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splumer
Location: Cleveland, Ohio Gender: Male Total Likes: 201 likes
| | | Re: Obligatory death penalty discussion < Reply # 4 on 5/29/2012 12:16 PM > | Reply with Quote
| | | Posted by Samurai i think that for the death penalty to be effective, the spectacle of the execution should be televised and the population forced to watch. It goes from being a distant, abstract concept to being a real deterrent to crime.
| Executions were public for millenia, and that never deterred anyone. The way I look at it, there are two ways of looking at the death penalty (at least in the US). There is the death penalty as it is now, and then there is the concept of executions in general. I think even the most die-hard advocates for the death penalty find it had to defend as it is now. It is well known that it is disproportionately applied to racial minorites and the poor, and that prosecutors are generally more interested in winning a conviction than actually finding the person who committed the crime in question. Also, there may be a deterrent in pre-meditated murders, but most homicides are not pre-meditated; they are committed in the heat of the moment: a robbery gone wrong, a lovers' quarrel that got out of hand, etc. Again, the death penalty as it is applied in the US today is almost impossible to defend. But what of the concept of executions? Assuming it was incontrovertibly proven that someone has committed a murder. Is it OK to execute him? I would argue no. Putting aside the barbarity of it, and the fact that no other industrialized Western nation executes people (and they all have far lower crime rates than the US), there are good reasons why executions are wrong. From a Christian perspective, the condemned are allowed access to clergy, where they have the chance for absolution and are thus able to enter Heaven after death. So they are forgiven and can spend eternity in Paradise. From an atheist perspective (which would include me) once you're dead, that's the end. There is no consciousness that survives death, so any guilt or remorse you felt is over. Either way, you're off the hook. Personally, I would much rather see a murderer rot in jail for the rest of his life, sitting in a 6x10-foot cell and being someone's bitch.
| “We are not going to have the kind of cooperation we need if everyone insists on their own narrow version of reality. … the great divide in the world today … is between people who have the courage to listen and those who are convinced that they already know it all.” -Madeline Albright |
| G to the Race
Total Likes: 305 likes
Hi!
| | | Re: Obligatory death penalty discussion < Reply # 13 on 5/30/2012 12:47 AM > | Reply with Quote
| | | Posted by metawaffle As a thought experiment, I put myself in the shoes of the executioner, since really, if you're going to support the death penalty as reasonable, you'd have to be prepared to be involved and bear some responsibility, right? ...and, I can't imagine any justification which could make it bearable to explain it to my kids.
| Unless it happened to your other kid or loved one. As a Pavlovian Catholic and supposedly learned type, I have to respond with "forgiveness" when it comes to capital punishment. However, as a human being of fragile psyche, I would want motherfucking vengeance and would be willing to administer it myself. Doesn't make it right but it's the truth. Official line: anything more than 20 years in prison is cruel and unusual punishment, especially for people under 18.
| You betcha |
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