Should we use the death penalty at all?
The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.
After 1 vote and with 3 points ahead, the winner is...
- Publication date
- Last updated date
- Type
- Standard
- Number of rounds
- 3
- Time for argument
- One week
- Max argument characters
- 10,000
- Voting period
- One week
- Point system
- Multiple criterions
- Voting system
- Open
I support the death penalty for murder and treason. My opponent must be against the death penalty for both of these crimes. No new arguments in the final round, but arguments in all others rounds are okay. The BoP is shared
I’ll give the definition if my opponent doesn’t want to.
- Rehabilitation
- Death
The main reason I don’t support the death penalty is that I value rehabilitation over punishment. I rather someone be helpful for society eventually rather the person be put to death. This would mean I wouldn’t support life in prison without parole but if we don’t have the tools to make sure the criminal can’t be reformed then life in prison is my option. Reason is we can’t bring them back when they are dead.
Death is final
This is mainly elaborating on the death aspect. Death is final. We can’t bring back people who were found guilty. This goes onto a quote I like which is “That it is better 100 guilty Persons should escape than that one innocent Person should suffer.” Goes into play with my position. Having 1 innocent person suffer shows a failure in the justice system. There are many criminals who don’t get charged or found out for their crimes. If an innocent is considered a criminal over actual criminals, then good people would be at risk as much as people who are actually doing bad. Failure to uphold is a failure of the justice system. There has been 14 innocent people put to death by the government:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrongful_execution#United_States
Since this is still occurring in the present when the latest wrongful conviction was executed in 2018 Alec will pretty much have to concede he is willing to put to death innocent lives in order to put to death I guess people who commit treason or other crimes he consider killable. Alec would either provide evidence of noticeable change between 2018 till now that has made it impossible to sentence an innocent person to death or concedes. There are other options but I can’t think of them right now.
-Effect of the death penalty on homicide.
Many people believe that the death penalty leads to an increase in homicide. However, https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1fno3SaXsJAt1SKTlKC-vVAjVJTgWvVJG5I0qKqM5Lbw/edit#gid=0 states that there is almost no correlation between if a state has the death penalty and it’s homicide rate.
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/URLs_Cited/OT2016/16-5247/16-5247-2.pdf
(Page 3 Pie chart and 3rd bullet point on the right of the pie chart)
The death penalty is currently more expensive then life imprisionment without parole.
However, this can change if murderers are executed in a grandiose stadium. In a grandiose stadium, people pay ticket prices to see a convicted murderer get executed by the method that they deserve. This helps pay for the cost of the execution.
Your burden isn’t the application of the death penalty more so supporting it.
The more people murdered, the more painful the execution generally.
Someone that has killed 1 person, could die by firing squad. Someone that has murdered 9 people, like Dylan Roof, could get eaten by piranhas as punishment. Since he murdered 9 people in a church, he deserves this. Most people wouldn’t dream of murdering anyone, but only the very crazy in society actually murder. Live Public executions that could be performed would get even these very crazy people to reconsider their future decision to murder since the consiquence would be so vivid in their head.
I don’t know if my opponent believes this, but a common argument against the death penalty is, “Why do we kill people who kill people to show that killing is wrong”. The thing is by this logic, it basically means that kidnappers shouldn’t be punished with jail either,
hence the logic, “Why do we kidnap people who kidnap people to show that kidnapping is wrong”. The only difference between imprisonment and kidnapping is one is done to innocents and/or is vigilantic, the other is both not vigilantic and done to guilty people. Therefore, it is acceptable to imprison people, but not okay to kidnap them.
This logic can be applied to capital punishment. Just as not all forms of involuntarally holding someone against their will are bad, not all killing is bad, or as bad as murder. There is murder, there is execution, there is manslaughter. A more accurate way to say it is, “Why do why do we execute people who murder to show that murder is wrong”. Execution is the right punishment for the crime of murder, life imprisionment is harsh, but it isin’t harsh enough and nowhere nearly as scary to the murderer as the death penalty. If the murderer was suicidal and wanted death, they would have already committed suicide with a gun or something quick and relatively painless, instead of resorting to a death process that takes a minimum of 7 minutes to complete(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dprfHZ7gYvw&t=1s).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huf_GsD60wU is a video that explains it better than I can. They aren’t too biased, given that they have left wing and right wing content.
