www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-32491980
What they did was wrong. And serious.
I am sure that they knew exactly what they were doing and what the penalties could be if caught. Equally I am sure that their lives were not blameless before this.
I am sure that their remorse comes from being caught, not for what they actually did.
But the death penalty is still a big and terrible thing to do to individuals and their families.
Last edited by: VxFan on Sat 2 May 15 at 17:53
|
Moralistic as usual FMR...
What they did was a bit wrong (although basically they were serving an existing market) and distinctly over-ambitious. They stood to make a lot of money if they got away with it. That alone probably ensured that the local authorities and indeed original suppliers would have kept a jealous eye on the stuff with a view to grabbing it back.
Foolhardy to try something like that in a backward primitive country where it is thought appropriate to impose the death penalty for mere drug smuggling.
|
Can't get very excited about it. They knew that what they did was a crime and they knew what the penalty was.
Despite knowing what the consequences would be, they decided to break the law.
Now, whether we think that it was only "a bit wrong", or that the punishment is excessive, the authorities in Indonesia have decided that the punishment for that crime is the death penalty.
So be it.
|
>> Can't get very excited about it.
No, it's not exciting. It's banal and commonplace. Ten kilos would be worth a pretty penny (especially after heavyweight cutting and adulteration) in one of the voracious heroin markets that exist in the rich countries.
The US is much the biggest of these, and is also the country that bullies everyone (Indonesia included) to suppress the traffic, which must be gigantic worldwide if you think about it, by instituting the prohibition which worked so brilliantly well with alcohol when the US tried to prohibit that...
I believe there are a couple of countries where there is a death penalty for possession of cannabis. How ludicrous can you get?
I don't like opiates personally. They aren't good for the body or the personality. But I despise politicians who witter on about 'drugs' while taking what are really bribes from the booze and tobacco industries. Adults should be free to poison themselves in any way they fancy.
|
Mere drug smuggling? We're not talking your bohemian puff of weed here AC.
They were supplying heroin, the cause of misery to thousands. And knowing the penalty for getting caught. No sympathy for them; only for their families who have to suffer. The only pity is that the drug overlords don't suffer the same fate.
|
>> Mere drug smuggling? We're not talking your bohemian puff of weed here AC.
>> They were supplying heroin, the cause of misery to thousands.
Yet you can drive a tanker-load of Carlsberg Export into Dover and be paid for it, despite almost certainly causing greater misery due to alcohol abuse.
I find it astonishing that any government feels that it's acceptable to limit what people do to themselves in private while fully aware that by banning it they effectively force higher crime through dealing and petty theft to cover the costs.
Sorry for the terribly liberal viewpoint there.
|
>> Sorry for the terribly liberal viewpoint there.
Heh heh... they'll be calling you bohemian if you aren't careful FF.
Ah. I see the time has come for a small early jar.
|
>> Sorry for the terribly liberal viewpoint there.
>>
Is it? I assumed it was a far right extreme Tory view - market forces, let people do what they like but pay for it, minimal government interference and regulation?
That's why I've always been cautious about expressing the view. Or do left and right meet round the back somewhere?
|
>> heroin, the cause of misery to thousands.
Er... if they weren't goddam miserable in the first place they wouldn't really take to opiates, which suppress misery in a way that simulates 'pleasure'.
Trouble is, they cause new misery in their turn in most cases, in fairly short order. There are stable and healthy long-term H users, but they are rare. Without pure NHS stuff they have become much much rarer.
But get it right Hogman! Faffing idiotically and dangerously about drugs seems to be a national hobby. I blame the media here and elsewhere.
|
>>Moralistic as usual FMR...
Hitting the bottle at lunchtime as usual AC?
I was not making a moral point. I was merely quite struck with how significant thing the death penalty is. Not their guilt or otherwise, not sympathy, not any judgement, simply that for some reason the stories I read this morning really brought home what a powerful thing it is to deprive someone of their life and a family of a loved one.
Perhaps even more so since drug [or any other type for that matter] smuggling is not a crime which offends me.
|
>> Hitting the bottle at lunchtime as usual AC?
I never do that.
Sorry if I've misjudged you though. I must have been misled by your opener: 'What he did was wrong.'
I know (and by now you should know I know) that you are humane and thoughtful FMR. And it's reassuring to hear that you are soft on smuggling.
I looked up death penalties on Google. There doesn't seem to be a method that isn't cruel and/or painful.
|
>>it's reassuring to hear that you are soft on smuggling.
Not quite what I meant, although perhaps not a substantial difference.
I think taking someone's life, even with justification, is a big thing and not to be done without significant thought.
However, if the person was executed for, say, child rape, then whatever my thoughts on his "punishment" are, they are outweighed by emotionally how much I am offended by what he did.
