If murderers should be executed for the sake of "justice"...

[Lyric]

...then should people who support the death penalty be murdered when an innocent person is executed? After all, they committed a murder of an innocent person, even if only by indirectly aiding and abetting, defending the murder process, and collectively and willfully providing the means. Sure, the executioners themselves are the ones who push the needle or throw the switch, but the death penalty supporters are Charlie Manson behind the scenes, making it all possible. And yes, the execution of an innocent person IS murder in every moral sense of the word--no technical legal mumbo-jumbo about how state-sponsored murder isn't REALLY murder is going to convince anyone. It's just bullshit that accessories to murder use to help themselves sleep at night--as if providing "due process" is an excuse for murder. The execution of an innocent person being played off as "necessary" in order to achieve justice is as horrific as Bush I's "collateral damage" remark.

When we kill the innocent, then we are NO BETTER than the guilty people we seek to punish. Why should we get to avoid the same punishment we're dealing out to others so blithely? Because we didn't physically do the killing? Well neither did Charlie Manson--but HE'S readily acknowledged as the killer that he is. The fact that some of the executed are guilty does not change or excuse the reality that some of them are also innocent. But nobody cares about that. We don't want to think about it too deeply. It's easier just to make some pithy comment like "Sorry, I don't pity murderers." Actually examining the issue deeply might lead to a crisis of conscience, and since we don't WANT to believe that we're doing something terrible, we find a hundred shallow reasons to excuse it and then we go back to playing the goddamned Wii.

Flame away. But the reality is that the death penalty is a national disease, rather like alcoholism, and those who are addicted to the vengeance and violence of execution, the ones who have deluded themselves into believing that all of this is somehow "justice" and therefore morally right, are the ones who keep the rest of us from being able to heal and recover. I loathe the death penalty to the depths of my soul, and it hurts me intensely inside to hear some of my friends and family members defend it, because I cannot help but think of them as murderers...or at least accessories to murder. My own conscience will not permit me to see it as anything less.

There are many terrible things about living in West Virginia, but the one thing I am grateful for every day is that our state does not murder. I'd rather live in poverty than live in a state that spends my tax money to kill people.

[meegbear]

1. All death penalty supporters or just the ones who supported a particular death?

[Lyric]

2. You mean my initial question?

I'd say all death penalty supporters are equally liable for the death of even one innocent person, because THEY are the ones who keep the death penalty on the lawbooks. Without their support, it wouldn't have happened. So yeah--do all of them deserve exactly what they handed out to someone else?

[meegbear]

6. What about abortion? Isn't that a death of an innocent?

[Lyric]

9. Why are you so desperate to misdirect?

No, fetuses and embryos don't have civil rights or personhood. Now that we've gotten that completely irrelevant point out of the way, is there anything you want to talk about that actually concerns what I posted?

[meegbear]

12. I am not so desperate to misdirect, thank you very bloody much ...

and asking a question is not fucking irrelevant. You brought up a premise, and I'm asking you questions to define it.

Can you handle that?

[Th1onein]

3. I agree with you, Lyric.

And I wish that the anti-capital punishment groups should learn something from the right to lifers and picket outside the homes of those who actually push the needle into these prisoners.

[Lyric]

4. I'd be all for picketing outside the homes of anyone who supports the DP, period.

Seems fair to me.

[BoneDaddy]

19. Liberals like you make me shake my head

you would picket outside someone's house for their support of the death penalty? Better not turn your back.

[Zywiec]

5. I'd rather live in poverty than live in a state that spends my tax money to kill people.

When will you be leaving the US?

Since your tax money is being used in two wars to kill innocent people, I'm sure you're ready to find a more peaceful state.

[Lyric]

7. And why do you think I'm here?

I'm too poor to be able to afford to leave, at least not for another 10-15 years. So since I'm stuck here, I'm doing the best I can to STOP the murders--both at home and abroad. So I write here, and I protest at school, and I'm looking into law school so I can work with the Innocence Project and the ACLU.

But that's not what you wanted with your pithy little "love it or leave it" comment, now was it?

[Zywiec]

14. Too poor to leave?

How many Mexicans and Central Americans have absolutely nothing and are still able to leave their countries for the US?

Be honest, you don't actually prefer to live in poverty over supporting the killing with your taxes.

[Fire1]

20. Those Mexicans and "Central Americans" have nothing to lose

when they come here and other countries don't need more citizens taking up space. You must be able to "contribute" by attending some university in pursuit of something productive or contribute to the economy as a professional. I'm currently in a situation that prohibits my leaving but you bet your bottom dollar, as soon as I'm done with this situation, I'm OUT!

