
Japanese Officials Reveal Execution Chambers - timr
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/28/world/asia/28tokyo.html
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Towle_
"Japan also has a 99 percent conviction rate..."

How it took 7 paragraphs to get to that, I have no idea.

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ugh
That’s not automatically a bad number. Japan has a ridiculously low
incarceration rate (63 per 100,000 compared to 748 in the US and 96 in France)
so it doesn’t seem as though they randomly pull people from the street and
then convict them with near certainty. They might throw out many cases with
less than airtight evidence.

~~~
Towle_
All fair points, and you could make many, many more. So could the other side.
In fact, that would make for a great article, because people like you and me
care deeply about whether innocent people are being killed arbitrarily. A
fair, factual debate about how often that likely occurs would make for a great
read.

Wait a second, isn't that what we just read? No, no it's not. If it were, the
text I quoted could've been the title because, whether or not you're right,
99% is NINETY-NINE PERCENT and it deserves a goddamn explanation. That much we
can agree on.

No, we didn't just read an article _about_ the death penalty. We just read an
article about the best way to abolish it. _That_ article takes as a given that
the death penalty is immoral and that it should be abolished regardless of the
opinions of the nation's citizens. Whether you personally agree or disagree
with those presumptions is irrelevant. It's irrelevant because, as you're well
aware, plenty of people don't and you don't just write them off as stupid or
unimportant. They're citizens just like you are.

To write the article we just read is to believe that their opinions should be
ignored. The New York Times is telling you and me, "Anyone who thinks the
death penalty is in any way acceptable is a hick or a redneck or a retard--
you know, the same people who DON'T read The New York Times. Not YOU though.
YOUR opinion matters. We can tell because YOU read The New York Times. YOU
think it's immoral, which is why YOU want to read an article about how to get
it the hell out of here, opposition be damned. _Isn't that right?_ "

Even Fox Fucking News doesn't report on, say, the gay marriage debate in this
manner. They may be heavily biased to one side, but at least they concede
there's a debate to be had.

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ugh
Other side? I didn’t write that comment because I’m on any particular side.
I’m actually all for abolishing the death penalty but that doesn’t really
matter. I think this is fine article about a Japanise minister’s campaign to
abolish the death penalty, padded with some background info.

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ugh
Good luck changing public opinion. I think that route is pretty hopeless, the
abolitions of the death penalty in Europe were not preceded by big changes of
public opinion. That expert panel seems like a good idea, though.

There is no evidence which would make for good, rational reasons to keep the
death penalty around, what keeps the public convinced is a strong moral
conviction that certain crimes are so heinous that they should be punished
with death. That seems almost like a human universal to me. If you want to
abolish the death penalty you can’t use public opinion, you have to circumvent
it.

The quoted lawyer from the human rights organization who presumably has some
experience fighting the death penalty seems to be very aware of that (as are
her US counterparts, by the way): The “death penalty should not be enforced by
a majority opinion.”

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mynameishere
_There is no evidence which would make for good, rational reasons to keep the
death penalty_

According to you. If one murderer gets out and commits further crime, that's
enough evidence for most people. If that further crime is murder, no
additional discussion is required.

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ugh
I really don’t want this to turn into a discussion about criminology or,
goodness forbid, whether the death penalty is right or wrong. Those
discussions are always very predicable. I think the history of the abolishment
of the death penalty and current efforts to abolish the death penalty are much
more interesting.

I made that assertion (no rational reasons for the death penalty [+]) only to
show why it might be easy to convince technocratic politicians why they should
abolish the death penalty. That’s easy. I wouldn’t put much hope in grass
roots movements which want to abolish the death penalty. Those run on public
opinion and moral convictions which are much harder to change.

[+] “Rational” might be misnomer, I’m not sure about that. What I mean is that
there is no evidence which suggests that the death penalty leads to better
deterrence or reduces cost. You will have a hard time finding criminologists
who don’t agree with that.

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mynameishere
Umm, no. You said that there was "no rational reasons for the death penalty"
because it was a straw man argument that mischaracterizes those you disagree
with in a way that appeals to you. Period.

I am also not arguing about the death penalty. But there is rationality on
both sides. Not just your side.

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ugh
“Rational” really might be a misnomer. It wasn’t meant to be an insult. “Moral
convictions” are fine reasons.

It is, of course, imaginable that there would be “rational” (again, might be
the wrong word) reasons for the death penalty. I can imagine a universe where
the death penalty increases deterrence, reduces cost and where wrongful
convictions are exceedingly rare. I would imagine that it would be very easy
to convince technocrats to introduce the death penalty in that universe [+].
All I asserted was that it seems to be consensus among criminologist that we
are not in that universe.

[+] My own strong moral conviction – which, in this imagined universe wouldn’t
be, in my parlance, “rational” – would be to not introduce the death penalty,
all those reasons be damned. I can certainly sympathize with those wanting to
keep the death penalty in the real universe for moral reasons.

I’m nevertheless not really sure whether I really would oppose the death
penalty in the imagined universe because I also happen to believe that
policies with regard to at least certain human freedoms (I would include
“life” and “opinion”) have to have some sort of useful effect on the world
beyond making me happy (i.e. being congruent with my moral convictions).

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drinian
It's great that some of these issues are actually being discussed, now that
the LDP is out of power. I have to wonder how much longer the current
government will remain, though.

By the way, the 6 PM news in Tokyo carried these pictures on Friday.
Unfortunately, can't tell you what they said.

