Vegan Bodybuilding & Fitness

I myself am still on the fence when it comes to the Death penalty. Especially when it comes to scum like Whitey Bulger. Part of me really wants to see him fry, only because I knew who he was and many of my family members were, and still are, involved with his mob. The other part of me only sees self defense as the only reasonable and understandable means for killing a person (only if it's in self defense. Thus this is why I am still, as I said, on the fence, when it comes to the death penalty.

But what really pisses me off is when people (especially far leftists liberals) talk about how much they are against the death penalty and say things like, "an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth, would leave the world a blind and toothless place" and what not. Understandable, yet these are the same people who willingly euthanize they're pets or other animals, who aren't terminally ill, or dying. Some of the main reasons for these horrific hypocrisy are, "to prevent overcrowded shelters," or perhaps the owner is moving and can't take care of the animals.

So these people are ok with murdering innocent animals, but not ok with doing it to murderers, rapists, criminals, simply because "they feel sorry for them."

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Like the Transformers there's more to me than meets the eye.

If I recall correctly, there was a discussion thread about what to do with the Oslo killer. I thought that thread had quite a bit of good discussion about the topic.

Just to start the debate, I will say that it's always wrong to kill someone, no matter what they have done....

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Learning how to be compassionate, gain wisdom, and love life.

Agreed. Murder is murder whether it is sanctioned by a government or carried out by someone with issues. All life is valuable and precious.

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Live cautiously to make it safely to death

When it is certain that someone is a cold-blooded murderer / rapist / torturer, I think they deserve to be killed. Slightly different I feel are crimes like "manslaughter", where people are killed as a result of a fight, or car accident, and so on. But when someone deliberately and sadistically kills someone else, I don't believe that their life is worth anything and to keep them alive in jail is pointless anyway. Some people deserve discipline / rehabilitation, but not everybody.

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Yea, in self defense I also agree with you.

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Like the Transformers there's more to me than meets the eye.

Agreed. I've never understood how people can believe that someone who, say, guns down a dozen people at their old place of employment after being fired from their job could actually be "rehabilitated" and have any reason to ever be allowed to see freedom again. And, what good does it do to spend the average $45,000+ per year to keep them locked up when they had so little disregard for other life for what put them there in the first place?

While some people may have mental/emotional disturbances that COULD potentially be worked on to offer some sort of normal life after committing a terrible crime, there are many more who cannot be anything more than the crappy person that did the crime that put them in the position in the first place. I think it's a matter of finding better ways to idenify and offer actual "help" to those who have a chance, but for those who do terrible acts under their own free will in a clear mind, I simply can't feel empathy for them if they face death for their actions. Of course, killing the perpetrator doesn't undo any of the damage, however, I've always felt that if more people who were on the verge of committing atrocities against others had actual FEAR of their own demise as retribution, some people might just reconsider their actions before making a terrible choice.

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"A 'hardgainer' is merely someone who hasn't bothered to try enough different training methods to learn what is actually right for their own damned body." - anonymous

The problem is that studies haven't shown that to be true. It's also just as expensive to put someone to death as it is to keep them in prison for life, so I don't think economics is a useful argument either.

The problem is that it's damn hard to decide when someone can be rehabilitated and when they can't. I know I'm not qualified to make that judgement, and I don't think anyone else is either....

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Learning how to be compassionate, gain wisdom, and love life.

I think it's irrelevant whether they could be rehabilitated or not. Some crimes are so awful that the criminals do not deserve discipline or rehabilitation, they should be killed on principle.

Regarding the economics, I don't believe it costs the same to kill someone once, as it does to keep them in prison for dozens of years. What are you killing them with, an injection of liquid diamond? Even if it is expensive to kill them, there are other cheap ways to do it, and I don't care about it being "inhumane" to shoot, hang or behead somebody. They don't deserve humane treatment in the first place. It may sound callous, but we're talking about people who have kidnapped and tortured / raped people for weeks / months / years in some cases. Those types of people deserve no mercy whatsoever, in my opinion.

But I am not up in arms against those who say not to kill criminals. Ultimately, the main thing is to get them out of society in one way or another, either a mental institute, jail, or the grave. But I do strongly disagree with the idea of rehabilitating sadistic scum - they just do not deserve it. I say, rehabilitate drug addicts, thieves, even abusive spouses. But the way I feel is there is a limit to that kind of mercy and correction.

I don't know how anybody can read Junko Furuta's story and still not be in favour of the death penalty

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I've seen a few documentaries showing death row inmates being lead to their fate, let's just say that even the hardest bad-ass in the cell block usually turns into a gibbering idiot when they know they only have minutes left to exist. To me, it's the fact that people often KNOW that even if they were to get the death penalty, they may well be pardoned, might be able to drag it out for decades, or that they might not make it in prison long enough to worry about something that could be years down the road. When you barely care about the current moment, considering that it could be 10-20 years before you could POSSIBLY be executed isn't much of a deterrent. Now, if such imates were to know that they'd end up in solitary confinement from the first moment they reached prison soil and that they had, say, 90 days before execution, I believe that would change the outlook of those who don't truly take the consequences of their actions as seriously as they need to.

I see the problem with the death penalty being "expensive" because far too many who are faced with it end up dragging appeals out for decades, adding greatly to costs. Let's face it - when you have someone like the Norway shooter who is caught in the act and could NOT blame the act on someone else, there wouldn't be any reason at all to allow appeal, simply drive him from the crime scene straight to where he'll meet his end and be done with it. I wouldn't condone an expedited execution of anyone who was NOT caught in the act of something that would be an offense worthy of such an end, but let's face it, the Norway shooter (for example again) is NOT going to be a productive member of society, he has zero chance of ever beginning to "make amends" for what he did, and an speedy execution is simply what would have happened to him were the victims' families allowed to make the call on what would be done with him.

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"A 'hardgainer' is merely someone who hasn't bothered to try enough different training methods to learn what is actually right for their own damned body." - anonymous

And yet how do you reconcile making the death penalty an effective deterrent (swift punishment being a key part of that) with respect for civil liberties and protecting the rights of the accused? One of the most damning arguments against capital punishment is that innocent people are sometimes executed, and if you cut down on appeals and such you increase the incidence of that happening.

Regarding the animal euthanasia point from the OP, it's natural and inevitable that people will see killing animals differently than they do killing humans. I don't get worked up about euthanasia nearly so much as I do about factory farming.

I think the purpose of the original post was the principle of execution, not the practical side of it. Executing an innocent person would be wrong - executing someone who is guilty of a sadistic crime, is the right thing to do. But yeah, in the real world, I don't know about advocating it, because there will always be that grey area of uncertainty in some cases.

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