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Dontcha love all these armchair executioners. Me, I prefer the words of someone who knew the reality of executions. Albert Pierrepoint who hanged some 435 people said in his 1974 biography:
"I have come to the conclusion that executions solve nothing, and are only an antiquated relic of a primitive desire for revenge which takes the easy way and hands over the responsibility for revenge to other people...The trouble with the death penalty has always been that nobody wanted it for everybody, but everybody differed about who should get off."
What you think about death punishment ? In the Poland is prohibit and how is in the USA?
It is too expensive to kill guilty life due to the legal system and all the ACLU type lawyers, so I am for life imprisonment under harsh cheap conditions.
It is legal to kill innocent life in abortion and that should be outlawed IMO except for that one half of one percent where the life of the mother, rape or incest occurred. The rest IMO is selfish and probably a form of murder. I know Planned Parenthood has duped lots of women into it, but it is what it is.
Dontcha love all these armchair executioners. Me, I prefer the words of someone who knew the reality of executions. Albert Pierrepoint who hanged some 435 people said in his 1974 biography:
"I have come to the conclusion that executions solve nothing, and are only an antiquated relic of a primitive desire for revenge which takes the easy way and hands over the responsibility for revenge to other people...The trouble with the death penalty has always been that nobody wanted it for everybody, but everybody differed about who should get off."
I don't mind if they jail them for life under horrible conditions since that is cheaper, but if we could kill them all fast and cheap it would be very good since many have been responsible for multiple murders.
Some serve life sentences (which means only 25 years) and have come out again to kill ten or so people. I have a feeling those hundreds of people in those ten families alone for the most part would say executions would have solved the subsequent deaths of their loved ones. (and it would have)
So you do have to have some common sense here.
Not everyone stays in prison by law on a life sentence.
As an atheist, I support the death penalty for murder. When an individual commits murder, he is unlawfully taking from someone everything he has and will ever have. It seems appropriate that the punishment be proportional to the offense.
A side effect of high death penalty rates is a lower murder rate*, due to the effects of deterrence, but the principal rationale for executing murderers ought to be to inflict a punishment that is proportional to a crime for which the effects are devastating and irreversible.
* For instance, Singapore, which executes over 50% of its murderers, has a murder rate (meaning murders per 100K population) that is 2% that of the US, which executes only 1% of its murderers.
As an atheist, I support the death penalty for murder. When an individual commits murder, he is unlawfully taking from someone everything he has and will ever have. It seems appropriate that the punishment be proportional to the offense.
A side effect of high death penalty rates is a lower murder rate*, due to the effects of deterrence, but the principal rationale for executing murderers ought to be to inflict a punishment that is proportional to a crime for which the effects are devastating and irreversible.
* For instance, Singapore, which executes over 50% of its murderers, has a murder rate (meaning murders per 100K population) that is 2% that of the US, which executes only 1% of its murderers.
West and central Europe also has a much lower murder rate than the US and they do not have the death penalty. So, I don't think there is a direct correlation between murder rate and the death penalty.
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F. CHRISTIANITY AND THE DEATH PENALTY
This section is included only to counter the false claim that there is no New Testament support for capital punishment.
1) Virtually all religious scholars agree that the correctly translated commandment "Thou shalt not murder" is a prohibition against individual cases of murder. There is no biblical prohibition against the government imposition of the death penalty in deserving cases. Indeed, the government imposition of capital punishment is required for deliberate murder. (Dr. Charles Ryrie, Biblical Answers to Contemporary Issues & The Ryrie Study Bible, Exodus 20:13).
2) " . . . pronouncements about divine behavior (in the Hebrew Bible) correlated in the judicial context to attitudes toward death as a proper punishment. Quite clearly, the New Testament carries on the earlier mentality." As Jesus described in the Sermon on the Mount, "Obedience will be rewarded with life; disobedience will be punished with destruction. A God who rewards with life and punishes with death is One whose laws provide for death as a judicial punishment." Dr. Baruch Levine, "Capital Punishment," p 31, What the Bible Really Says, ed. Smith & Hoffman, 1993.
