So far, it is not. It is just a flexible line you keep moving around hard cases.

Which was answered with the same caveat attached.

Yes, and that is exactly the problem. You are no longer disputing the rule. Now you're pleading for an exception.

Yeah, it does and is. I don't have any desire for a "flexible standard" to meet any emotional requirements, nor do I need one.

Whether you desire a flexible standard is irrelevant. Your intent is not the issue. The issue is that your standard functions as a flexible one in practice, whether you admit it or not. “Sufficient development” is vague enough to move with the case, and that is exactly what makes it flexible.

The law reflects common sense on the issue as pointed out previous and in earlier exchanges on this issue.

Calling it “common sense” does not prove it is either common or sensible. It's not a substitute for a principle. It's just another label doing the work of an argument, smuggling in your conclusion without defending it.

Hardly, it's proven that neurological development hasn't maturated by any stretch at age five

Again, the issue is not whether development is incomplete. No one is disputing that a five-year-old is less developed than an adult. The issue is whether incomplete development gives you a coherent and non-arbitrary legal standard. So far, you have not shown that it does.

and any sensible and grounded law is going to reflect that.

Yes, that's what's in dispute.

You do not get to assume your conclusion by calling it “common sense,” “grounded,” or “scientific.” That is just question-begging with extra adjectives.

Hey, I'm just taking your thread premise to it's inexorable conclusion. You contend that the death penalty should be applied to all ages, right? So, if that's hyperbole then just how young should it be applied? 2? 3?

No. You are not taking it to its inexorable conclusion; you are changing the case. An inexorable conclusion follows the principle faithfully. A five-year-old is an extreme but still plausible hard case. What you are doing is leaping from an extreme but plausible edge case to increasingly absurd examples in order to provoke revulsion instead of thought. Your move to two- and three-year-olds is just another attempt to flee into absurdity.

Newsflash, JR but what do you suppose the general reaction to your contention that executing kids as young as five would be, say in an Evangelical church even? Revulsion for the most part is what...

And there you go again, replacing argument with social reaction.

The revulsion of a crowd does not determine whether a principle is true. Hard cases are where principles are tested, not where they're suspended.

Um, there was no concession on my part from the start JR.

You said letting the guilty escape punishment would set a bad precedent.
That is the principle I had been pressing.
Denying that you conceded it does not undo the fact that you stated it.

Sure doesn't prove it false either.

No, but neither does revulsion prove it false, and you keep appealing to revulsion as though it does.

How do you suppose our laws are arrived at, not just in our own respective countries but throughout the West? A bunch of folk in a boardroom somewhere just debate emotively until they can agree on things and then they're passed? Not how it works. That's why no country in the West executes five year old children by way of.

Laws are made by men, and men are fully capable of writing bad laws, sentimental laws, cowardly laws, and inconsistent laws.

Appealing to what the modern West currently does is still just an appeal to authority.

Seriously man, if you're gonna talk about Britain (which is absolutely fine) you wanna get your "news" from some credible sources and not some wingnuts on social media.

Then feel free to address the point instead of hand-waving at the source.
Britain’s rape gang scandal is not a social media invention. It is a glaring example of what happens when law becomes selective, cowardly, and subordinate to social pressure.

Nope, trying to twist my words won't help. I've stated that allowing a person to get away with a crime would set a bad precedent - with the ongoing and obvious caveat - that they're of sufficient age and understanding to be held accountable for one.

Exactly. Again: you are no longer contesting the rule. You are pleading for an exception.

So defend the exception.

Why does letting the guilty escape punishment set a bad precedent in general, but somehow not set one when the guilty belong to a class you want exempted under your vague standard of “sufficient age and understanding”?

Sure it can. If a baby literally spits his/her dummy out and one of their parents trips over it and falls out of a window, we don't charge that baby with murder. What you advocate has no moral foundation at all.

That's not analogous to my position at all.
A baby accidentally causing a death is not murder. Bringing up accidents does nothing but confirm, again, that you have to flee into absurd non-comparisons to avoid the hard case actually under discussion.

What you advocate would set an appalling precedent and again, it wasn't an admission or a concession on my part, no mater how you may like to dress it up as one, it was obvious.

