The Death Penalty

[SGR]

I haven't read up on the death penalty for a while now, but from what I understand, I'm against them - beyond the morality of sanctioning the power of legally killing someone with your government, there are practical reasons to be against them

• The sentenced might be innocent, and evidence could later prove that
• Death sentences end up costing more than simply housing and feeding them in prison for the rest of their life does (on average)
• In terms of punishment, spending the rest of life in prison could be seen as more fitting than death

That being said, I did read a story about the Taliban a year or so ago - there was some members of a family killed by stabbing - the Taliban sentenced the offender to death, but they let the surviving members of the family carry out the execution. I gotta say, if my family members were killed like that, I'd sympathize with the desire.

[Psy-Fi]

Death sentence for Chinese knife attacker

A Chinese man who carried out a knife attack in eastern China last June that wounded a Japanese woman and her child and killed a bus attendant trying to protect them has been sentenced to death, according to a Japanese official.

[Guybrush]

]That being said, I did read a story about the Taliban a year or so ago - there was some members of a family killed by stabbing - the Taliban sentenced the offender to death, but they let the surviving members of the family carry out the execution. I gotta say, if my family members were killed like that, I'd sympathize with the desire.

My own feeling is that normal, healthy people with normal feelings will be harmed by committing such acts of violence, whether they're aware of it or not. So in a sense, I see this as causing further harm to the victims.

[SGR]

My own feeling is that normal, healthy people with normal feelings will be harmed by committing such acts of violence, whether they're aware of it or not. So in a sense, I see this as causing further harm to the victims.

That's an interesting point of view. Do you believe this is exclusive to violence perpetrated against other humans exclusively, or does it extend to violence against all animals?

[Guybrush]

That's an interesting point of view. Do you believe this is exclusive to violence perpetrated against other humans exclusively, or does it extend to violence against all animals?

It can certainly extend to violence against animals. Whether it damages you or how much has to do, I think, with yourself and your inner moral workings. I think some can work at an abbatoir and be fine while others may be damaged morally and or emotionally.

Multiplying the issue a thousandfold, it reminds me of nazi Germany and how they used to dig mass graves, then line up and execute Jewish people with shots to the head. They were eventually worried about the damage all this executing people would do to the German soldiers tasked with this and also what sort of damaged people they'd have to rebuild the country after the war, so of course they needed an efficient way to kill people without using executioners.

Looking at it from a bigger perspective, having killed someone violently isn't likely to make you a better member of society.

[Buck_Mulligan]

^^^
I recently watched a public TV program called "Secrets of the Dead", about how first the Germans, then the Brits, and then the US, in WWII fed their troops high doses of various drugs such as Speed, Amphetamines, and more, to keep them awake, and to anesthetize them from the horrors.

[Psy-Fi]

Federal judge refuses to block upcoming Alabama nitrogen gas execution

[Trollheart]

Isn't this somewhat similar to the idea "hanging is too good for them" that led to the horrendous sentence of being hanged, drawn and quartered for treason in the 14th - 16th centuries in England? Maybe elsewhere too? I mean, there are some acts for which I might say getting an injection to end your life is too easy, but reading about criminals experiencing actual minutes of terror before they die seems all but deliberate to me, a case of thinking that the death penalty is too soft or something. Sounds terrifying anyway.

[Psy-Fi]

Five sentenced to death in Nigeria over 'witchcraft' murder

[Psy-Fi]

Condemned South Carolina killer chooses firing squad execution in what would be first use of that method in US in 15 years