Instigator / Pro
Azazel_Woodwind's avatar
3
Azazel_Woodwind
1500
rating
1
debates
0.0%
won
Topic
#4578

Pedophiles should be murdered on sight

Status
Finished

The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.

Winner & statistics
Better arguments
0
3
Better sources
2
2
Better legibility
1
1
Better conduct
0
1

After 1 vote and with 4 points ahead, the winner is...

Intelligence_06
Tags
Pedophilia
homosexuality
Sexuality
death penalty
heterosexuality
Parameters
Publication date
Last updated date
Type
Standard
Number of rounds
5
Time for argument
Two days
Max argument characters
10,000
Voting period
One week
Point system
Multiple criterions
Voting system
Open
Contender / Con
Intelligence_06's avatar
7
Intelligence_06
1737
rating
172
debates
73.26%
won
Description

Before writing this description, I hope people understand the difference between explanation and justification. Pedophilia is objectively "wrong" in every case because the victim obviously never benefits. My idea is that pedophilia is a mental illness with no known cure which twists the sexual attraction of a person, typically a man, to children. By adulthood, sexual orientation is often affirmed and is very difficult, or even impossible to change. If I told a heterosexual man that liking women is wrong and he should stop liking women (ignoring other factors), that would not stop him. I can't imagine ever being "rehabilitated" out of heterosexuality. Locking them up in jail is a waste of time, money and space. They will only repeat offend once they are released. Those who don't likely don't get caught. The best thing to do is to use them for manual labour away from society or sentence them to death.

I view it in a very similar way to homosexuality, in the sense that the sexual orientation is twisted away from the norm. The main difference being that in homosexuality, both parties benefit but only one party benefits in pedophilia.

Round 1
Azazel_Woodwind's avatar
Azazel_Woodwind
Pro
#1
Introduction
So just to make it clear, the title of the debate is a bit misleading - I don't think pedophiles should be murdered brutally out of malice or something - more that they should be sentenced to death. Then this debate may turn into "should the death sentence be brought back?", but perhaps we should assume this to be true to focus on whether pedophiles should be sentenced to death the moment they are discovered? There may even be the topic of how they should die? Feel free to bring any of these up. I should also make it clear that I am not well researched on this topic, this is more of a gut feeling.

Basis
The basis of my argument is that I view pedophilia, the sexual attraction to children (or any other sexual orientation for that matter), as an innate characteristic by adulthood. I do not believe that it is currently possible to rehabilitate someone out of their sexual orientation by adulthood. As said in the description, I view pedophilia as a mental illness with no known cure. Please read the description for more detail about this.

Explanation
Sexual attraction in humans (especially men, who represent the overwhelming majority of pedophiles) generally elicits a strong feeling of lust which can make people do crazy things to satiate it. If an adult is attracted enough to children to act upon this desire, the strength of this attraction will likely remain for the rest of their life. I do believe that it is possible to, for example, be sexually attracted to both children and adults, but if there is even a slither of a chance that this person will act upon this sexual attraction to children (which is assumed to be true in the case that they are caught), they should not be allowed near children, as although it's incredibly obvious, it just takes one case of grooming to severely ruin the rest of the child's life. I think most pedophiles who claim to be "rehabilitated" have tried to convince themselves that they won't act upon their underage lust, but this is a delusion often short lived.

So then is the answer to simply take them away from society?
I think it would be rather resource consuming and a greater question of ethics to lock pedophiles away and use them for manual labour or something of the sort. I think it makes more sense to sentence them to death as it doesn't waste as much time / resources for both parties.

This likely brings into question many other ethical and moral questions so I could write more, but I'm interested in the response.
Intelligence_06's avatar
Intelligence_06
Con
#2
To start the argument, I do not object to death penalties to confirmed child sex offenders.

The thing is, what does it mean to "murder" them? What does it mean to kill them "on sight"?

1. Murder

My opponent has not defined the term, I will do that for both of us.
1
: to kill (a person) unlawfully and unjustifiably with premeditated malice

2
: to slaughter mercilessly : Slay
These two are the only entry that seem to utilize the term literally when applied. The entirety of entry 3 is just tangential applications of the term.

Entry 1
Again, always leave the criminals to the department of people who are professionally trained to take care of them: The police. If you just kill a man on the street without being authorized to do so, you will be charged of a crime too.

Entry 2
Suppose pedophiles do deserve death penalty, which they probably do, then just killing them is alright. Now we move on.

2. On Sight
on sight
: as soon as seen
ordered to shoot on sight
Is killing anyone on sight a good thing? Not necessarily. Let me give some examples.