In addition to much of what I have above, the death penalty for treason helps keep nations safe from traitors.
If an American person who had access to nuclear bomb information gave a country like Iran enough information on how to build a nuclear bomb, and they use that to destroy tens of millions of people in cities owned by their enemies like America and as a result of that, destroying the economy of the Iranians in the form of sanctions that the UN would impose on them, such an action does not deserve life imprisonment, as it would not only be too lenient, but also dangerous, given that such a person has a high chance of escaping jail with help from the Iranians and as a result, would help supply them info on how to build worse bombs, destroying superpowers and tens of millions of civilians.
The death penalty is the only decent option for a crime like that. They could escape with foreign help if we select life imprisonment.
The main reason I don’t support the death penalty is that I value rehabilitation over punishment. I rather someone be helpful for society eventually rather the person be put to death. This would mean I wouldn’t support life in prison without parole but if we don’t have the tools to make sure the criminal can’t be reformed then life in prison is my option.
This is mainly elaborating on the death aspect. Death is final. We can’t bring back people who were found guilty. This goes onto a quote I like which is “That it is better 100 guilty Persons should escape than that one innocent Person should suffer.”
Goes into play with my position. Having 1 innocent person suffer shows a failure in the justice system
There has been 14 innocent people put to death by the government:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrongful_execution#United_States
Since this is still occurring in the present when the latest wrongful conviction was executed in 2018 Alec will pretty much have to concede he is willing to put to death innocent lives in order to put to death I guess people who commit treason or other crimes he consider killable.
Given that professionals as in criminologists 88% of them stated that no execution doesn’t lead to homicide rates. This isn’t the grounds of the death penalty I am against nor is it what the professional think either which I do support.
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/URLs_Cited/OT2016/16-5247/16-5247-2.pdf
(Page 3 Pie chart and 3rd bullet point on the right of the pie chart)
You are supposed to be for the death penalty not how it would be carried out.
Anecdote about a burden he doesn’t need to fulfil although there is a burden of where is your arguments for the death penalty?
Kidnapping involves an action involving capturing someone without their consent. The government jailing someone involves court appearance which they are told what would happen. The two subjects are not similar due to the consent factor.
This is based on if what you said was right which is not. Kidnapping is not the same as jailing.
You haven’t clearly stated that your position was that taking a life is immoral but if you did then this link debunks you. He isn’t debunking me.
This video shows the blatant faulty logic of the right. I don’t know how you don’t see it as a teardown of a right-winger. So this sources either debunks your claims or does nothing for you. Either way not an argument for the death penalty.
This entire scenario is fabricated from Alec. This hasn’t occurred.
Sorry about basically forfeiting, but since R2 was basicly a wasted round on both parts, I’d say this makes u
This is a surprise. I thought you would be advocating for life imprisonment without parole like what most anti-death penalty people believe.
I don’t know why you like that quote.If 100 guilty murderers escape jail, then they could commit even more crime maybe to stick it to the state that imprisoned them.
If such a state was going to catch them anyways, they might as well commit more murder because in the sick mind of a murderer, it’s fun or rebellious to the state. I know that if living Dylan Roof escaped jail, he would go killing more black people. If he can’t get a gun (which I don’t believe someone like Roof should have, but I digress) then he would use a knife or something to kill black people in a stabbing spree. He probably could steal one from some source. I would say getting stabbed is more painful than getting shot, so arguably such deaths by knife stabbing would be worse than getting killed by a bullet.
My plan is to get more and better detectives and better means of keeping track of evidence and things similar to that in order to reduce the odds of an innocent suffering at all, whether it be with their life, or just time in prison. I also would want to dedicate some federal funds towards robots that can do the evidence job better than police officers, and whom can’t care about the color of your skin unless programmed too, which they wouldn’t be.
On a national scale, 14 is not a big number. This means that most states have not executed someone innocently, even out of the states with the death penalty. Less people then the number of people in a typical full classroom, and that’s out of one of the biggest countries in the world by population.
