I can honestly say I don’t understand what you mean or how it applies to the death penalty.

There is the ideal and the real. Strive for the best solution possible, but do not waste too much time debating what should be done. Decide and act upon your decision. There are many more problems to contend with. The death penalty has been debated since Adam and Eve had to contend with Cain’s killing Abel.

You will not answer all your questions or solve all life’s problems during your life, all you can do is live one day at a time. You will wrestle with many questions. This is one of them. In my life, I have reached the point that I believe there is still some definite value in the death penalty; and that it’s fine with me if it hurts the one being executed.

Consider this..

We have dreamed down Pirates,
We have dreamed down Kings,
We have dreamed down Tyrants,
and the end of evil things.

But we still have Pirates,
But we still have Kings,
But we still have Tyrants,
and a lot of evil things.

Have a good life!

To those in favor of capital punishment, I would ask: what if one of your loved one has been wrongly accused of a capital crime? What if the innocent one on trial is you? But perhaps it’s different if you have no personal connection to those who were wrongly convicted.

Death is final. Executing an innocent is an error that can’t be corrected…and one is too many. I don’t think that the state ought to be empowered to kill individuals, given that I’m intuitively skeptical that the state can be trusted to restrain itself in the name of individual liberty. After all, if the state can’t responsibly spend our tax dollars, or adequately educate our children, why would we trust it with our very lives?

Yes, those damn rights and appeals are just so pesky.

In principle, I agree to the death penalty. Some crimes are so brutal, so heinous, that the only correct punishment is to deprive the person who committed that act of their life. However, several things are wrong with the application of the death penalty in this country. They are best summed up in two words: Cory Maye. If that man can be put on death row, then I cannot in good conscience support the death penalty as it is currently practiced in this country.

One last thought: I have a severe problem with the entire concept of lethal injection and the electric chair as being a “humane” way of killing someone. If the state is going to kill someone, we need to accept that fact and not try and sugarcoat it. Bring back hanging and/or firing squad.

What “foundations” of Western Civilisation would you be alluding to?

I believe that, if the state is going to kill someone, then that person deserves to have every assurance taken that their rights are protected. That they are, for example, entitled to competent legal counsel.

Talking about the foundations of Western Civilization is, I think, a bit melodramatic.

No. Not at all Ol’ Sport. If I were king of the US of A, the pathetic trial and appeal system we’ve allowed the imperial liberal judges, Harverd lawyers, and bleeding hearts of this country to impose would be put in the trash on Monday morning. That was my original point. Idiots are screwing around with the foundations of Western Civilization without the faintest idea of what they’re doing or what the consequences will be. It happens every time ultra-left liberals get the upper hand. Put my “point” in the back of your mind and take it out again in 30 years. I have a feeling you’ll see what I’m talking about in a much clearer light. (Especially if us Boomers send you to the poor house before we pass into the history books:-)

You assume that the cost of life imprisonment is more expensive than the cost of taking a death penalty case all the way to the execution stage. In fact, it’s quite the opposite.

What’s wrong with “life in prison without parole”? Nothing! That is, nothing if Bill Gates and his friends want to “adopt” some guilty scum bags and pay for their upkeep (prisons, meals, medical expenses, clothes, gym sets, etc.) and security. If idiot rich folks want to adopt these people, you know like Madonna bought that poor African kid, fine! But I don’t think the rest of the people in this country should have to do it. Scum is scum is scum! Abort and move on! Know what I mean?

PS: The older you get the grumpier you get. You’ll see. (If I were you, I’d be mad at all us old farts taking your tax money for Social Security and Medicare:-)

It’s the uncertainties, and the errors, that I see on a regular basis in the court system that have given me second thoughts about the death penalty to begin with.

What would be so wrong with life in prison without parole ?

Given the choice, I’d rather have some objective standard applied rather than the subjective standards of one time period over another.

For example, the highly-monitored Scott Peterson case out in CA resulted in the death penalty, for what was entirely a circumstantial case. I think it’s pretty likely he did it, but without any witnesses or a true slam-dunk case, how can we give him the death penalty?