Obviously there would still be trials and investigations. Circumstances like self-defense and accidents would still be considered and evidence would still be a necessity. But instead of a slap on the wrist or pointless prison sentences (keeping people in prison is a colossal waste of money), the sentence for convicted criminals would always be death. This would be a pretty effective deterrent for people posting death threats on Facebook or Twitter.

This isn't an all or nothing situation. Adopting death sentences doesn't mean that we have to abolish the entire judicial system and become a fascist state that persecutes people without reasonable justification. Truth is, fear of death is a pretty compelling reason not to break the law and people who pose a physical threat to others should be punished accordingly.

As for custodians, I'm sorry if I offended you but it doesn't change the fact that the occupation is seen as undesirable by the vast majority of people. Nobody says "I want to be a janitor when I grow up!" It may pay relatively well and have flexible hours but the work itself is tedious and unpleasant. Granted, there are a lot of jobs that are tedious and unpleasant but when given the choice between being a janitor or an office worker, 99.99% of the population would choose the office job. Janitors are a necessity but nobody would ever want to be one if other options with equivalent pay were available.

OK, that's a large change from your original post where you limit the death sentence to the mentally ill.

Wow. I'm certainly glad people like you don't make societies rules then. Death sentence for a simple threat?!? Sweet zombie Jesus! That's EVERYONE at some point.
What if you threaten to stab someone who's trying to stab you? You threatened, so you die?
What if I claim you threatened me to get the state to kill you? You can't prove you didn't, so you die?
What if you just hit them with a stick? You still get executed, right?
What if you turn a corner and accidentally stab someone? You still get executed for being unsafe, right?
What if you just push someone? You still get executed because that's also violence, right?
Or is it ONLY if you use a knife? Your position is so odd and illogical to me that that's a reasonable question to ask. Exactly where is your line where violence is met with death? At what age do you implement it?
I don't think you thought through the full implications of your 'idea'.

People in general are unpredictable. Period. Those that are assumed to not be mentally ill, yet are still prone to violence are MORE dangerous and unpredictable than those we know to be wary of, not less.

I don't think you've actually ever deigned to speak with a custodian, considering your assumptions about them. I would counter that most take great pride in their work, work that's a necessity, that pays well, and does not require extensive training or school, only a willingness to work hard and an ability to be conscientious about your work.
Your idea, to ask if they would like a cushier job with the same pay, is patently ridiculous and applies to ANY job....'Would you like to work much less in a far cleaner environment with less stress for the same money?'...DUH...who's not going to say "yes" to that deal? If you asked them would they quit their job for another job they might actually GET at it's pay rate, I would suggest you'll likely find 99% would say "no fucking way, are you stupid?!? I would need to work 3 fast food jobs to equal one custodial job". That goes for those with and without degrees, BTW. A diploma is no guarantee of a job in your field, and a job in your field is no guarantee of happiness.

Do you not see that, while you likely do greatly appreciate their work, you are denigrating them and the job they do? It's like you think only 'untouchables' should do that kind of work, and they're all really sub-humans so that's OK, but a real person would/should never stoop to 'cleaning' after others.
Just wow.

EDIT: In a way, your mindset is the reason why custodial work pays so well, so I guess I should really thank you.

Existing infrastructure. All those oil refineries, transportation, just for starters. People make money from every level of production from drilling to selling the finished products. Then we have the dirty secret around everything we do: if it does not produce waste, it's not profitable. Fusion will render a lot of investments moot. Investments that are tied to finances, the structures are not free, they cost money to build and so they are worth something. Even thou everyone knows that free energy is our only hope, it's a death sentence to the big oil. Even if they are controlling it; the unit price of electricity will drop and EVERYONE in the chain loses money. Except the end user. Not even if we double or triple or 20 times exceed current energy consumption, it's gonna make less money. Or so they think, the world is full of business models that really does not work anymore.

