Saddam Hussein is dead.

[Rickford]

News link

He was killed in the early hours. He was an evil man, and he was murdered for it.

Personally, I don't agree with the death penalty for anyone. Killing a man can never be called 'just'. Still, there will be many that celebrate the death of another living being, and I suspect this is going to be one of those occasions. I despair of humanity sometimes.

[DJMayhem]

in a way, many people are relieved he's dead. Yeah, i'm not going too much into politics here, but you have to admit, for a family who had to lose their husband or son in the killings he was convicted for, its a relief and justice in a way to see him dead.

[Saenie]

Personally, I don't agree with the death penalty for anyone.

Seconded.

[Rickford]

in a way, many people are relieved he's dead. Yeah, i'm not going too much into politics here, but you have to admit, for a family who had to lose their husband or son in the killings he was convicted for, its a relief and justice in a way to see him dead.

I can accept that there are people who's lives he has ruined that can take genuine solace from his demise. However, it disturbs me how quickly other people, who simply follow popular opinion, can happily wish for a fellow human being to die.

Give them ten minutes, and they'll be back to spouting their so called 'morals'.

[Prettysenshi]

I know political talk can be blah around the forum, but I have the say my two cents. I think he was a terrible leader, and deserved to be punished. But, why the trial? EVERYONE in the international community, in the states, in Washington knew that they were gonna give him the death penalty. I really feel like the trial was just "staged" democracy, cuz I feel like everyone had made up their minds about the whole thing, and I'm sure Saddam felt the same way. When I heard he was finally executed, I couldn't shake off a guilty feeling. Blah, I don't know. All in all, I didn't feel right about the whole thing.

Take that as you will, it's just my opinion.

EDIT: And yeah, I'm against the death penalty as well. Murder for murder is stupid. Regardless of the situation.

[Sortelli]

My only qualm with the death penalty is the possibility that the wrong person is condemned. Saddam was not the wrong person. The trial was a necessary declaration of his guilt, and I'm glad his face was rubbed in it.

It's sad to say that one loves life so much that one can't condemn those who take it. That's the kind of moral I would put scare quotes around.

*unsubscribes from thread*

[TheSuburbanLetdown]

Peh, this isn't some guy that was wrongfully arrested and sentenced to die under circumstantial evidence. This was Saddam, and he got off easy in my opinion.

[Crazy Chris]

I only detest the death penalty because I believe in redemption. However, there will always be people who not only never will show guilt for their crimes, but would do it again without hesitation if given the opportunity. Manson, Bundy, Hussein, these are the people who make me wonder if we should just shoot them in the head and be done with it. I don't like it.

[Linkara]

I'm with Rickford and Saenie in regards to the Death Penalty. Sorry John Stuart Mill, but even if the system is flawless, it doesn't condone taking a life. Still, I'm glad there's finally closure on the bastard and I won't be shedding tears over the fact that he's dead now.

[TRI]

Personally, I don't agree with the death penalty for anyone.

Seconded.

EDIT: Fourthed.

He got off easy in my opinion.

This is, besides being inhuman, dangerous and degrading of life in general IMO, one of the reasons I'm against the death penalty. If Saddam Hussein, or anyone else, had murdered someone I loved and they got the death penalty I would feel no justice in that: why should they get a quick end while I have to suffer for their actions for another fifty or sixty years? Life in prison is, I think, both a greater punishment and more humane, as contradictory as that sounds.

[TheSuburbanLetdown]

So we can send a message that no one is above the law. And as much as I would rather see him suffer in prison, there is the chance his followers could break him out, not to mention the cost of resources to keep him alive.

