I don't understand why this guy gets the death penalty but Robert bales the soldier who massacred several civilians of Afghanistan including children gets a life sentence.
oh I just read that its because the other guy wants to die so he made no guilty plea

I'd rather he got life with no possibility of parole. It's cheaper than spending the next 30 years fighting his appeals, and I could hope that someday he might realize the magnitude of the evil that he did.

It doesn't compare to what was done to the people shot down and their friends and families, but one of the ripples of his murder spree was that I had a recently-immigrated Somali Bantu woman crying and afraid to leave her home because she thought a mob might form and kill her for being a Muslim. Her life experience had been that majorities do that to minorities when they get stirred up. I don't even want to know how many people she saw shot down or worse, I just know she's only in her thirties, doesn't have any living relatives, used to have a husband and children, and wandered into a refugee camp alone. All the Bantus I know have murdered relatives, but she's the only one I've met without any family. Usually even if she only had a tribal affiliation left, they would have informally adopted her and arranged a marriage for her...unless she's been shamed by having been raped. I love these people, but they aren't perfect. They don't have a death penalty for any reason I know of, but they do shun. And some things they don't talk about, so I'm left to wonder.

But if I believed people's bites were as bad as their barks, I'd have had to agree she was in danger. I can't think of a single American who has done more to inflame anti-Muslim rhetoric than Nidal Hasan.

(August 30, 2013 at 11:35 am)The Germans are coming Wrote: I actualy oppose the death penalty and certainly will not change my opinion because a certain crime is more vicious than a other one.

That just proves the point that justice should not be directed through emotions and a need for revenge.

I agree. Not to shit on anyone in here, but revenge isn't going to undo what he did and only serves to tip the moral balance away.

I oppose the death penalty as well, but if we have to put him down, there's nothing gained by making it gruesome or hideous. If anything, that just adds to the notoriety of the whole sad tale.

While the anger directed toward such people is understandable, I have to agree with those who oppose capital punishment.


I've made the argument before, but to my mind, punishment serves one of 5 possible goals: (I just added one)

1. Insuring the safety of innocents by isolating offenders from the community and depriving them of the opportunity to re-offend;
2. Deterrence;
3. Rehabilitation;
4. Compensation - the redistributing of the fruits of the offender's resources to compensate society;
5. Retribution - making someone "pay" for what they have done because they are morally deserving of punishment.

As noted, deterrence is generally not regarded as effective. And retribution is probably, from a moral and practical standpoint, one of the least compelling justifications for punishment. I'm not going to elaborate further where this suggests we head with criminal punishment except to point out two key points.

In Michel Foucault's landmark study of the history of punishment, Discipline and Punish, he points out how, with the reforms in punishment that have occurred in Europe since the 16th century, the focus of punishment has shifted away from punishing the individual for an act to one in which we largely punish and attempt to correct the person as someone who has a mind capable of committing such acts. Thus we allow insanity as a defense, because the person's inclination to commit crime is not amenable to the treatment, punishment. We adjust the punishment dependent on the goal of fixing the criminality of the mind, not on addressing the severity of the crime; three strikes and you're out is aimed at minds that can't be fixed, not crimes that have been committed. Child molesters can be given chemical or surgical castration in exchange for reduction of sentence and leniency. Prisoners are monitored for progress and paroled earlier if they "show signs of good character" — it's not the crime that determines punishment anymore, it's the predisposition to offend which is the focus of punishment. Retribution, perhaps, is a return to focus on the crime rather than on fixing the criminal mind, but I'd be hesitant to take that step without serious consideration as to whether doing so serves any legitimate purpose.

