Am I more of a liberal or a conservative

You are far from living a liberal mindset....instead you seem to live in the worst of political worlds.

You look to be the new conservative...disliked by both the old conservative and the liberal.

Basically....pariah to 99% of the spectrum, good luck(sic).

 

I am also for drug decriminalization, equal pay for equal work, and pro-legal immigration. Personally I think we should toughen immigration, secure borders, and then grant amnesty for the prior illegal immigrants through an application process. After an allotted time strict deportation should began.

 

Yes, and I think a lot of folks feel the same way however, unfortunately, common sense and politics don't mix. Borders, language and culture are what defines a country. In that order.

 

Like I said, sometimes going to war is the least bad choice. That doesn't make it good. Things like the Third Reich or the Confederacy are such horrendous evils that there is really little choice but to fight to destroy them. But the unimaginable death and destruction and suffering that entails is not just - it is necessary. We must sometimes do bad things because all of the alternatives are much worse.

What Conservativeliberal said. If taking a life is really the only way to stop a deadly threat, then that is the correct choice. However, since we can lock people up for the rest of their lives without killing them, that is generally preferable. There are exceptions. For example, in the case of gang leaders who continue to order killings from inside of a prison, I would consider execution an acceptable alternative. But that's a very high bar to meet, and only happens in rare instances.

Why is it illegal for those people to enter the country in the first place? The law making it next to impossible for ordinary people to enter the US legally is unjust, unwise, and unworkable. Demanding that the border be completely secured before serious immigration reform is implemented is rather like demanding that every speakeasy in the country should have been shut down before Prohibition was repealed. The immigration law is the root of the problem at the border, and the border will never be fixed until the cause is addressed.

 

Actually it is probably easier to get into the US than it is to get into Europe (for a non-European). I don't see why we should let just any unskilled worker into our country. We will be overrun by them and our economy would greatly suffer. If you read my post again you'll see that I actually said reform immigration before securing borders.

 

No, we grasp it perfectly well. It is extremely simple and far too often repeated, after all. Unfortunately, it's a pleasant lie that is completely divorced from reality. If people's circumstances are entirely due to their own efforts, and the rich are rich because they worked for it while the poor are poor because they're inferior, then that means that you completely deserve everything you have, you don't owe anything to anyone, and there is no reason for you to do anything to change the current situation in this country. Which is as convenient as it is delusional. People's situations in life are not solely determined by their own efforts, and only those who have achieved their status because they were favored by the system could think that they are. Who your parents are, where you went to school, what sort of an accent you speak with, what your name is, what color your skin is, what you have between your legs, those are all major factors in where people wind up. And then there's the biggest factor of all, the one that you really can't stand to acknowledge: luck. Yes, pure, blind dumb luck. Being in the right place at the right time. That's one of the biggest factors in anyone's life, whether you want to admit it or not.

Do you know why the phrase "You didn't build that," makes people so angry? Because it's true. Did you build your house? No. Did you build your car? No. Did you build the roads, the electricity grid, the water and sewer systems, the banking system, the legal system, the police, the medical system and all the other myriad things you rely on every day without a second thought? No. Would any of what you have, any of what you've accomplished have been possible without all those things? No. Just where do you think you'd be if you'd had to completely build everything? If you'd been dropped naked in a wilderness with no tools, no help, no other people? Very likely you'd be dead. If you'd been left alone in the wilderness as an infant, you'd certainly be dead. Human society is not an individual endeavor. It's a cooperative project that we have all been working on together for countless generations. As the 12th century author John of Salisbury wrote, "We are like dwarfs sitting on the shoulders of giants. We see more, and things that are more distant, than they did, not because our sight is superior or because we are taller than they, but because they raise us up, and by their great stature add to ours."

Thanks to those giants, those uncountable generations of our ancestors who worked and toiled through far greater hardship then any of us will ever know, we have built a society where our productive capacity far outstrips our actual needs. Only a quarter of the US economy is manufacturing and agriculture. Only a quarter of the workforce produces all of our material goods, everything we need to live an exceptionally easy life. And yet you cling to the insistence that everyone must earn a living. That's rather like insisting that the entire crew pull their weight (in a literal sense, at the oars) when your boat has an outboard motor. Yes, I know that conventional economics teaches that wants and needs are unlimited. But that's not really true. There is only one human want that is truly unlimited - the desire for social status. And that's what we've based our consumer economy on - keeping up with the Joneses. Is it any wonder that economy is so unstable and so prone to recession? Now competing for social status is a part of human nature and in no way a bad thing. But letting it interfere in the delivery of basic goods and services is just stupid.

