very interesting perspectives here. not much to add.

BUT, the hardline is tough to swallow for me in only one aspect. how much investigation do they give to each case? when i was traveling, i ripped thru my backpack (i use my mountian bag, so no locks) at everyport. made my girlfriend do it too. i didnt want to be an unsuspecting mule for some drug kingpin. it would suck to be hung because you were carrying somebody elses stash. do they fingerprint the load? look for DNA? or is it a possesion = death thing?

Yea, I hardly ever get to go to public hangings anymore :(

What has our country come to?

On a more serious note, this thread really uncovers different perspectives of what people consider to be an "ideal" society. I see the benefits of less crime, public order, and a seamless, corporate kind of society.

But I'll take messy and free any day of the week thank you.

I jump between both sides of this debate. In this case he should have known what was on the line, and by deciding to take the odds he pays the price.

From the limited amount I have read they, Singapore, says that drug dealers ruin lives and kill, not disagreeing. At the same rate speeding ruins lives and kills people. Should someone be killed for speeding? I don't know, but I assume, that more people are killed due to speeding than are killed because of drugs. So by Singapores rational should someone going 5 miles an hour over be hung in days? I am just asking to see what you think, not trying to attack anyone.

Rich

So, some of you believe that killing is okay (morally, ethically acceptable) as long as it results in the consequences you prefer? Let me go at it another way: If a law is created which encourages a particular behavior, or discourages a particular behavior, then something that would otherwise be evil becomes good, if it causes the behavior that is consistent with the law? Killing is okay because it makes people behave the way they should, or the way you want?

And would you assert that this vision is mature? Civilized?

This is the part I don't get.

Sorry Supe. You assume killing a convicted criminal is a bad thing.

Once you get that stuck in your head, all killing is bad.

Living in a society means you accept society's rules meant to promote the common (society's) good. If you don't like it, there are other more permissive societies that will welcome you.

You cannot buy a house out near the airport then want to ban planes and close the airport that has been there for 20 years because the noise bothers you.

Oh, wait. In this country, you CAN do that. Well, things are screwed up here.

The analogy is meant to illustrate that the rules were here before we were. In spite of the ACLU, we should not be changing things to permit a 'free' society. I think the criminals have too much 'freedom'. I'd be willing to trade some of my freedoms to keep the criminals from infringing on my safety.

I'm not pro-death penalty at all because I think it's a deterrent, other than the fact it's a guarantee against recidivism. It certainly would not deter me, if I were the criminal sort. It's just gov't. paid vacation for 10-15 yrs. before you get a prick in the arm and go to sleep in the US. In other countries, it's pronouncement of sentence, quick ride in the back of a truck to a yard and then a bullet in the back of the head or a drop from the gallows. That's how it should be.

Tell me that scum in FL who raped and murdered Carly Brucia should get a taxpayer-supported life and then a painless execution. Call me a barbarian and I'm not at all ashamed of it. If he had done that to my little girl, I'd want to see him set on fire and kept alive to repeat the process once he recovered.

What I like about countries like Singapore is they mean business and everyone knows it. No one here means business. People here think a guilty-as-sin perp is somehow less deserving of death merely because people of other ethnicities didn't get the same punishment in the same numbers. How nuts is that? I don't care what color someone is or how many of them get executed, as long as they're guilty. I don't care if they found religion while sitting on death row for 10 yrs. I don't care if they wrote children's book. I want them dead and I'd piss on their graves.

Clearly, rules are rules. If you sell drugs in Singapore, you probably are aware that you will be executed if you get caught.

The part I don't get: So, since it is a well known rule, it is morally defensible?

Ah. That IS a good question.

Looking at the faces of the children playing in the front yards, and sleeping well there at night, knowing I was safe in my own home and on the streets anywhere in the country at any hour of the day or night..... Yes.

Morally defensible? Nah, I'd much rather explain to my kids why guilty-as-sin criminals here get off every day on bs technicalities or with Johnnie-Cochran-like lawyers. Yes, the death penalty is morally defensible and I'd never lose a wink of sleep over it. I don't think any major world religion did not have the death penalty in its early days and that seems to be the moral compass for most societies. It always makes me laugh when people say this or that is not the Christian thing to do, while ignoring death by stoning, polygamy and slavery found all over the Bible.

Yep, killing was way more common back in those days. The fact that it is less common now perhaps means the human race is becoming less mature?

It's less common now? No, it's just less common that the criminals are getting killed.