How to reduce the number of innocents executed is to increase the number of years that the experts have to gather evidence. If POTUS, I would want to hire people to find good ways to make detectives better and more accurate at their job.
I don’t have any evidence for it, but isn't the rate of innocents being executed going down?
I would rather kill the innocent then allow the murderer to get “rehabilitated”(assuming it works) only to kill more people.
Scandinavia only tried this rehab idea only recently and many of the people who were convicted of murder have yet to be freed from prision.
If I had to pick between one innocent person dying by firing squad and another innocent person dying at the hands of the murderer, I would pick the innocent dying.
The Death penalty info study compares entirely different states. My study is more controlled.
As long as I am supporting the worst of the worst getting killed by some method, then I am arguing for the death penalty.
Someone like Dylan Roof deserves the death penalty because he murdered 9 innocent people.
Imprisionment is nonconsensual as well. The prisioner didn’t choose to be there unless he wanted to be there. Just like murder involves killing someone without their consent. If the punishment for kidnapping is prision, then the punishment for murder should be execution.
What’s the difference? Neither are consensual.
It might occur in the future, and we need laws to prevent terrible things from happening.
In this debate, pro must show that there is some compelling reason to use capital punishment. Con must show that there
Is a compelling reason not to.
This debate starts off with a pre-rebuttal of arguments against the death penalty by pro. That there is no correlation with murder rate and death penalty (this seems to be a reason against the death the penalty), that while its expensive, that can be paid for: with a rather ridiculous argument about public execution, and and argument that it isn’t wrong to kill people in some cirumstance.
Even if I accept all of these on their face - none are compelling reasons to have the death penalty. Pro should be providing an argument of what the death penalty provides, what is the impact of not having, or the impact of having it.
The only example that came close, was pros argument from treason which felt highly speculative and ungrounded in reality.
Con starts off much better. Con explains his notion of what should be present instead, but pro doesn’t really explore or explain the impact of rehabilitation. Why is it preferable? What does it gain.
Cons death argument is much more solid ground, though very tentative: con argues that innocent people are being put to death, he states 14 people have been wrongfully executed (he omits the statement in his source that up to 4% of inmates in death row could be innocent), the idea that making a mistake is final is the first genuinely compelling and evidenced harm either side have brought.
Con rounds out with rebuttals. Con argues that the death penalty doesn’t lower homicide rates; but I can’t really understand what his argument was due to phrasing, or why it was a straw man.
Con strangely appears to try and argue against pros position that the death penalty is expensive: this seemed an easy way of turning pros argument. But con does do well pointing out pros unsupported points.
Con argues that pros argument on wether the death penalty is ethical is illogical. My issue with pros argument is that it doesn’t show the death penalty is moral, but that one specific argument against the death penalty being moral is wrong. This point is getting pretty meta at this point, and while con does well pointing out that pros source disagrees with him, the whole point being argued is largely moot considering the debate itself.
Con finishes off by pointing out that pros treason example is simply what if speculation, that doesn’t appear grounded on facts - I agree.
Pro begins his final round with speculation, that if Dylan roof escaped jail they’d kill more black people. Pro doesn’t begin to support this if, to show me its possible, or probable. I can’t weight the potentiality of a speculative argument that you do not base on facts.
Pro goes on to shoot himself in the foot by raising the number of innocents put to death. Pro goes on to say that the alternative is to just make the police force better... how? Robots? Will that work ? What are the deficiencies that can be addressed? I can’t weight such an arbitrary and unexplained plan.
To be honest, this whole argument from pro seems like it’s meant as a joke.
Pro finishes his rebuttal by arguing that the death penalty prevents future deaths. He doesn’t appear to explain how many deaths being prevented, or support his notion that those in prison for life could escape.
Pro finishes off by arguing his treason case “could happen”. I could grant that this is a potential impact - but if the chances of it happening are 0.000001% it’s not a big impact, it’s really hard to weight speculative what if cases like this.
Cons reply says much of the same thing: pointing out that pro is simply speculating. That his harms are based on what ifs that he is not supporting. Con lists some of the issues pro doesn’t explain, and while I think con spent far too much time pointing out that pro is simply engaging in idle speculation; he does this pretty well.
