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Why I can't accept the death penalty.

PureX

Veteran Member
I respectfully disagree with you on this.
A soldier is a killer but not a murderer. That is the difference you're trying not to see. The executioner is like the soldier. He kills, but he does not murder. While the human he kills IS a murderer, several times over. And gives every indication that he will do so again, if he is able.
 

Spirit of Light

Be who ever you want
A soldier is a killer but not a murderer. That is the difference you're trying not to see. The executioner is like the soldier. He kills, but he does not murder. While the human he kills IS a murderer, several times over. And gives every indication that he will do so again, if he is able.
A soldier follow order from someone higher in rank, but when they choose to kill someone it is still killing. Not a murder because it is war, But as a non voilant person who has not been in the military, nor will lift weapon toward an other human being or animal, i can not agree with you on this
 

PureX

Veteran Member
A soldier follow order from someone higher in rank, but when they choose to kill someone it is still killing. Not a murder because it is war, But as a non voilant person who has not been in the military, nor will lift weapon toward an other human being or animal, i can not agree with you on this
There is a reason that most humans perceive a difference between killing and murder. Killing being defensive, and murder being offensive. That you choose not to act defensively does not change the fact that other people choose to kill defensively, and do so for the greater good, because, of the options available to them, that is the 'best' (most ethical) option.
 

Jonathan Bailey

Well-Known Member
I am for the death penalty with some changes

1) Person must be convicted of multiple murder's the Death penalty can not be used for just one murder. A serial killer or Family murderer would have to be tried on separate death's and found guilty before being put to death. This will reduce the judicial errors.
2) We don't know how much of a crime deterrent it is because of long expensive appeals and lack of usage. It also doesn't need to be a deterrent but a preventative measure, removing a probable problem from the future. Serial killers and Family or Group killers are not going to become good civilians again and will be lock up until they die anyway.
3)By requiring multiple murder convictions reduce the appeals process.

A mistake may happen when taking a life and to throw away another's life for a mistake is wrong. When taking multiple lives, a wrong has been done and been done purposely, this requires a penalty that removes future threats to others and that is death.


Man-made criminal justice can never be possibly so infallible and perfect so as to warrant capital punishment. For all the good intentions those who support the death penalty have, I believe it never makes society safer but rather more dangerous. Executions arising out of wrongful convictions can and do happen. The death penalty and executions are most prevalent in redneck hick states where people are often undereducated. The death penalty is a prime example of ignorance and backward ways. Juries and judges in homophobic redneck states can be racially prejudiced or might not like you if your perceived to be a "damn-yankee" or a homosexual on trial for murder. The notion of being wrongfully executed by the state is much more scary to me than the notion of being killed by an escaped convicted murderer. An innocent/law-abiding person who owns a gun (or even a good watchdog as a German Shepherd) can better defend him/herself against a dangerous escaped fugitive than he/she could defend him/herself if the guards were to be wrongfully strapping him/her to the chair.

Why do I live in a death-penalty-happy red state like Oklahoma full of nasty weather, toll roads, higher grocery prices, horrible grocery selection, 9% grocery tax, lousy street pavement maintenance, rude cab companies, rude welfare workers, dumb hicks, flash floods, no expansion for Medicaid, and tornadoes right now? Because I am an American Veteran on a low-income VA disability pension benefit and states like these, unfortunately, are all I can afford to be able to live a cheap 1-br apartment. The positive side is Oklahoma is highly pro-gun and I feel that since Governor Stitt in this state just signed Constitution Carry into law this year, violent crime in this state should drop considerably. The death penalty alone evidently has not done a good job of protecting the innocent since Oklahoma has had a high rate of violent crime per capita before Constitution Carry. Yes, there is compromise all over America. Non-death penalty states tend to be more anti-gun and expensive to live in.
 
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PureX

Veteran Member
Man-made criminal justice can never be possibly so infallible and perfect so as to warrant capital punishment.
Seeking perfection is a fool's errand. That shouldn't be the criteria under consideration. What needs to be considered is how to determine the better of the options that are available to us, and then find the courage to enact them.
 

