Category Archives: Politics and Society

Articles about society, people, and politics.

Politics and Society

What if it was your kid?

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Have you ever heard someone say, “what if it was your child?” in a discussion about the death penalty?

Let’s examine that sentiment…

As a parent it’s your moral duty to protect your child’s life, right?

What if your child committed a crime that would result in a death penalty, and you knew where the only witness lived? Is it now your moral duty to silence that witness permanently?

Would it, on the other hand, be moral if you killed that witness if you child only risked a long prison sentence?

Humor, Politics and Society, Science and Technology

Do you Really Understand Climate Change?

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At the doctor’s office

Doctor: We’ve found a shadow on your MRI. We can’t be sure exactly what it is before we operate, and that operation will be painful, but there is a very high risk this is a malignant tumor. You could die!

Patient: What are we waiting for! Let’s act now!

At the IPCC

Scientist: We’ve found some very disturbing links between carbon dioxide emissions and temperature rise. We recommend immediate action, even if that action will be painful. Temperature rise is bad news and there is a very high risk that several hundreds of millions of people will die if we do nothing.

Politician: Let’s wait and see what happens.

Now swap the answers!

Do you trust a politician that has not been able to do what must be done when hundreds of millions of lives are at stake, but will (if they are wired like any sane person) risk suffering to save their own life?

Header image: By pxhere.com, CC0, Link

Politics and Society

The Death Penalty: Almost as Dumb as Letting Murderers Off Without Consequence

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The death penalty is almost as dumb as letting murderers get off without a consequence.

Here’s the reasoning:

The death penalty is a 100% permanent punishment. You cannot take it back. Once a person is executed they are dead.

So, it stands to reason that if a country wants to use the death penalty the judicial process for sentencing people to death in that country should also be 100% — correct, fair and fault free.

This means 100% correct and honest witnesses and evidence. 100% honest and competent police officers, judges, lawyers, and prosecutors.

In case you were unaware; the people listed above are also human beings. They are not gods, so, they are not 100% correct 100% of the time.

So why use a 100% permanent punishment and allow people and systems that aren’t 100% fault free decide when and on who to use it?

Is the reasoning that a few innocent people sentenced to death and executed are an acceptable cost?

If you answer yes to that question, remember the murder victims were also innocent.

Why spend all this money on a justice system, trials, and retrials, lawyers and prosecutors, just to risk sacrificing some more innocent people?

Why not just drop the whole prosecute-murderers-thing and tell the victims families that some innocent people dead is an acceptable cost?

OK. That’s obviously an exaggeration. I am sure in most cases actual murderers are executed.

The problem is that nobody knows who’s innocent and who’s guilty with a faulty justice system (not 100% correct 100% of the time, you know, like, run by imperfect humans).

I think it’s common sense and decency to not dole out 100% permanent punishments in an imperfect world.