Message #11214

[yankeestarbuck]

Are you sure you believe a kill for a kill?  Do you honestly believe that a man who shoves another man swinging punches at him into a wall, the punching man hits his head and dies, and the shoving man should be executed for that?  He didn't intend for the punching man to die.  But your view is all encompassing.  It doesn't seem that there is any grey area.  Sexual abuse also can be construed as a person who pinches another person's behind.  In Italy, this is common practice and some Italian women find this complimentary.  Is that meriting losing your genitals?



It's fine to be angry, and we all should be.  The loss of life is heinous, by any standards.  But my point is, aren't we, as a law abiding society, "better than that"?  Shouldn't we set the example and not follow suit?  People who want to watch the execution aren't sick, they're angry.  Anger shouldn't be the deciding factor in matters of law, truth should be.  Like I said, the idea is to be enlightened and treating the convicted criminals as they treated their vicitms does't show enlightenment, it shows retrobution.



I'm not a Christian, but from reading the bible and listening to my mother's favorite priest, my take on Jesus was he was a forgiving man.  He turned the other cheek.  I internalized this and keep it in my practices.  Our society was begun by Christians who brought this forgiving nature into their law-making and their punishments.  One of the amendments (I forget whoch of the top 10) guards against cruel and unusual punishment.  In some modes of thought,  death is cruel and unusual.  I also find it an easier punishment than life in prison.



But my point is, whether or not we have the death penalty or not available, it doesn't deter the crimes people commit.  Men and will will commit crimes no matter the punishment, so it's not working.  The statistics that say it costs much more to execute than to life a person is fact.  As I mentioned before, the death penalty is not being used as it should.  Many more African American men are being executed in our country than Caucasian men, and those statistics are available online.  If that isn't the biggest sign of racism, I don't know what is.



As a society, I think we need to reevaluate how our children are raised, how our elderly are cared for and how our criminals are punished.  These are the difinitive reviews of societies.  I believe we make our own monsters by hurting our children, punish our elderly parents for hurting us and turn evil to the criminals for going ahead with actions we wish we had the courage to perform.



And for anyone who truly thinks an execution is worth watching, she/he should watch one live and in person.  I turned down this rare oportunity in college because I didn't see how this would help my education.  After speaking to my classmates who did watch, they told me it was a life-changing experience to watch a human life just disappear before your eyes, like a candle going out.  I'm glad I said no.