If it was so obvious, you could have said it plainly from the start instead of spending several pages evading it.

There is nothing Biblical to support your position on this matter either.

Then make that argument from Scripture, instead of from revulsion, current law, and neuroscience buzzwords.

Heck, a first year grad student could explain the obvious science that evades you,. Once again, I have conceded nothing and would only concede the principle if I were to argue that young kids could be executed. Never happening...

No. You conceded the rule already. You just don't want to admit that your whole case now rests on defending an exception to it.

The reaction you would get for what you advocate regarding this subject would elicit revulsion from most, even just within evangelical Christianity circles.

That's still not an argument, just another appeal to popularity and emotion. The fact that many people would recoil from a hard case does not make the underlying principle false. Crowds do not define justice.

Emotions are God given, right? They're there for a reason?

There's a reason God says "come let us reason together" instead of "come let us react together."

 

[VladtheDestroyer]

Well, I doubt..

I don't care what you doubt.

you think that a child as young as five can be accountable for murder?

If someone commits murder, then they should be put to death.

 

[JudgeRightly]

Well, I doubt a five year old would be physically capable of rape, but you think that a child as young as five can be accountable for murder? How about four? Three? Two...?

A nine year old is pretty capable of rape. But you don't want him punished either. At least not in any way that would actually have any good effect on society.

2 children, ages 9 and 10, charged with attempted murder, rape in brutal attack on 5-year-old girl, prosecutors say

Two children, ages 9 and 10, are facing several serious charges including attempted murder and rape after prosecutors say they brutally attacked a 5-year-old girl in Cleveland, Ohio.

www.kgns.tv

 

[Arthur Brain]

When I ask a straight question, I want a straight answer.

You failed to do that for several pages, and now you're trying to pass it off as "spelling out the obvious," as though I didn't already know the answer to the question.

And you got one, your petulant protestations notwithstanding.

And there is the real issue: your caveat is the very thing in dispute.

You keep acting as though saying “sufficient age and understanding” settles the matter, when all it actually does is smuggle in the exception you want without defending it.

It's an issue for you obviously, sure ain't for me as it's plain common sense - which, believe it or not, most of our laws are predicated on to at least some extent.

More sneering is not an argument.

Stop it. Think rationally.

Says the guy who leaves juvenile chuckle emojis all over the place. I am thinking rationally thanks.

Calling it “science” does not make the abstraction disappear. The abstraction is not whether brains develop, but how you turn that fact into a legal and moral threshold.



That is just condescension in place of argument. Understanding that brains develop is not the same thing as granting your legal conclusion.

The issue is not whether neurological development exists. The issue is whether your conclusion actually follows from it.

It IS science. There's no abstraction about it and the conclusion is obvious. You see any five year old's competing with adults at the Olympics? No? Well do the math as to why that is and then apply it here in context.

And none of that answers the actual question. Yes, children are less mentally developed than adults. No one disputes that. What is in dispute is whether that fact gives you a coherent and non-arbitrary standard for carving out exceptions to justice.

A child being less mentally developed than an adult does not tell you where accountability begins, what degree of understanding is sufficient, or why your preferred threshold is anything more than a sliding line dressed up in scientific language.

Yes, it does. That is why we have the laws in place across the West and that all manner of countries agree upon. Not executing young kids wasn't arrived at arbitrarily and you'd have to be a real dope to think that.

No, the abstraction remains exactly where I said it was.

Any abstraction going on here is just in your own bonce.

Pointing to neurological development does not answer the real question. It does not tell you where accountability begins, what degree of understanding is sufficient, or why your preferred threshold is anything other than a sliding line dressed up in scientific language.

Children are less developed than adults. No one disputes that. What is in dispute is whether your vague standard of “sufficient development” is a coherent basis for carving out exceptions to justice.

So far, it is not. It is just a flexible line you keep moving around hard cases.

So, we have laws whereby the science is taken into account. There's no 'dressing up' going on here or appeals to sentiment so as above.

Yes, and that is exactly the problem. You are no longer disputing the rule. Now you're pleading for an exception.

