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Do You Support The Death Penalty?
HerrKaiser:
--- Quote from: moremojo on October 19, 2007, 11:16:08 am ---The term 'humanity' doesn't just encompass those things within our species that we like--it also includes those things that disturb us or can even destroy us. By recognizing these elements as being real, and acknowledging their perpetrators as human beings rather than folklore-level bogeymen, we can protect ourselves better and cultivate the more enlightened world that progressives and liberals supposedly endorse.
--- End quote ---
This makes absolutely no sense to me, sorry; not trying to be rude. The death penalty is NOT about bad people who "disturb us or can destroy us". People on death row have ALREADY done the murder. Treating would-be murderers in ways to avoid future crime is a noble and good idea on which millions of dollars are spent every year attempting to accomplish, so if that is what you are getting at, I would agree.
but the notion that somehow we protect ourselves better by treating hardened killers with kid gloves is to me the opposite of enlightened...it's burying one's head in the sand.
I actually am not so much in favor of the death penalty, not because I think those who get it do not deserve it. They do. However, I do not like the effect it has on society in that it continues to validate reasons to take a life, such as with abortion or assisted suicide etc. Instead of killing murderers who deserve to exist in the hottest corner of hell, we should place them in the most uncomfortable sort of prison for life that can be imagined.
Remember, the murder rate was FAR lower when murderers were afraid of the consequences. THEY were enlightened to the fact that if they do horrific crimes, the electric chair or a horrible prison was awaiting them.
loneleeb3:
--- Quote ---Instead of killing murderers who deserve to exist in the hottest corner of hell, we should place them in the most uncomfortable sort of prison for life that can be imagined.
--- End quote ---
If that would actually happen, I'd be all for it!
I don't like the death penalty but if it's between that and housing murderers and seeing all their needs are met, I vote for the death penalty!
moremojo:
This society desperately needs its own Beccaria. I wish I could advocate my position as elegantly and intelligently as he; instead, I feel like I'm just talking in circles. I know ultimately we will have to agree to disagree, and hopefully can do so in as respectful a manner as possible.
Let me leave you with this one thought: While anguishing over the cruelties of others, be mindful of the potential cruelty that resides within yourself, and do not let it steer your life into a hell of your own creation. Hate begets hate, and love mirrors love. And it is never inappropriate to respond with love.
loneleeb3:
--- Quote ---Let me leave you with this one thought: While anguishing over the cruelties of others, be mindful of the potential cruelty that resides within yourself, and do not let it steer your life into a hell of your own creation. Hate begets hate, and love mirrors love. And it is never inappropriate to respond with love.
--- End quote ---
I agree with you.
The onley caveat I have is that love and forgiveness do not negate consequence and Justice.
We still have to face the consequences of our actions regardless if the victim forgives or not.
serious crayons:
I think morality is a complex subject that benefits most from subtle, nuanced analysis. A view that puts, say, Delalluvia or Lee or souxi, because they support the death penalty, on the same moral level as John Wayne Gacy or Ted Bundy or Jeffrey Dahmer seems absurdly black-and-white to me.
There are degrees of wrongness. I think the death penalty is wrong. But I don't think people who favor killing those who have committed terrible crimes -- as vengeance, as punishment, as deterrent, out of an unwillingness to pay for their support -- are just AS wrong as those who actually commit the terrible crimes.
--- Quote ---There seems to be a perennial human impulse to scapegoat people, render them less than human, and treat them accordingly. In Nero's Rome, it was the Christians; in late Ottoman Turkey, it was the Armenians; in Nazi Germany, it was the Jews. At this contemporary juncture of history, people deemed to be "terrorists" or "pedophiles" are especially vulnerable to this kind of treatment.
--- End quote ---
The crucial difference is that we're not talking about people deemed to be something they are not, as scapegoats are. We're talking about people who actually ARE terrorists or murderers. Again, I don't in any way condone their being executed. But let's be clear about who they are.
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