Comments by "Mark Armage" (@markarmage3776) on "Is the Death Penalty Ever Moral? | 5 Minute Video" video.

@daybrink1267 No, I care about innocent life. The difference between the life of a criminal and innocent man is that one is a criminal.
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It is virtually possible to let a man with the utmost horrifying crime get away with an unusually easy sentencing. Is logic too harsh on you when you say that a man who's taken not just one, but dozens or thousands of lives should be sentenced to death?
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It's not the government, it's the legal procedures, the argument of big government only applies in non-governmental aspects, such as economy, which has existed long before any government, or the aspect of civil life, also existed long before government. Punishing crime is one of the main governmental aspect.
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@juanf1777 And what would that innocent life be? Usually the ones who are executed had already killed people, and we execute them so that they won't do it anymore, as well as to maintain order because consequences has to match the actions. So rarely any of those cases are innocent.
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@frederik1604 Well, sorry, but what you don't understand is that the most unstable science field there is is psychology. Their work has failed time to time to time. Resolving mental issues, we might have time for that in a perfect world where the consequences will wait for us to be done with, but no. The world is not a perfect place.
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@Liam No, but time is irreversible, doesn't matter whether 50 years or 2 years. The point here is that, if your nonsense is in "most of the case", well, in "most of the case", regarding the death penalty, we got it right. So your argument fell apart again. Your argument for not enacting the death penalty is because it might damage the person's life forever if it is a mistrial or such. My example shows that if that argument can be made, the entire prison system, or any sort of punishment that can not guarantee a perfect outcome should also be abolish. Prison itself can be a place where people gets kill, it's a "maybe", just like the "maybe" in your death penalty argument. Loosing your life innocently happens in every sort of activities, those are called risk. Paragliding, Scubadiving, Driving itself can be deadly, those are called risk, pal. Deal with it, we as a society deems the risk of having undeserving punishment for severe crimes to be much dangerous than the slight possibility of making a mistake in trial. If your argument is "because it's not perfect" then you should destroy it, that argument has been rejected centuries ago.
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@Liam Wrong again, if you think that the capital punishment is unnecessary, many people think otherwise. It's called fairness, those who commit the utmost crime is way more severe than any other crime, but faces the same sentence, that is just unfair to other criminals. So I guess this is a different on principle. My way of thinking is that you need a fair punishment for any crime. And of course, that is laid out in almost every civilization in the world. Those who shed blood of men, whose blood shall be shed by men. Not just Christianity, it's in every civilization, Egypt, Persia, China, even today it's very obvious that it's a fair punishment to murderers and terrorists. You disagree, fine, but we think that it is. And we surely have a stronger logical ground than yours. You can not explain why it is unnecessary, why would a murderer not be killed? His victims didn't get the luxury of living a life at all. Human from ancient times, to now have considered death to be the most severe punishment, because death or death like-status are also the most tragic accidents. So it's only fair if the most horrendous crime be met with the most severe punishment. Life in prison is not that bad compared to death, if you're a hitman or a gang banger, who do you think runs the gangs in prison?
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It's called imperfections in the world, pal. Pretty sure that many innocent people got thrown into jail as well, what is your solution? Abolishing prison in general? The notion that just because something isn't perfect, you have to get rid of it, it's frankly, laughable. That's not how life works. We tried to raise the bar of convicting human beings to the highest possible, that's how to make sure the least number of people got mistreated, not by abolishing punishment.
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@Reedskiii Because it's the risk that you take when you do everything? They can be let out if they're innocent but time is irreversible, and the consequences they have faced can not be retracted, so if the argument stand, then it could be apply to abolishing prison overall. Because not jailing anybody will not jailing any innocent people by accidents. But that case is quite ridiculous by default. It's called risk, pal, you don't want to accept the risk of killing an innocent person, other people do want to accept that risk, that's why we put a high measure on fairness in court.
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@Reedskiii But that compensation is never fully equal to the time they have lost, and certainly, if a person is wrongly executed, their family can also be compensated. The fact that risk happens in everything, pal, it happens with driving, diving, flying. Even imprisoning people have risks, and I don't know where you get the 4% number from, that is insane. There is no data on the nonsense 4% number. https://www.pnas.org/content/111/20/7230/tab-article-info I suspect you get that 4% fictional number from these sites. 4% doesn't mean 4% people are executed wrongfully, it means that 4% of people being convicted to death penalty have been deferred to other means of punishment, while 1.6% are exonerated and released, they generated the extra 2.4% by lying about how if the person is no longer under death row, then it must be false conviction, this is definitely a lie. Because even if you're no longer under death row, the factor can not be solely contributed because you didn't commit the crime, it could be due to you cutting a deal and testify in other cases. They indicate that because they're no longer facing death row, then people wouldn't try as hard to solve their case. That is correct, but unfortunately, that is also correct to every other inmates in the system. So your number of 4% false conviction, that is wrong. The actual number of false conviction is 1.6%, and the number of false executed people is even less, because the wrongly convicted people shall be released if their cases can be proven wrong. Like I say, risks happens in everything, and the risk of wrongly execution here is not 4%, pal, don't lie about it. It's much lower and the people accept that risk. If you don't accept it, go vote, other people voted against you, game over.
