another death penalty topic

ajedigecko

at times the death penalty is too humane....... for attaching an anchor to people and sending them into water.
........for putting children into suitcases and sending them into water.


just a heavy heart right now and needed to get it off of my mind with people who are opposed to the death penalty, since my family agrees with me.

Commy

no need for the death penalty/

with the current condition of US prisons, a life sentence is much worse than death.

ajedigecko

Commy wrote:

no need for the death penalty/

with the current condition of US prisons, a life sentence is much worse than death.

i have never been in prison and do not know anyone in prison.....i would like to believe that the conditions are worse than death for people who commit the horrible crimes, but i do find it hard to believe.

NoK

Death is a biological process (natural or not) everyone undergoes whether now or 50 years in the future. It isn't a punishment.

ajedigecko

NoK wrote:

Death is a biological process (natural or not) everyone undergoes whether now or 50 years in the future. It isn't a punishment.

and i would argue that innocent life is a biolgical process that needs to be protected, whether you have one more day to live or 50 more years.

i understand this topic will never end and the cyclical discussion with continue as well.........just saying. the older i become, i want justice, not law.


thread locked.

Thorns2010

The death penalty is vengeance, not justice.

NoK

ajedigecko wrote:

and i would argue that innocent life is a biolgical process that needs to be protected, whether you have one more day to live or 50 more years.

i understand this topic will never end and the cyclical discussion with continue as well.........just saying. the older i become, i want justice, not law.


thread locked.

Biology doesn't tell you to protect innocent life, your morals do. Taking into consideration natural selection and survival of the fittest, biology doesn't give a shit about innocent life. Anyway, all I was saying was that from a logical standpoint the act of killing isn't a punishment. When you die, how exactly are you punished?

Commy

who the State decides to "punish" is telling. you'll never see a rich white guy on death row. chances are the guy is black/poor.



There is no way in hell I trust the authorities with this power.

heres one exaple...http://www.freemumia.com/

Brisk.

If someone murders someone, then why don't they have the right to live taken away from them?

_

They just banned the death penalty in New Mexico. The governor (Bill Richardson) said it was the hardest decision he's ever made (whether to sign or veto the bill). My understanding is that he decided to sign because the legal system isn't perfect and innocent people are sometimes convicted.

Personally, I'm against the death penalty for many reasons:
1. Innocent people are sometimes convicted.
2. As Commy already mentioned, there is bias in the way it is applied.
3. I don't believe we have any more right to take the life of someone who wants to live than the criminal had to take his/her victim's life. It seems oxymoronical and I don't think it teaches a good lesson to our children.
4. It's very costly to the state.
5. I think it's a worse punishment to rot in prison.

And I feel this way even after having had a loved one brutally murdered. Just my $0.02.

musicismylife78

The death penalty is wrong, Plain and simple.

Its inherently racist. When the prison population is majority African American and minority, its very wrong as well.

The "justice" system, quotes and irony intended, is a joke. Its broken, corrupt, and illegal.

Anon

Thorns2010 wrote:

The death penalty is vengeance, not justice.

Tell that to the parents of this girl.

_

JB811 wrote:

Thorns2010 wrote:

The death penalty is vengeance, not justice.

Tell that to the parents of this girl.

At the risk of sounding ignorant (which I guess I am), what girl?

Byrnzie

The death penalty doesn't work as a deterrence. It's useless and barbaric.

Anyone interested in this subject should read Albert Camus' 'Reflections on the Guillotine'.

from Reflections on the Guillotine

Albert Camus:


"No government is innocent enough or wise enough or just enough to lay down to so absolute a power as death."

" ... the moral contradiction inherent in a policy which imitates the violence it claims to abhor and in fact premeditates it."

"To assert, in any case, that a man must be absolutely cut off from society because he is absolutely evil amounts to saying that society is absolutely good, and no one in his right mind will believe this today."

"For there to be equivalence, the death penalty would have to punish a criminal who had warned his victim of the date at which he would inflict a horrible death on him and who, from that moment onward, had confined him to his mercy for months. Such a monster is not encountered in private life."

"Could not justice concede to the criminal the same weakness in which society finds a sort of permanent extenuating circumstance for itself? Can the jury decently say: “If I kill you by mistake, you will forgive me when you consider the weaknesses of our common nature. But I am condemning you to death without considering those weaknesses or that nature"? There is a solidarity of ill men in error and aberration. Must that solidarity operate for the tribunal and be denied the accused? No, and if justice has any meaning in this world, it means nothing but the recognition of that solidarity; it cannot, by its very essence, divorce itself from compassion. Compassion, of course, can in this instance be but awareness of a common suffering and not a frivolous indulgence paying no attention to the sufferings and rights of the victim. Compassion does not exclude punishment, but it suspends the final condemnation. Compassion loathes the definitive, irreparable measure that does an injustice to mankind as a whole because of failing to take into account the wretchedness of the common condition."

ajedigecko

i have read each point and understand.......and as a person who believes, Jesus is who He said He is, i must remind myself that "those without sin, cast the first stone."

i hope we are never put into a situation that the families and loved ones of these crimes have been put through....regardless, it is a difficult emotion to deal with, being a father now.

Kel Varnsen

NoK wrote:

Death is a biological process (natural or not) everyone undergoes whether now or 50 years in the future. It isn't a punishment.

Thats sort of what I have always thought, a lifetime in a small solitary cell being completly alone with your own thoughts and nothing to pass the time would be a much worse punishment than being killed.

ajedigecko

Kel Varnsen wrote:

NoK wrote:

Death is a biological process (natural or not) everyone undergoes whether now or 50 years in the future. It isn't a punishment.

Thats sort of what I have always thought, a lifetime in a small solitary cell being completly alone with your own thoughts and nothing to pass the time would be a much worse punishment than being killed.

if that were the case and conditions.......i would support it. i just read that scott peterson only spends 19 hours in "worse conditions", i do not think that is long enough.

know1

Revenge killing is not a healthy attitude....nor does it make you any better than the person you're killing.

mickeyrat

Byrnzie wrote:

"For there to be equivalence, the death penalty would have to punish a criminal who had warned his victim of the date at which he would inflict a horrible death on him and who, from that moment onward, had confined him to his mercy for months. Such a monster is not encountered in private life."

Do the Chinese still put a bullet to the back of the head with no warning? Seems the way to do it to me. Didn't the soviets/russians do this too?

ajedigecko

know1 wrote:

Revenge killing is not a healthy attitude....nor does it make you any better than the person you're killing.

i understand that it is not healthy........it is one of the few topics that keeps me up at night and i can understand and empathize with the families of the crime.

Byrnzie

mickeyrat wrote:

Byrnzie wrote:

"For there to be equivalence, the death penalty would have to punish a criminal who had warned his victim of the date at which he would inflict a horrible death on him and who, from that moment onward, had confined him to his mercy for months. Such a monster is not encountered in private life."

Do the Chinese still put a bullet to the back of the head with no warning? Seems the way to do it to me. Didn't the soviets/russians do this too?

As far as I know, yes. A bullet in the back of the head is still the way they do it here. And I heard that their organs are sold to the highest bidder.