I’m against it.
I wouldn’t complain too hard if applied to a rapist or murderer.
For drug trafficking it is a ludicrous and bizarrely over the top punishment. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
Don’t smuggle drugs in countries where they execute your for it. It is stupid. Very very very stupid.
That is the short version of my feelings on this.
*prompted by this of course.
Also not in support of it.
I’m grateful we have the constitution we do, in spite of all the crime and murdering going abouts, the death penalty will do squat to change those stats in any case.
This girl was stupid, I feel for her family.
Here’s another one:
http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/SA-woman-smuggles-drugs-in-dreadlocks-20111213
Been pondering it since I heard about it but the poll on news 24 prompted me to actually make a post:
Unavoidable - it’s the law of the country 28% 7162 votes Unacceptable - capital punishment is barbaric and draconian 12% 3116 votes A strong message against drug trafficking 60% 15279 votesSeriously 60%?? 15279 peoples? (wtf!!)
The sooner drugs are legalised the better. Anyone who thinks it’s acceptable to view the killing of a human being as “sending a message” has a serious problem with their moral compass. They should learn to use email to send messages, or take out a full page ad in the Sunday Times.
Give us drugs not thugs.
drug trafficing is making a stupid ass decision.
surely not worth getting killed for?
then again, trafficing the drugs, has a knock-on effect of possibly destroying people lives/careers/families.
but so does alchohol.
so it’s all relative.
personally, i wouldnt impose hectic sentences, but rather make them spend a few years working in a rehad facility, to see what kind of effect the drugs have.
The death penalty is an emotional issue, ONLY an emotional issue.
Logically it makes no sense whatsoever. It does not reduce crime and costs more in drawn out appeals and court time than life behind bars. Also the backed up courts allow more crimes to fall through the gaps, leading to a bigger crime problem overall.
If humans had any sense and looked at things logically they would only desire the actions that demonstrably lead to a lowering of crime, and preferably a more cost effective handling of existing crime as well.
Changes in law and enforcement should be based around credible evidence that they may have a positive effect, not on the whims of a society which gets its knowledge of crime issues from American TV dramas.
Drugs are their own self-inflicted punishment. There shouldn’t be additional punishment.
I agree that killing people to make a point is morally unjustifiable. But I’m sure it does make a loud point: If I were to smuggle drugs, I’d think thricely and then some about smuggling to a country with an “instant death ruling” like China, middle east, etc. But read on…
We do live in a country where you could earn yourself a burning necklace for swiping a cellphone.
I wonder aloud whether the metaphorical “they” don’t maybe have her family tied up somewhere as insurance that she goes through with the deal (which now obviously she won’t). Remember a lot of people end up smuggling drugs as a way of paying off a debt to some drug cartel, “or else”.
This is what makes the whole death penalty thing stink. It is quite probable that the person at the airport never intended to be doing this shit in the first place.
So moreover, drugs are their own punishment.
But lastly, that is the law of that country. I don’t have to like it to realise that once I cross into their country and commit a crime, I am subject to those laws. Good luck to anyone endeavouring to change China into a bleeding-heart liberal state from the outside. You only have a couple of thousand years of ‘civilisation’ to undo.
edit: formatting error.
When you look at the street cost of cocaine and meth vs the production cost it is as if you could grow gold. It really doesn’t matter how many smugglers you execute. The cartels will just throw money and product at the problem. I suspect that the big stories of an individual getting caught is just the tip of a much more organised iceberg of bribed border officials and fake good shipments. We hear about the individuals because they are the most likely to get caught and they provide an emotional sensational story. The Chinese government can pretend they are doing something, they are doing nothing.
Glenn Greenwald had an excellent debate with the former bush drug czar John Walters, well worth a watch if you have the bandwidth http://www.salon.com/2011/11/15/debating_bushs_drug_czar_on_legalization/. If not he wrote a report for the Cato institute on decriminalisation in Portugal http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=10080 which is also interesting.
