Death Penalty

[oatmeal fetish....]

I'm glad you mentioned that because it reminds me of a different analogy I thought of earlier today (changed a bit).

Suppose the mob is putting pressure on you to pay them money which you know they are using to kill people. They have a deal set up with the local and federal law enforcement which prevents you from stopping them (for the sake of argument, pretend that they have similair deals preventing you from bringing in any outside sources or law enforcements). You can protest to the leader of the mob but he doesn't listen to you. If you stop paying them, they'll take all your stuff, and possibly lock you in their mob basement for the rest of your days. Your only options are to keep trying to change the mobster's minds, or simply move out of town.

Are you in a very unfortunate situation?
Of course.

Are you still in some way responsible for the deaths of people killed partly from your money?
Sure as shit yeah.

I can already here some of you saying that the fact that you are one of many people paying taxes removes you from the responsibility. So to return to the mob situation -

Suppose in the same situation, for whatever reason, you are the sole provider of funds for the mob killing account. That is, they are taking your money and directly using it to buy poisons, gasses, and guns, with which they use to end people's lives. Again, despite the fact that your only other options are either moving or being locked in a mobster's basement, you are still responsible. Now what if they start taking your neighbor's money so that it is both of you funding them - does this make you any less responsible for the people they kill? Fuck no. What about when they do it to your neighborhood? Then your community, city, and eventually state. At what point can you draw a line and say "okay this is the amount of people where it is safe to say that as long as you have this number, none of you are responsible for your actions."

Hint: Never.

[Larry Flyntz]

Responsible in what way? I agree with you that I, as a tax payer, am responsible in the technical, Webster's sense of the word. However, I will never agree that I am in any way morally responsible.

I'll explain a bit more. You're fundamentally right, because if someone asks "Could the government kill convicts without tax money?" I would say "No." If he then asked "Do you pay taxes?" I would say "Yes." Then, he would ask "So, could the government kill convicts without people like you?" I would then say "No." In that sense, I am responsible in that if it weren't for me (and the millions of other taxpayers), executions wouldn't and couldn't happen. However, I see no connection between that sort of responsibility and moral responsibility.

[oatmeal fetish....]

So you would have no moral qualms with paying the painter who you know will paint your house but then also use your money to kill people?

[Smiff]

[tangent]Well hell's yeah. Second amendment, brother. It'd be way worse if he were to smoke weed with the money instead!

I OFTEN FELATE MY DAD QUOTE THIS POST TO ASK ME ABOUT IT or I OFTEN FELATE MY DAD QUOTE THIS POST TO ASK ME ABOUT IT?
[/tangent]

[Larry Flyntz]

So you would have no moral qualms with paying the painter who you know will paint your house but then also use your money to kill people?

The painter has a choice. I think when there is no free will, there can be no moral blame. So, I would indeed have moral qualms with the painter scenario, but as I've pointed out, that analogy doesn't fit since tax payers don't have any choice.

I see your point, though, because I didn't make myself precisely clear in my last post. There can be a connection between this sort of responsibility and moral responsibility. That cannot apply to the execution scenario, though, because of the lack of free will. In addition, I would say that voting for anti-death penalty candidates would free people of any moral responsibility. What I'm getting at is that if there is some way for you to stop it or to try to stop it, not doing so would leave you morally responsible. However, if there is nothing one can do, he cannot be morally responsible.

[FAGGOT WATCHIN TRON]

I just wanted to step in and thank Flyntz for explaining in a coherent and comprehensible way what I spent probably an hour yelling into my phone over with Ethan.  I was unable to come up with the distinction of moral responsibility, which is exactly what I was trying to explain but instead got frustrated and ended up just calling Ethan stupid when the proper wording for the concept eluded me.  So thank you Flyntz, for validating my own arguments from yesterday.  I appreciate it.

[Larry Flyntz]

It was my pleasure.