Aankondiging
Utrecht, 29 september 2008
Uitwisselingsweek in oktober
In een regio als de Balkan waar de grenzen constant ter discussie staan, is identiteit een levend thema. Het onderwerp staat centraal tijdens een uitwisselingsweek in Nederland met jongeren uit Kosovo, Servië en Nederland van 5 tot 11 oktober. Bezoeken aan onder meer Europese Instellingen en het Joegoslavië tribunaal zijn ervaringen op zichzelf en tegelijkertijd aanleiding voor discussies.
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Posts Tagged ‘politics’
Kosovaren, Serviërs en Nederlanders in gesprek over identiteit en oorlogsverleden
Wednesday, October 1st, 2008Psychopaths and the Death Penalty
Saturday, July 28th, 2007
Should the death penalty be abolished? And if so, why? The main argument in favor of the death penalty is that it’s a powerful deterrent to keep people from committing horrible crimes. The problem with this argument is that it’s invalid; research has shown that most crimes that warrant the death penalty are crimes committed in the heat of the moment, with no consideration of the possible consequences.
During my travel through the Balkans, I got a ride from an Austrian professor from the university of Leoben. He had been teaching and researching on the subject of ‘material properties’ for a long time, and had two months left until retirement. When I asked him what he would do next, he told me about his work on the board of Amnesty International in Austria. One of the important issues in the coming months is the death penalty in the USA. Amnesty thinks it should be abolished.
We talked about the issue, and he presented some great arguments against the death penalty. However, one thing still bothered me, one possible argument in favor of the death penalty: psychopaths.