Do you support the death penalty?

[Selatius]

I figured this was as good a time as any to see DUers' position on the issue of the death penalty.

My personal position: I understand wanting to put somebody who killed somebody you loved to death, but I came to the conclusion that forgiveness is the higher path. I'm not asking that one should also forget what happened, but I would say that killing the murderer won't bring back the murdered or help the process of healing any faster. The convicted should be given the opportunity to atone if he wishes to atone, but that cannot happen if he is dead.

[Common Sense Party]

1. A different poll would be interesting: Who'd support the death

penalty for Bush and Cheney?

[LonelyLRLiberal]

2. Naw, waterboarding every day during a life sentence will do. eom

[Warpy]

5. Or just a life sentence with no company but their own

Now that would be hell on hearth

[WindRavenX]

3. nope

It's not civilized, and as another DUer said, it's "revenge by proxy".

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

4. Forgiveness is important for your mental health

as well as your spritual health.

If you continue to hate someone for a wrong done, you are stuck in that place, and don't grow out of it.

The late head of my Sufi order had a sister who was killed by the Nazis in WWII (she worked for the French Resistance and was tortured and killed at Dachau). He said that he was still working on forgiveness--he'd forgiven the guards, who were sociopaths, but was still having trouble forgiving the woman who betrayed his sister to the Nazis. You could tell that her death had taken a great emotional toll on his life, but that by practicing forgiveness he was, slowly, healing.

[Bluzmann57]

6. Voted no

Meant it. Will always mean it. Now please don't get me wrong, I am not for mollycoddling dregs of society, but life without parole is a fate worse than death, imo. Especially if the freaks have to do life in solitary, without any contact with the outside world. No magazines, no phones, no books, no newspapers, no TV, no radio, nothing. Just sit and think about what you did and why you did it. I'd rather be dead than live like that. I save that punishment for the worst of the worst.

[uppityperson]

7. no, can see heat of anger thing, but also don't see that it is a choice between

death penalty or forgiveness. I don't believe in the death penalty, but also may never forgive.

[BlueCollar]

8. I took option three

As much as I find the concept of execution distasteful...Sometimes the world should be rid of individuals thast are so dangerous that we shouldn't take a chance on their remaining alive...

Having said that, I'd be unwilling to sit on that jury

[The Magistrate]

9. Support Is Perhaps Not Quite The Right Word, Sir

To suffer untimely death seems to me the right response for dealing it out.

Most of the arguements against it fail to impress me. The state is an engine of violence, and to pretend it should not kill is to profoundly mistake its nature. To say that something is barbaric, or simply revenge, similarly isses the point: we are barbarians under the skin, and vengeance is the root of justice where any injury is concerned.

The system under which people are on occassion nowadays put to death in this country is an extraordinarily poor one, however. It is capricious in the extreme, and where there is caprice there is no justice. It is not the heinousness of the crime but the poverty and race of the defendant that is the leading factor in determining who is sentenced to death, and cases against these persons on the bottom rungs of society are not infrequently pressed with malice and distortion on the part of police and prosecutors, and sometimes judges also. Even where the penalty is manifestly deserved in some individual instance, the thing as a whole is disfigured with injustice.

[Selatius]

16. The issue with me and the death penalty isn't the state; the issue is my principles.

My main opposition to the death penalty lies in the doctrine of forgiveness. With that said, I am not mistaking the fundamental nature of the state. It is a tool of raw force, and historically, it is a tool of oppression of the masses in one form of oppression or another. With that said, there are no illusions with respect to eliminating violence from the state, especially with the issue of war and peace.

[The Magistrate]

18. And We Seem, Sir, To Have Somewhat Different Views On Principle

That is hardly a problem: things would be very boring if there were no disagreements.

It is always difficult for me seperate an idea from the practicalities of putting it into effect, and most of my objections to things stem from actual or readily foreseeable difficulties in doing that. At minimum, a thing must pass that test before either support or opposition on principle can be entertained.

[MrSlayer]

10. Yes.

And I would expand it to include pedophiles and violent rapists if I could.

[sandnsea]

11. No

And forgiveness doesn't mean denying the brutality that any given individual is capable of. Not everybody can be rehabilitated and it's perfectly okay to make that judgment and keep them locked away forever because of it. Aboloshing the death penalty is a statement about what kind of people we are, has nothing to do with the criminal.

[wicket]

12. Never

n/t

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

13. Thoughts on the Death Penalty

I will believe in the death penalty when you will prove to me the infallibility of human beings.
--Marquis de Lafayette

As one whose husband and mother-in-law have died the victims of murder assassination, I stand firmly and unequivocally opposed to the death penalty for those convicted of capital offenses. An evil deed is not redeemed by an evil deed of retaliation. Justice is never advanced in the taking of a human life. Morality is never upheld by a legalized murder.
--Coretta Scott King


We are not so mad as to think that we shall create a world in which murder will not occur. We are fighting for a world in which murder will no longer be legal. -Albert Camus

It is well-nigh obvious that those who are in favor of the death penalty have more affinities with murderers than those who oppose it.
-- Rémy de Gourmont (1858-1915), French essayist, novelist, poet, playwright and philosopher.

«There is no crueler tyranny than that which is perpetrated under the shield of law and in the name of justice.»
-- Montesquieu (Charles de Secondat) (1689-1755), French political thinker and philosopher who articulated the theory of the separation of powers.

May the bad not kill the good,
Nor the good kill the bad
I am a poet, without any bias,
I say without doubt or hesitation
There are no good assassins.»

-- Pablo Neruda (1904-1973), Chilean writer, Nobel Prize winner (Literature).

«And so to the end of history, murder shall breed murder, always in the name of right and honour, and peace, until the Gods are tired of blood and create a race that can understand.»

-- George Bernard Shaw.

[emmadoggy]

19. Thank you. Your quotes sum up very well my views on the death penalty.

I also like Ghandi's "eye for an eye" quote. Actually, the death penalty issue was one that took me a long time to figure out and decide where I stand. But in the end, it just comes down to...how is murdering a murderer right, just, or moral??

[David__77]

14. Other: Perhaps, but not under this system of justice.

Presently I must favor total abolition of capital punishment, but there are certainly those who deserve death.

[MazeRat7]

15. No and here is the reason why....

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0777460.html

I thought the US was supposed to be a "first world" country, all advanced, compassionate toward others, and stuff...... but we are ranked with 3rd world countries where this issue is concerned.

MZr7

[Nite Owl]

17. I am opposed in any case

It serves no purpose but revenge. Putting someone else to death is not our right or we become just like the accused. Besides the fact that so many are later found innocent. In the quest for 'victims rights', and they do have rights, there is such a hurry to find someone guilty, anyone as long as the case can be closed. That is murder too, revenge is not the answer. Laws are also never applied equally, those who have the money can often find a way to get off and go free while those who are poor cannot have that access to evidence and lawyers that can help them.

[GreenPartyVoter]

20. As long as the innocent are erroneously incarcerated, NO.

[ritziecracker]

21. Death penalty Wrong even for Saddam!!!

Christmas was only 5 days ago and the right-wing's blood-lust for killing never takes a holiday!!!

[midnight]

22. No, I do not.