Gdanning
1yr ago
The wording (doubtless there are many) I recall is, "a system of gender roles which is harmful to men and women" or some such.
I think you are misremembering. According to the Women's UN Report Network, "Patriarchal (adj.) describes a general structure in which men have power over women. Society (n.) is the entirety of relations of a community. A patriarchal society consists of a male-dominated power structure throughout organized society and in individual relationships." Similarly, Geek Feminism Wiki says, "Patriarchy is a term used in feminism to describe the system of gender-based hierarchy in society which assigns most power to men, and assigns higher value to men, maleness, and 'masculine traits'."
Hence, feminism does not include harm as part of the definition. It defines patriarchy as a particular system of social relations, but describes it as harmful to men and women.
Gdanning
1yr ago
As those who think about this stuff for a living have said repeatedly (826 times, per Google Scholar), "death is different":
In 1983, 11 years after Furman had been decided, JUSTICE O'CONNOR observed in a majority opinion that the "Court, as well as the separate opinions of a majority of the individual Justices, has recognized that the qualitative difference of death from all other punishments requires a correspondingly greater degree of scrutiny of the capital sentencing determination." California v. Ramos, 463 U. S. 992, 998-999; see id., at 999, n. 9 (citing cases). See also, e. g., Ford v. Wainwright, 477 U. S. 399, 411 (1986) (MARSHALL, J., plurality opinion) ("In capital proceedings generally, this Court has demanded that factfinding procedures aspire to a heightened standard of reliability. . . . This especial concern is a natural consequence of the knowledge that execution is the most irremediable and unfathomable of penalties; that death is different"); Ake v. Oklahoma, 470 U. S. 68, 87 (1985) (Burger, C. J., concurring in judgment) ("In capital cases the finality of the sentence imposed warrants protections that may or may not be required in other cases"); Gardner v. Florida, 430 U. S. 349, 357-358 (1977) (STEVENS, J., plurality opinion) ("From the point of view of the defendant, it is different in both its severity and its finality. From the point of view of society, the action of the sovereign in taking the life of one of its citizens also differs dramatically from any other legitimate state action. It is of vital importance to the defendant and to the community that any decision to impose the death sentence be, and appear to be, based on reason rather than caprice or emotion").
Murray v. Giarratano, 492 US 1, 21 (1989)
It is for that reason that juries determining whether to impose the death penalty are told that they can consider "lingering doubt" or "residual doubt" as to the defendant's guilt, which is usually "'defined as that state of mind between beyond a reasonable doubt and beyond all possible doubt.'" People v. Brooks, 2 Cal. 5th 674, 776 (2017). So, yes, it is literally a demand for additional rigor.
? Juries are literally fact finders, and their verdicts can be overturned if there is insufficient evidence to support them.
In contrast, the issues you mention -- is it excusable, etc, are generally issues of law, which the jury is not charged with deciding, and in particular, a prosecutor who asks the jury to determine the "kind of person" the defendant is is asking for a mistrial. "It is impermissible for the state to attack the character of the defendant unless he first injects the issue by offering evidence of his good character." State v. Miner, 703 SW 2d 73, 75 (Mo Ct of Appeals 1985).
So, whether criminal law is a "method of knowing" is debatable (it is a system of justice, not merely a system of truth determination, and hence it intentionally ignores some relevant evidence), but your statements about what happens at trial are incorrect.
Gdanning
1yr ago
There are certainly horrific crimes out there, and horrific people. But, the reality is that the categories of death-eligible crimes has expanded far beyond the scope of such extreme crimes. For example, here are all of the special circumstances that can result in the death penalty in CA: :
(1) The murder was intentional and carried out for financial gain.
(2) The defendant was convicted previously of murder in the first or second degree. For the purpose of this paragraph, an offense committed in another jurisdiction, which if committed in California would be punishable as first or second degree murder, shall be deemed murder in the first or second degree.
(3) The defendant, in this proceeding, has been convicted of more than one offense of murder in the first or second degree.
(4) The murder was committed by means of a destructive device, bomb, or explosive planted, hidden, or concealed in any place, area, dwelling, building, or structure, and the defendant knew, or reasonably should have known, that his or her act or acts would create a great risk of death to one or more human beings.
(5) The murder was committed for the purpose of avoiding or preventing a lawful arrest, or perfecting or attempting to perfect, an escape from lawful custody.
(6) The murder was committed by means of a destructive device, bomb, or explosive that the defendant mailed or delivered, attempted to mail or deliver, or caused to be mailed or delivered, and the defendant knew, or reasonably should have known, that his or her act or acts would create a great risk of death to one or more human beings.
