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 ...
Rob, we re-instated capital punishment in California in 1977, started sentencing people in 1978. We’ve sentenced 700-some people to the death penalty since then. We’ve executed 13. Most of the rest of them are still alive, in custody and waiting for an execution date. A few of them have been waiting all that time. This is largely because our capital-appeals system has its faults, but undue speed and undue deference to the state’s case are not among them. It took the first guy about thirteen years to get from sentence to execution. Why? Appeals. We haven’t executed anybody in five years. Why? Among other things, appeals on whether lethal injection is a constitutionally non-cruel-and-usual punishment. Rob, are you beginning to get the picture as to why that crowd cheered for Rick Perry?
I would never rejoice in the death of a human. I do rejoice in the lives that are saved when some of these madmen meet their just rewards (finally!) and the next ten innocents go on to live their lives.
I would have more sympathy putting down a rabid dog. Since I consider those on death row less than animals, I don’t understand the illogical nonsense of the bleeding heart LIEberals. Pro-life for the murderer, “pro-choice” for the innocent in the womb.
Everyone should be at least thankful, if not joyful, when said cretin is expedited on the journey to meet the ultimate Judge. The idiot who wrote this drivel would rather themselves or someone they care about be a future victim when the killer of innocents is eventually realeased to repeat their crimes (overcrowding, “good behavior, etc.)???
I would have more sympathy putting down a rabid dog. Since I consider those on death row less than animals, I don’t understand the illogical nonsense of the bleeding heart LIEberals. Pro-life for the murderer, “pro-choice” for the innocent in the womb.
Everyone should be at least thankful, if not joyful, when said cretin is expedited on the journey to meet the ultimate Judge. The idiot who wrote this drivel would rather themselves or someone they care about be a future victim when the killer of innocents is eventually realeased to repeat their crimes (overcrowding, “good behavior”, etc.)???
Maybe the incompetent forensic scientist should get life behind bars. Of course, if her incompetence was deliberate evil, then maybe she herself should be executed.
You know what wasn't "cruel and unusual"? Firing squad. Public hanging for murder. This was exterminating someone who by their own choices had voided their rights to consume air. (And it was a public reminder to people and the kiddies what was acceptable behavior, and what wasn't.
Today, "cruel and unusual" as been twisted to mean "those needles full of sleepy juice better be clean or we will stamp our little Liberal feet until the case is thrown out."
Here's the 50'sDad solution to prison over crowding. Everybody is divided into those we can positively DNA test, and not. Those that can be, get an expensive test to prove innocence or guilt. Innocent, you get $200 and a new suit, and if you sign a waiver to not whine about it, you are set free. Guilty? Out to the yard for the long drop, or a quick bullet.
Texas is on the ball. Why should people who are proven guilty as serial killers get three squares, exercise, cable TV and medical care for the forty years it takes a Liberal to get the job done?
“At best, capital punishment is a necessary evil.”
I don’t think he should call God’s ordinance a necessary evil.
“According to the Old Testament, a capital sentence is to be carried out only on the testimony of two eye-witnesses to the crime.
According to the New Testament, capital punishment is to be carried out only by those who are without sin.”
I don’t think you should “pit” the OT and the NT against each other.
It is all true, so, how do we reconcile it?
From the beginning, God’s law has told us, a killer of a man shall be put to death. This law is from the earliest parts of Genesis, but repeated throughout Scripture.
Now Jesus did say the woman caught in adultery should be spared. It could have been because it was not being done right; in other words there were not two or three witnesses, the male perpetrator was being let off, I don’t know.
You might therefore say that only correctly administered and adjudicated death penalty cases can be carried out. You also might deduce that the death penalty for adultery is now abrogated. But I don’t think you can logically deduce that the death penalty is suddenly and forever canceled for all crimes. That conclusion is not consistent with the rest of Scripture.
I don’t know. I would have cheered plenty to see Hitler or Stalin hung. I was very happy to see Obama get the top of his head blown off. I didn’t actually see it, but I could imagine it. And it made me very happy. Take that as you will.
Sorry, Osama not Obama. I would be very happy just to see Obama defeated next year. Happier if he admitted he’s been wrong his whole life.
Have you hugged a jihadist today? These morons and thier warped way of thinking are getting people killed. Im sure if a member of his family were brutally murdered the tone would change..ah maybe not, many are hopless causes
You can’t pit Jesus against Jesus.
I didn’t say He was trying to weasel out of anything, He gave them correct answers, but Jesus Christ was not going to take the bait. The Pharisees thought they had him boxed into no-win questions, and Jesus, being who He is, not only knew why they were asking them (to try to trick Him up somehow) but knew the answer to give them that they could not refute.
There is nothing wrong with capital punishment in this age. We don’t just stop administering justice and abolish all laws because we’re under God’s grace. We don’t get rid of temporal consequences and punishments because for one thing, fear of those punishments keep a lot of non-believers from doing whatever the hell they want to others. Laws like this keep the unsaved from rampaging over the saved.
. Mentioned then, that maybe Perry should turn a question back to host - should they try again, that is - i.e.:
"How did he/they/ the Left, feel about the innocent lives lost at Waco - and was Clinton ever asked if he lost sleep over the innocent lives lost?"
Actually, that's not what I said and that's not what I believe. I have not argued that executing a criminal is the same as murder. It's not.
In fact, in cases where the guilt is certain, I think it would be more just if the death sentence were carried out in a way that is swift, severe and certain.
But I do have serious questions about vesting life-and-death powers in the hands of a State that has millions of times over shown its willingness to shed innocent blood. In Romans, Paul states: "For the one in authority is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God’s servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer."
I question whether a State which "authorizes" abortion-on-demand --- child sacrifice by the tens of millions ---can atill be thought of as "God's servant." For a better assessment of such a State, I would refer you, not to Romans 13, but the Revelation 13: the State as a tool of demons.
I don't know whether it's godly to put life-or-death powers in the hands of "rulers" already chest-deep in innocent blood.
“Now Jesus did say the woman caught in adultery should be spared. It could have been because it was not being done right; in other words there were not two or three witnesses, the male perpetrator was being let off, I don’t know.”
I’ve seen this brought up several times...Adultery is not murder. It is not an analogy that works.
Today’s Venice NYT-owned, fishwrap, Herald-Tribune, carried a story of a guy on Florida’s death row for 21 years who has his own blog. The guy brutally murdered several people, and should have been executed long ago. Of course the bleeding heart liberal reporter gave all kinds of excuses for the murderer’s behavior, starting with “his dad was a mean man”.
So how did the fire start? Don't post a link; tell me in your own words.
So how did the fire start? Don't post a link; tell me in your own words.
Apologies for double post.
In response...
“The Ugliness of Moral Milquetoast”
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