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Texas death row inmate at mercy of supreme court, and junk science

theguardian.com

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Re: Texas death row inmate at mercy of supreme court, and junk science

#81

Post by verall »

d-z-m wrote: post #66
lapcat wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what they may claim , but their actions speak much louder than their words. Just look at what happens whenever they take political power. They profess "local control" when they only have control of the localities; when they achieve power at the state or federal level, they immediately place restrictions on the ability of localities to set their own rules and laws. (I've seen this happen over and over.) And tra…

I actually think that progressive conservative political axis isn't a meaningful one in the current climate, and that the more operative axis is the libertarian authoritarian. Importantly, there can be every combination of these four points on the political compass. I.e. there are authoritarian conservatives, and libertarian progressives; but there are also authoritarian progressives and libertarian conservatives.

It's super meaningful because conservatives and progressives are nearly fully aligned on the issues mentioned above:

- police oversight

- abortion

- welfare

And even on dumber issues like public transit. Say what you will about authoritarianism being the real problem but most people vote and ally themselves based on the progressive-conservative axis.

Re: Texas death row inmate at mercy of supreme court, and junk science

#82

Post by lotsofpulp »

rPlayer6554 wrote: post #62
Workaccount2 wrote: post #12

I'm always bothered by how doctor's word is always taken as gospel. Anyone who's gone through the medical merry-go-round knows that doctors opinions on the same set of symptoms can be all over the place, some even outright idiotic.

Society has made a God out of science. Don't get me wrong, science is a fantastic invention and should be taken seriously. Anyone who dismisses science without thought or reason is crazy. But as you saw during the pandemic and through this, we've lost some sense of reason when a flawed human in a white coat says something. We need to take what they say seriously but with a grain of salt that they get things wrong.

“Science” is just the process of continuously evaluating and re-evaluating what you know using data and experiments, and changing what you “know” (or your mental model) to align with the new data.

What people deify is certain conclusions, for myriad reasons.

Re: Texas death row inmate at mercy of supreme court, and junk science

#83

Post by d-z-m »

fzeroracer wrote: post #76
d-z-m wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not. Limiting the power of government is a central idea in conservative thought, especially in America[0]. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservatism_in_the_United_Sta...

Well, no. Conservatives have no problem stripping authority from cities and towns so that they maintain absolute power at the state government level. That's what Florida, Texas etc have all done, accelerating especially recently. It's always couched in specific terms and frameworks designed to make sure they're the haves and everyone else is the have not.

I would say that this isn't an expression of conservatism, but an expression of authoritarianism. The two often travel together, but authoritarianism isn't an essential characteristic of conservatives.

> Well, no.

Just because Florida, Texas, etc have lurched towards authoritarianism at the state government level in recent years doesn't negate the fact that a belief in limited government is a central idea in conservative thought in the USA, and has been for over a hundred years.

Re: Texas death row inmate at mercy of supreme court, and junk science

#84

Post by dsego »

spamizbad wrote: post #72
SamoyedFurFluff wrote: post #23

The way death row inmates are treated is arguably a reason to be against death row. There was also a case where a person on death row couldn’t present exculpatory evidence to prove his innocence because his last appeals lawyer didn’t do it. The Supreme Court literally decided you can prove you have evidence that proves your innocence, that you were done dirty by an incompetent lawyer, it doesn’t matter, you should st…

That's because the purpose of the death penalty is to function as a sort of secular human sacrifice, to ward off evil-doers possibly doing bad things, due to a belief that deep down bad guys are rational actors and will choose not to do commit capital murder based on punishment.

It's retributive justice, it's not a deterrent.

To quote a post I recently found resonating with me:

"Look, we don’t necessarily hang murderers to deter other people from committing the same offence. We kill them simply because the punishment has to carry the same weight as the offence. The family of the murderer must go through the same anguish and pain that the murder victim’s family went through. The killer has to be stopped from enjoying all the things that come with being alive. When you kill another person, you deprive them of worldly enjoyments like food, sex, conversations, bathing, laughing, crying and therefore it is only befitting that you too get deprived of same and the only way to do so is through the death sentence. If we are going to shy away from punishing wrong-doers on the basis that the punishment won’t stop other people from committing the same offence then we might as well not send anyone to jail because sending people to jail has never stopped other people from committing the same offences."

https://www.sundaystandard.info/iocom-a-retributionist-i-sup...

