The death penalty

[scaeagles]

I have oft vacillated on the issue at hand. I used a big word, but now I'm not sure if I spelled it right, so I could look stupid right now. Oh, well.

I have never consider the act of killing to be equivalent to the act of murder. Murder involves lawlessness and typically malice. Killing in and of itself does not. As ISM pointed out, killing in self defense is often a necessity. There are many such examples, none of which are pleasant to think about, but many, many are necessary and justifyable.

That being said, I see the death penalty not as being lawless, though many disagree with the law. I disagree with a lot of laws. I do not think the death penalty in the current form is acceptable. I do not think, however, that we want to get into games of comparing what we do here in America to other countries, as there are things throughout the world that are not in line what what we do here. For example, I believe that the US is one of only 5 countries that permits abortion with basically no restrictions. Does this mean we should change this law because our views are out of line with most of the rest of the world? I would suspect most here would say no. What the rest of the world has to say about it sways me not.

Sadly, the justice system in America has gone the way of the Sophists in Greece, particularly in high profile cases. You couldn't pay me enough to follow (though not a death penalty case) the Michael Jackson trial. Didn't care to follow Scott Peterson or OJ, either.

I suppose that's a big, big way of saying that I am still not sure what I think about it. It would seem to me in particularly eggregious cases, such as will be the case with the recently apprehended BTK killer, it would be warranted and even desirable.