Jonathan Bailey

Well-Known Member
Seeking perfection is a fool's errand. That shouldn't be the criteria under consideration. What needs to be considered is how to determine the better of the options that are available to us, and then find the courage to enact them.

The better options to make society safer are confinement behind bars for as long as the worst convicted felons shall live (unless freed by exoneration) coupled with strict adherence to the Second Amendment in regards to gun rights and self-defense rights. A well-armed society, not big government, more police cars than church ministers or capital punishment, is the ultimate crime deterrent.
 
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leov

Well-Known Member
1. grievous judicial errors: in America, about 15% of those convicted of capital crimes are not actually guilty....the notion of being wrongfully convicted of something like murder and sent to the chair helplessly is more frightening than thought of actually being murdered to me....a murder attempt is much more likely to fail than an execution attempt

2. no real crime deterrent in spite of what pro-death-penalty politicians say....ironically, the first-degree murder rate is consistently higher in death penalty states than in non-death penalty states...many bad people who have no regard for innocent lives have no regard for their own lives as well.....they would rather risk the chair than endure a life sentence anyway

3. expensive long automatic appeals processes....it's much cheaper to the taxpayers to put even the most heinous criminals behind bars for life without the possibility of parole than to sentence them to death and pay untold millions on appeals for each capital case on death row for sometimes decades


The real ultimate deterrent to heinous and serious crimes is a well-armed citizenry, the right to keep and bear arms for self protection. Little or no gun restrictions. The police are seldom present to thwart those who threaten the lives of innocent people. So-called no-gun zones are powerful magnets to crazed or evil gunmen and mass murderers.

Vermont has a long history of being a State with no death penalty (except for high treason) and the lowest violent crime rates per capita and was the first state to allow permitless (Constitution) concealed handgun carry. Very lax gun laws combined no death penalty for murder seem to have actually made this state the safest against crime which some people might find odd but the stats don't lie. It's better to use a gun lawfully to prevent a murder in the first place than try to avenge a murder later (and the innocent victim is dead already) with a death sentence which has a good possibility of arising from the wrongful conviction of an innocent. A trip of an armed citizen's trigger in time saves innocent lives from one to nine.
Christ Jesus was teaching about forgiveness. Death penalty denies such expedience.
 

Jonathan Bailey

Well-Known Member
Christ Jesus was teaching about forgiveness. Death penalty denies such expedience.
Jesus Christ was a victim Himself of the Roman death penalty and Christ committed no crime beyond declaring Himself King of the Jews.

He was executed for speaking, free expression: a right that would be some 1,758 years later protected by the American First Amendment, ratified in 1791. I think Christ supposedly died in 33 AD.
 
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bobhikes

Nondetermined
Premium Member
Man-made criminal justice can never be possibly so infallible and perfect so as to warrant capital punishment. For all the good intentions those who support the death penalty have, I believe it never makes society safer but rather more dangerous. Executions arising out of wrongful convictions can and do happen. The death penalty and executions are most prevalent in redneck hick states where people are often undereducated. The death penalty is a prime example of ignorance and backward ways. Juries and judges in homophobic redneck states can be racially prejudiced or might not like you if your perceived to be a "damn-yankee" or a homosexual on trial for murder. The notion of being wrongfully executed by the state is much more scary to me than the notion of being killed by an escaped convicted murderer. An innocent/law-abiding person who owns a gun (or even a good watchdog as a German Shepherd) can better defend him/herself against a dangerous escaped fugitive than he/she could defend him/herself if the guards were to be wrongfully strapping him/her to the chair.

Why do I live in a death-penalty-happy red state like Oklahoma full of nasty weather, toll roads, higher grocery prices, horrible grocery selection, 9% grocery tax, lousy street pavement maintenance, rude cab companies, rude welfare workers, dumb hicks, flash floods, no expansion for Medicaid, and tornadoes right now? Because I am an American Veteran on a low-income VA disability pension benefit and states like these, unfortunately, are all I can afford to be able to live a cheap 1-br apartment. The positive side is Oklahoma is highly pro-gun and I feel that since Governor Stitt in this state just signed Constitution Carry into law this year, violent crime in this state should drop considerably. The death penalty alone evidently has not done a good job of protecting the innocent since Oklahoma has had a high rate of violent crime per capita before Constitution Carry. Yes, there is compromise all over America. Non-death penalty states tend to be more anti-gun and expensive to live in.

