“At the moment, there is a myth in circulation, a fable that goes something like this: Radical terrorists will take advantage of our fussy legality, so we may have to suspend it to beat them. Radical terrorists mock our namby-pamby prisons, so we must make them tougher. Radical terrorists are nasty, so to defeat them we have to be nastier.” (Applebaum). This is the story being used for validating of torture. There is no proof that this story has any truth.
With the defendant they get a shot at leniency from the judge. Then there are some that say plea bargaining is unconstitutional. “Plea bargaining rests on the constitutional fiction that our government does not retaliate against individuals who wish to exercise their right to trial by jury.” (Lynch, The Case Against Plea Bargaining, 2003). essentially this means if the defendant believes in their innocence and want to go to trial the will be punished for standing up for their constitutional rights. It is my belief that plea bargaining is an utter necessity, and though it may not seem just at all times; we as a society can see how hectic the court would be if all cases were brought to trial.
Some would argue that by killing our enemies without due process, that we are no worse than our enemies in our barbarism. While such a statement is targeted at an audience's pathos, and is devoid of substance, it nevertheless points to the slippery sloped involved in targeted extra-judicial killing. Once powers contravening the Constitution have been put into the hands of government, this power is not easily removed. With this, in dealing with the dangers of terrorism, at home and abroad, America's policies do threaten its democracy. With this, it is of the utmost imperative that independent reviews of governmental policy, regardless of secrecy and classification, take place so as to ensure that extra-judicial governmental actions fall within the national interest, rather the whims of a given
Hate crime laws will only serve to divide crimes into lesser and greater offenses purely based on what we think the perpetrator was thinking at the time of the action. These laws will ask noncriminal minded citizens to try to understand the motives of a criminal. Who cares why? Don’t we all just want to know how to stop these crimes, how to punish the perpetrators? Won’t our own biases show through these special laws that are left up to interpretation.
Question why! In Plato’s allegory it is stated how “ridiculous” for one to take a decisive stand on an action or issue, without first “enlightening” or fully educating himself on the matter. (Plato 517) Take advantage of the Information available, enlighten yourself, make a decision based on the knowledge acquired. Become your own liberator. Had the prisoners in Plato’s allegory asked themselves ‘why am I imprisoned’, or by another questioned, “Why have you accepted such a fate?” might they have responded “why indeed,” curiosity aroused, would not a search for truth commence?
So my thought is why is it that if there is no oversight/order then why do individuals lose sight of what is right and wrong. 3. What questions do you have about this research that are still unanswered? It’s clear that without order there will be chaos, but at some point there was once order. My question would then be why would a person or persons in charge decide not to continue to enforce order and let individuals be free to produce such violent acts.
“The Case for Torture”, by Michael Levin and “Torture’s Terrible Toll”, by John McCain are two pieces of writing that argue the pros and cons of using torture as a means to receive information from terrorists. Although the use of torture to secure information is viewed differently by each author, the moral and human rights of every individual is agreed upon by both Levin and McCain. While Levin views torture as necessary in extreme life threatening circumstances, McCain views it as unconstitutional and believes that it is inhumane and goes against individual human rights. In the world today, where terrorist threats seem to be a normal occurrence, there is no doubt that the country must be ready and willing to do whatever is necessary to keep
Is the death penalty unjust? Blackmun is opposing towards the death penalty. He claims that there is many faults in the system. Therfore thay should not be allowed to decide whether one should be kiiled on their commited crimes. In contrast to Scalia I think he has good points but he needs a better argument than the judical system has faults.
Some of the smartest individuals and the leaders of most countries decided torture was inhumane and should be outlawed. Thus torture was one of the first issues that the United Nations dealt with (Dieringer). The act of torture is so inhumane and such a pressing issue that the leaders of the world outlawed it as quickly as possible to save lives. Torture is so powerful and so evil that it may deprive someone of his will to exist. Depriving a person of his will to live is the same, if not worse than killing that person.
As with genocide, terrorism does not create any moral dilemma to the society that implements it, yet the one that it is being used against is of the opinion that it is one of the worst things that can be used. The United States condemns all of the Muslim extremist organizations for their use of terrorism, yet the United States used the same tactics during the Revolutionary war. The exploits of the fictitious character Robin Hood used what would be seen as terrorist acts against a portion of the society in which he lived in, yet it is glorified in movies and books. Pirates also used and continue to use terrorism today. In the United States and England, English pirates that terrorized other nations are glorified, while all other pirates are