That quote is meaninless as it could be extended to prohibit just about any action by society against the individual.

I have no problem saying that some people should be put to death, I just don't have sufficient faith in a bureaucracy to be sufficiently accurate or consistent in making that determination.

When I am master of the universe (a process that can't start until I get around to bleaching my hair), there will be a death penalty.

Very good question, my friend. One for which, I have no answer.

Donna

Double snaps to that. Sums my stance up perfectly. No matter how air-tight a case seems, no matter how many appeals you allow, no matter how much you spend, no matter how careful you are, the chance of an innocent person slipping through the cracks remains. And no matter how small that chance is, it's too large for my taste.

Because the right to die has been coopted by the psycho-medical industrial complex and redefined not as a personal choice but as a medical treatment (which it is not). The desire to die, even when a rational choise has been defined as ipso facto evidence of dementia.

Bill Munny: Hell of a thing, killin' a man. Take away all he's got and all he's ever gonna have.
The Schofield Kid: Yeah, well, I guess he had it comin'.
Bill Munny: We all got it comin', kid.


- Unforgiven, 1992

Meaningless???!??

Gandalf the Grey - meaningless?!?!? Those Sir, are words of ignorance.


In all seriousness though, I don't see how that can be expanded to include any act. Oh, you can expand that philosophy indefinately if you want, but it's clearly not the intention of Gandalf or Tolkien or Mr. Cricket that you do so. No one, not the Istari nor anyone else, is claiming that denying the state the purview over human life is akin to denying the state the purview over, say, taxes.

It extends itself through the logic underpinning the quote. Also it is fallacious in establishing a false connection between giving and taking life.

There is no false connection alluded to in the quote. The very point of the quote is that it's a true connection.




I suppose those who would still instill the death penalty throughout the universe should they be elected God in the next deification election might think the connection false, but that does not change the validity of a quote authored by a non-candidate.

I'd never want to see an execution. And, I'm totally against the death penalty, as too many innocent people DO get executed, just on grounds of "circumstantial evidence" or even fear. Take the "West Menphis Three" for example. A community went crazy, and decided to blame the "weird kids" in town. Two documentaries have been made regarding this case, and to see the bile that is spouted by the actual townsfolk is absolutely disgusting. And their lives are being wasted away in prison, one on death row for a crime they didn't commit, but people just think they did. It's a frightening example of the faulty justice in our legal system, and lives are on the line for it. :(

Well, we'll have to just disagree that the ability to give life and the right to take it are connected, though it is a bizarre concept to me.

The creation of life is a chemical process. The right to take life is a societal decision. To me it is like saying you can only choose to use nuclear energy if, first, you have the ability to put the atoms back together.

And I never said anything about being god. God doesn't exist and I haven't the time nor energy for omniscience. I'll settle for a simple benevolent dictatorship.