Indeed, when you get right down to it, social status is really what most of the economy is about these days. It's social status that drives the rat race. It's social status that pushes people in their desire for wealth. And it's social status that determines who gets paid the most. It becomes something of a feedback cycle - those with the most social status use that status to gain more status. Access to the resources necessary to "succeed" is largely determined by social status. A high quality education, high paying jobs, small business loans, etc. Left to its own devices, this sort of system will inevitably lead to a self perpetuating class system - a hereditary aristocracy.

Conservatives of your bent seem to simply refuse to look at the larger picture of what's going on in society. You seem so intent on your own individual narratives that you become blind to the larger forces at work. That sort of attitude is very selfish and ultimately short sighted. A society that maintains real opportunity for everyone, and not just the privileged few, is ultimately better for everyone. Even those privileged few. Keeping your neighbors in poverty does not make you better off or more secure, quite the contrary. Spreading the prosperity around is ultimately in your own self interest.

 

hah, I very much doubt that. Europe isn't exactly known for having a restrictive immigration policy is it? Hell, in sweden the government is actually helping illegals instead of deporting them.

 

When it comes to lower class, yes sir, you're correct. Now when it comes to Americans trying to get a visa for residence...even me, being an engineer, it took forever to get it all worked out.

 

That's because europe isn't going with immigration for any practical and economic reason, but merely political ones.

 

You're right, you did say that. I should have said that I was talking more about the general rhetoric I typically hear from immigration hawks then what you specifically said. My bad.

I don't know a great deal about European immigration policy, but in the US ordinary people have to apply through a lottery that, well, they'd prolly be better off playing powerball... You can get a green card if you're 1) rich or famous, 2) an immediate family member of a citizen, 3) qualify as a special group of refugees such as Cubans, or 4) are being sponsored by a corporation. Other then that, you need to win the lottery (literally).

And I dispute the notion that immigration would wreck the economy. Migrants go where the jobs are, and tend to be disproportionately young and healthy - they add to the economy. Here are articles from Fact Check and Cato if you want details.

 

That is incorrect. There is not a zero percent chance of escape. There is not a zero percent chance of release.

By contrast, with death there is a zero percent chance of both.

- - - Updated - - -

Then we agree that there is a need for the death penalty.

 

No, there's not. It's entirely possible for someone to fake their own death, or for an inmate headed for execution to get lost in a bureaucratic snafu. It's also possible for someone to survive an execution. There's no 100% certainty about anything in life, ever. I really don't understand why some people are so obsessed with the notion that someone sentenced to life without parole might somehow magically get out. We are more then capable of ensuring with reasonable certainty that someone will remain in prison for the rest of their life.

Only in very rare cases of people who continue to pose a threat to the community and commit serious crimes even while in prison.

 

If I could write the law regarding the death penalty I would make it legal only in cases in which the guilty party is guilty without dispute and is proven to continue to pose a threat to the outside world while incarcerated.

 

LOL!

I am pretty sure most doctors would disagree.

Even if that were true, death is far closer to 100% than life imprisonment.

Because it has happened. More than once.

 

Well let's see, after 15 seconds of asking Google, I find the story of one Wenseslao Moguel, which reads as follows:

"On March 18, 1915 Wenseslao Moguel was captured while fighting in the Mexican revolution. Without trial he was sentenced to be executed by firing squad. Moguel was shot 9 times including a final bullet through his head at close range by an officer to insure death. Moguel somehow survived and managed to escape. Wenseslao went on to live a full life after his “execution”."

Along with nine other stories of people surviving execution by various methods. http://listverse.com/2008/12/18/top-10-amazing-execution-survival-stories/

Amazing what happens when you bother to look stuff up, don't you think?

In any case, if someone is arrested for jaywalking and later goes on to commit murder, does that mean that all jaywalkers should be executed? No system of justice is perfect, and there will always be examples of people who have run afoul of the law later going on to commit terrible crimes. We can only make the best judgement we can based on the facts of the case at the time. And when we judge that someone is too dangerous to ever be set free, there is no benefit to execution instead of simple imprisonment.

