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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: epicure who wrote (29983)	2/4/1999 2:28:00 PM
From: E	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

This is your position, as I outlined it in my post: <<If one wants to kill people, one must say, "I don't care about fairness or deterrence, I don't care how they're selected, I want somebody to die, symbolically and because it makes me feel better." That is a position I can comprehend, because it is honest in its disregarding of morality and the evidence, and is identifiably human. >> Because 'lottery' as you use it, means something like coincidence, chance, act-of-God; but 'lottery' as the death penalty process works in practice, means systematic execution not for crime, (we know that because such a tiny percentage of murder defendants are even tried capitally) but for their race, their victim's race, their sex, their educational level, their economic status. So that is the species of 'lottery' you are supporting. A rigged one. You say: <<But it must be more liberally applied. No matter what your color, or wealth, if you are caught red handed in a murder with special circumstances you should die.>> But, X! That is not one of our choices! The fact that intelligent people say that over and over as though they could, by the expression of this sentiment, make it happen, never ceases to amaze me. Of course the law should be applied fairly and uniformly and without bias! But it never has been, it isn't currently being, and one waits with interest to see what might change this system in the future. The system won't change, because the cry for killing via this biased selection process gets votes for politicians. I wish someone who calls for them "to fry 'em all," but in an unbiased, unrigged system, of course, would, one day, say, "and I will, of course, refrain from calling for the ultimate penalty, death, until that system is in place." BTW, where did the "let the 99 go" come from? Is that someone's proposal? Even I would be forced to accept the death penalty if the alternative were to let 99% of vicious murderers go. I see you don't believe that it is more expensive to have the death penalty than not to, and absorbs funds that could be used to make the streets safer for you to inhabit at night. It is true, though. I don't feel like looking it up and won't. I promised not to post on this subject again, and here I am already.