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Do you trust people not to commit crimes that deserve death? And do you trust that people shall not commit even more crime if the punishment is not severe enough? And pal, the government has nothing to do with the sentencing, it's the judicial branch, in criminal cases, it's a jury consisting of other citizens. So yeah, they might make mistake, but that mistake margin is acceptable . Just like how the driving margin is acceptable, thousands died from car accidents, should you ban cars in general because the act of driving them might cause accidents?
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@frederik1604 Nice try, pal. The cost is due to the severe punishment. Of course it could be cheaper, but the pathetic interpretation of "cruel and unusual " punishment hijack the cost. Don't blame the punishment. And if you can get treatment for death row, all prisoners should deserve treatment, ever thought of that cost? You need to think a bit more.
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@Liam But the consequences of them being in jail can not be brought back just because they're freed. Time can not be reversed, so your argument is flawed as hell. We took from you 50 years but now you're free. That's not a convincing argument. The same example applies for driving, if you force everybody to walk, nobody would die from traffic accident. But that is pretty ridiculous.
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@Liam Like I pointed out in another reply,that number 4% is wrong to the utmost extent. They took a 1.6% exoneration rate of death row inmates and raise to 4% by assuming that inside the pool of death row inmates which were changed to life sentencing or such, there are still innocent people. This is true, but those people are no longer on death row, so the obvious rate for false conviction here is the same as any other prisoner serving a non-death row sentence. And that is a risk we have to take, unless you want to abolish prison due to the imperfection of the system. I'd prefer no prison at all if I had committed a crime, but sorry, that's now how it works, that is why you don't commit crimes. People who run gangs in prison lives a fairly mundane life, it's not comfortable, but it's infinitely better than their victims, their victims are usually dead. Like I pointed out, that 4% number is a lie, the best you can get to is 1.6% of inmates being released after proven innocent, it has nothing to do with the rate of wrongfully executed prisoners, there might be some, in history, you can pointed out 8 cases. And that's out of nearly 16000 execution. So the risk here is much smaller than the false number. And you're also ignoring the consequences of having an unfitting punishment towards a crime. If a criminal know that he can't die killing all sorts of people, in the case of desperation, why wouldn't he kill a bunch of people? He'll still live, still get to meet his family and such,in prison there are gangs, friends, maybe. All these factors has to be considered. Whether the danger of having small rate of wrongfully executed people or the danger of having an unfitting punishment for a crime is bigger. That is up to vote, if you don't like it, vote against it. Other people voted against you, game over. World has imperfections, people accepted this imperfection, you don't, that's your problem. You haven't made an convincing enough argument for people to accept your idea.
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@Liam Multiple people will say that they won't commit crime so that they won't be facing any punishment. The death penalty is essential, pal, according to people who vote for it, it is essential. The determination whether something is essential or not is from a personal standpoint, and they put it to a vote. There are still innocent people being jailed but that's the imperfections here. There are innocent people dying due to driving, people have accepted that. The underlying facts here are not facts. Those are your assumptions. Whether something is "essential" is your assumption. Because it's essential to what? People say that it's essential to maintain a low crime rate on certain behavior. In Asian countries, the death penalty is applied widely to drug dealings, and of course, they stop the drug dealings there. Sure there are drugs, but people were way too afraid to commit the crime. It doesn't completely stop it but it reduces it much more than in America. So whether the death penalty is essential is due to the measurements of each individuals. You are thinking with emotions, not facts. Driving kills innocent people, prison jails innocent people. Electricity itself can kill people. Like I pointed out, it is a risk. Your entire argument relies on your opinion of the death penalty not being essential. You based this assumption on what? Essential to what? Certain people say that it is essential to maintain order and reduce crime. Death penalty is a punishment, pretty much like prison itself, but on a much severe level. How do you distinguish prison and death penalty? To certain people, people who have been raped in prison, death might be the better solution than life sentence. It's all subjective when it comes to adjective of the matter, pal. And to determine whether a certain standard be applied, people vote. You say it's not essential, other people say it's essential. And other people vote for it, you voted against them. They win, you loose, that's life. Let's admit the fact that you have no basis to say that the death penalty is non essential. Because it's only non essential to you. To Asian countries, it's very essential. Who are you to say that they're wrong? They say that abortion is a disgusting act, who are they to say that the US is wrong. There are subjective facts, and there are your opinion. Whether something is essential or not is opinion based. To you, food security might be essential, but to a Budhist, only minimum to survive food is enough, they prefer quiet time of enlightenment than food security. Who are you to say that they're wrong? Get down from your high horse and get back to reality pal.
