Re: Death Penalty (was Re: Didn't need no welfare state)

From: Gina Miller (nanogirl@halcyon.com)
Date: Tue Apr 18 2000 - 15:43:52 MDT


I have a feeling that one day in the future, we will consider capitol
punishment just as barbaric as foreign countries see us now, (Europe seems
to look down on our electric chair) or as we now view the guillotine. I
acknowledge that I have extreme viewpoints towards hypocritical punishment.
Here's our government "we do not allow killing, it is wrong, so we will kill
you". To me, (and I know not a lot will agree, here's where I throw in a
disclaimer: people can use physical punishment towards their own children,
that's their family, their business, and their choice, although I would
chose not to") it is just as ironic as if I had a child (say Timmy), that
was hitting the neighbor kid , 'little Cindy' from down the street, and I
said "Timmy it's wrong to hit other's" and proceeded to hit him 'as
punishment'. I know that not everyone will agree with this, but I think
exact punishments, tend to escalate the action. If we kill murder's, does
this prevent any further murders?
Gina

> >From: James Rogers <jamesr@best.com>
> >
> >While I am very big on individual self defense, I have come to abhor
> >state-sponsored killing in general. As things currently stand in most if
> >not all countries, the state is not held to the same standards of
> >justifiable homicide as the individual. While creating such a standard
> >effectively eliminates the death penalty, in the absence of such a
> >standard I would prefer to explicitly eliminate this ability from the
> >state. Arguably, only individuals can have the right of
> >self-defense anyway, since the government is made up of nothing more than
> >individuals.
>
> Sounds nice. But the minute you hold the state to the same standard as
> individuals, the state gives up all police power (except in those few
> circumstances were governmental employees or property are harmed or
> threatened) and all prisons must be emptied. That might sound like a good
> thing to you, but the day it happens here is the day I move to Costa Rica.
>
> -Zero
>
> "I like dreams of the future better than the history of the past"
> --Thomas Jefferson
>
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