[JeffersonRepublic.com]

I don’t like the death penalty. I am not a democrat, in fact, in my home town I’m known as the right-winger with that web page.

But I don’t like Government sponsored killing. I don’t think it’s fair to force government workers to kill criminals, and I’m afraid a mistake may happen.

The criminals should be forced into hard labor. They should repay society with this labor, but not be sacrificed in the electric chair.

Republicans should be pro-life.

Holtz JeffersonRepublic.com

[AppyPappy]

I don't like murder either. If a murderer goes to prison and kills a prisoner or a guard, what do you do? Put him in prison?

[xcullen]

I don't trust the government to do anything right - including the death penalty. We have to exceptions though for terrorists though.

[Jeff Gordon]

Republicans should be pro-life.

Have you considered how much better the world would be if everyone agreed with you about everything all of the time? I have. My conclusion was that that everyone should agree with me, not you, about everything all of the time.

[BearCub]

But I don’t like Government sponsored killing. I don’t think it’s fair to force government workers to kill criminals, and I’m afraid a mistake may happen.

I'm with you. The government has already proven that it is incompetent in nearly everything it does - I don't see how that doesn't carry into the justice system. Far too many police and prosecutors have been caught suppressing evidence and failing to disclose information to defendants and their attorneys. I don't trust any of them. Far too many innocent people have been sent to death row for me to agree with capital punishment.

[Jaysun]

There is no relation between the two. The left puts forth a fallacious argument when they say that we're "hypocrites" for supporting the death penalty and opposing abortion. First, aren't they also hypocrites by their own argument? They're for abortion and against the death penalty. Either way, each side approves of killing one while disapproving of killing another. Now, we could talk about the differences between killing a convicted murderer and a baby, but that's another discussion - I'm profile and all for the death penalty.

The other difference is in the sheer number of people killed. Sure, the death penalty takes out 200 people a year in America, but that's a far cry from killing 1,000,000 a year. Our opponents support the wholesale murder of 1,000,000 or so babies per year. Next time you hear the ignorant argument that we're "hypocrites" because we're FOR the death penalty and AGAINST abortion make this proposal to them: "We'll trade you. We'll spare the 200 if you spare the 1,000,000."

All of this is beside the fact that our being "hypocritical" lends ZERO justification to infanticide. Sure, I'm a hypocrite. Tell me again why that has anything to do with killing babies?

[JimRed]

It's OK with me to abandon the death penalty, so long as the punishment delivered is worse than death. Give each criminal worthy of death a knife and a blanket and dump them on an uninhabited rock in the Aleutians. They'll kill each other off, or survive so miserably that they'll wish they had been executed.

[LincolnLover]

My sympathy for/thanks to you for having the guts to post this here.

So many focus on that one little word---"innocent"---when trying to draw the false distinction as to why they are so opposed to killing the unborn yet quite comfortable in killing some who are guilty (and committing state-sponsored murder at that!)

Ah, linguistic gymnastics. Next thing you know, these folks will be trying to convince you and me that a horse chestnut is really a chestnut horse.

I'll side with Pope John Paul II on this one. Murder is murder, let God Himself be the ultimate judge of who lives and who dies (save for self-defense and military conflict, which is in essence self-defense).

Life without parole is dying a thousand little deaths each day for decades anyway, and it is something that can be done that does not degrade the moral health of the country in the process.

[sean327]

This is something that I have struggled with for a long time. I think the death penalty is the easy way out for these animals, but the nature of our prision system allows the scum of our society to live mostly as they would on the outside. Drugs, sex, and many other things are just as available in prison as they are on the outside. Therefore a quick trip to hell for these clowns is preferable, even though they do not have to suffer nearly enough to pay for their crimes in this world.

[Arthur McGowan]

Bernardin was the best friend the abortionists ever had. He was their most powerful mole in the Catholic Church, and their most brilliant strategist and rhetorician. Even in death, he continues to do more than anyone else to give pro-abortion "Catholics," and leftist Catholics who seek cover for complacency about abortion, the rhetorical smokescreen they need. His "Seamless Garment" and "consistent ethic of life" were always intended as subtle smears against real pro-lifers.

[Brytani]

I figure this is the honest and fair way to handle the death penalty issue. If you murder someone, you go to prison for life, hard labor and absolutely no parole. HOWEVER while incarcerated, if the inmate commits even one more violent offense against a prison worker or another inmate, their sentence is commuted to death and carried out immediately.

I figure, they are given one more chance at life, something their victim(s) didnt' have. But if they abuse that chance, they lose their life.

[NHResident]

Bernadin may have professed to be anti-abortion but he loaded the Chicago diocese with pro-abortion apologists and was one of the earliest to embrace publicly Pro-abortion 'Catholics'.