  • The pedophile is running in the middle of the Time Square at 5PM. In this scenario, attepting to kill on sight not only is prone to damage civilian infrastructure and lives, but even if a perfect military aimbot is applied properly, a corpse laying on the ground on a bustling street would still cause massive panic for the civilians and still be difficult for the police, say, to retrieve the body. The better thing to do is just to intercept and arrest the criminal, put handcuffs on and bring him to the police station and eventually prison via police vehicles.
  • The pedophile's heart rate monitor is linked to bombs on some children held hostage. In this case, rashly killing the criminal would cause unnecessary deaths of innocent hostages, which is a bad thing. The superior alternative is be patient, transfer said criminal to another location and disable the mechanism until trialing him and ending his life, instead of just using the "on sight" rule without proper thinking.
  • The pedophile is actually a politician in a party. Although the death of such a wrongdoer is with gratitude for us lot in general probably, ruining the party of more with blood will definitely cause more negative ramifications than if he is just arrested and taken care somewhere else.
  • The pedophile is a trained and skilled construction worker operating a crucial step that requires constant focus and adjustments. You shot him down, and congratulations congratulations you made a building topple over. Even if his position deserve to be replaced with someone less misaligned, is this really the best way to enact stuff? Nah.
I can list on and on, but the key message is one: in many cases, killing a pedophile or ANYONE on sight will cause newer problems whereas fewer problems will be added if you just wait for the right time(in this case, waiting for a time to arrest the criminal, rather than killing on sight). This proposition proposed is not and never will be a good rule so long as time and human society exist.

I do not explicitly disagree with any part Pro has said: Yes, pedophiles are bad, uncurable, and deserving of death penalty. However, killing them on sight does not equal to death penalty. Sometimes, it is just better to transfer the criminal to another location before the execution practice. And that defeats the title.

Conclusions
  • Legally, murdering any criminal is unlawful and is thus suboptimal.
  • While pedophiles do deserve death penalty, in many cases it is better to arrest them first instead of hastily ending their life without regards of what settings they are currently in.
  • Pedophiles should not be "murdered on sight". Vote CON.

Round 2
Azazel_Woodwind's avatar
Azazel_Woodwind
Pro
#3
Forfeited
Intelligence_06's avatar
Intelligence_06
Con
#4
Extend
Round 3
Azazel_Woodwind's avatar
Azazel_Woodwind
Pro
#5
Forfeited
Intelligence_06's avatar
Intelligence_06
Con
#6
My opponent has forfeited the last round and has voiced no objections towards the main point of mine, which is that
  • In numerous classes of cases, killing a criminal(or anyone at all) on sight causes more inconveniences than conveniences compared to if said criminal is arrested and put in appropriate facility(such as prison/jail) first.
1. The topic, again

There is one thing to address, which is the fact that my opponent thinks the topic is something else.
Yeah sorry forgot about this but your main argument about "murdering them on sight" was already addressed in my first argument. I clarified that the title was misleading (which I apologise for) and confirmed that the idea is to sentence them to death legally.
This is the #3rd comment made by Pro on this webpage.

What does this refer to?
Introduction
So just to make it clear, the title of the debate is a bit misleading - I don't think pedophiles should be murdered brutally out of malice or something - more that they should be sentenced to death. Then this debate may turn into "should the death sentence be brought back?", but perhaps we should assume this to be true to focus on whether pedophiles should be sentenced to death the moment they are discovered? There may even be the topic of how they should die? Feel free to bring any of these up. I should also make it clear that I am not well researched on this topic, this is more of a gut feeling.
It can only refer to this, can't it.

The problem is that, we are here to argue about the topic(which we know what it is), especially since such a change has not been clarified in either the short description section or the description section. Such an attempted change is completely unknown to Con as the contender of this quest until after the debate has started(which Con cannot quit at this point AND the title cannot change at this point according to the webpage's UI), meaning that were such changes in the contents of the topic itself considered methodically valid, it would mean that the instigator can set a trap towards victory by just changing the topic itself without having Con's voice being able to take part in this deviation, an approach more arrogant and unfair than using unusual definition entries to interpret the topic into something Pro didn't consider the topic to mean. The latter approach can still be considered fair due to the constant state and the mutual agreement on the topic for both sides, or in simpler words, "This string of text, written on the top of this page, is still the focus of our argumentation regardless of how we interpret it."

What is Pro doing here? Pro is advocating for an interpretation that cannot be reasonably extracted from the string of text defined as the topic here.
I don't think pedophiles should be murdered brutally out of malice or something
With adequate knowledge of English interpretation and application one can see that this being the topic,
Pedophiles should be murdered on sight
Pro clearly intended to change the topic into something the topic was not prior. This, in more professional terminology, is called moving the goalpost. For how unfair this maneuver is that can and could gain Pro even more massive of an advantage, such should be halted, just like the adult's physical advancements towards an innocuous child should be halted.