(7) The victim was a peace officer, as defined in Section 830.1, 830.2, 830.3, 830.31, 830.32, 830.33, 830.34, 830.35, 830.36, 830.37, 830.4, 830.5, 830.6, 830.10, 830.11, or 830.12, who, while engaged in the course of the performance of his or her duties, was intentionally killed, and the defendant knew, or reasonably should have known, that the victim was a peace officer engaged in the performance of his or her duties; or the victim was a peace officer, as defined in the above-enumerated sections, or a former peace officer under any of those sections, and was intentionally killed in retaliation for the performance of his or her official duties.
(8) The victim was a federal law enforcement officer or agent who, while engaged in the course of the performance of his or her duties, was intentionally killed, and the defendant knew, or reasonably should have known, that the victim was a federal law enforcement officer or agent engaged in the performance of his or her duties; or the victim was a federal law enforcement officer or agent, and was intentionally killed in retaliation for the performance of his or her official duties.
(9) The victim was a firefighter, as defined in Section 245.1, who, while engaged in the course of the performance of his or her duties, was intentionally killed, and the defendant knew, or reasonably should have known, that the victim was a firefighter engaged in the performance of his or her duties.
(10) The victim was a witness to a crime who was intentionally killed for the purpose of preventing his or her testimony in any criminal or juvenile proceeding, and the killing was not committed during the commission or attempted commission, of the crime to which he or she was a witness; or the victim was a witness to a crime and was intentionally killed in retaliation for his or her testimony in any criminal or juvenile proceeding. As used in this paragraph, “juvenile proceeding” means a proceeding brought pursuant to Section 602 or 707 of the Welfare and Institutions Code.
(11) The victim was a prosecutor or assistant prosecutor or a former prosecutor or assistant prosecutor of any local or state prosecutor’s office in this or any other state, or of a federal prosecutor’s office, and the murder was intentionally carried out in retaliation for, or to prevent the performance of, the victim’s official duties.
(12) The victim was a judge or former judge of any court of record in the local, state, or federal system in this or any other state, and the murder was intentionally carried out in retaliation for, or to prevent the performance of, the victim’s official duties.
(13) The victim was an elected or appointed official or former official of the federal government, or of any local or state government of this or any other state, and the killing was intentionally carried out in retaliation for, or to prevent the performance of, the victim’s official duties.
(14) The murder was especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel, manifesting exceptional depravity. As used in this section, the phrase “especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel, manifesting exceptional depravity” means a conscienceless or pitiless crime that is unnecessarily torturous to the victim.
(15) The defendant intentionally killed the victim by means of lying in wait.
(16) The victim was intentionally killed because of his or her race, color, religion, nationality, or country of origin.
(17) The murder was committed while the defendant was engaged in, or was an accomplice in, the commission of, attempted commission of, or the immediate flight after committing, or attempting to commit, the following felonies:
(A) Robbery in violation of Section 211 or 212.5.
(B) Kidnapping in violation of Section 207, 209, or 209.5.
(C) Rape in violation of Section 261.
(D) Sodomy in violation of Section 286.
(E) The performance of a lewd or lascivious act upon the person of a child under the age of 14 years in violation of Section 288.
(F) Oral copulation in violation of Section 287 or former Section 288a.
(G) Burglary in the first or second degree in violation of Section 460.
(H) Arson in violation of subdivision (b) of Section 451.
(I) Train wrecking in violation of Section 219.
(J) Mayhem in violation of Section 203.
(K) Rape by instrument in violation of Section 289.
(L) Carjacking, as defined in Section 215.
(M) To prove the special circumstances of kidnapping in subparagraph (B), or arson in subparagraph (H), if there is specific intent to kill, it is only required that there be proof of the elements of those felonies. If so established, those two special circumstances are proven even if the felony of kidnapping or arson is committed primarily or solely for the purpose of facilitating the murder.
(18) The murder was intentional and involved the infliction of torture.
(19) The defendant intentionally killed the victim by the administration of poison.
(20) The victim was a juror in any court of record in the local, state, or federal system in this or any other state, and the murder was intentionally carried out in retaliation for, or to prevent the performance of, the victim’s official duties.
(21) The murder was intentional and perpetrated by means of discharging a firearm from a motor vehicle, intentionally at another person or persons outside the vehicle with the intent to inflict death. For purposes of this paragraph, “motor vehicle” means any vehicle as defined in Section 415 of the Vehicle Code.
(22) The defendant intentionally killed the victim while the defendant was an active participant in a criminal street gang, as defined in subdivision (f) of Section 186.22, and the murder was carried out to further the activities of the criminal street gang.
Gdanning
1yr ago
It is odd that you fall back on blaming "lawyers and bureaucrats" when it is juries that decide whether to impose the death penalty.