I just to think "it'll get better, someday". It just have to. But Mr Fusion is not ready in 2015, that's more than sure, it's fixed to be so. And there is no conspiracy here, just follow the money where it goes and for 100% sure it ain't flowing towards free energy. No one is keeping secret to fusion locked away somewhere, if it works, they will start to use it. But they sure can delay the progress long enough for those Greenspan mates to die wealthy..

For balance, most of the towns where drone strikes have been made already were completely controlled by people who hated America and harbored or cooperated with those actively working on killing Americans. Take a tour of the hundreds of drone strike targets in tribal Pakistan and you are surveying a region accepting the rule of militants so extreme that the Pakistani government is a secular heresy worthy of death to them. Pakistani law including the death sentence for blasphemy. Those regions being under such strong control of the militants that the Pakistani military can't go there for the casualties they would take trying to do so. The welcome for Americans(long before drone strikes were made) would have been even more vicious.

It is important to state that for as much legitimate reason to 'hate' American foreign policy as there is, there exist huge numbers of people who hate America for their own petty, vile and psychotic reasons. The Islamic fundamentalists that see Pakistan as too secular are plainly one such example, and saying they only hate America because they are justified is making excuses for monsters.

For all the horrible things you can say about drone strikes, there has never before been such an efficient method of specifically killing enemy leaders in a war zone. Look at WW2 and Vietnam, and how many innocent civilians were killed for every high level enemy leader. The drone strikes in tribal Pakistan, even by the measure of Pakistan's own critics of them, manage better than 50% of their victims as bonafide militants. This includes a long list of high level Taliban and Al Qaeda leaders. Loss of civilian life is always tragic, but to kill 1 thousand militants and a thousand bystanders each year, while those same militants kill 10s of thousands of civilians on purpose is on the whole a good trade. Truth be told, if the Pak army was at the helm of the drones, the praises of the program would be unending. It's a combined pride and distrust of America thing.

I also think guys over here complaining need to better appreciate the ground situation over in places like tribal Pakistan. Tribal Pakistan is exactly that, a series of tribal communities. Outsiders are either welcomed in as guest and friend, or ushered out as mortal enemy, with a number of social and ethical codes dictating which will apply. If you are living in a community, that whole community has embraced you as one of your own and on a large scale sharing common cause and values. Any tribal community that's accepted high level Taliban militants into their community is guaranteed to share an extreme form of Sharia law. The community will not tolerate the education of their young girls. Blasphemy and apostasy will be immediate death sentences, without trial. Rape victims will be stoned and/or killed for adultery, as is only right. Our high standards of morality over here absolutely demand we still declare those people civilians, and mark their deaths as such, but the notion of them being potential allies turned enemies because of drone strikes is absurd.

Do you know what the Sufi positions on blasphemy and converting away from the faith are? I'm guessing it's very likely to be the death sentence position. It's disheartening looking across at Islam and trying to look for the moderates and discovering just how many claim moderate status while promoting the death sentence for blasphemy.

@criticalthud - Pretty much completely eradicating smallpox and polio, rabies is no longer a death sentence, there has been a 55% reduction in cardiovascular disease fatalities since the fifties, there is a 90% childhood leukemia survival rate, transplants, bacterial infections are generally no longer a big deal...

This is just what comes to me off the top of my head, with research I could go on for hours.

Of course there are flaws and in some cases corruption in western medicine just as you would expect with any such massively complex and lucrative human endeavor, but trying to equate it with the blatant quackery of "alternative medicine" only displays your intentional ignorance of reality and makes you the butt of any joke.

I have no patience for this kind of mindless drivel. Somehow, it has become trendy to ignore the benefits of modern medicine. Honestly, I don't care if you die needlessly of cancer because you waited too long to see some western doctors, but when scum like you try to contribute to the general atmosphere of rampant unfounded mistrust of science based techniques that have an astoundingly successful track record, then you are trying to spread your inane poison and I have to reprimand your idiocy.




http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195150698.001.0001/acprof-9780195150698-chapter-18

http://www.cancer.org/cancer/news/news/childhood-leukemia-survival-rates-improve-significantly

Lewis Black - always funny.