[cali]

8. I unrecced you because there is no logic contained in your post

and I am 100% against the DP in all cases. You clearly have no understanding as to what aiding and abetting is under the law. As for providing the means, if you pay taxes you indirectly provide the means to execute people. Sorry, that you live in WV doesn't make a difference when it comes to the Federal gov't and the federal gov't does carry out death sentences.

Comparing those who who support the dp to Charlie Manson is not only offensive but about as stupid a comparison as one could find here- and DU is full of stupid comparisons.

[Th1onein]

11. I don't think it's stupid.

You're right about the law, but the law doesn't always denote what is right and wrong. Otherwise, we would have single payer in this country, and "tort reform" wouldn't be able to protect big medical.

I wouldn't go so far as to compare those who support the death penalty with Charlie Manson, but if the intent is there, and the means, and you support both, then morally, I believe, you are killer. When the penalty is taken on someone who is innocent and you STILL support the intent and the means, you take on a higher percentage of the blame.

[cali]

13. It's ugly callous hyperbole to compare people

who support the dp to a murderer.

[Th1onein]

16. I disagree.

As I said previously, if the intent and the means are supported, and especially if they are supported even after you know that the death penalty is taken out on the innocent (which would then not exculpate those who believe that it is a just punishment for the crime committed), then logically, you are a murderer. Not legally, but logically.

[Fire1]

21. True that. n/t

[Orsino]

10. Killing the guilty doesn't make us any better.

Humane incarceration is possible, and offers some chance of rehabilitation that is lacking after an execution.

[TZ]

15. Come picket my home then

I would rather see certain people put to death than have any chance of them getting out and causing more grief and death.
Some people think I'm a murderer because I support abortion, some people think I'm a murderer because I do medical/animal research.
If you are opposed to the Death Penalty I can understand why. But I think smearing people who have genuine different political philosophies than you, is NOT a way to win friends and allies.
I HATE seeing innocent people put to death. I'm all for very very restricted use of it...and only after many many appeals.
I hate seeing my state use tax money to support religion, guns, all sorts of crap that I disagree with. But I will not call the people who are all for 2nd amendment rights de facto murderers even though I dislike guns.
Go ahead and call me "bloodthirsty" and "immoral". I'm used to that from both sides of the aisle.
Its fine to have disagreements with others but I REALLY object to treating those who disagree with you, the same way the right to lifers treat pro-choice people.

[Th1onein]

17. Your basic premise is incorrect.

You said: "I would rather see certain people put to death than have any chance of them getting out and causing more grief and death."

They have virtually no chance at all of getting out. And that chance is likely to get slimmer, given recent advances in technology.

Knowing how very imperfect (more like broken) our justice system is, no one should support the death penalty, at this point. The thing about using the death penalty in a restricted manner is that you have problems with innocent people being put to death--it's just not possible in a broken system like ours. And it never would be, unless that system becomes perfect, which isn't likely.

No one is treating you in a rude manner. We are having a discussion about the morality of the death penalty and those who support it.

I believe that no one has the right to take another's life, so that anyone who does, or who has both the intent and the means, to do it, and sees it carried out, is a murderer. Whether abortion is murder or not depends on where one stands on the issue of when human life begins. Capital punishment is a little more clean cut an issue.

I talked about picketing the needle pushers' houses because that's a form of civil disobedience that the right to lifers use that's proven pretty efficient. You, personally, are a little too far from "the scene of the crime" to bother with that tactic.

[Fire1]

22. Wouldn't picket your home but your friends and ally's are on

the other side of the aisle.

[BoneDaddy]

24. Well said

thanks.

[Sinti]

18. We need to decide WHY we have laws

Do we want to use our justice system to decrease crime, or to punish crime? It is vengeance or prevention. The DP does not work. There is no question about it. it is in no way a deterrent to the crime, in fact if you look at human nature it may increase murder in your society.

Take it back to the way you teach children. If your child smacks another child and you wish to correct this behavior what do you do? If you smack them the child learns that smacking is the way to correct behavior you don't like. They will continue to smack, because you have shown them it was the right way. They will take your actions as the example, not your words, and they will trust your words much less in future.

I think at this time we use our justice system for vengeance rather than prevention.

[Fire1]

23. Exactly. An eye for an eye. n/t

[LiberalLovinLug]

26. Violence begets violence

You are right.
The Death Penalty actually increases fatal violence in society.
When you live under a government that endorses state premeditated killing, it consciously or unconsciously affects how the society regards the value of human life. Also the DP helps create an atmosphere of violence being accepted from the top down.

I kick and rec this OP.

[Sinti]

27. If we could just get the leadership to frame it this way

we might be able to get DP banned at the federal level, and get more justice in general.

[Dr. Strange]

25. If murderers should be jailed for the sake of "justice"...

...then should people who support jail sentences be sentenced to jail when an innocent person is jailed?