And what is the verdict? The topic is still
Pedophiles should be murdered on sight
and the first paragraph of Pro's R1 is nullified.

I rest my case.


Round 4
Azazel_Woodwind's avatar
Azazel_Woodwind
Pro
#7
Let me clarify some things.

Con says:
 especially since such a change has not been clarified in either the short description section or the description section.
This is incorrect, as I have indeed clarified this change in the description section. I quote:

The best thing to do is to use them for manual labour away from society or sentence them to death

My impression is that the topic of an argument is a short summary of the debate topic, and the description provides further clarification. I wrote a "clickbaity" topic since it sounds more controversial, hoping someone would accept the debate faster, and clarified in the description. Am I wrong to assume that the grounds of the debate are composed of both topic + description? I have seen other debates with captions that simply say "read the description", so I was hoping the description would be read before making a counter argument.

To respond to con's arguments, they're pretty obviously correct. Advocating to literally murder someone in cold blood in a public space on the first thought that they may be a pedophile is plain stupid.

I apologise for the misleading topic, but I stand by the fact that I clearly stated my point in full in the description section.

Intelligence_06's avatar
Intelligence_06
Con
#8
The entire argument

This is one singular section.

First off, the main point is not dropped in the newest argument, but conceded:
To respond to con's arguments, they're pretty obviously correct. Advocating to literally murder someone in cold blood in a public space on the first thought that they may be a pedophile is plain stupid.
However, Pro thinks that the topic has already been shifted before the topic has started due to this sentence:
The best thing to do is to use them for manual labour away from society or sentence them to death.
Let's not just go into the lack of merit in the act of writing a clear topic then deliberately twist the topic as the intended was to argue "something else". This is admitted by Pro.
I wrote a "clickbaity" topic since it sounds more controversial, hoping someone would accept the debate faster, and clarified in the description.
Not only does Pro intend to write a topic that does not explicitly and accurately encompass what "should" be argued instead, Pro did that without proper clarity. Sure, Pro later dismissed using them for labor, leaving the "sentencing them to death" as the only viable choice. Since this is in the description and in line of what the topic itself is, we will assume that "sentencing them to death" and "killing them on sight" is simultaneously possible, because they are. What if they are at war with each other? That will be the next topic after this one.

Just how does sentencing work?
1
: to impose a sentence(noun) on
2
: to cause to suffer something

2(noun)
a
specifically : one formally pronounced by a court or judge in a criminal proceeding and specifying the punishment to be inflicted upon the convict
b
: the punishment so imposed
Although a legal sentence is most often carried out by a court judge, it essentially means a judgement, of any kind. The judgement could be carried out while they are hunting the criminal down or even after(in which the verdict is that the criminal does deserve death, except the deed has already been done, so there is no more to do). 

And what if "a death sentence" and "death on sight" is incompatible? Well then, before even the debate has started, Pro would have conceded the debate due to the fact that Pro directly proposed something that is not for the topic. Pro did not state a clear separate outline of the burdens of proof of both parties(such as, "Pro has to prove that pedophiles deserve death penalty; Con has to prove that pedophiles do not deserve death penalty") in either the short description nor the in-page full-description either, so the sentence Pro used to justify the case actually either does nothing or weakens the case from long ago.

So, what is the verdict? Either the topic has not changed, or Pro has conceded the debate due to how the description section is phrased.

 Am I wrong to assume that the grounds of the debate are composed of both topic + description?
The description serves the topic and does not change the topic unless specified(for example, in cases where the topic is way too long that the full topic has to be specified in the description). This is one of the cases. Without explicitly changing what the topic is(well, it did not say what the topic REALLY is, only implied implicitly), the description does not strengthen Pro's case at all.

As a slightly more experienced debater on this ground, I would suggest that if you accept your topic to be a clickbait, outline the REAL topic and BoP rules in the description.

I rest my case.






















Conclusions
  • Pro's implicit change in the description is not explicit, and because of that it either does nothing to the topic or it makes Pro's case a concession due to it arguing not the topic if a death sentence and an immediate huntdown of a criminal are incompatible.
  • If the topic is still the topic we see now, Pro admits that Con is correct in his case.
  • Therefore, it is rational to vote Con at this stage of the debate.

Round 5
Azazel_Woodwind's avatar
Azazel_Woodwind
Pro
#9
Forfeited
Intelligence_06's avatar
Intelligence_06
Con
#10
Conclusions
  • Pro's implicit change in the description is not explicit, and because of that it either does nothing to the topic or it makes Pro's case a concession due to it arguing not the topic if a death sentence and an immediate huntdown of a criminal are incompatible.
  • If the topic is still the topic we see now, Pro admits that Con is correct in his case.
  • Therefore, it is rational to vote Con at this stage of the debate.