[MixedMyth]

I actually have a friend in law school who could talk for hours about the death penalty debate. He's doing a write up for a particular case for the national Supreme Court currently. A major problem with it that people often don't consider is that many of the methods currently used actually aren't humane at all and may, in fact, be very very painful...as witnessed by that poor sap in Florida who took half an hour to die while chemical burns crawled their way up his arms from the dual injections. With injections, shots imobilize the person...but that's just the thing, it imobilizes them. That doesn't mean they don't feel the pain and burning of the chemical injection, it just means they can't express feeling that pain. *article, mostly about California* *Requisite Wiki article* Likewise, contrary to what has been said in the past the electric chair is far from painless. Same with hanging since although the neck may snap, this does not mean the person is dead...just that they can't move their limbs.

Anyhow, pain issues aside I myself am against the death penalty in general. There's a frightening degree of error in such things, not just in the execution process but in discerning the guilty from the innocent. But even besides that, I object to the idea that killing someone somehow makes everything okay. To me, it is simply a crime inspired by a crime, an act of revenge that, I feel, is inherinty selfish. Killing them won't undo whatever it is they did, it just gluts societal bloodlust. and, after everything, it's more expensive to execute someone than to keep them in jail for life.

Buut that's just me.

Edit: it should be noted, though, that Saddam is not being tried under U.S. law but rather Iraqi law.

Edit edit: Quothe the law student, "One thing nobody's mentioning about the Florida screw-up, though, is that they gave him all of the injections, and when it wasn't working they gave them all again. If you have to give the shots twice, that's the ABSOLUTELY WRONG way to do it. They should give the first shot, and if it's not working give it again. Once they're sure that one's working (ie the dude's passed out), they should skip the second one (that's the paralytic, which has no purpose besides to make the death look tidy), and then give the third. If he doesn't die, do the third one again. Especially because the first chemical (the anesthetic) and the second (the paralytic) react with each other chemically, so they can't be in the tube or the blood stream together at the same time."

However, I do find it interest that that study in the article noted that the amount of anesthesia in the blood stream of 80% of the cases was under that required for, say, surgery.

[Mercury Hat]

I know political talk can be blah around the forum, but I have the say my two cents. I think he was a terrible leader, and deserved to be punished. But, why the trial? EVERYONE in the international community, in the states, in Washington knew that they were gonna give him the death penalty. I really feel like the trial was just "staged" democracy, cuz I feel like everyone had made up their minds about the whole thing, and I'm sure Saddam felt the same way. When I heard he was finally executed, I couldn't shake off a guilty feeling. Blah, I don't know. All in all, I didn't feel right about the whole thing.

Take that as you will, it's just my opinion.

Because in a democratic country, you have the right to a trial and that executing people left and right without trial is detrimental to the democratic system?

Even if someone were to decapitate and eat Al Roker's head live on the Today show, they'd still have the right to a trial.

[Ahaugen]

Even if someone were to decapitate and eat Al Roker's head live on the Today show, they'd still have the right to a trial.

But how fair would that trial be? Could an impartial jury be found?

[Mercury Hat]

Hm, the people who saw it happen would be outweighed by the people who dislike Al Roker and don't miss him, I'd say.

But seriously... uh, I guess they'd find a way. They found people to be jurors on the OJ trial, didn't they?

[TRI]

Well, yeah, but nobody saw that happen. In the live-head-eating incident the hard part would just be finding people who hadn't seen it on TV or Youtube.

[Ahaugen]

and a verdict will have been rendered by the media before his weather-reading corpse hits the floor

[MixedMyth]

Oh yeah- also, death penalty for famous figures can be veeery risky, because it turns them into martyrs for whatever their flavor of a cause is.

As for finding jurors for Al Roker...never underestimate the number of oblivious people there are. Particularly if they're snagged very quickly. But I'm not actually sure how juror pulling in such cases works.

[Prettysenshi]

Even if someone were to decapitate and eat Al Roker's head live on the Today show, they'd still have the right to a trial.

Only you Merc. :p

[Zhongda]

I heard Saddam was well hung.




Due to the rigor mortis setting in.

Death penalty is always an iffy issue. Either you're for it or against it, and your opinion won't change until something significant affects you on a personal level.