Don’t switch horses in the middle of the stream and confuse the issue. We were talking about forgiveness by the victim’s family, not by the state. The efficacy of forgiveness by the victim’s family and the futility of vengeance is an important element of why the death penalty is a literal dead-end street and has nothing to do with the state abdicating it’s role and responsibilities.
And don’t pretend I’m advocating no consequences. That’s bad faith on your part if you’ve paid any attention at all to what I’ve been saying. The state has a responsibility to deal with criminals, first and foremost to incarcerate them to protect society.
The death sentence is among other things, an exercise in futility. It solves nothing, it heals nothing, it satisfies vengeance which many confuse for justice, it reconciles nothing, is irreversible, and is unjust.
That struck us as an anti-capital sentence comment. I believe new_life was saying similar things.
If you are telling me now that you are only referring to personal forgiveness and not to the societal necessity to have capital punishment, then we have been talking past one another.