Man, I'm not "pleading" for anything here. I'd only be doing that if your crazy premise were to become reality (which it most assuredly won't)

Whether you desire a flexible standard is irrelevant. Your intent is not the issue. The issue is that your standard functions as a flexible one in practice, whether you admit it or not. “Sufficient development” is vague enough to move with the case, and that is exactly what makes it flexible.

Well duh, of course it's irrelevant and nor am I desiring one anyway. Now, there's some discrepancy as regards minimum age for development in different countries but they're roughly around 18 for the most part and at such an age - barring impairment - makes sense because most of us have accrued enough mental and physical development by then to be held accountable for a crime. That's not to say there isn't more room for growth but a world apart from holding infants liable for such.

Calling it “common sense” does not prove it is either common or sensible. It's not a substitute for a principle. It's just another label doing the work of an argument, smuggling in your conclusion without defending it.



Again, the issue is not whether development is incomplete. No one is disputing that a five-year-old is less developed than an adult. The issue is whether incomplete development gives you a coherent and non-arbitrary legal standard. So far, you have not shown that it does.

Back to five year old's competing with adults at the Olympics. Do the math.

Yes, that's what's in dispute.

You do not get to assume your conclusion by calling it “common sense,” “grounded,” or “scientific.” That is just question-begging with extra adjectives.

Yes I do, else when have you seen Usein Bolt boast about beating a five year old in the hundred metres? Again, do the math, it's hardly advanced algebra.

No. You are not taking it to its inexorable conclusion; you are changing the case. An inexorable conclusion follows the principle faithfully. A five-year-old is an extreme but still plausible hard case. What you are doing is leaping from an extreme but plausible edge case to increasingly absurd examples in order to provoke revulsion instead of thought. Your move to two- and three-year-olds is just another attempt to flee into absurdity.

Your whole thread premise is absurd so I'm hardly "leaping into absurdity" as you put it. I made a legitimate point and if you contend that our current laws are arbitrary, then at what age does it become "absurd" for a child to be held accountable for a crime? Your thread title is "the death penalty should be applied equally to all ages" so don't cry foul when you're called out on it.

And there you go again, replacing argument with social reaction.

The revulsion of a crowd does not determine whether a principle is true. Hard cases are where principles are tested, not where they're suspended.

It doesn't determine it but it gives a strong indicator as to its veracity. I can safely say that I could go into any local evangelical church, describe your premise to the audience and it would be met with overwhelming revulsion, as with anywhere else really. Even here, with the radical right, you've had very little support on the matter. Even Clete made some salient points against it. Now, why do you suppose that is?

You said letting the guilty escape punishment would set a bad precedent.
That is the principle I had been pressing.
Denying that you conceded it does not undo the fact that you stated it.

Yup, sure did and with the ongoing caveat. Nothing conceded whatsoever so ya can carry on with that dead horse or do the sensible thing and walk away from it.

No, but neither does revulsion prove it false, and you keep appealing to revulsion as though it does.

See earlier. there's a reason for the revulsion across the board and it should have given you pause for thought the first time you brought this subject up.

Laws are made by men, and men are fully capable of writing bad laws, sentimental laws, cowardly laws, and inconsistent laws.

Appealing to what the modern West currently does is still just an appeal to authority.

There's nothing sentimental about science and whilst I could agree that there's a fair degree of inconsistency in our laws, and they could even do with a shake up on certain matters, there's good reason why no country in the West executes infants.

Then feel free to address the point instead of hand-waving at the source.
Britain’s rape gang scandal is not a social media invention. It is a glaring example of what happens when law becomes selective, cowardly, and subordinate to social pressure.

Eh, feel free to back up the ludicrous claim you made in the first place. The onus is on you for that, not me.

Exactly. Again: you are no longer contesting the rule. You are pleading for an exception.

So defend the exception.

Why does letting the guilty escape punishment set a bad precedent in general, but somehow not set one when the guilty belong to a class you want exempted under your vague standard of “sufficient age and understanding”?

All addressed prior, not gonna repeat myself.

That's not analogous to my position at all.
A baby accidentally causing a death is not murder. Bringing up accidents does nothing but confirm, again, that you have to flee into absurd non-comparisons to avoid the hard case actually under discussion.

