• There has been a recent cluster of spammers accessing BARFer accounts and posting spam. To safeguard your account, please consider changing your password. It would be even better to take the additional step of enabling 2 Factor Authentication (2FA) on your BARF account. Read more here.

Firing squads are back

asthmodeus said:
how about stalin's gulags?
Click to expand...


Wormwood said:
Agreed in bold.

Sleep deprivation and water boarding fit the definition in my book. I do respect the fact that torture has an escalating nature and the two are considered low level offenders.
Click to expand...

The Gulags, the SS Death camps, Baatan Death March, all of these qualify as cruel and unusual punishment certainly, as the conditions result in the death of the inmates even when death is not the intended punishment. However, subjecting inmates to living conditions that are SUPERIOR to what were simply standard living conditions for persons of value such as the American Military in the Civil War era United States is absurd. Grueling day labor and bland food with a secure place to sleep without climate control, clean clothes and regular showers, is better than most Americans have had it for most of the history of this nation, so classifying it as cruel and unusual punishment is a patent abuse of the constitutional protection as far as I am concerned.

The torture thing is not particularly relevant as that is not part of our justice system. The methods used by our intelligence agencies are another conversation entirely.
 
Last edited:
The prison conditions you describe are alligned with my ideal conditions.

No climate control, a shower, only the most basic food and at the end of the day the inmates are so exhausted from labor all they want is food to replace calories burned and sleep. No time or energy for trouble making. :thumbup
 
When America stops outsourcing their prisons and guards to the lowest bidder we can discuss reforming the prisoners conditions themselve.s
 
Eldritch said:
What you say does not conflict with what he says. This nation needs a severe reawakening to what cruel and unusual actually is.
Click to expand...

Just because most of the world is more cruel and unusual doesn't mean that's something we should settle for.
 
I think sleep deprivation is pretty fucked up. I might kill someone over that.
 
Wormwood said:
The prison conditions you describe are alligned with my ideal conditions.

No climate control, a shower, only the most basic food and at the end of the day the inmates are so exhausted from labor all they want is food to replace calories burned and sleep. No time or energy for trouble making. :thumbup
Click to expand...

Indeed, but that has been ruled as cruel and unusual punishment by corrupt courts in th elast 60 years or so.

Reli said:
Just because most of the world is more cruel and unusual doesn't mean that's something we should settle for.
Click to expand...

You are grossly mistaken. The human species should never idealize itself as anything except exactly what it is, which is a filthy, lazy, selfish and violent animal. We can build successful societies that strive to rise above our vile base nature, but anytime we attempt to build a society that ignores that fundamental truth about our nature and attempts to ignore it, our hubris will allow those who embrace that nature to destroy it. Strive to be better, but never accept that you are.
 
Remind me again how ending someone's life is more of a punishment than life imprisonment? Shit, I'd much rather just be dead than forced to lived behind bars for the rest of my natural life. We toured San Quentin as part of a class I took for college...I wouldn't wish that place on anyone. I've seen military prisons that were less antiquated and rough.

If you're for the death penalty, that's fine. If you're not, that's fine too. It really doesn't matter in the case of what is and is not considered a cruel way to take a prisoner's life. Regardless of what you think of them as a person, or their crime(s), they still have rights. Rights that have been upheld by the court system many times. That's how the American system works. Sorry to disappoint those who would rather we just do things the old fashioned (uncivilized) or the way Sharia Law countries do it. That's not how our society functions.

It's funny to me how people are so blood thirsty to take the the life of someone sentenced to death...until it personally affects them. You don't see the families of condemned prisoners clamoring for their deaths. Giving someone life in prison over the death penalty does not lessen what they did to earn that sentence in my opinion. They're still a criminal who has been convicted of a capital crime. They're still a scumbag who has no business being part of the rest of society. However, they're still a person that has rights under our constitution, and for me, that doesn't change regardless of their crime(s).
 
In 2010 a Death Row inmate was on death row an average of 178 months. What a good use of a court and lawyer resources.

It's not such a small thing, taking someone's life. Republicans/Southerners seem to embrace killing with glee.
 
We digress.

We have a death penalty. How shall we carry it out in a manner that does not offend the sensitive? I'll take the opiate overdose please, and a few shots of really fine whiskey for the road.
 
Kornholio said:
Remind me again how ending someone's life is more of a punishment than life imprisonment? Shit, I'd much rather just be dead than forced to lived behind bars for the rest of my natural life.
Click to expand...

Yet most facing a death penalty will take a plea of life if given that option.
Killing should be punishment and it should be cheaper than housing them for life.

It's funny to me how people are so blood thirsty to take the the life of someone sentenced to death...until it personally affects them. You don't see the families of condemned prisoners clamoring for their deaths
Click to expand...

But you do see the family of the victims wanting death for the murderer so families involved cancel each other out and we're left with public opinion.
 
Eldritch said:
However, subjecting inmates to living conditions that are SUPERIOR to what were simply standard living conditions for persons of value such as the American Military in the Civil War era United States is absurd. Grueling day labor and bland food with a secure place to sleep without climate control, clean clothes and regular showers, is better than most Americans have had it for most of the history of this nation, so classifying it as cruel and unusual punishment is a patent abuse of the constitutional protection as far as I am concerned.
.
Click to expand...

Not really following your argument. 2/3 of the dead in the Civil War died of disease, not on the battlefield. No access to clean water, lack of hygiene, terrible diet, dysentery and typhoid fever epidemics, not sure that's a useful yardstick today. Beyond that, for most of the history of this nation, women and minorities were slaves or 2nd-class citizens, it was legal to beat your wife, child labor was a-ok, medical and dental services were terrible, and living past 50 meant beating the average. Can we really make an argument that cruel and unusual should remain as defined by slave-owning white males in 1776?

Personally, I'm all for giving prisoners meaningful work and something better to do all day. Unfortunately the funding is all for more guards and higher walls, and higher rates of incarceration.
 
Hmmm,

California spends an average of $49,000 per year to house one inmate in state prison.

California spends an additional $184 million on the death penalty per year because of the additional costs of capital trials, enhanced security on death row, and legal representation
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top