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Politics : Long Live The Death Penalty! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LPS5 who wrote (158)	1/14/2003 12:13:05 AM
From: Solon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 828

Well, I've argued this whole issue at length previously and I do not have the time for a prolonged revisiting of the matter. Briefly, I understand the utter disgust which normal people have for unconscionable killers. There are definitely those who are a scourge and a blight on society, and seem to have nothing in common with any human sentiments. It is natural human nature to want to see these people face an agonizing death. But there are certain facts that everybody over 20 ought to know. Firstly, that crooked and dangerous people occupy every echelon of society from peasant to Pope, and always have. Innocent people have been murdered by Church and State ever since the first man learned to grunt and swing a club. Police, too have murdered, and sometimes get caught. Obviously, setting up a loser or lying against an enemy is an easier crime to rationalize than outright murder. The probability is that millions of innocent people have been gotten out of the way over the centuries across the face of our planet. Nobody needs statistics to understand that the world is crooked and that you don't have to be poor or powerless to be rotten to the core or to desire to win at any cost. And nobody with a murderous heart cares whether he is in Texas or in Illinois. A murderer will murder his victim wherever that victim happens to be. As a consequence of crooks existing everywhere, we also have an unequal conviction and sentencing procedure at different socio-economic levels and between racial groups. One can certainly hope that murderers get caught in the act and killed on the spot. But when they are not, a regard for humanity urges us to put the possibility of innocence before the irrevocable extinction of death. Bill is a decent human with strong convictions. I have argued with him but I understand how many people feel in their heart that only a death (with perhaps torture) brings a sense of justice. He might be determined not to understand your point of view, but I don't believe he has a shallow intellect.