Whilst a smuggler does not emotionally offend me, I still think its against the law and you deserve what you get - I am sure the smuggler would not have shared his profits with me, so if its all the same I'd rather not share in his anguish either.
However, given that his offence was smuggling, which is fundamentally an administrative crime driven by a country's desire to protect its taxation revenues, then *death* seems a bit too fundamental.
Smuggling is not the same as selling drugs to kids, albeit part of the same supply chain.
If I wanted a war on drugs, I would not penalise the growers, transporters or shareholders, I'd simply nail the salesmen to the wall.
If we are to kill people in the name of the law, we should ensure that we know why we are doing it, that it is proportionate, and that it has the desired result.
If one looks at the growth of [drug] crime in Indonesia, I think I can be pretty sure that this particular judgement fails all three tests.
|
>> But the death penalty is still a big and terrible thing to do to individuals
>> and their families.
The fact a country has a death penalty means that in many ways it is uncivilised. Its always a wise idea to take care in what you do in an uncivilised country.
|
|
Precisely, Z. The moralising US of A might like to - but won't - take note.
|
It's the public/taxpayers who ultimately pick up the bill for "people poisoning themselves how they wish".
Drug buying money related crimes.- many thousands.
Crowded prisons.
Homelessness.
Hospital & rehab bills.
...and some I have not thought of.
Drugs ARE bad - no argument. End of.
|
>> Hospital & rehab bills.
>> Drugs ARE bad - no argument. End of.
Smoking is worse. Farage wants to legitimise it again.
Last edited by: Zero on Tue 28 Apr 15 at 17:42
|
>> Drugs ARE bad -
No Rastaman. Drugs are just neutral substances, many with legitimate medical uses. Some people are bad, true, and many more are foolish and ignorant.
>> no argument. End of.
Oh for God's sake. What a silly arrogant expression.
|
>> Oh for God's sake. What a silly arrogant expression.
>>
>>
I must have learnt arrogance from a few of you folks here :-)
|
Prohibition really works, doesn't it?
|
Executions completed for eight, Mary Jane Veloso was reprieved.
Wonder how much publicity there would have been had two not been Australians.
|
>> Wonder how much publicity there would have been had two not been Australians.
>>
Probably very little, there's still a connection even though they are an independant country. I wonder how much publicity the French chap got in his home country?
|
>> >> Wonder how much publicity there would have been had two not been Australians.
>> >>
>>
>> Probably very little,
I would go one step further - None.
|
|
Maybe a bit more if they had Anglo-Saxon names?
|
>>Prohibition really works
Silly, isn't it, how slow the world is to learn.
If people's primary interest is to lower drug related crime, then dramatically lowering the cost would be a good place to start - and legalising, or at least ignoring, would certainly do that.
Mind you, much as I think for the world at large the whole war on drugs is daft, I would make supplying drugs to minors a capital offence.
|
>> I would make supplying drugs to minors a capital offence.
I don't disagree with the sentiment.
Unfortunately capital cases become political and politicians will not reprieve someone who might be guilty, but worthy of another chance or a life sentence due to mitigating circumstances because it makes political capital not to do so.
The people executed today were executed for political purposes as much as for the crimes that they committed and that is wrong.
|
>> I would make supplying drugs to minors a capital offence.
>> But the death penalty is still a big and terrible thing to do to individuals and their families.
Either you agree with capital punishment or you don't.
I think I do, but not for trivial offences like drug dealing. Just for the very worst crimes against the person. Don't ask for a list because I don't want to think about it.
|
>>Either you agree with capital punishment or you don't.
I do not, not in any way at all, agree or support capital punishment. My issue is with the word "punishment".
However, I mostly support the philosophy that certain people simply need to be removed from the gene puddle. And "capital offence" covers that.
Executing someone is not punishment. How does killing someone punish them for torturing some innocent person to death? If you want to *punish* them, then keep them alive and torture them (which I would not support).
If the death sentence has a value, it is in the removal of someone from our society who is not only without worth, but is also a detriment to that society and the alternative is paying substantially of the expense of keeping them alive and non-productive in it.
I failed to explain this once before, mostly because I got over excited. But it is not capital *punishment*; It is execution, or removal, because we don't want them in society.
I am not sure that I would support it, but at least I can see that there is an argument in favour of removal, I cannot see any argument in favour of capital *punishment*.
And my doubt about supporting it would be that I don't believe we are capable of running such a process objectively.
Last edited by: No FM2R on Wed 29 Apr 15 at 00:53
|
Quite right FMR, it isn't punishment, it's housework, getting rid of filth.
Nothing is 100 per cent effective or 'just'. But we're used to the fact that mistakes sometimes happen. It only becomes sinister when they happen more and more often.
|
>>Quite right FMR, it isn't punishment, it's housework, getting rid of filth.