It doesn't have to be infallible, we don't get rid of police because they sometimes shoot innocent people. We don't stop war's because innocent people may die. The CIA, The FBI any law enforcement agency makes deadly mistakes. All we can do is try to minimize these errors and that is what we do. The same is to be said for the Death Penalty. It never will be perfect and that's OK.
 

Jonathan Bailey

Well-Known Member
It doesn't have to be infallible, we don't get rid of police because they sometimes shoot innocent people. We don't stop war's because innocent people may die. The CIA, The FBI any law enforcement agency makes deadly mistakes. All we can do is try to minimize these errors and that is what we do. The same is to be said for the Death Penalty. It never will be perfect and that's OK.

Since it is imperfect and not necessary, the death penalty should be gotten rid of altogether. Most other Christian nations of the world have abolished it. It is mostly abolished in western Europe. It is not OK by me that the death penalty persists in America in 2019. I would hope the US Supreme Court would soon rule it unconstitutional and abolish it at the federal level and prohibit it at the level of the several states as well. There is a trend in this country for states to continue to grow in numbers for getting rid of the death penalty and for federal courts to overturn the death penalty in states. States are also continuing to progressively become more pro-gun and that change is welcome as well. The military is a necessary evil to protect us from armed enemies. The death penalty by the state is carried out in pre-planned non-emergency situations with no immediate threat to the lives and limbs of the innocent. When a cop or armed citizen rightfully shoots somebody in self-defense or protects an innocent while shooting somebody and the perpetrator dies, it's not an execution (not even a summary execution) but justifiable homicide. I believe in justifiable homicide when absolutely necessary. It is done only in emergency situations.

There is also a trend for more politicians, Republican (including conservatives) and Democrat, to oppose the death penalty: I hope these same people would also not be anti-gun.

Howard Stern is a creep: saying he would reinstate the death penalty in New York if he were to become governor.
 
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bobhikes

Nondetermined
Premium Member
Since it is imperfect and not necessary, the death penalty should be gotten rid of altogether. Most other Christian nations of the world have abolished it. It is mostly abolished in western Europe. It is not OK by me that the death penalty persists in America in 2019. I would hope the US Supreme Court would soon rule it unconstitutional and abolish it at the federal level and prohibit it at the level of the several states as well. There is a trend in this country for states to continue to grow in numbers for getting rid of the death penalty and for federal courts to overturn the death penalty in states. States are also continuing to progressively become more pro-gun and that change is welcome as well. The military is a necessary evil to protect us from armed enemies. The death penalty by the state is carried out in pre-planned non-emergency situations with no immediate threat to the lives and limbs of the innocent. When a cop or armed citizen rightfully shoots somebody in self-defense or protects an innocent while shooting somebody and the perpetrator dies, it's not an execution (not even a summary execution) but justifiable homicide. I believe in justifiable homicide when absolutely necessary. It is done only in emergency situations.

There is also a trend for more politicians, Republican (including conservatives) and Democrat, to oppose the death penalty: I hope these same people would also not be anti-gun.

Howard Stern is a creep: saying he would reinstate the death penalty in New York if he were to become governor.

None of that responds to my original post. It is just a sales pitch for your opinion.
 

PureX

Veteran Member
The better options to make society safer are confinement behind bars for as long as the worst convicted felons shall live (unless freed by exoneration) coupled with strict adherence to the Second Amendment in regards to gun rights and self-defense rights. A well-armed society, not big government, more police cars than church ministers or capital punishment, is the ultimate crime deterrent.
Incarceration is not a safe option for some kinds of murderers, because we cannot guarantee that they will never escape, and if they escape, we know that they will very likely murder more people. Not only that, but they pose an ongoing threat to the people who have to incarcerate them as well. I do not believe this is a risk that we have the right to impose of our fellow human, for the sake of our own ideological beliefs.

Also, as I have already stated, it is simply not true that a "well armed society" is a safer society. In fact, it is a much less safer society. But I can see that you are going to continue believing this regardless of all evidence to the contrary because your bias is blinding, and fully entrenched.
 
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