Messages

Or you could do the negative feedback more like eBay, more of a caveat emptor method.

But I do like the idea, though I've successfully recruited a couple of people from the OYS thread.

The horses could use better coloring.

Every person has the natural right to life.  Anyone who purposely and unjustly takes that right from another revokes their own.

The government is established by the people for their mutual protection.  It has laws that its citizens are to abide by.  If those laws are broken, there are consequences.  One of those consequences is capital punishment.  This was reached by the consent of the people and until that consent is removed, it is law.  Therefore, it is lawful to execute criminals.  The suspects are tried through an involved trial process; they have the right to appeal and have the case reviewed and this is done automatically, since it is a capital punishment.

It is no light matter to execute someone, but as the state is a representation of the people, and the murderer took it upon him or herself to kill someone, the state as an embodiment of the people should protect itself in any way it can.

In the same light, war is justifiable.  And what does that involve except a state taking lives and breaking things?

What the state does isn't murder, it's justice.  Once the criminal has been properly tried, they can be executed.

Doesn't the fact that people actively DO NOT WANT TO DIE and prefer to remain alive, even if it means in prison for the rest of their lives mean anything to you?

I assume their victims also DID NOT WANT TO DIE.  But they didn't have that choice, did they?

"Absolutes" implies something which cannot be reached by humans.  We cannot produce anything that is "absolutely" anything in the truest sense of the word.  Therefore, we can only do our most.  Ensuring that "someone" gets a fair trial seems to me to be a step in the right direction.

Yes, it can be argued that "we" (humans), not being able to be "absolute" in anything, do make mistakes and that therefore we shouldn't have a death penalty.  However, in our judicial system, it is the prosecutor's responsibility to prove the defendant guilty, not the other way around.  There have been injustices committed against "innocent" people, but Mr. Williams was guilty.  He admitted it.

People have been cruel to people for as long as "we've" existed.  There are cold-blooded killers out there who pay no heed to the consequences of there actions; it won't make much difference to them whether or not they're executed or not.  And with this sort of people, it is likely that if simply released even after an "interminable" amount of time, that they will kill again and that a life sentence itself in the prison system is not effective to reform violent criminals but is merely a "delayed" death sentence - we're removing their lives from them, anyway; wouldn't it be more humane to end it quickly?  So we execute them in a much more humane manner than often they treated their victims, to remove them from society.  I liked the idea about exile, but that's just putting off the matter.  Exile to where?  Will there be guards keeping them from leaving?  Will we constantly provide them with food or leave them to fend for themselves?

Surely, if we don't have the right to determine the punishment of others, what gives us the right to judge them?

P.S. I included more "quotations" to make "you" "happy". 

You keep saying "prove their innocence".  People keep forgetting that you're innocent until proven guilty.  Usually you won't receive the death penalty anyway unless there's some fairly concrete evidence.

So how can you judge Hitler's actions to be worthy of a death sentence?  What gives you the right?

Hitler is the 0.01%, ok?

Uh, at what point do you start saying, "OK, he didn't kill enough people to merit the death sentence, let's let him live so he can think about what he's done."?

You shouldn't expect to murder and get away with it.  It's against the law; the government was within its right to execute the law.  End of statement.  If you have a problem with the law, either find enough people who agree with you to try to change it, live with it, or leave.

Funnily enough, this is one of the best reasons against death-penalty. We are all humans. None of us is almighty. Who are we to decide over the life and death of another human being?

The government is empowered by the people to enact such measures upon criminals.  If they don't want to live under our laws, they shouldn't live here.

I don't know if he really commited those murders. He very possibly has.

No question.  He admitted his guilt.

I don't think people are born to be murderers. I don't think people are born to be anything.

This is the old Hobbes-Locke argument over whether humans are born innocent and it is society which corrupts them or if they are born corrupt and society improves them.

Basically, I want to explain that I believe that something like ultimate free will does not exist. I don't know if that is really true. It is just my opinion. Don't get me wrong, I don't believe in fade or anything like that. It's just that in my opinion that we as imperfect human beings are not able to see the world objectively.

That has nothing to do with free will; that's perspective.

The government on the other hand should try to be as close to objective as possible.

The defendant is entitled to a fair trial by a jury of peers.  The jury is randomly selected and then both parties are able to make sure none of them are biased.

If you kill someone who has commited a murder, he has no chance at all to learn something from that. It also doesn't protect society from the killer better than a life-long imprisonment would.

Yes, but it's also a deterrent.

After all, the government should try to give an example. If the government may kill a killer, why can't I? That's already part of the wrong data that is stored on people's hard-drives.

Because the government is acting under the law.

I am aware that all of the above, could be complete nonsense.

Yes, I ran it through Word's AutoSummarize and it gave me "This is utter crap."

You may as well, tear me apart now, if your data doesn't allow you to just accept my opinion as being my opinion. You may as well feel the desperate need (again due to your data) to change my data and express this need by argueing how wrong I am, even though it's very unlikely to happen, as it is unlikey that my post has changed any of the pro-death-penalty-data, stored on various hard-drives of various members of this community.

You're trying to make us disprove your beliefs in regards to morality with cold fact?  No, thanks. 

Broken legs are repairable; a death cannot be "repaired". 

In the views of common law, life is a "natural right" which no one has the right to take from another.  It's removing someone else's freedom to kill them.  A broken leg isn't a loss of freedom.

Because there are consequences to his actions; not only did he commit a crime against the victims, he committed a crime against the state.

If punishing him won't bring back the dead, neither will letting him free.  Keeping criminals apart from society is one way the government keeps them from killing other innocents.

Guilt is natural.  His feeling sorry for his actions won't bring back the dead.  Since he knows what he did was wrong, he should also accept his punishment.

I mean your whole basis for this seems to be "murder can't be considered a mistake because it's murder", which is a pretty superficial argument.

If I'm not mistaken murder is when you kill somebody because you want to do it! Everything else can be a mistake but not murder. I could be wrong in my English so forgive me if this is the case.

Yes, that's right.  If you don't have intent to kill someone, that's manslaughter.  If you're charged with murder, you are being charged with intentionally killing someone.  Sure, you might regret it in the future, that's commonly known as "guilt".  It changes nothing, you still did it, and should bear the consequences.

Yep.

People do make mistakes, that's why the punishment is judged on a case-by-case basis.  But we have to allow for the option of the death penalty in others.

pcj: Thanks for the info. But I'm not just talking about America. Do any other countries use it? Anyway, in that case, why does Nebraska still do it, I have to wonder.

Good question...here's more info on Nebraska; I couldn't find why they use electrocution instead, but it might be to deter people from committing capital offenses in the state.

I cry my eyes out every time I see the Green Mile. I don't think anyone on this earth should be killed by electrocution. I can't honestly see why it's still done in a modern society. I'm guessing expense...? But how much more expensive can one or two injections be? Anyone have any info on this for me?

Uh, only Nebraska requires electrocution.  The other 37 states that actively do execute use lethal injections.

Oh, ok.  We're right here.