"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it."
http://dalmady.blogspot.com
Each person, based on their own morals, can have their own personal opinion about the application of the death penalty. As far as the State of Florida is concerned it is a legislative question. The state has a constitution and laws have been passed that make it legal for the state to execute convicted criminals.
If people don't like the death penalty they need to campaign to get the laws changed, legislatively, like William Wilberforce did. "Amazing Grace" is a great example of persistence and the moral force of an argument to enact legislative change. Wilberforce fought for almost 50 years to see the end of the slave trend and then the abolition of slavery within the empire.
Oh...and a little tidbit about that world map and the death penalty.
I come from a "blue" country -Venezuela- where the maximum sentence for any crime is 30 years (and no consecutive sentences).
However, I assure you that many of us would prefer death to 30 years in a Venezuelan prison. Just so you have an idea, in 2006 alone, there were 378 violent (riots, murders, etc) deaths of inmates in Venezuelan prisons.
Compare that to maybe 60 or 80 executions in the US (a country 10 times larger in population).
Look hard...the world ain't as "enlightened" as many may think.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it."
http://dalmady.blogspot.com
Per Amnesty International, in 2005 94% of all known executions took place in China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the U.S. (China's the runaway leader, we're more in line with the two who still hold public stonings).
Two interesting stats I ran across is that, by far and going away, the most dangerous profession in the U.S. in terms of getting murdered is taxi driver, so remember to tip your cabbie well. And internationally it seems that murder rates and suicide rates have an inverse relationship. Where the murder rates are high, the suicide rates are. Where the murder rates are low, the suicide rates are high.
Make of that what you will.
I'm not a system player. I am a system.
Random idea about putting democracy in action:
What if you could select whether you are for or against the death penalty when you reach age of majority? Those for it would be subject to it and face juries selected from those who are for it. Those against it wouldn't be subject to it.
Heck we could even break it down monetarily so that the pro death penalty group could pay for the incarceration, trial and execution accused of a capital crime in a death penalty case and those opposed would pay for the trial and incarceration of anyone accused of a capital crime in a non death penalty case.
Sure it's kind of Sneethcy, but it's a concept I find interesting at the moment.
I'm not a system player. I am a system.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it."
http://dalmady.blogspot.com
Why stop at the death penalty?
We could choose mandatory castration for rapists, the chopping off of hands and feet for thieves, the disembowelment of kidnappers, etc.
Jonathon the Vampire, who was running for governor of Minnesota, ran on the ticket of impaling criminals on the statehouse lawn. I'm somewhat surprised he didn't get more support for that idea; I guess we just like our executions quick and bloodless. Injection with potassium chloride = good, impalement with metal pole = bad.
We'll burn that bridge when we get to it.
Oh, you can debate it. But there's no law that says anyone--including the government--must listen to you.
You can believe that red light runners should be sentenced to death by firing squad, for all I care...but I don't htink the government should pay any attention to you.
We'll burn that bridge when we get to it.
True...that's why we elect people.
You can find solace in that your point of view is gaining ground.
New Gallup Poll Reveals Growing Number of Americans Favors Life Without Parole
A May 2006 Gallup Poll examining American opinion about the death penalty found that when given a choice between the sentencing options of life without parole and the death penalty, only 47% of respondents chose capital punishment, the lowest percentage in two decades. Forty-eight percent favored life without parole for those convicted of murder. The poll also revealed that overall support for the death penalty remains low at 65%, down significantly from 1994 when 80% supported capital punishment. When asked whether the death penalty deters murder, 64% of those polled stated that it does not; only 34% believe it does deter. This is a dramatic shift from the 1980s and early 1990s, when the majority of Americans still believed that the death penalty prevented murder. 63% of those polled believe that an innocent person has been executed in the past 5 years, an increase over previous results. (Gallup News Service, June 1, 2006).
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it."
http://dalmady.blogspot.com
Well, you have to add in U.S. prison deaths as well, don't you? Probably another 100 a year or so.Compare that to maybe 60 or 80 executions in the US (a country 10 times larger in population).
You make an interesting point, but I'm not really concerned about other countries, to be honest.