You're assuming it would be accidental. What if it was conceived by a baby with malice aforethought? Ridiculous? For sure, but then maybe you can start doing the math from here in context of your thread premise.

If it was so obvious, you could have said it plainly from the start instead of spending several pages evading it.

There was no evasion as outlined previously but from here on in, I'll be sure to underline everything that shouldn't need to be said.

Then make that argument from Scripture, instead of from revulsion, current law, and neuroscience buzzwords.

Er, the onus is on YOU to make the argument from scripture to defend your position, something you've consistently failed to do. Provide just one verse where it specifies infants are to be held accountable and put to death for crimes cos you haven't managed it before. The "best" you had was "put away the evil among you" and it takes some contorted twisting to apply that to your grotesque premise. Does it even occur to you that you might just be wrong on this? Or does arrogance supersede any nagging doubts (if there are any...)

No. You conceded the rule already. You just don't want to admit that your whole case now rests on defending an exception to it.

Nope. Haven't conceded any such thing and all addressed above and prior.

That's still not an argument, just another appeal to popularity and emotion. The fact that many people would recoil from a hard case does not make the underlying principle false. Crowds do not define justice.

See earlier.

There's a reason God says "come let us reason together" instead of "come let us react together."

There's a reason why the Bible makes a great deal about love too, in it's purest form. Reasoning together is absolutely fine, nowt wrong with that but you seem to presume that emotion is the antithesis of it. It really isn't.

 

[Arthur Brain]

A nine year old is pretty capable of rape. But you don't want him punished either. At least not in any way that would actually have any good effect on society.

2 children, ages 9 and 10, charged with attempted murder, rape in brutal attack on 5-year-old girl, prosecutors say

Two children, ages 9 and 10, are facing several serious charges including attempted murder and rape after prosecutors say they brutally attacked a 5-year-old girl in Cleveland, Ohio.

www.kgns.tv

Your premise wouldn't have any good effects on society and you use these rarities of examples as if they bolster your case, that the only solution is to execute kids. Nah.

 

[Arthur Brain]

I don't care what you doubt.



If someone commits murder, then they should be put to death.

So, four year old's? Three? Do you have a threshold or are you just avoiding the question?

 

[VladtheDestroyer]

So, four year old's? Three? Do you have a threshold or are you just avoiding the question?

Did I ever say there was a threshold? That doesn't sound like something I would say..

 

[Arthur Brain]

Did I ever say there was a threshold? That doesn't sound like something I would say..

Hence my phrasing my comments with questions - the "?" should have given away that much. So - (again a question) Do you think that kids as young as five, four, three etc should be held accountable for crimes such as murder and executed for such?

 

[commonsense]

Hence my phrasing my comments with questions - the "?" should have given away that much. So - (again a question) Do you think that kids as young as five, four, three etc should be held accountable for crimes such as murder and executed for such?

One thing for sure, it's hard to nail them down. They're slippery all right.

 

[Arthur Brain]

One thing for sure, it's hard to nail them down. They're slippery all right.

Oh yeah...

 

[VladtheDestroyer]

Hence my phrasing my comments with questions - the "?" should have given away that much. So - (again a question) Do you think that kids as young as five, four, three etc should be held accountable for crimes such as murder and executed for such?

God said He wants murderers to be executed. How much time should I spend thinking about how to NOT do something God says we should do?

 

[JudgeRightly]

And you got one, your petulant protestations notwithstanding.

No. I got it only after several pages of evasion, and even now you are still hiding behind the same caveat rather than defend it.

It's an issue for you obviously, sure ain't for me as it's plain common sense - which, believe it or not, most of our laws are predicated on to at least some extent.

Calling it “common sense” does not prove it is either common or sensible. It is just another label doing the work of an argument.

Says the guy who leaves juvenile chuckle emojis all over the place. I am thinking rationally thanks.

Then start arguing rationally instead of appealing to sneers, revulsion, and crowd reaction.

It IS science. There's no abstraction about it and the conclusion is obvious. You see any five year old's competing with adults at the Olympics? No? Well do the math as to why that is and then apply it here in context.

This is exactly the sort of non sequitur I have been talking about.

