Capital Punishment, for or against.... Options

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I never realized we had so many smilies that depict forms of punishment!

Ok so another boring already long and drawn out topic with little chance of being resolved on this site.... well its fight club people, pointless debate is what it's about.

Relatively simple topic, albeit a bit brutal. I am interested to know what you all think. As always I'll hold back my thoughts for awhile and see if there are any takers... Odds are I'll forget what I was thinking anyway.

This post has been edited by Acid09: Jan 15 2008, 06:53 PM

Being the bleeding heart that I am, I don't believe in the death sentence at all. While I think that there are some people who for their crimes can never safely be admitted back into the populace, even the worst criminal may come to have some kind of spiritual awakening during his imprisonment that, while not absolving him of his deeds, gives him the chance to have a clearer understanding of the consequences, both materially and spiritually.

That said, the forms of execution today - is the electric chair still used? - or at least, everything since the disbandment of beheading and hanging, seem to have been developed more as a way to distance the executioner from the task. Kind of like pretending that it's humane, when really it's not. The most human way to go is beheading. It never fails, it's fast, and in my opinion if you're going to be an executioner you should face what you are doing directly, understand it viscerally. Injection sometimes fails, paralyzing the heart and lungs so that the victim suffocates in a long and agonizing death. The Gas chamber can cause terrible brain damage, without killing the victim right away. Even when it does work it can take hours to die. The electric chair is just brutal. The reason no one cuts off heads anymore is just because of the mess. They don't want to do it humanely, 'humane' is a codeword for 'clean'.

Now, I do think that there is something that should be done about our prison system, I think a lot of people go to prison who really shouldn't be there, and who are not reformed by it. I think that accidental killings warrant lesser sentences. Pedophiles I think are not really suitable to be released, or other sex-crime offenders of a 'serial' nature - statutory rape is such a gray are in itself that half the time its a ridiculous endeavor of angry parents to 'protect' their supposedly 'innocent' children from boyfriends/girlfriends they don't like, something I've personally observed twice. But serial sex-crime offenders will in most cases continue to commit crimes when they are released, but more carefully. Some murderers i think could be reformed, but I think for that to be more effective, there needs to be better conditions, security, and counseling available in prisons. Right now honestly the conditions there can turn accidental and half-hearted criminals into very hardened and brutal people. These days, many prisons ultimately create worse criminals to release into the world. With better connections.

peace

I am morally opposed to forced imprisonment for any reason.

Against the death penalty? Well I am all in favor of self-defense. If an attacker tries to shoot you, but you draw first and shoot him dead, it sounds fair to me.

What if you had no gun, or were overpowered or caught off-guard? I don't think it's fair to let the guy get to live (at our expense) when you would have been happy to shoot him dead if only you had your own gun. Unable to force the fatal consequence yourself, society takes up the role and does what you would have done. When criminals devise a humane way of murdering innocent people, we can think about humane means of punishing them.

Any element of the legal system is open to misuse.