Capital punishment is another one of those issues that can be very easy to see in black and white until you or someone you know is actually in the situation. I (Delia) am morally against the death penalty as a means of "civil" punishment, because I don't believe that it's ever alright to kill someone, no matter what they have done in the past. Capital punishment is a very strange way for our culture to deal with criminal activity, because in all our other policing activites, we act strongly against the "eye for an eye" mentality; but the death penalty is exactly that, punishing someone the same way that they hurt someone else. I think that in many areas (this one in particular) the enforcers of the law have WAY too much power. I mean, who the fuck are they to decide whether or not someone is worthy of living? Who is ANYONE to decide whether or not someone can live? One of the scariest things about the death penalty is that it not only satisfies the (most likely) irrational desire of the families of the victims to see the murderer killed; but it gives people the impression that killing someone is a decent solution to a problem. And it's very likely that if the death penalty continues, it's going to be used more and more loosely... -Delia, Feb. 20/00 I am against capital punishment. I don't have time to right very much right now but I will just say this: No one knows what happens after death, so you don't know if you are doing something horrible to them, or doing them a favor. The reason murder is a horrible crime (I beleive) is because you take someone's future, and someone's choice. The truth is, I don't want murderers living in our society either, but taking their life is taking away their ultimate choice and I don't think any human has the right to do that. I have had this discussion with a friend in the past and I asked them "Why is this murderer on death row?" and they said "Because only God has the right to take someone's life." That seems really ironic to me. Just so everyone knows I don't beleive/not beleive in God. But I do beleive that people don't have the right to take other's lives... -Katy, Feb. 20/00... Another reason that I think the death penalty is morally wrong is that it causes unnecessary and undeserved remorse on the parts of the families and friends of the offender(s); actually punishing them more than it punishes the criminal, because, as Katy said above, death may not even be a punishment because we don't know what happens afterwards. I know that if a relative of mine committed a murder, it wouldn't be half as hard for me if they died later on in life, after they'd had the chance to realize that what they did was wrong; rather than know that they're to be murdered and not given the opportunity of redemption... -Delia, Feb. 21 ...
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