"Studies: Death Penalty Discourages Crime"
(from an Associated Press article in Fox News)

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,280215,00.html

teaser:

"a series of academic studies over the last half-dozen years that claim to settle a once hotly debated argument — whether the death penalty acts as a deterrent to murder. The analyses say yes. They count between three and 18 lives that would be saved by the execution of each convicted killer.

The reports have horrified death penalty opponents and several scientists, who vigorously question the data and its implications."

The studies' conclusions drew a philosophical response from a well-known liberal law professor, University of Chicago's Cass Sunstein. A critic of the death penalty, in 2005 he co-authored a paper titled "Is capital punishment morally required?"

"If it's the case that executing murderers prevents the execution of innocents by murderers, then the moral evaluation is not simple," he told The Associated Press. "Abolitionists or others, like me, who are skeptical about the death penalty haven't given adequate consideration to the possibility that innocent life is saved by the death penalty."

I thank you for this remark. You are pretty rare here. I doubt that this comment will generate any real discussion about universal justice or morality.

The importance of “Eichmann in Jerusalem” is the fact that Eichmann was only a “technocrat”. All through his trial he maintained that he only fulfilled orders from his commanders that he was a “little screw in the machine”. With his conviction, Israel (and other countries who uphold his verdict) has reassured that one cannot just take orders when genocide is taking place. One needs to evaluate decisions made by governments and see if they correspond to international law. At the end of the day, when “technocrats” are brought to justice they cannot defend them selves with the argument that they were only part of a bigger machine.

"when “technocrats” are brought to justice they cannot defend them selves with the argument that they were only part of a bigger machine."

That’s true.
I also find it hard to believe that people here discus executions as if it’s a rare thing that happens in distance countries to evil dictators. The question of if the state can legalize the killing of a humans should be connected to how it’s most practiced. Where and how do usually execution take place? What lead people to commit crimes that are punishable by death?
In America, people who are executed are usually from marginalize groups, poor, and did not have any other choices. In Israel too, the state execute Palestinians, who are fighting the oppression that the sate of Israel have subjected them to begin with.
Furthermore, if some people maintain that killing by the state is inherently bad then what about abortions? Isn’t authorizing women to have control over their lives and maintain some kind of independence in a patriarchal society is not the killing of something living under state laws? The question of killing a living thing should be tide to how its plays in society, in reality. Does it helps to stop oppression or not?
If people here really cared about the crimes of Saddam and the oppression that the Iraqi people have endured under him, they would direct their anger towards the American government who not only supported him, but have killed more Iraqis. The discussion over here is as usual diverse from practice, purely theoretically, and has nothing to do with the subject, the killing and suffering of the Iraqi people. I really don’t understand why people here don’t discussed whether cars can fly or gold can be made out of stone.

You should start by asking your self if there is even such a thing as objective truth or objective morality, this discussion is all about that.
My morality stems from what is objectively true, we are living in a world where people are dieing daily from preventable disease and hunger as a direct consequents of exploitation by the west. How are we going to change this situation? Have there ever historically a nation that managed to fight oppression without the use of violence? I’m not supporting the right of people to fight against oppression because I enjoy seeing people die; I accept it because this is what has been proven historically, there has never been a nation who managed to break away from oppression without using the gun. The Furthermore, I don’t see the state as independent body that exists above oppression. If there was no oppression there would be no need for the state.
I wish that things could be different, but wishing has nothing to do reality, if it did, I too would spend my time debating whether cars can fly.

Yes, but in the seven or eight month a fetes can live with medical technology outside of the womb. That, however, does not matter. A fetes is a not an INDEPENDET human being, he is part of the woman body. In a society where women are reduce to a slave status without exace to abortions; the killing of fetes even in the nine mouth is objectively good.
I would also argue that with the high rates of rape and sexual assault the mantra about the “equality” and “human lives” is even more ridicules. There is a war not only against the Palestinian, but against women as well.

You’ll have to excuse me, I’m dealing with such a bad hangover, that my English writing would be even harder to understand.
The black nation in the U.S. has been subjected to oppression for more than 4 hundred years. Blacks are systematically denied the same opportunities that white are enjoying. Their schools have no resources, and their communities are infested by drugs and crime. For blacks the “choice” to use criminal activities is out of the need to survive. For example, according to a recant pull its easer for white people with criminal record to be accepted to jobs then blacks with clean records. What’s most important to notice is what happens when the blacks try to brake away from this cycle of oppression. There leaders get killed, political activist receive long jail sentences for bogus charges. During the height of the Black Panther movement, gangs were recruited for political activism and abandon criminal life stile. The FBI, under Hoover, retaliate immediately by infiltrated the Black Panthers, killing their leaders, and jailing who ever manage to survive the state attacks. The Black Panthers were “public enemy number one” according to Hoover. The Breakfast Program, for example, was a program design to provide breakfast to kids going to school was a prime target by the FBI.
What you are trying to argue for is cultural hierarchy. That somehow Indians, unlike blacks, “deal better” with their poverty and oppression. Firstly, that is not true. There have always been criminal activities and mass rebellions in India. Right now, for example, the Maoists are holding a couple of autonomies areas in the side country.
Secondly, if that was true I would like to know what’s wrong with European culture. What’s wrong with people who invade countries for their resources, subject the local population to slavery and poverty, and stand aside while the population dies as a direct consequence of their policies? Furthermore, what’s wrong with Israeli culture? What’s wrong with a society that accepts the occupation and oppression of the Palestinians for more then fifty years now? What kind of mentality Israeli have that except the building of an apartheid wall in direct valuation of the green line, or the starving of more than 3 and half million Palestinians? How can Israelis only object to a war that have killed more then a thousands people only when Israeli soldiers start dieing? I can go on and on but I feel my hangover sickness coming back and I’m going to need stop for new.
Just to finish it up, you and I have choices. We who don’t need to work 7 days a week 12 hours a day should research society and world problem deeply, not fall into pseudo-scientific explanation, and most importantly use this privilege to do something to change the world.

