The Death Penalty

i am against the death penalty mainly because i think you are letting the person off WAY too easily, they deserve to suffer for the rest of their lives than get the easy way out.
the prison system in the UK sucks (no death penalty). all of the prisons are literally full so they are letting out 'minor criminals' to make room for the more dangerous ones. i also cant understand why someone who behaves well in prison is let out early, anyone can put on an act for the guards.
yeah, taxpayers cover our criminals too, so justice isnt done according to the crime its done according to how much it would cost to keep them in jail (damn capitalist society), which i think is wrong. the only way i can see to reduce costs is to get rid of the criminals rights (as some/most are lower than dirt), that way we can feed them the cheapest food once a week etc etc, much easier on the budget. phew that rant took a while.....

 

While your statement is full of bias, I don't think humanity has the right, nor the intelligence to accurately portray who is allowed to live and die in our society. We aren't above each other, thus shouldn't have the right to decide who lives and dies.

Killing people doesn't solve anything, not morally nor economically. I will reiterate a previous fact that it costs more money to execute criminals than to keep them alive.

 

yea but that "we aren't above each other" statement is true for murderers as well. nothing gives them the rite to kill anyone. i believe in an "eye for an eye". if u kill someone for a dumb reason (like robbery), u DO deserve to die. but if u do it for a good reason (well....self defense is the only reason i know of), then u shouldn't die

 

That's why murder is against the law.

You give humanity too much credit. So say someone kills another, and so in turn they get killed for it. There's always going to be someone else who will feel 'a loved one is taken away' from them. Someone kills a man's daughter, so the father kills the man in return. The that man's mother is infuriated and then kills the father. It won't end that way.

This is because oftentimes, the circumstances around a murder are filled with so many grey-areas that it's impossible to determine just what the root of the crime is. Did he shoot out of cold-blood? Or did a security guard scare him and accidentally cause him to pull the trigger--which so happened to be aiming at the 35 year old banker with a family of four? In this case, this man's life is hardly worth the death penalty--but it's how the prosecution goes that will decide his fate. A prosecutor may win a first-degree murder case, *not* because that's what really happened, but because the prosecutor was *that* good. Take that reasoning, along with the fact that court rulings have turned out to be wrong time and time again, how do you call this justice?

Humanity is in no way, capable of discerning what this true justice is when it is judged by people who depend on their payroll to make a living. What's right is often *not considered* what's really important, because morals don't put food on the table.

Judgment of criminals in terms of their crimes and their punishments--be it death sentence or not--are oftentimes very un-unified in terms of how it was handled and judged. The judgment is not as important as the impact it has on the rest of society.

Humanity won't learn anything if being killed for killing another becomes a common trend. It doesn't invoke any real change and no goodness or learning comes out of it.

 

yea but do u believe that Sadam Hussein deserved to die? he knew perfectly well what he was doing when he killed all those ppl. i for one believe he got what he deserved

 

I believe Sadaam should've been locked up somewhere for the rest of his life. Considering his age and the crimes he committed, it would've cost less money to keep him isolated for eternity than to execute him.

 

Im against the death penatly. ITs an easy painless way out, unlike their victim's death.
Lock people up forever, and theyll have an eternity to think about what theyve done, regardless if it haunts them or not.
Plus, who should decide who gets to live & who gets to die? Its 'playing god' and I find it inhuman.

 

I don't get it. Why is it called murder if one person on death row kills another. But when it comes to that persons day to die and they are killed by others. Why isn't that murder? Why should courts decide when somebody dies? It should truly be God's decision. Man doesn't have the right to decide when another man leaves. All executioners are are hitmen who are above the law.

 

Agreed. It really is playing 'god', even for those of us who dont belive in god...It creeps me out & I find it cruel/unusual punishment...I mean that stuff was done in medival times, c'ommon its the 21st century

 

Yeah if you execute somebody make it futuristic. Oh I know a good way. Don't use the death penalty.:D :D :D

 

Tru dat...I mean, no one should ever have that kind of power over a human being. And if theyre subject to the death penalty, it must mean theyve really screwed up, because our court system lets people off WAY too easily. So, it would imply that theyve killed someone/multiple people. By 'humanely' killing them, the law is doing exactly what the murderer did to their victim. So really, then wouldnt you have to kill the executioners? What makes it okay to do that? Where does the line get drawn?
Plus as I said before, they get to die peacefully while their victims struggled for every last breath. They should have to rot away in prison and think about why theyre there, not just get the easy way out.
Oh and when mistaktes are made, this will eliminate innocent people dying...So yeah thats basically what I think about it:o

 

i am not sure about this topic. if a life was ended should that justify another big finish? i say, that with the death penalty, i dont think that anyone will value life that much. if a person wrongfully kills someone, and someone simply says, 'Kill him.', what does that say about us. the court, people and criminals are always ready to kill someone else at the blink of an eye. i don't find that too acceptable.
as a side note, what about manslaughter, should that be punishable by death?

