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The Forum > Article Comments > Posturing over the death penalty > Comments

Posturing over the death penalty : Comments

By Philip Lillingston, published 11/5/2015

Fathers of classical liberalism from the Enlightenment, John Locke and John Stuart Mill, both supported the death penalty.

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JOM

also interesting Jay that no one ever mentions the men who still get speared through the leg in this country for punishment. Very selective in our outrage. Even more selective if we can blame Tony Abbott in any way.
Posted by runner, Monday, 11 May 2015 5:53:25 PM
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First I would like to thank Hasbeen for pointing out, in his diplomatic manner, the mistake I made in the criminal description of Chan and Sukumaran. Yes they were indeed traffickers and more culpable than mere mules.

However my point still stands that they were without malice. Malice is defined by the Australian Oxford Dictionary as the intention to do evil, or to cruelly tease. These two were in the business solely to make a buck.
They may have been totally indifferent to the welfare of their clients purchasing their product, or to their employees the mules, but they also did not specifically want harm to come to them. They may have exercised, as the Americans say, depraved indifference, but they did not want to do evil, nor be cruel. If anything they would not want their clients or employees to suffer, because then they would have to go to the trouble of replacing them.
Posted by Philip Lillingston, Monday, 11 May 2015 6:40:28 PM
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It is appropriate to use words like 'reckless' and 'disregard'. They knew what harm would eventuate. There is also the need to figure in the huge number of likely victims, the fact that many would be minors and the seriousness of the harm.

The media and politicians have lost contact with the public on this one (Bali nine). Abbott and the government should have been more cautious. They were swept along by the 24hr news cycle and the strident baying of the few, orchestrated by a clever legal team who knew how to push the buttons and realised that the anti-Abbott media outlets could be used to their advantage.
Posted by onthebeach, Monday, 11 May 2015 8:10:27 PM
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Well done, Ken Livingstone.

This is the best "death penalty" article that I have seen written. Thank you for giving me the information about the once condemned murderers who were released to kill and kill again, and I can give you another, John Leslie Coombes.

You are correct to point out that when balancing the lives of innocents, less innocents die by genetically eradicating those convicted of the most gruesome murders, then are innocents executed. The danger of executing an innocent is always there, but here in Australia I know of no person who was executed who was later found innocent. But I now know of several cases where the worst kinds of rapist/ adductor/ murderers have either been released from prison to kill again, or have escaped from prison to kill again.

Other examples are Daniel Miles, Keith Lawson, and Gordon Barry Hadlow.

Another point you may decide in future to use is the example of organised crime groups like the Mafia and the South American Narcotrfficantes who are so dangerous that they not only murder judges, politicians, journalists, prosecutors, and police officers, prison warders are so fearful of them that they allow them to get away with anything in prison, including murder and "leave of absences" to nightclubs, restaurants and brothels.

Narcotrafficante Pablo Escobar showed his displeasure at the Bolivian governments attempts to arrest him by having a commercial airliner blown out of the sky, and having his thugs machine gun a school bus full of schoolkids.

Anyone who thinks that mercy is the mark of "civilisation" when dealing with such animals prefers to display their vanity and their peer group allegiances before displaying their intellect.
Posted by LEGO, Tuesday, 12 May 2015 3:55:24 AM
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Yes there are animals who deserve execution, nobody less than the Kopassus garbage that invaded and occupied East Timor, occupies West Papua, have committed mass murder in both countries, and murdered five Australian journalists who were doing their jobs where the Indos had no legitimate business to be. Instead of going on about compassion, our government could have reminded the Indos - and the world - that real, murderous, criminals strut around protected by the Indos from justice. And it IS the business of the outside world, where the Indo crimes were and are still being committed.

Problem is that spineless Australian governments cringe in fear before the Jakarta lobby whose objective is enabling party sponsors to make a quid with trade and to hell with decency. We’ve seen the lobbyists sounding off on TV.

Only murder warrants the death penalty. That includes being found later to have fitted an innocent defendant up for a hanging by eloquence and manipulation of evidence. Apart from the notorious framing of Lindy Chamberlain there's a string of West Australians who have gone to gaol for murder through persuasion of juries that the defendants have been proved beyond reasonable doubt to have committed murder, the only problem being that they turned out not to have done it. In all those cases, if the defendants had hanged so should the prosecutor - immediately the truth emerges. Knowing this might concentrate prosecutors' minds on advocating for the truth, not for guilt.

Without a good hanging, murderers eventually get out and kill again. Problem? Simple: mandatory life sentences for first degree murderers and abolition of parole for all violent criminals (including domestic violence).
Posted by EmperorJulian, Tuesday, 12 May 2015 3:31:43 PM
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I never thought I would agree enthusiastically with David Leyonhjelm but this post was a pleasure to read. I’ll even lift his party a few rungs in my below-the-line Senate vote (not TOO far – don’t fancy living under a hail of bullets). Everything in his post is spot on, especially his suggestions for the requirement for living in Australia. It’s not just a specifically Australian culture that entrants should have to embrace, it’s the world moral and intellectual revolution, pioneered by the Enlightenment thinkers a bit over two centuries ago. Millions of decent people including many Australians have fought to the death to defend these values and by harbouring a Fifth Column seeking to replace them with brutal theocracy we let not only ourselves down but the whole of civilisation.

The Reclaim Australia protestors were rednecks, but they have reminded us that we must guard precision of language. As David points out, our adversary is not the Moslems (a heterogeneous category of deluded people) but Islam (an ideology from the same misanthropic wellspring that spawned fascism). It’s only when Moslems start taking the Koran’s instructions seriously that they become our enemies.

The halal controversy is complicated by trade. It’s one thing to require halal certification for sending animals to Moslem countries (to be tortured) where this is a condition of purchase, but quite another to insist on certification for sale of goods primarily to the general Australian population. For that, the halal racket is a form of jizya (a tax on non-believers under Sharia law). Only dhimmis accept paying jizya. To avoid paying jizya, dhimmi-like, in the supermarkets it is necessary to know the symbols that denote halal certification. To find out about halal jizya in Australia explore http://www.halalchoices.com.au/index.html
Posted by EmperorJulian, Tuesday, 12 May 2015 5:41:16 PM
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