I’m not an expert about the oppression of the Jewish-Arabs by the state of Israel. From what I read the oppression against them by the state of Israel was more than just based on family relations, it was a systematic racism. This organized racism stemmed from the oriantalist and euro-centric ideology of the founders of the state of Israel. Ben Guryon, for example, advised commander in the Israeli army to educate the Jewish-Arabs “how to use toilet properly, take a shower, not steal, and not to rape and kill Palestinian women”. In my opinion this situation has changed (and some people will disagree with that). I think that with the need of Israel to conquer more land and to occupy and annihilate the Palestinians, the state of Israel could not allow another rebellion or splits in the “center”. Out of necessity the Jewish-Arabs were allowed to join the mainstream. In other words, the unity between Jewish-Arabs and Euro-Jews could not be possible without the oppression of the Palestinians. I would go further and argue that the state of Israel itself couldn’t be possible without the exploitation, annihilation, and oppression of the Palestinians. The state of Israel and Palestine consist of a “unity of opposition” in my mind, and the state of Israel cannot exist without the economic exploitation of the Palestinian. Again, I’m not an export on the subject of the oppression of the Arab-Jews but I can recommend you some books if you are interested.

On the contrary, you are the one who ignored my comments. If Blacks in America are subjected to institutionalize racism, can’t find any decant jobs, and never get proper education what option do they have? If the state is the first to suppress political activities by blacks to improve their situation, than what right does the state have to arrest and punish blacks that are trying to brake away from these conditions? And most importantly, if the state creates the conditions that give rise to criminal life stile, than what right does the state have to punish or jail people?
Furthermore, you are ignoring the way the justice system operates. If there is racism what are the changes of a person from a minority to receive a fair trial? What are the chances of a person who can’t afford a lawyer or bail to receive a fair trial? Our disagreement revolves around the rule of the state. In your mind the state is above oppression, some independent body that mediates and work to overcome these conditions. And in my view, that is supported historically, the state is part of and an instrument to enforce those inequalities. In America, for example, inequality and oppression is enforced through the arm forces, the police who guards privet property and the FBI who kill and arrest political activist. In your country too, oppression, exploitation, and racism, is maintained through the army, the police, and the Shin-Bet, or through the activities of the modern version of the KKK, the settlers movement.

Criminal activities are a form of resistance. In a society where poverty and hunger is not a “choice”, but are inflicted by the state and more fundamentally by an economic system, criminal behavior is resistance. Again, gangs were recruited to political work during the Black Panther movement, to which the state retaliated by killing Black Panther members in what became later known as the CoIntl program.

I don’t know how to break it down for you, but if you think that somehow blacks unlike whites (or Indians) cannot figure out a way to live peacefully, than what you are saying is very problematic. You are disconnecting social experience and choices in life. This kind of argument is raise a lot of times in your country when people argue that the Palestinian are “choosing” to fight out of a religious fanatic hatred for the Jews. That the Palestinians willingness to fight your country is disconnected from the oppression and exploitation that they are subjugated too by the state of Israel.

The comment about European culture and Israeli culture was in regard to you upholding the right of the state to execute people who commit crimes. To that I asked what about the people who create or support the condition that give rise to criminal activity in the first place. What about people who kill hundred of thousands of lives under the legality of the law? If Saddam deserved to be executed what about the people who aided him and supported him? All those piety crimes that you are mentioning are nothing when compared to the criminal activities and mass killing of people who are part of the mechanism of the state. People who are usually white, from an upper middle-class background, and that would never be brought to justice.

But most importantly I would like to know where do you get the idea that Black people commit crimes or kill “because someone has talk to them rudely” or to “get new seats in their cars”? I get the feeling that based your ideas according to what you see on MTV, or in mainstream movies.

arab jews, not jewish-arabs.

Thanks, but isn’t that a question of individual identity?

well, i'd say it was a question of linguistics...

Your right, it is. I should have written Arab Jews.