[TommyDale]

No one likes the death penalty. On the other hand, no one likes to have their brother, sister, father, mother or children killed in cold blood and watch their killer walk free in as little as 7 years.

I can speak to this issue, since I had an older brother murdered in cold blood when he was only 17 years old and serving his country in the U.S. Navy.

While I am strongly pro-life, I feel there are certainly circumstances where Old Testament justice is required. Pre-meditated murder is one of those circumstances. If you have a problem pulling the switch (or injecting these days)
just let someone else do it. But don't deny the families of victims their closure.

There is a difference between innocents being killed and guilty murderous felons being sentenced for their crimes. The liberal left sees this opposite -- they want to kill the innocent babies, and spare the lives of the criminal murderers, calling it "mercy".

[Who dat?]

I don’t like the death penalty.

Ok.

But you do understand that murderers are to be put to death provided two people can identify that person, no? That being an instruction from God Himself.

The concept being that the murdered person’s soul waits with God for justice. The murderer is to be sent to God so judgment can be rendered. That’s how I remember it.

[alkaloid2]

I'm with you. I think we can come up with more creative ways to satisfy the victim or the victim's family's craving for justice, while at the same time ensuring that the perpetrator suffers for their crime.

Killing them seems too easy to me - they've got an out.

tSG

[kidd]

The death penalty is not a straight-forward democrat-republican or liberal-conservative issue. Bill Clinton supports the death penalty. Al Gore supports the death penalty.

I'm against the death penalty - unless a particular prisoner has committed a particularily serious crime AND cannot be controlled by the applicable prison system. I have no problem with a Ted Bundy (who was a frequent escapee) or a Saddam Hussein (a serious break-out threat) being put to death. OTOH, I wouldn't have had Timothy McVeigh executed (but I would have him put in a cell for life with nothing but a cot, a sink and a toilet).

I believe my view is in line with the view of the Catholic church as well.

[Rockingham]

Wrong on almost every count. Joining opposition to the death penalty with opposition to abortion treats as equivalent the just and judicially sanctioned execution of guilty murderers with the killing of unborn children for the sake of private convenience.

Some people are utterly, completely beyond dispute guilty and deserving of death, having made deliberate choices to murder for their own benefit, profit, or lust. Yes, there really are knowing and deliberately evil people in the world, not just people who make ignorant and confused choices.

Some crimes call for the death penalty as the best justice that we can do. I can show you proven cases of: paroled murderers who murder again, saying that they are out to kill as many as they can before they are caught; killers for hire, with career scores in the dozens; killers who rape and torture children to death; killers who dedicate their torture murders to Satan; killers who abduct a teenager at random, torture him to death, then mail his family a tape of the killing.

Executing murderers saves lives through deterrence. Moreover, lifetime hard labor for the worst killers is cruelty and injustice to their victims and the friends and families of those victims.

Does putting a convicted killer to death really provide relief to the victims and their friends and family? I know someone who was a witness against Ted Bundy, having seen him flee just before she discovered two of her sorority sisters who had been brutally murdered by him. My friend's life was in turmoil for years after that, but the burden on her eased greatly when Bundy was finally executed, marking that chapter of her life as closed.

I know of an instance in which a friend of two murder victims (a respected judge and his wife) was astounded to be greeted on the street by one of their convicted killers, a crooked lawyer who had been quietly paroled through bribery or political influence but a few years later. What does that tell you about the value placed on human life?

There are indeed "government employees" who "would kill" by pulling the switch on convicted murderers. One prison administrator of my acquaintance told me that most prisoners in the general population supported the death penalty, especially for the killers of women and children. I have seen polling data to the same effect. Why? Criminals have families too and far fewer illusions than we do about what criminals are like.

Traditional Catholic thinking was that the death penalty was moral if confined to proper cases and administered by lawful authority. This was based squarely on the bible and many generations of Christian scholarship and moral reasoning. Current Catholic opinion against the death penalty seems more trendy and political than grounded in faith.

[HungarianGypsy]

So if someone murders someone even if they had hard labor their family could still visit and write letters. As of right now they can get umpteen chaces at appeals. How many chances do their victims get?

[Clump]

I am pro-(innocent) life.

[hellinahandcart]

Republicans should be pro-life.

I despise the term "pro-life" almost as much as "pro-choice".

Back in the days before Roe v. Wade, HONEST PEOPLE had no qualms about calling themselves pro-abortion or anti-abortion.

I am anti-abortion. I am pro-death-penalty. I don't care what it costs society to raise babies instead of killing them, anymore than I care how much it costs to execute those for whom death is the only appropriate punishment.

Some things are absolutely worth the money.

[hellinahandcart]

Now, if you're going to force me to choose, fine. I will trade the death penalty for abortion.

But not one second before abortion is treated by the law as murder.