Well I'm not sure I'd use those words, but yes, you're right.
>>we're used to the fact that mistakes sometimes happen
As Westpig says, and I agree, we are human and mistakes will be happen. One must balance number of guilty people free with number of innocent people dealt with and decide if you can live with that comparison - but it'll never be zero.
|
|
I wouldn't execute him. He's far too entertaining.
|
>> Who?
>>
Dunky darling. Read the post above mine eh!
|
Clearly this whole sorry saga has been all over the news here in Australia for several months.
I'll declare my position, I think that the death penalty is wrong, immoral and unnecessary, it has no place in the 21st century as Ban Ki-moon said in his UN statement condemning Indonesia on the matter.
Proponents of the death penalty generally accept the 'for the most serious crimes' caveat and drug trafficking is not generally considered to be in this category. There are many murderers in Indonesia who don't get the death penalty, but these poor souls were killed for (imho) a much lesser offence. I don't buy the 'what of the misery of drug addiction' argument because whilst the traffickers are guilty, the addicts bear responsibility for their own actions too, they are not entirely blameless. However callous their crime, these weren't Moors or Soham murderers.
Most would argue that an objective of a penal system is rehabilitation, it seems generally accepted that the two Australians were considered to have been rehabilitated even by people in the Indonesian justice system. It is easy to level the accusation that they weren't really reformed and it was all for show, but 10 years in an Indonesian jail with only a slim hope of reprieve would suggest otherwise to me. What this idiocy does is to tell other people in similar circumstances that there is no hope of mercy so why not behave as badly as you can, you have nothing to lose ? Those 10 years and their rehabilitation would have seen them released in most countries - even those with the death penalty.
So why was this done ? I would suggest it was for the ego / popularity of a weak president, this is particularly disgusting. The Indonesian Ambassador had the audacity to offer sympathies to the families of the executed today, this is a sick, sick circus. One of those killed was mentally ill, I count him fortunate if (as is reported) he didn't comprehend what was happening to him until the last minute.
There is anger in Australia at the moment but people's memories are short and I'd suggest that Australia is fairly impotent. Indonesia is an important trading partner, a source of unwanted asylum seekers and a breeding ground for terrorist threats, I suspect that the Indonesian president relied on this for his strong-man show.
A UK woman is possibly in the next wave of show-killings, approaching 60 and not too photogenic, very probably guilty too. With 72 hours notice they'll take her out on a dark night, strap her to a pole in the jungle, 13 policemen will aim at her heart and she'll be despatched. The alleged masterminds (and those who stood to profit) from her escapade got 1-6 year sentences, even the prosecution recommended leniency and a 15 year term for her. The UK will be impotent to stop this show-execution too.
|
|
Its not rocket science, when in Rome abide by Roman rules. You can do all the liberal hand wringing you like, it is their country, their rules apply.
Last edited by: Old Navy on Fri 1 May 15 at 13:36
|
Well I suppose that's true but only up to a limit. Presumably you would not condone the right to commit genocide as long as you stick within the countries borders for example, or perhaps you would.
By all accounts the executions went ahead in order to bolster the popularity of the president whose popularity has begun to flag in recent years Executions of criminals have always been popular with the proletariat throughout the world.
Doesn't seem a particularly creditable action. Not sure why you think no one is allowed to condemn it. Sure the condemned were fools but if we executed all the fools in the world there wouldn't be many people left.
|
>> Well I suppose that's true but only up to a limit.
My point is that when on their patch you must accept their rules. No politicians have clean hands, ours are not beyond corruption and using policy to buy votes.
|
|
I prefer to see it as the executions went ahead because the perps broke the law and that is the deemed punishment in that country for that transgression. It might well have had a beneficial side effect to the President, it also might well not suit our palate but "they've committed the crime now do the time" seems apt. Why should we expect everyone live by our standards, even though we may consider theirs barbaric? Who's to say we are right?
|
>> Why
>> should we expect everyone live by our standards, even though we may consider theirs barbaric?
>> Who's to say we are right?
When the death of drug dealers is at the whim a presidential election campaign I would say we are definitely right. I do accept however that everyone knows they are barbaric, and barbaric stuff will happen to you if you don't keep your nose clean, so you have to be a particularly DF to end up getting executed.
Last edited by: Zero on Fri 1 May 15 at 15:44
|
There's three different points, really;
1) does that country often execute people involved in the drug trade?
2) Is the law enacted fairly? i.e. is any discretion in the process exercised for personal ambition
3) Is it appropriate to execute people [involved in the drug trade].
It gets very difficult if one mixes the three together.
For me;
1) Caca duro. You wouldn't have shared your profits, so don't whine about having the punishment all to yourself. That country is executing you as it said it would, in accordance with its legal rights, even if not morally appropriate.