 

Oh My Gawd.....The Death Penalty. If someone steals...then that's wrong. They can repent, can't they? But when someone kills....that's a different story. Here are the scenarios of killing and what should be done:

Someone is forced to kill-Half jail time.
Someone kills to protect-Half jail time.
Someone kills a killer-Full jail time.
Someone kills to survive-Full jail time.
Someone kills for the hell of it-Death Penalty.

That's what I believe....

 

I believe the ancient Babylonians had it right.. Eye for an Eye, Tooth for a Tooth.

If someone kills, they should be killed. If someone steals, they should lose a hand. If someone rapes, they should be raped. Etc. etc. etc.

 

Would kind of suck if they were mis-trialed--which unfortunately happens enough. Humanity is very bad at discerning what's true and untrue; psychological studies have backed this up for years.

Eyewitness testimonies have become less and less reliable because of it. And even evidence requires human interpretation.

 

And thats exactly the problem I see with that logic. I just feel that its outdated...
Sentencing is done on a case-to-case basis, which is good. Crimes shouldnt be generalized imho. I dunno I just feel so weird about people saying: OKAY NOW YOU DIE Its just so, inhuman? I really dont know, I just get freaked out about the prospect of sentencing someone to their death.

 

i have no real opinion. there are moral issues, like i stated earlier, and practical ones. for example, if you keep a man in high security for about a year, it costs about 1,00,00 pounds. imagine all the good things you could do with that money. also, another one: say they kept saddam hussien in jail. some loony or loser who supported him might kidnap someone and say, 'give him to us or we'll kill this person.' and another innocent would die becuse the community cannot afford to let saddam free.

 

There's always room for reform, the problem is that people want a quick solution and they want it cheap (i.e. no tax hike to reform convicted criminals). As always I look at it like Health Care, especially since there isn't any capital punishment in Canada. The American government could easily invest money into rehabilitation programs, but sadly that would mean parting with a few of their shiny new military weapons and defense programs. God knows that'll never happen with a Republican government running the show.

 

Just because a set of laws only held place a few thousand years ago doesn't mean it wasn't a good set of laws. I mean sure, the whole idea of " if he floats, he's not guilty " should be reformed, but the general idea of eye for an eye is a very good one.

And it is not against humanity to kill. Everyone should know this by now. Humans were meant to kill in order to survive, such is life. It only makes sense that humans would kill other humans in order for more to live peacefully.


PS: Canada's health care is alot worse than America's plus it takes longer to get major surgery done. Sure it's free, but I'd rather pay a few thousand doesn't to fix my leg than have a decent chance of losing it. I'm saying this because, if a government does too much for its people, the people suffer. If the government put more into rehabilitation, the rest of their programs would suffer. Not just defense and military.

 

I think you might have that confused. The more a government does for its people, the more they prosper. Sure reform programs can be considered a big hassle, but not financial aid, or shelters for the homeless. They tend to work wonders for community. A government that neglects its people is like a man that saws off his own legs just so he can have something to eat.

I would also have to disagree with your take on human nature. Yes it is in us to survive, but not to kill. We may be able to meet such a capacity if the situation requires it, but if killing was built into our design then why do we learn empathy, or compassion. It's because we learn violence just as much as we learn anything else. From an evolutionary standpoint, we kill because we learnt that it helped us to get food. Now people kill for sport or punishment. I'd say we've pretty much surpassed the aspect of killing for survival (self-defense aside).

I'd also like to add that on average the wait for surgery in Canada is the same as it is in America. The medical proceedures are exactly the same as well. The only difference is that the poor, immigrants and other miniorities have equal rights to it. I don't mean to judge, but it seems a hell of a lot better when everyone can get the same proceedure as opposed to just a few that have the ability to fork over the big bucks to do so. America could easily do this with a defense budget that extends into the hundreds of billions of dollars. Heck it would only take a few billion, and everyone would benefit not just the elite. But I guess that's the problem.