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@Liam Who are you to decide what is essential, that is the arrogance of you. To the Japanese people, honor is more important than wealth. But to certain industrialist, they're willing to cowardly hide to protect their wealth. That's their choice. Get back to reality, pal. If you think you can impose your biased views and assumptions on people, there will be war. Like how King George used to think that taxation is essential. It's essential to his kingdom, but it's not to the colonies. And the colonies won here but other colonies accepted the higher tax so that they won't have to fight a war. The comparison between freedom and human lives, those are baseless comparison, and can only be made through democratic actions. Get back to reality.
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@Liam The argument behind the essential of something is like the the argument behind the appropriateness of something. To a criminal who committed crime extensively, prisons are not essential to him. But to society, prison is essential. How do you determine which one is the right one? Through a vote, pal. If majority of society voted for abolishing prison and enacted the vote by their power, then prison wouldn't be essential anymore. It's the relativity of life, deal with it.
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@Liam It's your opinion that people rejected. Sorry. If people voted for the death penalty, which means to them, the death penalty is essential, then it means the basis of your "anti death penalty", which is how the death penalty is not essential, that basis of yours have been rejected. You can only make argument based on the pre-accepted grounds, pal. You need to base your death penalty argument on certain pre-agreed upon basis. Such as the right to something, the unalienable rights to life, liberty or pursuit of happiness. If the death penalty conflict with those certain agreed upon value, then you have a case. Such as the case for abolishing slavery, it's easy due to the "all men are created equal" philosophy. You need a contradiction to convince people that they're conflicting. The argument based on how you "feel" that the death penalty is non-essential is not a convincing one. Just saying.
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@drdoomer8553 That's not how the judicial system works, pal. Details are investigated at the time of the trial. We don't continue to search for such details for decades afterwards. Any kind of details that have missed such trial dates without cross examination live can not be considered a valid details. But furthermore, most of the case regarding the death penalty are for unusually horrifying crimes, not for the debatable ones. If the purpose of you reducing the sentence just so that you can reduce the consequences if you're wrong. Then you shouldn't even put them in jail at all. You should put them on probation so that in case you find out that you're wrong, their lives aren't affected as much. That's not why we built the sentencing system for. Punishment fits the crime. Seemingly you people never consider what happens if those people do commit those crimes and you reduce their sentence just in case you're wrong. Keep it real, pal.
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@drdoomer8553 Again, that's all hypothesis betting on a maybe. That argument is totally invalid because with all investigation, even a tax evasion, there are possibilities of mistake. We're not going to reduce all punishment just because of the possibility of mistake. You put somebody in jail for 15 years, you already took 15 years from their life, there's no getting it back or making up for it. The point is that there has to be a line, you don't reduce all sentences just because you "may be" wrong. I can concur that death penalty should only be used in extreme cases. But there's absolutely no banning it in the constitution and it's not categorized as "cruel and unusual".
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@drdoomer8553 That's not the line, pal. Because whenever you reduce a sentence, you apply to every single case, even though the cases of mistakes are only 0.1% or so much. You have to factor in the cost of what happens if you severely under punish a crime. Something you never like to think about. As in terrorist can just commit an act and then their life is protected by the law, etc. Keep it real, pal. Crime = punishment, there is no limit for the severity of the crime, but if you put a cap on punishment level, it means they can always exceed the according level of crime to gain back a profit. Committing atrocious crime for less severe punishment. Sorry to break your fantasy, but we're not going to reduce all of the sentences of that act just for 0.1% of mistaken cases.
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@drdoomer8553 The argument doesn't work like that, pal. If a guy who is convicted of multiple murder got his sentences reduced from death penalty to life, if the guy is 30 years old then you gave him 30 more years of his life in prison. That's not harsh at all, that's like a reward compares to death. That's why all the guys who got sentenced to life is still afraid to die inside the prison cell. You have visitors, family on the outside, perks of social life inside the prisons, books to read and all. Death is the ultimate punishment for a reason, it's much more severe than anything not death, except for torture, maybe but that is ban.
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Zod 23 Yeah, but separation of church and state, pal. 10 commandments are the teaching of God, this is society of men. Yeah, you can argue for those 10 commandments but the merit of them has to be recognized by the arguments, not because it's the 10 commandments. Multiple other line in the 10 commandments are not followed by the society, why should this one be followed? The argument for "thou shall not kill" is that it's the God's work to punish those who are guilty. But if there is a God and his doings shall punish the guilty people, then the other 9 in the 10 commandments also have to be respected. People don't respect most of those commandments.
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