Don't punish gun owners. Punish wrong doers.

Since our current laws are soft of gun crimes make them still as hell to curb the current out of control senseless gun killing.

The Sandy hook and such are not the norm. Its the day in day out gang killing that is the bigger/ true problem. Stiffen such use that if you use a gun in a crime, as the attacker then make the penalty death in 60 days of conviction. ( of course the evidence has support ones guilt)

Also if a gang uses a gun in drive by or such then let all parties in the car get the same 60 day death sentence. Sure there will be a few innocent but the the rate of senseless gun killing will drop like a rock,

Then we could sensibly address the Sandy Hooks

IF YOU THOUGHT HEALTH CARE WAS EXPENSIVE BEFORE, WAIT UNTIL OBAMARXCARE MAKES IT FREE!


Although some of the "fiscal cliff" taxes can be avoided through a deal made in Congress, new ObamaCare taxes are guaranteed to kick in on January 1, amounting to $268 billion tax hike.

The Obamacare Medical Device Tax – a $20 billion tax increase: Medical device manufacturers employ 409,000 people in 12,000 plants across the country. Obamacare imposes a new 2.3 percent excise tax on gross sales – even if the company does not earn a profit in a given year. In addition to killing small business jobs and impacting research and development budgets, this will increase the cost of your health care – making everything from pacemakers to prosthetics more expensive.

The Obamacare “Special Needs Kids Tax” – a $13 billion tax increase: The 30-35 million Americans who use a Flexible Spending Account (FSA) at work to pay for their family’s basic medical needs will face a new government cap of $2,500 (currently the accounts are unlimited under federal law, though employers are allowed to set a cap).

There is one group of FSA owners for whom this new cap will be particularly cruel and onerous: parents of special needs children. There are several million families with special needs children in the United States, and many of them use FSAs to pay for special needs education. Tuition rates at one leading school that teaches special needs children in Washington, D.C. (National Child Research Center) can easily exceed $14,000 per year. Under tax rules, FSA dollars can be used to pay for this type of special needs education. This Obamacare tax provision will limit the options available to these families.

The Obamacare Surtax on Investment Income – a $123 billion tax increase: This is a new, 3.8 percentage point surtax on investment income earned in households making at least $250,000 ($200,000 single). This would result in the following top tax rates on investment income:


The Obamacare “Haircut” for Medical Itemized Deductions – a $15.2 billion tax increase: Currently, those Americans facing high medical expenses are allowed a deduction to the extent that those expenses exceed 7.5 percent of adjusted gross income (AGI). This tax increase imposes a threshold of 10 percent of AGI. By limiting this deduction, Obamacare widens the net of taxable income for the sickest Americans. This tax provision will most harm near retirees and those with modest incomes but high medical bills.

The Obamacare Medicare Payroll Tax Hike --an $86.8 billion tax increase: The Medicare payroll tax is currently 2.9 percent on all wages and self-employment profits. Under this tax hike, wages and profits exceeding $200,000 ($250,000 in the case of married couples) will face a 3.8 percent rate instead. This is a direct marginal income tax hike on small business owners, who are liable for self-employment tax in most cases.

Not only does this tax increase costs on companies, it also increases costs on hospitals, doctors and people in need of medical treatment that requires medical devices to be used. As a consequence of this, biomedical or medical device engineering firms are already laying off workers who develop crucial medical products due to the "unforeseen" costs, or in other words, the costs of ObamaCare. Not to mention, the more money these companies pay to the government, the less money they have to invest in research and development.

With this new medical device tax, students who pay large sums of money to get degrees in the field of biomedical engineering, just like doctors, will no longer see the benefits of going into the field and therefore, we will have a shortage of engineers developing new medical device technology. The medical device tax is a death sentence for American medical innovation.

