Diminished Responsibility

TommehR, you argue that it is wrong for us in the Western world to argue against other jurisdictions for using capital punishment as an appropriate punishment, as we ourselves used it for centuries. In my view, the precise fact that we used the death penalty and other arbitrary punishment methods in the past and have come through realizing that they were immoral is a good enough reason to argue against other jurisdictions who use it today.

I don't think I am going to get to entrenched in this debate but talking of 'hangings' what did people on here make of Saddam's.

However, the way in which it was carried out was pretty appalling.

I recognise that morality is a subjective issue. In my view it is immoral to place a distinction between men and women and heterosexuals and homosexuals, but another person can claim that putting women on par with men is immoral, or homosexuality is immoral, however, the basic Western principles (and I place emphasis on Western) on human rights and individuality rebut the acts carried out by all other countries.

TommehR, you argue that it is wrong for us in the Western world to argue against other jurisdictions for using capital punishment as an appropriate punishment, as we ourselves used it for centuries. In my view, the precise fact that we used the death penalty and other arbitrary punishment methods in the past and have come through realizing that they were immoral is a good enough reason to argue against other jurisdictions who use it today.

I really don't agree with capital punishment, whatever the crime... I didn't like the morbid fascination Sky News had with showing that video over and over.

1984, you are indicative of a cultural imperialist despite not saying so. Your rope argument is, no offence, one of the biggest displays of such.

Islamic countries will NEVER conform to our way of thinking. Their views on punishments haven't changed in hundreds of years, and there is nothing to suggest they are going to. INdeed, with the increased formation of radical groups, it's possible that they could even get worse to take but one example.

Comments like "we are merely ahead of them" make sense for countries such as Singapore which is a modern democracy (although I hesitate to call it a liberal democracy, for a few reasons), but simply does not work for every country in the world. Sorry man, but what you just said is exactly what I would expect from the typical HR student in the UK, with the ECHR caselaw integrated into your mind.

I am by no means supporting some of the stuff done in these countries, ie apostasy punishments, but I do object to your narrow minded "world-wide moral rope".

We in the West, when talking about the economy, label ourselves first-would countries or economically developed, and assert that China, Iran and Ethiophia (for example)as economically undeveloped. Why don't we use the same terminology to deal with the issue of the law, human rights and morals? So for example, we can call France a morally developed country and China (for example) a morally (or legally) undeveloped country.

However, I must stress that when I mean morally undeveloped, I do not mean immoral.

Obviously, economics and morality/legal system are not the same thing, but perhaps this is an issue which we can discuss.

When considering the economy, we don't say "Well you cannot call Iran a economically undeveloped state because they do things different there". We hold the entire world to a Western (capitalist) built standards, so why not hold the entire world accountable to one human rights based morality standard?

Because economics can be (relatively) easily quantified.