A five-year-old not competing with adults at the Olympics does not tell you where moral or legal accountability begins. Physical development and criminal accountability are not identical categories, and pretending they are is just another dodge.

Yes, it does. That is why we have the laws in place across the West and that all manner of countries agree upon. Not executing young kids wasn't arrived at arbitrarily and you'd have to be a real dope to think that.

Again, appealing to what “the West” currently does is not an argument. Men make laws, and men are perfectly capable of making bad, inconsistent, cowardly, or sentimental laws.

Any abstraction going on here is just in your own bonce.

No, the abstraction is in your standard.

“Sufficient development” is vague, movable, and undefined. That is why you keep repeating it instead of defining it.

So, we have laws whereby the science is taken into account. There's no 'dressing up' going on here or appeals to sentiment so as above.

You keep saying “science” as though that settles a moral and legal question. It does not. Pointing to development does not tell you where accountability begins, what degree of understanding is sufficient, or why your preferred threshold is anything but arbitrary.

Man, I'm not "pleading" for anything here. I'd only be doing that if your crazy premise were to become reality (which it most assuredly won't)

You are pleading for an exception. That is exactly what you are doing.

You already admitted the general rule: letting the guilty escape punishment sets a bad precedent.

Now all you have left is insisting that your preferred exempt class somehow does not create the very problem you already admitted exists.

Well duh, of course it's irrelevant and nor am I desiring one anyway. Now, there's some discrepancy as regards minimum age for development in different countries but they're roughly around 18 for the most part and at such an age - barring impairment - makes sense because most of us have accrued enough mental and physical development by then to be held accountable for a crime. That's not to say there isn't more room for growth but a world apart from holding infants liable for such.

Thank you for proving my point.
If different countries draw different lines, then your supposedly scientific threshold is not actually giving you one clear moral standard at all. It is a sliding social convention, dressed up after the fact with scientific language.

Back to five year old's competing with adults at the Olympics. Do the math.

Back to the same bad analogy. Running a sprint and bearing criminal guilt are not the same issue.

Yes I do, else when have you seen Usein Bolt boast about beating a five year old in the hundred metres? Again, do the math, it's hardly advanced algebra.

Again, irrelevant. You are comparing athletic capacity to moral accountability as though they were interchangeable. They are not.

Your whole thread premise is absurd so I'm hardly "leaping into absurdity" as you put it. I made a legitimate point and if you contend that our current laws are arbitrary, then at what age does it become "absurd" for a child to be held accountable for a crime? Your thread title is "the death penalty should be applied equally to all ages" so don't cry foul when you're called out on it.

No, your “legitimate point” has been to keep counting downward until people flinch.

That's emotional escalation, not reasoning.

A five-year-old is an extreme but still plausible hard case. Your move is to flee from that hard case into younger and younger absurdities because you still do not want to defend your exception on principle.

It doesn't determine it but it gives a strong indicator as to its veracity. I can safely say that I could go into any local evangelical church, describe your premise to the audience and it would be met with overwhelming revulsion, as with anywhere else really. Even here, with the radical right, you've had very little support on the matter. Even Clete made some salient points against it. Now, why do you suppose that is?

Because crowds react emotionally to hard cases.

That tells us something about crowds. It does not settle the truth of the principle.

And this little pile-on from Commonsense does not help either:

One thing for sure, it's hard to nail them down. They're slippery all right.

No, it is not hard to nail down at all. The answer has been stated plainly. You and Arthur just do not like what it implies.

Vlad has already answered you directly:

Did I ever say there was a threshold? That doesn't sound like something I would say..

And then even more plainly:

God said He wants murderers to be executed. How much time should I spend thinking about how to NOT do something God says we should do?

That is not “slippery” at all. It is direct.

What is actually happening here is that the answer has been given, and you just do not like it. So instead of engaging it, you keep counting downward... five, four, three... hoping that if you push the age low enough, revulsion will do the work that argument has failed to do.

You're just manipulating, not responding reasonably.

Yup, sure did and with the ongoing caveat. Nothing conceded whatsoever so ya can carry on with that dead horse or do the sensible thing and walk away from it.

No. You conceded the rule and attached your preferred exception to it. That is still a concession of the rule.