Con could have done a bit more here to show that almost no one escaped prison. If he had done this, he would have gotten source points.
In terms of cost and treason points - there wasn’t much added to these points, pro didn’t present much more than speculation on either.
all in all pro didn’t support his case as much as simply try and preemptively refute the other. There were almost no harms presented of not having the death penalty, and the ones that were, were speculative and largely unweightable due to the lack of objective support.
Con presented clear harms of innocent people being out to death, quantified it; and explained that pro had no factual basis for asserting his what if cases.
Out of the two - only con really presented quantifiable harms: and while con missed several key opportunities to twist the knife on this one: the harm itself and the lack of a cohesive framework from pro means that his harms outweigh pro.
Arguments to con.
Bump.
No I'm sorry, next time remind me a little earlier, so I can work around my schedule
Im not at my house, so all I have is a phone. I don't think so :/
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"I tend not to be persuasive and just speak about the arguments my opponent lays out instead of simply picking the best ones to suit my narrative"
This approach is wrong for a number of reasons. The main reason is you can find flaws in any position. For example it is pointless to point out the flaws of capitalism, if you do not propose another system for critique and convince your opponent is has less flaws. You need a solid base of knowledge to do that though, but as your profile says, you hate reading.
I assume it is because of reading comprehension problems. You need to have sub vocalization while reading for good comprehension as well as being able to visualize in your mind's eye what was written. I suggest practicing sub vocalization as well as visualization while reading. Most people also only retain 40% of what they read the first time but it jumps to 80% on the second reading. You should always read things twice. I think if you do those things, you'll find reading more enjoyable, which will help you expand your base of knowledge. Also reading your opponent's arguments in that way will also help expand your base of knowledge and make your next opponent more predictable.
I should have already knew what debating was about but I had a different aim. When that comes into contact with lets say what debating is actually about. I run into a problem. I tend not to be persuasive and just speak about the arguments my opponent lays out instead of simply picking the best ones to suit my narrative. Debating is a popularity contest and I should tailor my arguments to that but I don't really want to. I think I would feel scummy and too ideologically bent to see the other side if I did that. Doesn't stop others using the same tactics but that just means I would have to work even hard. 30k characters is enough to make that happen. It is only me not using the entire amount to thoroughly dissect my opponent.
That is a healthy attitude to have. If you lose to me, it is never my fault but yours.
Virt does most of the voting moderation atm, but if I am online, I am happy to check votes which have been reported.
I am going to keep messaging you until you reply.
I want you check late votes as in 1 hour or less before the voting period closes. I will be flagging them and I want you to make sure they are sufficient. Someone really late voted in earlier debate and since it was after the voting period a moderator couldn't address it when they saw it.
Probably by the time the timer runs out. Not tonight
Can you vote on the debate?
Certainly had nothing to do with not addressing his points. Calling sources outdated or unreliable without explanation is good enough
I'll pass on a debate.
You won because I didn't argue against other flaws in your border wall argument. I should have. My mistake and you won because of it.
A voter bringing up gish gallop is incompetent.
Those are mostly forfeited debates. 2 I should have won, and gish Gallop can't harm you in this debate format unless you overdo it
Wylted is wrong. There are times when you should semi-forfeit Rounds because of what you prevent loading the opponent with or accusations of voters of doing 'gish gallop'.
It's not a clear 'jam more text in that Round' Wylted's Rating reflects his advice's quality.
First I look at how informal logic is applied and then creativity 2nd and depth of knowledge third in last place is rhetorical ability. I have seen people be incredible in one skill where they can be weak in others but it is more common to be good at all of those to be a good debater. I am willing to mentor you in one debate against a competent debater of high skill. Allow for 2 week arguments and limit characters to 10k.
How you defining skill?
When somebody gives you an extra round, take it. Especially when they are more skilled than you. It can be the difference between a win and a loss and they don't need to be punished for conduct if you punish them by defeating them with extra characters
Okay.
I told you in messages. You can rebut if you want.
Can I rebut in Round 1 or am I only allowed to make arguments?