Of course there needs to be due process and high standards of proof, as with any serious crime. And I'm really only talking about very rare cases like the one involving the Aryan Brotherhood.

 

Completely agreed. Under my strict law it would be very very difficult to use.

 

You're a social conservative and a fiscal liberal.

Call yourself an independent.

 

Irrelevant stuff, yeah. What was the point of that story? What were you trying to prove?

I said that it is possible a murderer can escape and that it has happened before. I have already provided evidence of this. It is not in dispute...it has already happened before. So what exactly was the point of your linked story?

Jaywalking is far less serious than murder. If someone has already murdered once, we know for sure they are capable of it. The only way to be 100% certain they will not do it again is to kill them.

This is not about justice. It is about protecting the public. I do not support the death penalty because I want to punish murderers or because I want revenge on them. I support it because it is the only sure way to prevent them from doing it again.

Yes there is. I just outlined it. Here it is again: death is 100% certain to prevent the murderer from killing again. Life imprisonment is LESS than 100% certain to do that.

 

Would you regard a zygote as being a person?

The problem with legally considering life to begin at conception is that every miscarriage would need to be investigated as a possible homicide, since they can be induced.

The oldest forms of abortion involved consuming things that caused miscarriages.

I don't think anyone's going to argue against the notion that a fertilized egg is living, but then again, sperm and eggs are living as well.

The question is, "at what point can a fetus be considered a separate legal life?"

Personally, I prefer setting that point at the last trimester, because it involves much less intrusive government, and it's much easier to enforce in the first place. There's also the fact that the fetus is much more developed at that point than during the first trimester or the second.

 

There is a point between conception and birth where everyone can agree the child has no functioning brain. That is the point where abortion should be acceptable IMO.

Until someone can define such a point, I am ok with outlawing it completely.

The question is, "at what point can a fetus be considered a separate legal life?"

The fetus has a brain as early as 9 weeks after conception. That is a long ways away from the third trimester.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fetus#Development

 

The point is that execution isn't 100% certain, either. Absolute certainty does not exist in this world, period. You're fooling yourself if you think it does.

All humans, including you and me, are capable of murder. The only way to be absolutely sure that none of us commit murder again is to exterminate the entire species.

You're looking for absolute certainty. You're looking for complete safety. You're looking for bad guys to defeat and good guys to protect. None of those things actually exist. It's impossible to guarantee that someone given life without parole won't escape. It's impossible to guarantee that someone being executed won't escape. It's impossible to guarantee that your cube mate at work won't walk into the office one day with a machine gun and massacre everyone there. It's impossible to guarantee that your partner won't take out a life insurance policy on you and cut your throat at night. 100% certainty does not and cannot exist. That's just how the universe is. Chasing certainty is a fool's errand that will gain you nothing. You have to decide what an acceptable level of risk is, because there's no such thing as no risk. The odds of a murderer condemned to death killing again are small but non zero. The odds of a murderer sentenced to life without parole killing again is also small but non zero. The difference in those probabilities is miniscule. You're willing to get blood on your own hands for a 0.00001% chance of something bad happening?

People are not good or evil, actions are. All of us, all of us, including you and me, have done both good and bad things in our lives. All of us have the capacity to become heroes or villains, saints or monsters. Under the right circumstances, anyone would commit murder. Under the right circumstances, anyone would order the massacre of an entire people. You should get down on your knees and thank whatever gods you believe in that you've never had to live through such circumstances.

 

I think termination is fine up to two weeks after conception. On the 15th day the Primitive Streak forms and that is where I draw the line.

 

Sure, but as the article states, the brain has "minimal operation" at 9 weeks.

 

I disagree. I think that someone who is dead has a zero percent chance or killing anyone else in the future.

And even if it were not 100%, it would be far closer to 100% than any prison.

Murderers have removed all doubt that nthey are capable of it. So there is no longer a need for speculation. That is why they should be treated differently.

Didn't you just say that killing someone does not make it absolutely certain they will not murder again? I am pretty sure you said that just a few sentences ago.

Change your mind?

In this specific context, yes.

I agree.

Once they are executed, the certainty becomes 100%.

Lets ask the people on this list what they think.

I disagree. I think motives, not actions, are what define people as good or evil.

That is why we do not punish people for killing in self-defense, for example.

 

At what point does "minimal" become enough to define it as a person?

Unless you can answer that question conclusively and precisely, I don't think we should be killing them at that point of development.