Death Penalty Poll

[BanannaMan]

Originally Posted by Bri w

Can you pull the trigger. it's one thing voting yes, in excetional circumstances. But can you really pull the trigger? And could you speak to the convicts family and say I pulled the trigger becauce of... Could you look the children of the accused and say I killed your father/mother because of...

I know its a U-rated site, and i know we tread around the edges of some very controversial subjects, but do you really think you could pull the trigger on another human being???

So he's raped your sister!!??(1984) So another has sexually assault your wife!!??(2006)...

Do you want to wake up in the morning thinking I killed the barsteward who.... Or do you want to wake up thinking the barsteward daren't go into the showers for the next x years??

Each to their own but i'll tell you one thing. The higher moral ground when you've been wronged, as opposed to living at their level, is a nicer place to be...

RESPECT

You have been through quite a lot , more than most could take, and still managed to take on the high road . Well done indeed.
As a Christian I should be able to say the same thing but I'm afraid I fail here.

If someone broke into my house tonight...
I'd shoot them in an instant with no remorse or regret.
If they wanted me to throw the switch on the electric chair for a rapist, pedophile, or killer....ZAP!

Maybe it's because I grew up on a farm and had to put animals down on occasion.
And possibly it's because I come from a family most noted for being famous outlaws in these parts not quite a hundred years ago. LOL (it's true!)
But I agree with others, some people don't deserve to live.


I agree that you are right.
I'm just not to that level of forgiveness with those who have harmed someone I know.

Originally Posted by beabert

Yep, christian principle of forgiveness, cant forgive if they are dead.

Under Christian belief the spirit does not die in death, so yes, a dead person can be "forgiven" under the Christian sense of the word.

Originally Posted by Ed

**** off

Originally Posted by Spiderman

Dont let it get under your skin Ed.

That post seemed innocent enough to me if Beabert holds religious beliefs. What did the rest of us miss?

Originally Posted by lynw

I struggle to see how the State can dictate killing is wrong then go and do it?

That assumes the state is correct to dictate that killing is wrong. If they change that stance, then could they change the stance on the death penalty?

My grandmother died recently a couple of weeks after moving into a permanent geriatric ward where she was in pain and desperately unhappy not to be able to live in her own home. She said several times that it was time for her to move on now. Now whilst of course I was very upset to loose her, I know she is OK and at peace and she's moved onto the next leg of her journey, and that maybe one day our paths will cross again. I'm happy that she died when she did and wasn't forced to live under circumstances where in her eyes she had little quality of life.

I don't want to turn it into a thread on euthanasia, etc. The point I am trying to make relevant to the death penalty is that the state treats death as a bad thing under EVERY circumstance.

I know this is going to make me sound like a suicide bomber , but take it more as a person who believes in life after death. If like me you believe that habitation of your body and living this life is just one leg on your journey as a soul and spirit, and you are not afraid of death particularly, then the death of a person is not necessarily a bad thing.

I understand and to a certain extent agree with your argument about moral standing and how incarceration keeps us on a higher moral ground than the criminal, but if you can put death into the above perspective (many won't be able to) then you take away 50% of the argument which is "it's wrong to kill people".

Was mother Mother Theresa an executed criminal in a past life?

[Biker Biggles]

No one expects---Oh bu&&er

[yorkie_chris]

Originally Posted by BanannaMan

or those who have killed a policeman (or woman).

This I disagree with, I don't see a policemans life is worth any more than another one.
In an abstract way it is the state protecting itself through fear, a fair state would not need that... (same thing with offence here of assaulting a police officer)

Originally Posted by stewie

There will always be victims, but if it protects one extra child then its worth it I beleive.

I disagree. Then the casualty is not one child but everyone's confidence in justice. Would you like to live in the old days in Russia with the KGB's pistol pointed at your head?

Better a hundred guilty men walk free than one innocent man convicted and all that.

Originally Posted by yorkie_chris

Better a hundred guilty men walk free than one innocent man convicted and all that.

But really though? Better for whom? If you have 101 people in a cell of which 100 are child molesters and rapists, but there is no way of finding out which one is innocent...would you really let all 101 of 'em walk??

[yorkie_chris]

I'd probably have a look at them all and shoot any of them who looked a bit funny or their eyes were too close together or something. Though I do accept this wouldn't really be the best thing for the country

[Biker Biggles]

Originally Posted by thulfi

But really though? Better for whom? If you have 101 people in a cell of which 100 are child molesters and rapists, but there is no way of finding out which one is innocent...would you really let all 101 of 'em walk??

Suppose suspect number 101 was you?And the penalty was death.
Puts a slightly different perspective on it

If suspect number 101 was me, I'd disagree with the decision of executing

A. Because their child molesters and I don't believe that merits a death penalty
B. The scenario I put was that the authorites knew one was innocent, just not which one? Therefore they are acknowledgingly killing an innocent person.

I was simply responding to

Originally Posted by yorkie_chris

Better a hundred guilty men walk free than one innocent man convicted and all that.

.

If you were innocent, and 100 rapists were set to be released because they didn't know it was you that was innocent, would you not feel bad?...Not perhaps better to take one for the greater good, etc. Yeh you'd feel lousy and hard done by, but you'd see where their coming from in making that decision.

In blunt terms, the benefit one innocent person will have to society is most likely no where near the cost that will be faced of releasing 100 rapists.

I think I may have given a wrong impression of victims in one of my posts, I didnt mean someone who is wrongly accused of a crime and then executed, I mean the victims of crime, whether its a rape victim, murder victim etc, I didnt mean to suggest that innocent people should be thrown away just to make sure we get all the bad ones, I mean lets face it have any of you ever heard of a miscarriage of justice in this country anyway ? it all depends what you class as justice, cos ultimately the only people who seem to benefit from our criminal justice system are the criminals we are all to soft on imho.

Agree with ya there Lynw.

How about if we take error out of the equation completely. Lets say in Dunblane, police managed to wound the shooter. He recovers in hospital, then stands trial.

I don't believe 'errors' in a justice system is reason against capital punishment, because a government can easily adopt a system of not executing unless they were 100% sure, and I mean 100% not 99.99%...and there will be cases where there is no doubt. Very few, but their will be.

Errors in the justice system are tragic, capital punishment or not. An innocent man who spends his life from 20 yrs old to 80 and then dies in a prison cell will probably have as much if not more sympathy from me than the also tragic scenario of a wrongly executed person.

I believe, if there is 0.001% chance of someone being innocent, then there is no discussion to be had about capital punishment or not. Simply because the person may be found innocent x years down the line. The discussion is only to be had if we know the person to be guilty (ie Dublane example above).

In reality though, governments get it wrong. If just one person is wrongly executed, then that country needs to seriously re-think their system, and question wether or not they should be dishing out the death penalty when they aren't 100% sure!