Gdanning
1yr ago
But capitalism IS a particular organization of relationships of labor and capital. Marx did not invent the concept of capitalism; his contribution, for better or worse, was a particular critique of capitalism, as well as claims re its historical relationship to other forms of economic organization.
Similarly, feminism did not create the concept of patriarchal societies. There are plenty of societies which "assign[] most power to men, and assign[] higher value to men, maleness, and 'masculine traits'." And it is transparently obvious that norms about what roles in society are proper for men and women have changed in the US over the decades -- how many female doctors and male nurses were there in the US in 1950 -- so that one does not have to be a feminist to believe that the US was more patriarchal in 1950 than today. So, clearly, the concept of patriarchy is not unique to feminism.
Gdanning
1yr ago
That is incorrect, in regard to the death penalty.
Gdanning
1yr ago
To be specific, I am referring to the feminist understanding of the relationship of the sexes as being one of where men oppress women.
Well, again, I see that as descriptive, rather than definitional. The basic argument of feminism is that the cultures and structures which have been traditionally been seen as normal are actually oppressive.
Women have never been oppressed en masse as described in feminist patriarchy theory. Men and women simply valued different things in the past and had different roles - maleness was highly valued in male roles, and femaleness was highly valued in female roles, one was not necessarily better than the other. ... There is very little attempt to address the past on its own terms, that there might be practical and understandable, if not good, reasons for the way the things operated in the past.
But, again, these are normative arguments, not definitional. You and feminists seem to agree on what gender norms and structures existed in the past, but you disagree re whether they were oppressive
Gdanning
1yr ago
The point is not whether any particular crime warrants the death penalty. The issue is whether the OP is correct that the death penalty is reserved for particularly horrific crimes. I don't know that poisoning is per se particularly horrific. Nor is shooting someone from a car more horrific than doing so on foot. Nor does the fact that I am motivated by gang affiliation render my murder more horrific than the same act which is motivated by jealously.
Of course, there might well be sound public policy for making those crimes death-eligible, but as I said, the question is not whether any one of those crimes merits the death penalty on any basis, but rather whether, in fact, the death penalty is reserved for particularly heinous crimes.
Gdanning
1yr ago
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Yes, poisoning someone is more horrific than picking their pocket. But, we are talking about types of murder. No one is arguing that poisoners should not be punished more harshly than pickpockets.
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Yes, driveby shootings probably have more serious effects than most other murders. But I already said that "there might well be sound public policy for making those crimes death-eligible."
Gdanning
1yr ago
Dude, I never once said that the scope was particularly large in an absolute sense. I merely noted that the scope was larger than what the OP claimed it was.
Gdanning
1yr ago
I did not remotely say that CA is too quick or too indiscriminate in applying the death penalty. I don't know why people insist on thinking everything is a normative claim. I merely described the categories of crimes that are death eligible."
Nor do I think that OP was meant "rare" when they said " The death penalty exists because horrific crimes exist where any lesser punishment is obviously insufficient." It was I who used the term "extreme," as a perhaps poorly chosen synonym for "horrific."
Nor did I say that people who commit those crimes are routinely sentenced to death. But the fact remains that we don’t really know what pct of those sentenced to death in the US committed crimes that were "horrific" in the sense used by OP, nor in the sense used by those who make similar claims (which are quite common).
Gdanning
1yr ago
Again, I believe that the claim is that patriarchal structures are inherently oppressive, not that oppression is part of the definition. That was the core contribution of feminism: "Hey, you know this structure you social scientists have been talking about forever. Here is something you have not realized before: It is terribly flawed."
Gdanning
1yr ago
No, that is simply not why I said it. Killing a witness is obviously a serious crime, as is killing a judge, as are gang crimes, as is everything else on that list. And, please see, eg, my later comment in which I note that there are other, public policy based, reasons for imposing the death penalty, other than how horrific it is.
Gdanning
1yr ago
Gdanning
1yr ago
This would be awfully risky, especially for the "studio". Neither courts nor juries are quite that stupid.
Gdanning
1yr ago
Oh, I think that horrific usually is used in the gruesome-adjacent sense when used in thecontext of discussions of capital punishment. That is what I took the OP to mean. Had I taken them to be employing the meaning you are asserting here, I would not have commented.
Gdanning
1yr ago
That paper did not predict an outbreak in May. It is a wargame that seems to have chosen its start date arbitrarily, as is the norm for these sorts of things. And, note that under the scenario discussed, the initial outbreak is in June of 2022, not May. Note also that the monkeypox variant in the scenario is airborne, since the paper states that measures like social distancing and mask mandates were effective at reducing transmission.