3) "If no crime deserves the death penalty, then it is hard to see why it was fitting that Christ be put to death for our sins and crucified among thieves. St. Thomas Aquinas quotes a gloss of St. Jerome on Matthew 27: ‘As Christ became accursed of the cross for us, for our salvation He was crucified as a guilty one among the guilty.’ That Christ be put to death as a guilty person, presupposes that death is a fitting punishment for those who are guilty." Prof. Michael Pakaluk, The Death Penalty: An Opposing Viewpoints Series Book, Greenhaven Press, (hereafter TDP:OVS), 1991
4) "The same divine law which forbids the killing of a human being allows certain exceptions. Since the agent of authority is but a sword in the hand, and is not responsible for the killing, it is in no way contrary to the commandment ‘Thou shalt not kill’, for the representative of the State’s authority to put criminals to death, according to the Law or the rule of rational justice." St. Augustine, The City of God, Book 1, Chapter 21. See F.16
5) "The rejection of capital punishment is not to be dignified as a ‘higher Christian way’ that enthrones the ethics of Jesus. The argument that Jesus as the incarnation of divine love cancels the appropriateness of capital punishment in the New Testament era has little to commend it. Nowhere does the Bible repudiate capital punishment for premeditated murder; not only is the death penalty for deliberate killing of a fellow human being permitted, but it is approved and encouraged, and for any government that attaches at least as much value to the life of an innocent victim as to a deliberate murderer, it is ethically imperative." Dr. Carl F. H. Henry, Twilight Of A Great Civilization, Crossway, 1988, p 70,72. Father Pierre Lachance, O.P. (St, Anne Parish, Fall River, Mass.) fully concurs: "There is no question but that capital punishment was not only allowed but mandated in the Old Testament. In the New Law (New Testament) (St.) Paul recognizes the legitimacy of capital punishment . . .’It is not without purpose that the ruler carries the sword. He is God’s servant, to inflict his avenging wrath upon the wrongdoer Romans 13:4.’ " (TDP:OVS, 1986, pg. 8)
6) "It is because humans are created in the image of God that capital punishment for premeditated murder was a perpetual obligation. The full range of biblical data weighs in its favor. This is the one crime in the Bible for which no restitution was possible (Numbers 35:31,33). The Noahic covenant recorded in Genesis 9 ("Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed. "Gen 9:6) antedates Israel and the Mosaic code; it transcends Old Testament Law, per se, and mirrors ethical legislation that is binding for all cultures and eras. The sanctity of human life is rooted in the universal creation ethic and thus retains its force in society. The Christian community is called upon to articulate standards of biblical justice, even when this may be unpopular. Capital justice is part of that non-negotiable standard. Society should execute capital offenders to balance the scales of moral judgement." From "Capital Punishment: A Personal Statement", by Charles W. Colson., a former opponent. He is spiritual advisor and friend to numerous death row inmates and the Founder of Prison Fellowship, the largest Christian ministry serving incarcerated prisoners. Ph.703-478-0100.
7) St. Thomas Aquinas finds all biblical interpretations against executions "frivolous", citing Exodus 22:18, "wrongdoers thou shalt not suffer to live". Unequivocally, he states," The civil rulers execute, justly and sinlessly, pestiferous men in order to protect the peace of the state." (Summa Contra Gentiles, III, 146.)
8) "God, Himself, instituted the death penalty (Genesis 9:6) and Christ regarded capital punishment as a just penalty for murder (Matthew 26:52). God gave to government the legitimate authority to use capital punishment to restrain murder and to punish murderers. Not to inflict the death penalty is a flagrant disregard for God’s divine Law which recognizes the dignity of human life as a product of God’s creation. Life is sacred, and that is why God instituted the death penalty. Consequently, whoever takes innocent human life forfeits his own right to live." Protestant scholar Rev. Reuben Hahn (Mt. Prospect, Ill.), Human Events, 3/2/85.
9) "The fact that the evil, as long as they live, can be corrected from their errors does not prohibit the fact that they may be justly executed, for the danger which threatens from their way of life is greater and more certain than the good which may be expected from their improvement. They also have at that critical point of death the opportunity to be converted to God through repentance. And if they are so stubborn that even at the point of death their heart does not draw back from evil, it is possible to make a highly probable judgement that they would never come away from evil to the right use of their powers." St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles, Book III, 146.
DEATH PENALTY AND SENTENCING INFORMATION
In the United States 10/1/97
By Dudley Sharp, Death Penalty Resources Director, Justice For All Pro-death penalty.com
Death penalty, or being banged by your neighbor for 35 years.
Dontcha love all these armchair executioners. Me, I prefer the words of someone who knew the reality of executions. Albert Pierrepoint who hanged some 435 people said in his 1974 biography:
"I have come to the conclusion that executions solve nothing, and are only an antiquated relic of a primitive desire for revenge which takes the easy way and hands over the responsibility for revenge to other people...The trouble with the death penalty has always been that nobody wanted it for everybody, but everybody differed about who should get off."
Personally I don't really care if it deters.
It would be great but I want killers and rapists executed because they deserve to be punished and by executing them you remove any chance that they might kill/rape again.
If someone murders me I hope my killer is caught and executed.
As an atheist, I support the death penalty for murder. When an individual commits murder, he is unlawfully taking from someone everything he has and will ever have. It seems appropriate that the punishment be proportional to the offense.
That is an interesting thought. So in that case, does proportional punishment mean murderers should be murdered, rapists be raped and abusers be abused?
If in the act of committing a crime you cause a death, you die. I caveat that with indisputable proof of your guilt.
We had an instance awhile back where a police officer walked up to a car he had stopped for speeding and was killed. The state would not seek the death penalty. Crying shame.
I heard last week the same thing just happened. I think the toll for this year is about 15 officers killed.
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