Penalties for transgressions against the law are typically about coercion, hardly about rehabilitation, despite that coercion is nicely dressed up and called “restitution.” Ask yourself exactly what this “restitution” consists in and to whose benefit these supposed amends are made in most cases. In criminal cases it’s very rarely for the actual victims, who instead are expected to content themselves with the thought that the perpetrators will receive punishment. If rehabilitation was really a priority then traffic offenders caught red-handed would, for example, be detained on the spot for an hour to sit through road safety videos followed by a test without the possibility of any exceptions other than dire emergencies where lives are at stake. If as a result you miss that all-important appointment, well, that’s just tough.
The death penalty is just coercion in its most extreme form: Any chance of rehabilitation is obviously dispensed with and the “restitution” panders to our basest and most savage emotions, while those who advocate it are invariably the same voices that will tell you how its function is to preserve a civilised society.
'Luthon64
Judged by the comments I read on News24, or at least on the Afrikaans edition of it, the only people still in favour of the death penalty are Christians. That is, those people in favour of neighbourly love, mercy, forgiveness, and so on…
Judged by the comments I read on News24, or at least on the Afrikaans edition of it, the only people still in favour of the death penalty are Christians. That is, those people in favour of neighbourly love, mercy, forgiveness, and so on...
But of course! “an eye for an eye” and “if your eye bothers you, pluck it out” and so on…it’s part of the culture of vengeance that religions sell to scare their flocks.
Also the same people who believe if they became athiests they would go on a sin-spree running through the streets naked, high on drugs and killing people.
They so love to claim they have a monopoly on morality.
Why the extreme punishment for this by the East? Does anyone know?
I’ve heard it said that it may be a backlash from the ‘opium wars’, where the Brits (and, to a lesser extent, the yanks) sold huge quantities of opium to China in order to redress a trade imbalance. There were an enoumous number of addicts created in China, and the Chinese still remember the social disruption caused.
Thanks for the link, st0nes. Are they less harsh on their own citizens then? A sort of xenophobia?
I have no idea.
The question of the death penalty in SA has reemerged. The attendant opinion poll shows that more than 90% of IOL readers who have so far chosen to respond are in favour of a referendum to decide the issue.
But the author forgets a few salient points. First, several studies have shown that, as a deterrent, the death penalty is basically useless. Second, a death penalty would violate our Constitution, an obstacle no referendum has the power to remove. Third, if the considerations are mostly financial (i.e., the cost of keeping convicted criminals incarcerated and fed vs. disposing of them with finality), the essential immorality of capital punishment becomes even clearer.
Finally, “Executed by the will of the people” would make a very fine epitaph. It would be a reminder, one to make the people proud of their democracy, whenever the state kills some incorrigible lowlife on their behalf.
'Luthon64
I am sickened by the hype around the murder of a soccer star. On the South Coast a few days ago a young woman (a tourist from the UK) in her twenties was raped and killed. Heard about it? Guess not. Every flippen politician is on the band wagon with the Senzo murder and then they have a massive debate whether his fuckbuddy should attend the funeral FFS! Now the death penalty raises its weary head again…the murders of children, farmers black and white, the aged etc etc gets little exposure besides the mention of them in the media. Court cases are focused on hype and newsworthiness and what bugs me is the sudden outburst of revulsion. If any good can come of Senzo’s death, hopefully the security cluster may get a wake-up call and get to do their jobs more efficiently.
The death penalty, only serves as a tool for revenge.
A sense of revenge I sometimes share, when I hear of the horrible things that happen to people.
If memory serves, after the second world war, Germany abolished the death penalty (except, of course, for those minor little hangings after Nüremberg). The majority of Germans were actually in favour of the death penalty. Nowadays, the majority of Germans oppose it. Why? Simply because a new generation of Germans grew up without it and became used to the idea. I think South Africans will also come to opposed it in another generation or two.