h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hi Ginger,
No. I'm saying that anyone who is trying to reduce world population by any means may agree with the death penalty.
The argument was that if someone dies now (without children) they will not have descendants, so you are also reducing the future population (notionally) - but I think the other person (they would have had children with) would probably go on and have children anyway - so it's a bit spurious.
I am anti the death penalty (read previous postings)

I don't see killing people who are already born as a way of population control. It is murder plain and simple. I think the rise in infertility is nature's way of dealing with over population and that we should just let be. Whatever we do to this planet or to the environment nature appears to find a way to balance it out eventually. It doesn't need us to commit mass murder to help it along!

I am agreeing with you about not using the death penalty for population control but you seem to be saying that we should give up contraception and other means of birth control as nature will sort it all out by somehow controlling fertility. Is that your stand?
The problem with that is that nature (in conjunctoin with selfish humans) sorts things out by disease, starvation and other natural disasters which can be extremely miserable for everyone involved.
I think we're already up to our armpits in attempting to control our natural world and so we are committed to continuing to influence it - hopefully for the better.

I'm not saying that birth control should be given up at all! I just think more active culling of the population is unnecessary and I do think the rise in infertility is a direct act by nature to cull the population - we don't need so many people so we have the ability to reproduce less!

Death penalty, birth control, population control, gun control - pheww this forums got it all - all we need to do is get the vegetarian & religious arguments going here & we'd have the lot.


;^)#

Stir gently, allow to simmer and add 'abortion' to taste.

Another reason why death penalty is bad idea - if the person has kids it would have a devaestating effect on them (is not their fault their parent is a criminal) if their parent was killed. How can we justify that sort of damage inflicted on innocents?

i once heard a radio show host say that stupid/dysfuntional/psycho people should not breed...because their children will have stupid/dysfuntional/psycho genes...and because their children will have miserable lives...
if only we could stop them...
-saffire

I sometimes feel the same about those radio show hosts. If only scientists could find the "ranting radio show host" gene.

I remember when that type of radio show host was starting. At first the radio channels used to sack them when people complained but then they noticed that the listener figures dropped - so they brought them back.

And then they went out and hired people like that deliberately if they didn't already employ one.

Why do we like to be abused by self opinionated radio show hosts?

Bruce: So you're gonna just lie down and die whenever you're told, by whomever you're told, eh? That's your perogotive, however, it's MY perogotive to defend myself against those who wish to kill me. And I will do so with every means available to me.

If you seriously consider that someone who's defending themselves against another who wishes to kill them and their family is the same as the person who initiated an uprovoked attack, I think you've widely missed the mark! I personally find it repugnant that such an equation should even be suggested...

da Baron
"Mind where you wipe that booger!"

I tried asking a shock-jock that question.
He told me to "F**K OFF!"

But did you enjoy it?
Maybe you wanted to hurl abuse in return and so everyone gathered round their radio sets like children gather round a brawl in a playground.

but are radio show hosts really that bad?
-saffire

Definately. Fisrt up against the wall when the revolution comes. Mark my words.

"Killing is absolutely wrong, so if you do it the state will kill you"

Spot the obvious flaw in this argument. The thing which staggers me is that the people most in favour of the death penalty - the self-proclaimed "moral majority" - seem also to be those most opposed to abortion. This I find hard to reconcile.

That's a specious argument, and I suspect that you know it. All that mass arming does is raise the stakes.

For example, a robbery in the US is statistically more likely to end up in a fatal shooting than one in the UK. This is because the robber in the US is more likely to be armed. You can argue that because the robber is likely to be armed, the populace need to be armed - but that's a vicous circle; you can also argue that because the householder may be armed the robber feels he needs to carry a gun. In fact, it's a surrender to the forces of violence. The real problem is that it's now gone so far as to make a return to a more sensoble state almost impossible, and that's the real issue for gun-controllers in the US.

There are only two possible ways forward: reduce the use and availability of guns, and wait a generation for the gun-crazies to start to die out, or arm everyone. My view is that the latter will tend to have apocalyptic consequences. One thing's for sure: if there were fewer guns on the streets, fewer people would get shot.

As with most of these issues - including the death penalty - the focus is always on the symptom, not the cause. It's sort of like believing that shooting the drug dealers will in some way stop unemployed disaffected youths from getting drugs.

OK, one for the 'Moral Majority'...
You've got a woman on death row, a convicted murderer, and she's 28 weeks pregnant (right on the limit).

Do you:
a) Fry her and her unborn child.

b) Abort the baby (more humane than being fried in it's own juices) and then fry the mother

c) Let her have the baby, and then fry the mother, leaving the innocent child motherless, and with the knowledge that one day the child will find out that five minutes after being born her Mum was riding Old Sparky.

d) Be placed on an inhospitable ex Nuclear test / leper colony island in the mid-Pacific by the H2G2 "League for the Humane Treatment of the Socially Unacceptable" , where she gives birth unhelped and unseen, the baby dies two weeks later of Cholera, and the mother is bludgeoned to death to months later by a psycho called Neville.

e)Find the whole thing too difficult and distasteful, and march off to take part in a forum about the many uses of doilies.

Beware flaws in arguments. Don't treat "some" as "all."
1, Some people promoting capital punishment are opposed to abortion.
2, Some people opposed to capital punishment are opposed to abortion
3, Some people opposed to capital punishment are pro abortion.
4, Some people promoting capital punishment are pro abortion.

Are you saying that the people in arguments 1 and 3 above have a logic problem. Also known as hypocrisy.

Take a couple who live here in Canada. They abducted two young innocent teen age schoolgirls.
They raped, tortured and then killed them. The two of them also murdered the girls' teen age sister.
Paul Barnardo is in prison for life. Karla Homolka made a deal with the police. She was given a few years in prison.
She is due to be released in a short while. While in prison she takes University courses, gets day passes.
Where is the justice in all this? Nothing will bring back the girls they tortured and brutally murdered.
How are the families ever going to live with their losses of their daughters.
Where is the justice in all this. They should have both got the Death Penalty.

What on earth has the death penalty got to do with justice?

The question you should be asking is "Why is the Canadian justice system so open to backroom dealing and inappropriate sentencing? Why do murderers only get a few years (not knowing the case I cannot be precise) Why can murderers who can afford decent lawyers cut deals that get them back on the streets before the blood has dried?"

instead of "Why can't we kill a few people, so we can feel better about the rest of the justice system going to shit."