OWN IT, LIBS!

Lv,

QM

To anyone claiming something prior to birth is alive and any abortion is murder, then you cannot hold that position to outlaw abortion if you also do not demand and end to death sentencing, assassination by drone, cops killing someone not in self-defense should be tried as murder.

If you cannot hold every life as sacred and be adamant about ending those other forms of murder, then you cannot be against murder of unborn humans.

Comedians always take on this unapologetic, uncompromising, take-it-or-leave-it attitude in order emit their confidence while delivering their lines. To them, showing weakness on stage means the death sentence because when the audience see your confidence dwindle, they no longer find your jokes funny.

It is a very aggressive medium. When comedians do well, they often say 'I killed it'. When they screw up, they say 'It bombed'. Everything is violent and super testosterone driven. The comedian on stage has to be in control, in domination mode, in for the kill. This is one of the reasons why there aren't that many female comics out there.

Some comedians are socially savvy enough to work in their confidence without putting down their audience too much, but for the large majority they believe in keeping the audience in check. Hence why they always would not let a heckler get away with it. It means the whole performance for them.

This only serves to aggravate me. Another taxpayer panel in which we enjoy the benefit of plausible deniability (or whatever there greased 300,00$K lawyers claim works for the current system of worked in loopholes). More so, because I know not a single one of these sons of bitches will do time or ever care--really care. They should be in jail for life. They should be in a federal prison, full security, no white collar bullshit.

They should live on a meager sum the rest of the entirety of their days with all their buildings, lands, businesses, capital, funds, CDs, IRAs, everything except their social security and even that should be looked at (as they should be allowed a low middle income and that is IT); they can gain no earmarks, no passes from their buddies or gifts (although he can live with him as long as his money is not being paid out), they cannot benefit from a will or other form of transfer ship at an appointed time or setting, and then ANYTHING I haven't covered. No politics, no books, no television, no movies, you're in the "white collar" death knell that is their true jail cell. He CAN enlist in the army, they may have a modest job, but the dream of riches are OVER. They chose the ultimate path of pressure that can be exerted on a white collar criminal.

If only we thought that crime like that could be as dangerous as a murderer (and trust me--I'm sure many of you do know already--but, if you don't white collar crimes can end up killing thousands of people, but their hands are virtually clean). Perhaps it is part of the taboo we have with mental disease, we'd rather it remain in the back-room or rather in the back of your mouth. Strangely many of these white collar criminals most likely all suffer from having almost NO empathy for others; they literally could care less what it is like to be me or you. This is a mental issue, but we never talk of such things--it's rude! But, violence has its own mental disease "shards" as well that cause it to start either young or later in life...

But, we refuse to deal with the main topic, so how about punishment(s) atleast? White collar crime is seen as something you do at your beach house in Florida on the weekend. Your lawyer tells you about it on your flight into Boston on Monday, you have three death threats sent to your e-mail, you mildly humming, "Hip To Be Square", send them to your spam folder and block the senders after you send them a death threat/repossession letter back through a company proxy, which then you use another proxy to feed the final bytes through. Your lawyer tells you you'll have to show up to an injunction and say this exact prepared statement, which of course, nicely enough they allow you to read from when they take your testimony. This is our guy. Right now he's eating a stake with a glass of Chardonnay from Italy in the early 90's--meanwhile, "Easy Lover", is booming in the background while his mistress takes a swim in his Penthouse's swimming pool. He doesn't have to get up early, so it'll be a long night--after all nobody is coming for him.

Attack them hard and they might take notice.



What a new punishment that would be for white collar criminals--a death sentence, for them.



Just institute what I said above and it may change things. Attack the problem psychologically, as jail-time is either meaningless or to them it's "Club Fed". But, this of course requires good lawmakers, which requires competent voters, which requires a great education system...

No calls, no businesses, no helping: they are burnt.

Thanks for the promote!

In reply to this comment by Skeeve:
*promote