Tookie Williams denied clemency

[Eliza Hodgkins 1812]

Originally Posted by innerSpaceman

I am against the death penalty under any circumstances, would not want to witness an execution, and would never be able to convict someone of guilt if death were to be the penalty. It's eye-for-an-eye biblical barbarism as far as I'm concerned, and proven to be no deterent whatsover. Heh, even if it were, people's lives are not meant to be taken so as to set an example of warning. Bah on that. Add in the racism, the wrongully convicted up the wazoo, and the fact that - well - it's wrong (is there some reason the U.S. is alone with, who? Korea, Iran and their ilk as still having the d.p. in this day and age?), and you have 50 more reasons than I need as a civilized man to be against the practice..

The next time I see you, I may try to hump you.

Ditto to all that you said. It could be argued that the whole purpose of the legal system is to put an end to eye-for-an-eye vengeance.

Without it:

I kill your dog. You kill my dog. I then kill your dog’s puppies. Then you kill my chickens. Then I kill your chickens and your daughter. Then you kill my son, my wife…. On and on and on.

When a person is killed there’s nothing anyone can do to ever make that right. The idea that a person can find peace in the death of another human being, even one who has caused great harm, is just not a healthy one to cultivate. “Murder is wrong, and so, as punishment…more murder.” Bah.

A human should not have the right to kill another human being.

And neither should a government. You can’t have it both ways. War is a far more complicated issue, though my problems with war stem from that same hypocrisy: Murder is wrong, except…… *How* can there be acceptable exceptions? Sure, sometimes you cannot avoid war. Sometimes going to war is the necessary thing to do, but it still feels more wrong than right.

I understand the impulse to murder. It’s animal. It’s natural. So when an individual commits murder, it’s a horrible thing, but it doesn’t scare me nearly as much as a governing body deliberating and deciding that murder is an acceptable punishment. And it scares me even more when the government makes the decision to go to war. I guess an individual crime doesn’t terrify me as much as a government committing a crime and calling it something else: justice.

Then again, my favorite comic book quote is "Take away the blindfold and the scales and justice is a woman holding a sword."

All that aside, the threat of the death penalty does nothing to curb crime.

I propose an alternative.

We need a prison planet. Or, to start, a prison space station. Heh.