The issue here is this: We need to ask ourselves if we as citizens of this country can make the moral decision to end someone's life for a heinous crime such as murder.
Do we have that moral authority? For now, this country feels as we do.
It doesn't make it right, of course, but that's where we are right now.
I'm of about 50 minds on the subject to be truthful. I see both sides of the issue, I really do.
I don't think it's being done intentionally, but unintentionally or sub-consciously. I've never said that those who oppose the death penalty are not, in concept, trying to do something they feel is noble and humane.
I wish we lived in an "ideal" world where people didn't commit such heinous crimes against their fellow man. But we don't live in such a place, and the reason it is in the "state" it's in has everything to do with man and his own behavior.
We seem to be wanting to try and create this "perfect" world, this type of utopia, that IMHO is again a noble venture, but very unattainable due to man's own state.
And what I am saying reg is that in that "process" of trying to attain that, and trying to be humane and just towards ALL (including the criminal), we're treading on, or placing less emphasis on the victims (and their family/loved ones).
I respect that reg; but the enactment of justice, in the form of the death penalty, is not based on "we can't bring Jessica back" mentality. That has nothing to do with it, and shouldn't even be a part of the equation.I don't believe an eye for an eye, or in this case, a life for a life, is justice. It doesn't bring Jessica back or prevent the crime from occuring
Dismissing capital punishment on that basis requires us to eliminate all prisons as well because they do not seem to be any more effective in the deterrence of crime.and the threat of being executed doesn't deter people from committing crimes.
Every state in the union is different. These differences include the populations, number of cities, and yes, the crime rates. Strongly urbanized states are more likely to have higher crime rates than states that are more rural, such as those that lack capital punishment. The states that have capital punishment are compelled to have it due to their higher crime rates, not the other way around.
Capital punishment, like all other applications, must be used consistently in order to be effective. However, the death penalty hasn't been used consistently in the USA for decades. Evidence shows that whenever capital punishment is applied consistently or against a small murder rate it has always been followed by a decrease in murder.
During the temporary suspension on capital punishment from 1972-1976, researchers gathered murder statistics across the country. In 1960, there were 56 executions in the USA and 9,140 murders. By 1964, when there were only 15 executions, the number of murders had risen to 9,250. In 1969, there were no executions and 14,590 murders, and 1975, after six more years without executions, 20,510 murders occurred rising to 23,040 in 1980 after only two executions since 1976. In summary, between 1965 and 1980, the number of annual murders in the United States skyrocketed from 9,960 to 23,040, a 131 percent increase. The murder rate -- homicides per 100,000 persons -- doubled from 5.1 to 10.2. So the number of murders grew as the number of executions shrank.
The graph below drawn by the Bureau of Criminal Justice gives a general overview of the murder rate compared to the number of executions that had taken place in the US up to the year 2000:
Texas executes more murderers than any other state. The Texas murder rate in 1991 was 15.3 per 100,000. By 1999, it had fallen to 6.1 -- a drop of 60 percent. Within Texas, the most aggressive death penalty prosecutions are in Harris County (the Houston area). Since the resumption of executions in 1982, the annual number of Harris County murders has plummeted from 701 to 241 -- a 72 percent decrease.
Deterrent is not the sole issue. It is simply about justice. If one believes that man is made in the "image of God", then taking the life of another human, depriving them of that being, demands an ultimate punishment. maintained in a perfect balance. Second, we must recognize that God has given the government the authority to determine when capital punishment is due. Christians should never rejoice when the death penalty is employed either.
But who says we are not empowered to make such decisions. Murder and committing crimes against your fellow man is exercising and showing man possesses that "empowerment".Many of us WANT to see Couey killed--as I said, I wouldn't mind myself. But it's exactly why we are not empowered to make such decisions.
There is an element of vengeance involved; but to say that it's nothing more then that is then not understanding the concept of justice.Executing people is nothing more than vengeance for a crime. And I've seen it argued in this thread that, apparently, that's OK.
If captured - should Bin Laden be tried, and if found guilty, sentenced to death?
"In my day you had musicians who experimented with drugs. Now it's druggies experimenting with music" - Alfred G Clark (circa 1972)
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