See earlier. there's a reason for the revulsion across the board and it should have given you pause for thought the first time you brought this subject up.

It did give me pause for thought. That is why I kept pressing the principle while you kept appealing to revulsion.

There's nothing sentimental about science and whilst I could agree that there's a fair degree of inconsistency in our laws, and they could even do with a shake up on certain matters, there's good reason why no country in the West executes infants.

And once again, no one is arguing that infants should be executed. That's just your absurd caricature.

Eh, feel free to back up the ludicrous claim you made in the first place. The onus is on you for that, not me.

The rape gang scandal in Britain is public knowledge, not a social media myth. Your refusal to engage it does not make it disappear.

All addressed prior, not gonna repeat myself.

Right, because repeating “sufficient development,” “common sense,” and “science” is easier than actually defending the exception.

You're assuming it would be accidental. What if it was conceived by a baby with malice aforethought? Ridiculous? For sure, but then maybe you can start doing the math from here in context of your thread premise.

Thank you for admitting it is ridiculous.

You keep escaping into ridiculous examples because the hard case actually on the table is harder for you to evade.

There was no evasion as outlined previously but from here on in, I'll be sure to underline everything that shouldn't need to be said.

You can underline it, bold it, italicize it, or put it in all caps. It still will not turn your exception into a principle.

Er, the onus is on YOU to make the argument from scripture to defend your position, something you've consistently failed to do. Provide just one verse where it specifies infants are to be held accountable and put to death for crimes cos you haven't managed it before. The "best" you had was "put away the evil among you" and it takes some contorted twisting to apply that to your grotesque premise. Does it even occur to you that you might just be wrong on this? Or does arrogance supersede any nagging doubts (if there are any...)

And here again you retreat to infants, because you still do not want to deal with the actual principle under dispute.

You are the one insisting on an age-based exception. So yes, the burden is on you to show where Scripture makes age the determining principle in the administration of justice for capital crimes.

All I have to do to prove my universal principle of "put murderers, rapists, etc., to death" is quote the verses that say as much.

You, on the other hand, have to show from Scripture why we should not do what God commands in a whole class of cases you want exempted.

Instead, you keep appealing to revulsion, current law, and neuroscience buzzwords, because you still have not produced a biblical principle for your exception.

Nope. Haven't conceded any such thing and all addressed above and prior.

You stated that letting the guilty escape punishment sets a bad precedent. That is the rule. Denying that you stated it does not change the fact that you did.

See earlier.

Yes, we all saw earlier. That is where you conceded the rule and then have spent the rest of the thread trying to avoid the implications.

There's a reason why the Bible makes a great deal about love too, in it's purest form.

Love is the comittment to the good of someone. Punishing criminals is good not just for the victim, but for the criminal as well.

So invoking love does not help your case. Love is not sentimental indulgence, and it is not the shielding of grave evil from consequences. You keep speaking as though love and justice pull in opposite directions, but they do not.

Refusing to punish grave evil is not love in any serious sense. It's just moral softness masquerading as virtue.

Reasoning together is absolutely fine, nowt wrong with that but you seem to presume that emotion is the antithesis of it. It really isn't.

No, emotion is not the antithesis of reason. But in your case it keeps displacing it.

A hard case provokes revulsion in you, and instead of disciplining that reaction with principle, you keep treating the reaction itself as though it were the argument.

Your premise wouldn't have any good effects on society

My premise is that punishing criminals appropriately keeps crime to a minimum across society.

Are you suggesting that that isn't a good effect?

and you use these rarities of examples as if they bolster your case,

Because they do bolster it. Hard cases test principles.

that the only solution is to execute kids. Nah.

No. The solution, which you seem incapable of making the connection to, is to punish crime appropriately so that crime is deterred so effectively that such edge cases, such as children raping other children or even younger children try to kill adults, become virtually nonexistent, and if they do occur, they are vanishingly rare, to the point of being unheard of.

Under a just system, the point is not that children would often need to be punished. It's that they would almost never be in a position to commit such crimes in the first place.

 

[commonsense]

My premise is that punishing criminals appropriately keeps crime to a minimum across society.

