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Didn't any boy cry? This girl certainly did...

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serious crayons:

--- Quote from: opinionista on March 08, 2007, 03:54:15 pm --- Killing people who kill people to show that killing people is wrong, is not the answer.
--- End quote ---

I agree. Violence breeds violence. States here that have the death penalty also have some of the highest murder rates. I don't think the cause and effect go one way or another, just that they are violent societies in which killing is seen as a legitimate way to settle a conflict. If the government endorses that view, obviously regular murderers will do the same. The government thinks it has a good reason to kill and murderers don't; murderers think the same thing in reverse. They're both wrong -- there's never a good reason to kill.

Isabelle, I think your initial "die, you bastard!" response is a perfectly human reaction to a brutal crime. The difference is, immediately thereafter your rational side took over. The first thought comes from the ancient, reptilian part of our brain, the second from the more evolved, human part of our brain  -- though apparently it hasn't fully evolved in all humans!  :-\

I'm always filled with amazement and admiration when I hear stories of murder victims' families petitioning courts not to impose the death penalty on the killer.

Front-Ranger:

--- Quote from: Jeff Wrangler on March 08, 2007, 02:49:15 pm ---That might be too good for him, Lee, but your suggestion raises a whole other set of questions, don't you think? Which speaks worse of our government--of us: To take away, at one stroke, the life of someone who showed such a heinous and callous disregard for the life of another, or to condone ongoing institutionalized brutality (um, sorta like Abu Ghraib)?

--- End quote ---

I was referring to the trreatment he would get by his peers, not by prison guards like in Abu Ghraib. It's pure animal nature, it doesn't matter if I condone it or not. Might as well ask fruit to stay green, as the Virginian said.

Lumière:
Hey Isabelle...

I own that DVD as well.
It left me feeling heavy when I watched it .. knowing all the while that someone lived it and ended that way.
I haven't seen it in a while, but I'll watch it again one of these nights.

Jeff Wrangler:

--- Quote from: Front-Ranger on March 08, 2007, 04:18:55 pm ---I was referring to the trreatment he would get by his peers, not by prison guards like in Abu Ghraib. It's pure animal nature, it doesn't matter if I condone it or not.
--- End quote ---

I understood that. I guess my own use of "institutionalized" confused matters. I meant to imply brutality sanctioned by the institution--whether by the prison guards at Abu Ghraib or some theoretical permitting of other inmates to repeatedly brutalize Brandon Teena's murderer.

Actually, I have to admit that I have an intellectually inconsistent--you might even say wishy-washy--view of the death penalty. I am not unequivocally opposed to it. As for my own hypothetical comparison, I think it speaks worse of a society if it allows ongoing brutality than if it executes some people with some expedition.


--- Quote ---Might as well ask fruit to stay green, as the Virginian said.

--- End quote ---

 ;D

isabelle:

--- Quote from: latjoreme on March 08, 2007, 04:15:15 pm ---States here that have the death penalty also have some of the highest murder rates.



--- End quote ---

In fact, when the death penalty was abolished in France in 1981, the majority of the people wanted to keep it... it was abolished by the new government, against the majority opinion. Very quickly though, the majority of the people were glad it had been abolished, and now anyone born after 1980 (or maybe after 1970) will tell you they are against capital punishment, because they grew up in a society devoid of it.
This is probably because the fact is that the murder rate has steadily been going down in France, death sentence or no death sentence. I couldn't tell you why; but the death penalty certainly doesn't work as a deterrent, that's for sure.

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