Re: Re: Re: Re: i wouldn't kill an abortionist myself
kis123 said:
Usually, I try to find a point of agreement with you on your posts. This one will NOT qualify. We spend enough of our hard earned tax dollars on garbage as it is, let alone 50000/yr on people that murder and are no longer useful in society. IF YOU TAKE A LIFE, YOURS SHOULD BE TAKEN IN EXCHANGE!!!
Did you read the thread yet? Just in case you didn't, some points I brought up in it are...
1/ It costs less to imprison someone for forty years, in solitary confinement, at the highest level of security, than it does to carry out the death penalty. (That's for the argument about "why should we pay for the upkeep of murderers?")
2/ Our justice system is inherantly flawed by incompetence and crookedness. Many people have been freed after years on death row, having been completely exhonerated and more than 20 have subsequently been found to be innocent; with more than that suspected. (That's for the "the system works" argument.)
3/ Texas, which executes more criminals than all the other states which have the death penalty put together, has a higher murder rate than all those other states...
put together! States like California and Florida which follow Texas in the execution league tables, have murder rates consistently higher than states which resort to life without parole as their ultimate sentence. (That's for the "it's a good deterrant" argument.)
4/ Juries are notoriously reluctant to turn in a full guilty verdict in the event that it could result in capital punishment. Fully aware of their fallibility, their efficiency is impaired if they feel that a subsequent aquittal might be posthumous. (That's for the "it serves justice better" argument.) Juries show much more confidence however when permanent incarceration is the ultimate penalty.
5/ The death penalty is massively racist, in that the vast majority of people subjected to it are poor African-Americans. (People mainly who can't afford shit-head lawyers who work in a morality vacuum.)
6/ Not only is America the only country in the developed world that still practices execution, it is the only country in a long list that
still practices it on children! On one occasion I saw this...
"Texas legislator Jim Pitts, has proposed a bill that allows the state to execute murderers as young as eleven."
Which moved me to duplicate the reply of one journalist...
"But why stop there Jim? Just think for the under fives you could have the electric high-chair.
Or maybe you could just leave them alone with a dinner fork and a power point.
Still maybe Jim does have a point, executing children would be much easier. It takes a dozen guards to force an adult into the chair, but with kids , you could just turn off the music and they all rush to sit down!
Of course, not suprisingly, the more liberal minded people in Texas who oppose Jim's bill say it's inhumane to execute 11 year olds. You should keep them on death row till their 17th birthday, THEN kill them."
Someone mentioned a news report in that thread about a 12 year old (I think) black boy who cried for his mother during the whole procedure and finally pissed himself as he was strapped in. I have little or no sympathy for people who take life, rape, abuse or whatever; but the continued execution of minors seems to me to be an act of sickening barbarism. Children are far more likely to react physically to psychological trauma; they are far more likely to "act-out" if they're being physically or sexually abused; they are far more likely to not have the knowledge that they can deal with their problems by grabbing the
Yellow Pages and looking for a psychiatrist, than an adult can. Quite frankly people who see the execution of children (or people who were children at the time of offence and conviction) as a viable tool of justice, are either the most heartless sons of bitches in the world, or have been subjected to some great trauma that's left an indellible mark on them.
(As I am someone who has been fortunate enough to never have suffered abuse; physical, sexual or psychological, I realise that that may sound mightily patronising to someone who has. I'd like to say that I don't ever intend to be patronising to someone so unlucky; but just want to point of view across. You are perfectly welcome to hold the point of view that I am mis-guided and not courageous enough to face facts. I believe you would be wrong, but you'd be perfectly entitled to that opinion.)
When you consider that countries which Americans reproach as being barbaric restrictors of freedom like Iraq, China, Afghanistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Syria have condemned the execution of children as "barbaric", doesn't it make the United States look rather emotionally primitive by comparison?
7/ *
This one is for the more spiritually minded amongst us. Atheists and agnostics need not bother to read as they'll be bored to tears.* It achieves nothing and stops a criminal from repenting whatever it is he/she has screwed up. Sending their arse back to "God" is returning a soul without having improved on it and is, in my opinion, failing the Almighty. (Although as we've covered before, my conception of "God" is different from that of a religious person.)
8/ When one kid does something bad to yours, how many times have you told them that two wrongs don't make a right? How many times have you told your child that they mustn't sink to the level of the bully or tearaway? Why do you think the rules of being a civilised person change when you get to adulthood? (Mind you, I guess this one would only apply to a country like Britain before it abolished the noose, as America DOES execute children.)
9/ I'm sure that many scum like drug pushers, child-abusers, murderers and rapists deserve death, but what makes you think man holds sufficient status to decide on such a thing? When we so often get it completely wrong and convict an innocent, what is such a bad idea about limiting an extremely mis-wired system to life without parole? I think anyone who believes they have sufficient infallibility and status to play God with lives is on a very slippery slope. To be honest, the only opinion on pro-capital punishment that holds any water, is the one you evinced Kis. All the others are completely false and largely circulated by mis-informed proponents or lying politicians looking for votes. However I believe that this opinion, while not totally untrue as others are proved by even official statistics, is still flawed. I don't believe it's about justice but vengeance, and I think that is giving in to mankind's basest feelings.
Someone very much wiser than me, but with a very forgetable identity (someone help me out here if they recognise it) said that you could judge the level a civilisation had reached, by the way they treat their prisoners.
Jesus, I thought I'd stopped posting serious crap for a while...
🙄 😀