I think this question is quite appropriate for this forum:

What is the penalty for speeding in Singapore?

When you raise the top bar for criminal punishment, it usually affects the whole range of penalties. E.g. a stolen loaf of bread in some middle eastern countries = loss of hands (don't quote me on the current accuracy of this data).

In addition, in such an advanced society that Singapore aspires to, hanging sounds like a cruel and unusual method of execution - but probably designed for that exact effect. I assume their judicial system is not 100% accurate - some innocents are executed as well?

Nostatic writes:
"You cannot pick and choose parts of their policies and expect them to work here."

I don't think our presumption of innocence until proven guilty is quite the same in Singapore. If true, everyone okay with that limitation here?

Sherwood

I can't debate the death penalty, especially in this context, for a drug crime. If you are going to kill someone, no matter what your standards on the death penalty, it should only be because they killed someone else. Killing someone for having possession of something declared illegal by the political powers that be is just flat out wrong.

Those defending this execution, would you do the same if the guy had a fifth of Jack Daniels, knowing that it was illegal? Alcohol is a source of 10 times the human suffering that drugs are, but would you kill someone for possessing it? If you can say yes to that one, I question your compassion. What if tobacco was illegal? Wee know that tobacco cause untold misery, as well as billions of dollars to society. When you talk about property crimes, where can you draw a line that is not arbitrary?

No death penalty for drug possession. For murder? That’s another discussion.

They execute your car and hang one of its Fuchs on the nearest light pole.

Traffic infractions are very expensive. Crimes are treated very differently. Traffic police are in uniform, all other police are not. Judges decide most infractions, a judicial tribunal decides most all others, a capital offense is in front of a set of 5 judges.

BTW, a small basic Mercedes (very common there) is $100k. Insurance very expensive, and visible by a sticker in the window, no insurance, the car gets confiscated.

The laws there are very visible, the process is easy to navigate, and the benefits very visible. Of course, I had no ulterior motive, or criminal intent while I was there. In fact after living in Mainland China, Vietnam, Thailand, and the UAE, Singapore was a refuge from that part of the world.

Well Rodeo, here we get into the dilemma of treating/judging other countries like they think the same way Americans do. No nationality does this more than Americans. Sure, human nature is a common bond, but that's about it. It's acceptable in plenty of places to execute someone for adultery and drug running, etc. Other cultures don't wring their hands about this stuff like Americans do. I don't care if Singapore kills people for speeding. If it's their law and everyone there knows they mean business and every visiting foreigner knows it too, then slow the hell down. While I haven't been there, from what I read and know from friends who've been there, Singapore is a law and order kind of place. People know the rules and that tends to keep people in line. I don't have a problem with it. Even though I'm a right wing gun nut, I don't have a problem with other countries who have total gun bans. To each his own. I'm happy to live here, but it doesn't mean I don't have a lot of respect for the very different ways other places take out their garbage.

I have opinions about what is right and what is wrong. I think killing is wrong. Period, paragraph, end of story. But I'm not responsible for your decisions or Singapore's.

Trafficking in drugs is wrong. Executing someone for trafficking in drugs is wrong. The fact that a bazillion executions can scare an entire nation into behaving properly has no effect, at least in my mind, on the question of whether it is right or wrong. Ethical theorists have considered whether the consequences of an action do or do not determine the action's degree of "good." In my construct, the consequences of an action have little effect on my assessment of its ethicalness or lack thereof. Little is generous. None may be more accurate. Other theorists consider the intention but not the actual consequence. I actually think neither applies here, since killing seems clearly to be wrong, regardless of whether some secondary good comes of it. Sure, maybe you're hoping to discourage crime. But when you make a decision to kill someone, your intention is to kill them. And that settles the matter for me. Some things are evil, in and of themselves. I'm not a moral relativist. That's a slippery slope. Killing is either right or wrong. Not right sometimes and wrong sometimes.

God, I hate to do this, but your answer raises a huge issue:

If all countries can do whatever they like in terms of regulating their population (which I disagree with), was removing Saddam because he treated his people badly acceptable?

I think you argue pretty forcefully that removing Saddam was the right thing to do. But you feel soverign nations should whatever they want (kill people for smoking for instance), why are we spending tens of thousands of lives and billions of dollars to give Iraqis a free and democratic and open society?

Try to have a discussion without dragging Iraq into it, which will inevitibly lead to another Bush-bashing thread.