The second point is, that as a hard determinist, I don't believe in free will. The moral justification for using punishment as retribution for a crime is that the person is morally deserving of the punishment, and that requires moral culpability which doesn't exist in the required sense if free will doesn't exist. The other four aims of punishment — deterrence, isolation from society, compensation, and rehabilitation — all can be justified without recourse to the assumption of free will; retribution alone cannot. Now I recognize that relative to my peers, I hold an extreme view with regard to free will, yet I think many of us realize that, regardless of where on the continuum regarding the existence of free will you stand, most of us recognize that most crimes and criminal behavior is a consequence of both factors within the individual's control, as well as a large measure of factors totally outside their control, ranging from social class, education, intelligence, all the way to things like being born in a society or culture that encouraged certain values and not others, to being genetically fated to the development of temperament which leaves one at increased risk of criminal or violent behavior. As a personal matter, I try to remove free will from any justification for punishment; but even someone more moderate could well be persuaded to minimize the impact that situational factors such as being born black, being poor, and such have on the fairness and equity with which we address criminal behavior; I think, arguably, retribution results in unfairness because it treats moral culpability and the resources to act morally as evenly distributed resources, and they are not.

(August 30, 2013 at 2:22 pm)Minimalist Wrote: The military appeals process is so long that he'll probably die of old age.

If it is accepted that death penalty has little deterrence value in general and negative deterrence value in cases involving sectarian martyrdom seekers, and i do accept it, then i have to ask: does our society value futile vengeance so much that it would be willing to accept material increase in our own casualties in order to exact it?

Hasan alive is nothing. Hasan dead at American hands becomes another arrow in the promotional quiver of the part of Islamic forces most hostile to us.

Which do you want him to be, nothing or another arrow to shot at us?

Cuz, you know, keeping him alive will totally take the wind out of the muslim balalalaboomers.

We could change criminal sentences to a certain amount of time in jail dedicated to labour. That could be the parole (for some [without life sentences]). Complete your time in the given number of days in labour and your sentence is finished. That way, society is reimbursed for some of the debt caused by a criminal and they get a hard way out.

Generally, I oppose capital punishment because the standard of evidence used to impose it is easily manipulated by grandstanding district attorneys. In short, if the state is going to kill someone in my name I would prefer that he actually be guilty instead of merely unable to afford a competent lawyer.

That does not apply in this case. There is no doubt whatsoever of Hasan's guilt or of the hideous nature of his crime. Still, better to lock him up in a cage and let him sit in his wheelchair for the rest of his life.
When he dies, coat him in bacon grease and send him to fucking allah.
I'm tired of their fucking bullshit. As noted above, some nut is bound to make a martyr of him.

(September 1, 2013 at 3:17 am)Creed of Heresy Wrote: Cuz, you know, keeping him alive will totally take the wind out of the muslim balalalaboomers.

Cuz, you know, like, killing him is like totally will.

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(September 1, 2013 at 12:03 pm)Minimalist Wrote: Generally, I oppose capital punishment because the standard of evidence used to impose it is easily manipulated by grandstanding district attorneys. In short, if the state is going to kill someone in my name I would prefer that he actually be guilty instead of merely unable to afford a competent lawyer.

That does not apply in this case. There is no doubt whatsoever of Hasan's guilt or of the hideous nature of his crime. Still, better to lock him up in a cage and let him sit in his wheelchair for the rest of his life.
When he dies, coat him in bacon grease and send him to fucking allah.
I'm tired of their fucking bullshit. As noted above, some nut is bound to make a martyr of him.

Only the establishment of adaquate material benefit in the conflict could justify killing him. "I am tired of his shit" is not such a benefit. Killing him is likely to be of material antibenefit, not an material benefit.

Well, it serves you right, I'd say. Haven't I said before, that a man is always true to his roots?
Employing a moslem in your own army? How would you expect him to be loyal, may I ask? Even if he didn't run amok as he did, if he were to be deployed, he would have hindered the progress of the US military effort in Iraq and perhaps resulted in the deaths of many other more soldiers.

The US was clever before as to detain Japanese Americans in camps while the war with Japan raged on. Hopefully some people will understand that citizenship does not equal loyalty, and that minorities should always be watched out for. Death penalty is the only fitting judgement for traitors. However if he were to go and serve in the army as a loyal soldier, he would have betrayed himself: a paradox he could not deal with, and he acted in favor of his roots. I guess in the future you will be more careful.