Re: Texas death row inmate at mercy of supreme court, and junk science

#85

Post by unyttigfjelltol »

SV_BubbleTime wrote: post #42
unyttigfjelltol wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Folks identified the dad as weird and in over his head, so untrustworthy and guilty. This isn't isolated, it's the norm. So, for 30 years or so the medical community had this voodoo DX to justify locking up social outcasts. And they seem completely OK with having done so. The DX sort of is not accepted anymore. But, the article describes a list of other voodoo sciences that demonstrate something remains very broken i…

That could all be true, but folks also testified they personally witnessed him violently shaking at least one kid. You can be against junk science, but entertain the likely possibility he also did it.

No, not really. Let's say the testimony was reliable, which it wasn't. What's the proper inference: that he kept going with bad parenting and escalated to murder? Or, that he recognized what he did was unhelpful and problematic so never did it again? How do you choose between inferences? In this way, the "evidence" comes back, again, to something alarmingly like a popularity contest which turns, quite unacceptably, on these people's presuppositions about a socially awkward dad trying to raise the child solo.

Re: Texas death row inmate at mercy of supreme court, and junk science

#86

Post by CivBase »

dimal wrote: post #34

I’m always confused why conservatives tend to support the death penalty. The conservative ethos is to reduce the power of the state to prevent abuse, but giving the state the right to kill a citizen clearly goes against that. How can you mistrust the state in almost every aspect of society, yet trust it to only kill people that “deserve” it?

American conservatism advocates for small government on economic issues, but not societal issues.

Re: Texas death row inmate at mercy of supreme court, and junk science

#87

Post by j_maffe »

Filligree wrote: post #79
spamizbad wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because the purpose of the death penalty is to function as a sort of secular human sacrifice, to ward off evil-doers possibly doing bad things, due to a belief that deep down bad guys are rational actors and will choose not to do commit capital murder based on punishment.

Um, no? It’s to achieve vengeance. This doesn’t seem that complicated.

Yes that's usually the motive behind its supporters but not the used argument when it is criticized.

Re: Texas death row inmate at mercy of supreme court, and junk science

#88

Post by LargeTomato »

Spivak wrote: post #36
SamoyedFurFluff wrote: post #23

The way death row inmates are treated is arguably a reason to be against death row. There was also a case where a person on death row couldn’t present exculpatory evidence to prove his innocence because his last appeals lawyer didn’t do it. The Supreme Court literally decided you can prove you have evidence that proves your innocence, that you were done dirty by an incompetent lawyer, it doesn’t matter, you should st…

It's so frustrating because in the twisted universe where Thomas lives the ruling makes sense. To him justice is an algorithm that produces an outcome and only needs some minimum threshold of "overall the justice system locks up roughly the people we think it ought to" and all the appeals and after-the-fact proving your innocence gets in the way of the efficiency and to him, the effectiveness, of that algorithm. And…

We make the law "algorithmic" because the alternative is a lawless society. Laws have been written down and procedurally followed all over the world for thousands of years. Societies that fail to follow the rules are prone to instability and decay.

I'm not saying it was okay to kill the person. I'm saying we can't throw away laws but your comment continues to advocate for a less "algorithmic" (unambiguous) law. These types of comments are part of why people get radicalized on the internet.

Re: Texas death row inmate at mercy of supreme court, and junk science

#89

Post by Retric »

dsego wrote: post #84
spamizbad wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because the purpose of the death penalty is to function as a sort of secular human sacrifice, to ward off evil-doers possibly doing bad things, due to a belief that deep down bad guys are rational actors and will choose not to do commit capital murder based on punishment.

It's retributive justice, it's not a deterrent. To quote a post I recently found resonating with me: "Look, we don’t necessarily hang murderers to deter other people from committing the same offence. We kill them simply because the punishment has to carry the same weight as the offence. The family of the murderer must go through the same anguish and pain that the murder victim’s family went through. The killer has to…

Retribution would require mimicry of the original crimes. That’s not what’s going on, it’s simply an attempt to reframe an old argument.

Some cultures actually did do retribution based executions, they where horrific and very different from lethal injection etc.

Re: Texas death row inmate at mercy of supreme court, and junk science

#90

Post by i80and »

dsego wrote: post #84
spamizbad wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because the purpose of the death penalty is to function as a sort of secular human sacrifice, to ward off evil-doers possibly doing bad things, due to a belief that deep down bad guys are rational actors and will choose not to do commit capital murder based on punishment.

It's retributive justice, it's not a deterrent. To quote a post I recently found resonating with me: "Look, we don’t necessarily hang murderers to deter other people from committing the same offence. We kill them simply because the punishment has to carry the same weight as the offence. The family of the murderer must go through the same anguish and pain that the murder victim’s family went through. The killer has to…

I genuinely find this point of view viscerally repulsive. Maybe it's a common perspective, but I pray not. It really seems to be at the heart of a lot of issues with legal systems.
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