Gdanning
1yr ago
I think you need to clarify your question. You begin by asking what "ought" to be subject to democratic control, but then re Islam you seem to be talking instead about what is capable of being subject to democratic control. Those are different questions.
Gdanning
1yr ago
I, too, have read that street dealers make minimum wage or less (don't know if that factors in taxes). But whether it is a rational economic decision depends on whether there are opportunities for legitimate work available. The unemployment rate for African Americans 16-19, for example, is substantially higher than that of the country as a whole, and of course that only includes those in the labor force; discouraged workers are additional.
Gdanning
1yr ago
Am I crazy for thinking her first paragraph is negated by the second?
Crazy? No. But it is entirely possible to "serve the needs of all District 3 residents" while "working towards justice" for specific groups. For example, it is certainly possible that some groups have been the victims of injustice, and hence have a need for greater justice, and some groups have not. So, no, the two statements are not logically inconsistent. [NOTE: If history is any guide, there will be people who might be tempted to comment re whether the groups listed by the candidate, as well as those omitted, are or are not the victims of injustice. Please don't, because I am not expressing an opinion on that. I am merely pointing out that the OP errs when he says that the two statements are necessarily inconsistent].
I see white people irl supporting her. I don't understand their motivations.
Well, first, they don't read it the same way you do. Second, and more importantly, why did I vote for a property tax increase to fund new athletic facilities at local schools? I don't use them, and don't have kids in school. Why did white people support the Civil Rights Movement? Whites were not the victims of Jim Crow. Why would I support a candidate who pledges to never waterboard suspected terrorists, over one who explicitly pledges to do the opposite, but cut my taxes? I am very, very, very unlikely ever to be taken for a terrorist, but I certainly pay taxes every year.
The fact is, principles do matter to people. Not to every person, certainly, and they do not always trump other interests, but they do matter. So, no, contrary to what others have said, it is not all signaling.
I suggest taking a look at the section at the beginning of this paper on value rationality and what motivates suicide bombers and the like. A key quote:
Recovering a duality first proposed by Max Weber, I suggest that ethnic or national conflict is best conceptualized as a combination of “value rationality” and “instrumental rationality.” Both of these rationalities are expressions of goal-directed behavior, but their conceptions of costs widely diverge. Instrumental rationality entails a strict cost-benefit calculus with respect to goals, necessitating the abandonment or adjustment of goals if the costs of realizing them are too high. Value-rational behavior is produced by a conscious “ethical, aesthetic, religious or other” belief, “independently of its prospects of success.”6 Behavior, when driven by such values, can consciously embrace great personal sacrifices. Some spheres or goals of life are considered so valuable that they would not normally be up for sale or compromise, however costly the pursuit of their realization might be.
Gdanning
1yr ago
Let's not overstate what a jury verdict means. The jury was instructed that "The burden is on the state to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant did not act lawfully in self defense. And, you must be satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt from all the evidence in the case that the circumstances of the defendant's conduct showed utter disregard for human life."
It is standard that the state has the burden of proving that a defendant did NOT act in self-defense. So, any acquittal on self-defense grounds says little about what the jury thought of the defendant, and certainly is not an indication that they decided that he was the "real victim" nor that the decedent was the "real bad guy." And, it is certainly possible for both sides to be acting in reasonable self-defense; had Rittenhouse been killed by one of those whom he shot, his killer probably also would have been acquitted. But that would not mean that the jury decided that that killer was the "real victim" and that Rittenhouse was in the wrong.
Gdanning
1yr ago
Because 1) The exact roles of everyone involved was in dispute; and 2) the situation was chaotic in general; and 3) here is the instruction given to the jury on the issue of self defense by an initial aggressor:
You should also consider whether the defendant provoked the attack. A person who engages in unlawful conduct of a type likely to provoke others to attack, and who does provoke an attack, is not allowed to use or threaten force in self-defense against that attack. However, if the attack which follows causes the person reasonably to believe that he is in imminent danger of death or great bodily harm, he may lawfully act in self-defense. But the person may not use or threaten force intended or likely to cause death unless he reasonably believes he has exhausted every other reasonable means to escape from or otherwise avoid death or great bodily harm.
Notice that "starting the altercation" is not enough; the person must have been engaged in "unlawful conduct," and even if he does, if the other person uses what the initiator reasonably believes to a threat of imminent death or great bodily harm, all that means is that the initiator loses the right to "stand his ground."
Given all that, and given that the burden is on the government to prove,** beyond a reasonable doubt**, that the defendant was NOT acting in self-defense, the govt would have a hard time getting a conviction of anyone involved. Not impossible, certainly, but definitely an uphill battle, in this particular case. Again, I am not saying that they SHOULD be acquitted, but rather only that the probably WOULD be acquitted.
So, you only watched the first five seconds?
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