Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Capital Punishment

There are the standard reasons to support capital punishment; punishment, deterrent, and it's constitutionally accepted.

Some folks, for example fellow blogger Mitch at SitD and peacnik liberals, oppose the death penalty because of the minuscule chance of being put to death for a crime you did NOT commit.

The chance of being put to death for a crime you did not commit are about one in a billion.

Some folks actually think those are high odds. Don't get me wrong, I agree the government tends to screw up everything, but lets be realistic. Fix or improve the system before you abandon it.

I have another reason to support capital punishment.

Without capital punishment, the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks (KSM), if convicted, would be allowed to safely write letters to his terrorist family/friends possibly planning the next attack on our country.

9 comments:

DiscordianStooge said...

The chance of being put to death for a crime you did not commit are about one in a billion.

Show your work.

K-Rod said...

Well, as Mitch at SitD has pointed out the total number of people that have been in America is about 4.5 billion. There is some evidence that possibly one innocent person might have been put to death.

So lets settle on a nice round figure.

The chance of being put to death for a crime you did not commit are about one in a billion.

DiscordianStooge said...

If I flip a coin 10 times, and it comes up heads 8 times, does that mean the odds that a coin will come up tails is 20%?

I ask because I'm curious just how limited your understanding of statistics is.

K-Rod said...

You think you will have normal data with only n=10? Seriously?

How about a little calculus?

The integral of "e" to the "x" equals a function of "u" to the "n". :^)

Anonymous said...

Sounds like a nerd fight.
Carry on.

Maxx

DiscordianStooge said...

You think you will have normal data with only n=10? Seriously?

No. I was wondering if you did. Clearly not.

The calculus, I'm afraid, is beyond me.

K-Rod said...

A nerd fight is more dangerous than a food fight. ;^)

....

Stooj, the key is to write out the formula from my word sentence... (Nerd humor, hardey har har.)

DiscordianStooge said...

I saw there was a joke in there, but I know no calculus, and thus can't make the formula. Something "fun," I'm guessing.

K-Rod said...

The symbol for integration looks like an 'S' and "a function" is represented as 'f'.

Nerd humor. (blogger no do superscript)

∫ e x = (f) µ n