Cry me a river

Started by No Sympathy, Feb 21 06 07:03

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Sportsdude

The funny thing is if they get the death penalty here's how it should feel. Count backwards from 10. zzzzz. time of death blah, blah, blah. [/DIV]Want the criminal to feel real pain? Lock him up and never let him or her go outside for the rest of there life. Longer they are in prison the better in my opinion. Death Penalty is just a cop out, quick fix.
"We can't stop here. This is bat country."

primefactor

Want the criminal to feel real pain? Lock him up and never let him or her go outside for the rest of there life. Longer they are in prison the better in my opinion. Death Penalty is just a cop out, quick fix.[/DIV]
You don't get the Death Penalty for minor crimes, or even for most types of murder. You get it for brutal and premeditated murder. The type where you fantasize about your crime, plan for it, hunt your victims. Spending the rest of your life in a place where you're warm and fed, where you can read, watch television, exercise, socialize, whack off while you relive the delicious memory of a woman begging for her life while you stab her to death... Oh, but it's "real pain" just because you can't walk out the door and leave when you want?

I'm not saying that means it's a clever idea to torture murderers to death, or that I trust the government with killing people. I am a liberal, a pacifist, and an agnostic. I have never been in a fight or spanked my kids. I don't enjoy the pain of others, not even in "harmless" ways like laughing at home videos with  people falling on their butts or smushing wedding cake on each others' faces. I am a wuss.  But the Death Penalty is not actually meant to be a deterrant or a lesson. It's a consequence. Of bad actions and bad choices. Administered to bad people. You don't get to that point by making a mistake. And the whole argument about how it's actually more expensive to execute people than to incarcerate them for their natural life is not accurate. It's trying to PREVENT their being executed that surpasses the cost of incarceration. The legal stuff. The execution itself is cheap.  And every time a murderer is executed, while it's not PC to show it on the outside in the circles in which I move... my recycling, non-car-owning, volunteer-work-doing, Democrat-voting, cruelty-free-hemp-lotion-moisturized hands secretly clap together in approval. I am glad somone is willing to pull the switch, even knowing that it won't bring anyone's murdered loved-one back. And I don't stand by comfortably intellectualizing or philosophizing about the fine ethical points of how the grieving family or our entire culture chooses to deal with a pain and rage I am lucky enough not to understand first hand.

tenkani

Yeah well, to boil it down, the death penalty is not a deterrent and is (due to our legal system) more expensive than life in prison. So what does it achieve that a life sentence does not? It makes certain people feel better. Sorry, that's not a good enough reason IMO to take the life of someone who is essentially incapable of causing harm to the public. That's not even taking into account the embarrassing mistakes we've made. Executing an innocent person is a real "D'oh!" moment. Again, not worth it for something that does not make America safer in any way.
For thou art with me; thy cream and thy sugar they comfort me
Thou preparest a carafe before me in the presence of Juan Valdez
Thou anointest my day with pep; my mug runneth over
Surely richness and taste shall follow me all the days of my life
And I will dwell in the house of coffee forever.

Lisa Maree

One of the larger purposes of punishment is to act as a deterrent.  Some people don't commit horrific crimes because they don't want to be killed by legal injection, or any other means sought to bring forth death.  Some do without any regard for the punishment.  A person who commits crimes to the degree of warranting the death penalty already have no regard for the consequences.

I don't agree that we should kill another human being as a form of amendment.  I think life in prison is punishment enough.  Having to live with what you've done, while breathing the stagnant air of rock walls and knowing that your family and friends are on the outside living on without you is torture itself.   What lesson do we teach about how wrong it is to kill when we kill the wrong?