Posted on 09/11/2011 12:25:59 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
I said here last night that the California GOP audience cheering the announcement that Texas has executed 234 condemned murderers under Rick Perry was a vile, repulsive thing.
Even when I was for capital punishment, I believed this.
Justice may require execution, but we should never rejoice in taking the life of another human being. At best, capital punishment is a necessary evil. I quit believing in capital punishment when I became convinced that the state is not trustworthy to use this power responsibly.
It happened about 10 years ago, when it emerged that a forensic scientist in Oklahoma whose testimony had been key to many convictions, including capital convictions, was actually quite incompetent. I lost track of the story, so I don't know if any of the prisoners executed thanks in part to her testimony were later exonerated. Even if they hadn't been, the fact that men were sent to their death based on the expert testimony of an incompetent scientist is chilling.
In Texas, If you are a conservative inclined to trust Rick Perry's remarks about its soundness, I invite you to read the New Yorker's long report about the Cameron Todd Willingham case. When this became a controversy in Texas, Perry went out of his way to block an official inquiry into the facts. I don't believe this hurt him, either. People have a strong need to believe in capital punishment, and they will accept anything that allows them to support it with an untroubled conscience.
I understand why people believe in capital punishment.
Personally, I believe that if you take a life cold-bloodedly, you should have to forfeit your life. But I do not believe that the government is capable of delivering the ultimate punishment in a fair, accurate manner, 100 percent of the time.
(Excerpt) Read more at realclearreligion.org ...
When a murderer is executed, the world becomes a safer, much more beautiful place :)
Completely tortured way to look at capital punishment. Stop thinking of it as “cheering” the death penalty, and think of it as cheering the implementation of appropriate justice on behalf of the victim and their family.
I don’t cheer for the punishment. I feel good for the justice of the victim.
Soldiers execute evil killers every day. It is the same thing. If someone is a vile, evil killer, serial killer, rapist, torturer, he deserves the same sentence he gave his victims.
More political correctness.
Its destroying America.
Capital punishment is scarcely as good as the cocktail parties the Liberals throw.
Even with the nice meal the condemned get before they fry: Last Suppers: Famous Meals from Death Row
They were cheering that justice is served instead of letting criminals get a pass or let out to kill again.
Recent execution in Tx a few months ago of a creep who raped then smashed a huge stone on a 14 year old girls head. They found her also with a stick up her vagina. That rodent lived 15 years after that horrendous crime before being executed as he deserved.
“But I do not believe that the government is capable of delivering the ultimate punishment in a fair, accurate manner, 100 percent of the time.”
No human agency is. I’ll settle for 75%, or even 70%, or even 60%. Ultimately, criminals have to be sanctioned with force in order to make their activities cease. That is the reality that we live under. Not executing criminals is lunacy- it is a waste of the public treasury to feed and house them. Lowering the risk to the criminal only increases the likelihood they will commit crimes, and since capital punishment is largely used only against murderers, this increases the likelihood of more murders, as a sentence of lifetime incarceration is often anything but.
So, we are supposed to rely on the journalists at the New Yorker on the subject of capital punishment? While Dreher might not trust Jerry Brown’s government to properly administer capital punishment, in Texas the government does more than a pretty good job.
Dreher is a putz.
I never rejoice in taking the life of a human. However by the time you have reached the point where we consider giving you the death penalty in this country you have willingly surrendered any claim you have on being human.
You have a need to believe in your "moral superiority" so you condescend to those of us who believe in protecting the innocent, it is really rather pathetic.
I take that back. It is contemptible.
ping and maybe a repost of your good thoughts from that other thread...
It’s a nice piece of BS.
One’s support of distrust of the death penalty is not the issue at the debate. A willingness of government to carry out the will of people despite the screeching moon-bats is what was being cheered. Californians have long been deprived of a voice by the infestation of libturds running the state.
I am also reminded that this is not one of the central issues in the presidential race. This is a sideshow to keep the debate from being about people like Obama and Romney who have shown a willingness to destroy our economy.
If your guilt before God is not covered by the blood of the savior, then true eternal Justice will make you squirm. Even if you have an outward form of righteousness.
“...I do not believe that the government is capable of delivering the ultimate punishment in a fair, accurate manner, 100 percent of the time...”
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I’m good with 99.99 percent.
I just wish it didn’t take so long.
Everything in life has risk, even the execution of prople. We don’t cease doing a lot of risky things unless the risks and consequences are too great.
My personal feeling about the death penalty is that it isn’t used enough to know if it is a deterren and in some caseses, I do cheer.
I also remember when the CA Supreme Court Justice, Rose Byrd, nullified our death penalty and converted death row inmate’s sentence to life. Many were freed and some went on to kill again.
I don’t cheer when someone is executed for a crime. I do believe that Capital Punishment is acceptable, for the most egregious of crimes, but it doesn’t give me any pleasure, because the victims are still dead.
If the guilty people would stop claiming to be innocent then we would have 100% accuracy.
The author is mistaken. They weren’t cheering for the executions, they were cheering for the fact that the executions took place despite the teary hand-wringing of sanctimonious jerks such as himself.
The main reason for Capital Punishment? God said to do it!
Num 35:30 Whoso killeth any person, the murderer shall be put to death by the mouth of witnesses: but one witness shall not testify against any person to cause him to die.
Num 35:31 Moreover ye shall take no satisfaction for the life of a murderer, which is guilty of death: but he shall be surely put to death.
Num 35:33 So ye shall not pollute the land wherein ye are: for blood it defileth the land: and the land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed therein, but by the blood of him that shed it.
After more than 50 million aborted babies whose blood has polluted American soil, and who knows how many murders in this country contributing even more, how can anyone argue against putting these animals to death after a fair trial is received and their guilt established?
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