Ah, it's the old 'human but not a person' argument :rolleyes:

So, you only believe that you can do this when there is 100%, irrefutable, proof? Like, video, with DNA, right?

And, if only in those cases, the benefit would be...uhhh...well...nothing tangible . . . actually . . . what is the benefit again?

Wolf, I've voiced my opinion about abortion in another thread quite recently here. The one that argued quite extensively about where life begins.

I am pro abortion.

I'd like to ask those who are pro death penalty what they think about the actual person who commits a sanctioned murder. Don't you think doing that for a living would fuck you over royally after some time?

Depends, I don't think the guy pulling the switch on a multiple murderer/rapist is going to lose sleep.

Damn, I had what I thought was a very eloquent response to Ali and 9th's posts, but then MonkeyBoy stopped working and started debating me on the whole thing. DAMN IT it's all shot to hell!

So you think you'd cope with it well do you 9th? You could kill people for a living?

Aliantha, if it's sanctioned, it is by definition not murder. This is not to call it easy, though. Nowadays, nobody is a career professional executioner.

Living criminals have a recidivism rate. Executed ones don't.

I've said before, and in your hearing, that at the point of a death penalty, it's self-defense, extended society-wide, and it's damage control. Some villains are simply not redeemable, not in this life. Rehabilitation is shown, usually at length, to be ineffective with these, or simply impossible.

I don't care if you want to give it a special name UG. It's still killing someone else. That's murder in my books, and no amount of rationalising by you or anyone else will change that fact.

Aliantha, you're blowing it, and egregiously: the difference between a rightful killing (defense of your life or that of another) and wrongful (in brief, not defense but in aid of wrongful aggression) has been understood since the Bronze Age. I understand it; explain why you cannot. I am not rationalizing, nor contorting reason.

Killing's not the nicest thing around, to be sure -- but getting killed is, as I'm sure you'd agree if put to it, worse by a long chalk.

Pressing the button which brings on the death of someone else is not self defense UG.

I refuse to swat mosquitoes unless they are actively biting me, or flying close enough to me that I have to assume it's ABOUT to bite me. If it is outside, I'm not going to go out there, find it, and swat it so it cant magically come through the window and bite me.

I feel the same about the death penalty.

Damn... now we have to murder kleptomaniacs. :(

I've explained before just what it does defend, and I think clearly enough a planarian could get it. Pay attention, Ali -- this is worth paying attention to. That there is something here you patently don't want to know doesn't mean I can't know it -- and esteem it as better than your anti-defense viewpoint.

I do see your point UG, and agreed with it for half of my life... it just does not work, logically or ethically, for me any longer. My actions must follow.

There is a world of difference, practically and ethically (no metaphors here), between the guy rushing you or potentially having a gun in your home, and the one in a cage with a life sentence or strapped to a chair.
What someone may do and what they are doing is the distinction.
(no one make the point that you never really know if someone you are defending yourself against is really trying to kill you, that is a red herring and you know it. Breathing in a cage is NOT actively posing a threat.)