2009-11-12, 03:16 PM
Quantact Wrote:"Common sense: a collection of prejudices accumulated by age 18." -- Albert Einstein.
Your whole argument, (and previous argument,) hinges on what you see as "common sense." Unfortunately irl arguments require a bit more than the assertion of your own beliefs, (namely logic to back up your claims,) and you have given nearly none of that.
The claim that killing a criminal in the process of the death penalty is the SAME thing as the criminal murdering an innocent is completely illogical. The death penalty is death to the criminal in retaliation to his murder, not murder in retaliation to NOTHING. It can be argued that the death penalty is unfit for civilized society, but that's still not the same as claiming that the government is as bad as the murderer in putting him to death. Also liberals are not saying there is no money for health care, etc., becuase of expenditures on the military. I know this because they JUST PUT OUT a massive healthcare bill; so according to the liberals the money is there -- they wouldn't do all this backroom buttfuucking to put out a huge bill they don't have money for. As for expenditures on oil, that is private industry, not government spending, so it is completely irrelevant to what you're talking about. Your claims are very poorly put together, and completely illogical. Again, it is "common sense" to you, but to anybody with any shred of actual sense, they are anything but.
So, I am sorry, I cannot discuss/argue anything with you. It's not really feasible for two people to talk where one person says "this is what I believe, and this is why," and the other person says "this is what I believe, explaining why I believe it is not necessary."
I'm not debating the fact that you're smart, I'm debating the fact that you chose not to read what you know I mean, because I don't literally voice it, or in this case, write it down.
Look at what I bolded. To me there are no other factors to that point. Killing=murder, without getting into technical ,circumstantial or semantic details. Killing is killing, saying it is ok because the person getting killed has already killed other people and therefore the befitting punishment by law is killing them inreturn, doesn't make it any more or less, the ending of a life. (again some psycho torturing people isn't the exact same thing as giving a lethal injection, but it is still ending a life as a result).
On the ground of ending a life it is the same, of course the state doesn't just put him up to a wall in the centre of town and blow his brains out, of course not. People who assault others (example) get thrown in jail. They don't get thrown into a group of people who can just beat them up. Which would be an eye for an eye, no? Sure they get treated roughly, but that is because they committed a crime against humanity, or, in most cases, society.
About that health care bill, again I'm not super informed about those details, since I'm not American, but I didn't mean you have to stop having an army so you can give healthcare. What I meant is there has to be a healthier balance between the two. Sure the money is there, but it will be at the cost of something else, money has to come from somewhere. If there would be less military spending, there would be more left for, say, healthcare. That's not an opinion, that's just fact.
About the oil, I think you're forgetting the incredible influence a government can have on the use of resources. Think about advertising campaigns, added taxes, etcetc. A state can reduce the oil use by a lot, or gain a lot of money trying to do so (more tax=more income for state).
I'm sorry if my arguments seem null to you, but I'm just commenting on the basics of things, stuff that you can't actually argue all that much with, most of it is just stating facts that people seem to overlook for some reason.
Common sense is indeed affected by the values, laws and society in general which you grow up in, making it the most differentiated of all common things. This does not take away the fact that seeing what I'm saying is more or less purely stating fact, should be part of this 'common' sense. Let's not forget Albert Einstein flunked math in highschool.