2) No, probably not, but that's how it is. You shouldn't have left yourself exposed to such vagaries and the country has got far bigger problems to get through before it gets to that one.
3) I think it isn't. And this is part of the wider argument about whether or not capital sentences should exist.
Last edited by: No FM2R on Fri 1 May 15 at 19:39
|
|
Whatever the rights and wrongs of this case, you can have no say in what laws another country has or in how it enacts them. Much as I feel these guys were treated far too harshly for what they did they knew the score when they set out. If you can't take a joke then don't join.
|
>> If you can't take a joke then don't join.
Yes, I suppose murder for no good reason is a bit of a joke.
Not exactly hilarious though. Takes a robust sensibility to see it like that.
|
>> >> If you can't take a joke then don't join.
>>
>>Takes a robust sensibility to see it like that.
>>
The military and emergency services have a different outlook on life than Joe public, they see the bad stuff first hand.
Last edited by: Old Navy on Sat 2 May 15 at 09:12
|
>>
>> The military and emergency services have a different outlook on life than Joe public, they
>> see the bad stuff first hand.
>>
There is an inbuilt bias in their view point. Military personnel are by definition drawn from those who tend to see violence as the solution.
|
snipquote!!!!!!
>> There is an inbuilt bias in their view point. Military personnel are by definition drawn
>> from those who tend to see violence as the solution.
>>
Or a solution?
Last edited by: VxFan on Sat 2 May 15 at 21:04
|
>> >>
>> >> There is an inbuilt bias in their view point. Military personnel are by definition
>> drawn from those who tend to see violence as the solution.
As opposed to politicians who think negotiation is better than war and solves problems ?
Ie. like Tony Blair and Iraq: total and utter abject failure compounded by lying about WMD...and helping breed ISIS.
or David Cameron : bombing Libya to bring down Gadaffi and build a democracy..Another abject failure..
|
I didn't say that only military people see violence as a solution did I?
I would be surprised if there are many pacifists in the army.
|
>> Ie. like Tony Blair and Iraq:
>> or David Cameron : bombing Libya
Who in their right mind would be a politician? Paid or elected to take responsibility for difficult decisions dictated by advisers and civil servants, and to take the resulting flak from the moronic ignorant populace.
No wonder Cameron looks pink and sweaty and Blair has become Nosferatu the vampire.
(I thought I had posted something along these lines earlier, but it vanished immediately. Is someone on the site being a prat? I do hope not).
|
>> There is an inbuilt bias in their view point. Military personnel are by definition drawn
>> from those who tend to see violence as the solution.
>>
I would say they tend to have a robust attitude rather than a wimpish hand wringing one.
Last edited by: Old Navy on Sat 2 May 15 at 20:45
|
|
It is of course a well known fact that countries rulled by their military are much the nicest places in the world to live. Nothing like living in a robustly governed country where all those wimpish hand wringers are all safely locked up or have mysteriously disappeared.
Last edited by: VxFan on Sat 2 May 15 at 21:05
|
>> It is of course a well known fact that countries rulled by their military are
>> much the nicest places in the world to live. Nothing like living in a robustly
>> governed country where all those wimpish hand wringers are all safely locked up or have
>> mysteriously disappeared.
>>
That's the spirit CGN, they have none of those commie pinko liberals to worry about.
:0
|
|
That only tends to happen when the politicians and their buddies think they are above the law.
|
Ah yes. It is a well known fact that military regimes are always keen to restore democracy at the soonest opportunity.
The military mind is best kept away from any decision making process. One of the great achievements of the British constitution is that the military are nowhere near the reins of power.
|
>> The military mind is best kept away from any decision making process.
An interesting idea, does that mean you think them unable to make decisions in general or unable to make decision to suit you or to best suit the country in general?
One of the great achievements of the British constitution is that the military are nowhere near the reins of power.
Do you find that to be a risk that needs to be mitigated against, say in the last two hundred years?
|
|
The people who have control of the nuclear deterrent at the coal face can make difficult decisions when appropriate.
|
>>The fact a country has a death penalty means that in many ways it is uncivilised. Its always a wise idea to take care in what you do in an uncivilised country.
Do you include nearby Singapore and Malaysia as uncivilised, Zero?
|
If you defined civilised as having an independant judiciary and a true democracy both countries would fail the test.
No civilised country kills its citizens.
|
|
I believe this definition applies to the U.S.A.
|
>> I believe this definition applies to the U.S.A.
Indeed, a country that has sold its constitution so people can obtain lethal weapons with which to kill their schoolchildren is civilised?
|
>> Do you include nearby Singapore and Malaysia as uncivilised, Zero?
In many ways, yes. Not sure we can suggest a country that frames and imprisons a political opposition leader on trumped up charges of homosexuality as civilised?
|
Drug offfenders to be executed today. - Armel Coussine