Are you suggesting that that isn't a good effect?

Hmmm, you make an assertion but is it borne out by fact? What does the data say I wonder? Let's consider incarceration rates and murder rates, shall we?
USA has the highest incarceration rates in the world. Higher than China, Iran, Afghanistan, anywhere. Now USA doesn't have the highest murder rates in the world- for example El Salvador has higher rates- but it does have the highest rates among G7 countries and other developed democracies.
From Wikipedia, incarceration rates per 100,000...
USA 541
Canada 90
UK 140

murder rates per 100,000...
USA 5.8
Canada 1.9
UK 1.1
It certainly appears that your system isn't delivering a safer society. The highest incarceration rates and yet still very high crime rates. And your solution is to punish even children like adults. What's the definition of insanity again? Oh yeah, listening to JR.

This makes me wonder....the common myth promoted by many Americans is that USA is a Christian country founded by Christians, based on biblical principles. Why is it such a violent place to live? Is rounding up a bunch of criminal kindergartners going to make a difference?

 

[JudgeRightly]

Hmmm, you make an assertion but is it borne out by fact? What does the data say I wonder? Let's consider incarceration rates and murder rates, shall we?
USA has the highest incarceration rates in the world. Higher than China, Iran, Afghanistan, anywhere. Now USA doesn't have the highest murder rates in the world- for example El Salvador has higher rates- but it does have the highest rates among G7 countries and other developed democracies.
From Wikipedia, incarceration rates per 100,000...
USA 541
Canada 90
UK 140

murder rates per 100,000...
USA 5.8
Canada 1.9
UK 1.1

I have no problem with these numbers. In fact, they are evidence for my position, not against it.

It certainly appears that your system isn't delivering a safer society.

Let's be clear here.

The system we have currently is NOT the system I am advocating.

I am not defending the modern prison state. I am opposing it.

Locking people up like animals for years is not biblical justice. It is not even good social policy. It is a grotesque substitute for justice that lets the state pretend it is doing something meaningful while crime continues to fester.

The punishments God authorized are restitution, corporal punishment, and death, depending on the crime. Pointing to America’s bloated incarceration rate does not refute my position. It refutes the prison-heavy, bureaucratic, sentimental mess we have now.

The highest incarceration rates and yet still very high crime rates.

No. My solution is to punish criminals justly and equally under the law, with harsher punishments than we have currently.

Prisons are inhumane.

They are also socially destructive. They mix lesser offenders with hardened criminals, degrade them, harden them, and then dump them back into society worse than before. In many cases they function less like justice and more like state-run breeding grounds for further criminality.

So again, “high incarceration plus high crime” does not disprove my position. It proves that mass imprisonment is not the same thing as just punishment.

And your solution is to punish even children like adults.

No. My solution is equal justice under the law (hence the thread title), which is precisely what keeps such cases from becoming common in the first place.

What's the definition of insanity again? Oh yeah, listening to JR.

Cute line. Still not an argument.

This makes me wonder....the common myth promoted by many Americans is that USA is a Christian country founded by Christians, based on biblical principles.

Which we currently do not have.

Whatever Christian inheritance America once had has been hollowed out for generations.

You do not refute Christian justice by pointing to a society that has been abandoning it piece by piece while keeping some of the outward branding.

Why is it such a violent place to live?

Because we have given up Christian principles in favor of virtue signalling and emotional responses like Arthur has so graciously demonstrated for us here in this thread.

But the biggest reason is that we effectively eliminated the death penalty for serious crimes.

Once the gravest crimes are no longer met with the gravest penalties, society starts teaching exactly the wrong lesson: that consequences are negotiable, that guilt can be explained away, and that even great evil may be explained away by the right excuse, label, or plea.

That is how you rot a society.

Is rounding up a bunch of criminal kindergartners going to make a difference?

Missing the point.

My point has never been “go find kindergartners to punish.”

My point is that refusing to punish grave evil appropriately teaches the wrong lesson, sets a bad precedent, and corrodes society over time.

A just system reduces crime so effectively that such cases become extraordinarily rare to begin with. The goal is not that children would often need punishment, but that the social order produced by equal justice would make such cases almost unheard of.