Death Penalty

[Ibby]

Originally Posted by infinite monkey

...and other reasons dp costs so much more.

y'know, she tried to explain why it should cost more, to me, but I didn't buy it.

[infinite monkey]

Oh my. I think I don't know if my acronym means something else? What?

[sexobon]

Originally Posted by infinite monkey

The second best argument against capital punishment: no one will agree on who 'deserves it.

I thought we had reached an agreement about hobos.

[infinite monkey]

Shhhhhhh...

It's kind of a secret, about the hobos. Duh!

[monster]

Would you rather spend life behind bars or just die and get it over with?

[Aliantha]

You know, to that question, I'd probably answer that I'd rather die, but then I wonder what it would really be like knowing people wanted to say when you should die and if my answer wouldn't change. Life is life after all. We all cling to it tightly most of the time. I don't know if that would change just because life was highly restricted.

[Ibby]

Originally Posted by infinite monkey

Oh my. I think I don't know if my acronym means something else? What?

Urban Dictionary can help you out. NSFW.

[monster]

Fair point. I don't know either, but I'm very claustrophobic. Right now my only fear of death concerns what will happen to my kids etc..... If 'm incarcerated, i can't help them. They might not want me to die, but my death would free them from a lifetime of visitations and parole hearings etc.......

[Clodfobble]

"A lifetime of visitations" is what any person has to do with their parents, whether they're in jail or not. At least if you're in jail, they don't have to feel obligated to clean the house for your arrival.

I think I'd insist on living with a life sentence, because I'd want to see my kids be adults, even if I no longer had a hand in helping them get there. And I'd always be hoping for new evidence/technology that would someday to lead to my exoneration (assuming I didn't actually commit the crime, which is not a guarantee.)

[Ibby]

Having never had to remotely consider the possibility, I would say, as a brash, angsty 21-year-old, that I'd take the death penalty over even a 10-year sentence. But I say that as someone who would be at particularly high risk of abuse, persecution, rape, and discrimination in GenPop, and as someone who doesn't honestly expect to survive past age 35 or 40 even outside prison, given the rate of trans* suicide, murder, and hate crime, and considering my propensity towards self-destructive addiction and depression. So, given those factors, I would say living for a few years on death row and then going, without lengthy illness or infirmity, sounds like a better option than even just ten years in general population.
But I say that as someone who has struggled for years with a lack of self-worth, with self-injury, and with the constant looming threat suicide, and as someone who has never actually faced my own mortality or the real threat of death. It's easy for me to be flippant about saying i'd rather be dead.
I know that it's unfair to those, especially the falsely accused, who face the real possibility of death, to say that i'd prefer that. and I absolutely know that the fact that I might lean towards preferring to die than to linger should not in any way affect whether or not I think the government should be executing ANYONE.

[BigV]

Originally Posted by Ibby

Having never had to remotely consider the possibility, I would say, as a brash, angsty 21-year-old, that I'd take the death penalty over even a 10-year sentence. But I say that as someone who would be at particularly high risk of abuse, persecution, rape, and discrimination in GenPop, and as someone who doesn't honestly expect to survive past age 35 or 40 even outside prison, given the rate of trans* suicide, murder, and hate crime, and considering my propensity towards self-destructive addiction and depression. So, given those factors, I would say living for a few years on death row and then going, without lengthy illness or infirmity, sounds like a better option than even just ten years in general population.
But I say that as someone who has struggled for years with a lack of self-worth, with self-injury, and with the constant looming threat suicide, and as someone who has never actually faced my own mortality or the real threat of death. It's easy for me to be flippant about saying i'd rather be dead.
I know that it's unfair to those, especially the falsely accused, who face the real possibility of death, to say that i'd prefer that. and I absolutely know that the fact that I might lean towards preferring to die than to linger should not in any way affect whether or not I think the government should be executing ANYONE.

what the fucking fuck.

typography fails me here.

[BigV]

Originally Posted by Big Sarge

Watching an execution will change how you feel about the death penalty.

Originally Posted by sexobon

That may only be because you didn't see the capital crime as it was being committed.

sexobon, I doubt it. Like the truck in the moat, this scenario is ripe for interpretation. I think Big Sarge is saying that if you were previously in favor of the death penalty watching an execution will change those feelings to opposition to the death penalty, or something along that continuum. I read your reading of his remarks the same way, but you offer a counterpoint to his assertion.

Watching an execution is to see just a few short frames of a lifetime. Watching the capital crime would be seeing a few more. Neither can be enough to know on way or another WITH CERTAINTY. I can say with some certainty that we should not kill one another. I also have enough life experience to know that almost all rules have some well justified exceptions, this one included.

I feel the death penalty should be rare and solemn and regretted by all.

[BrianR]

[quote=Clodfobble;830610 And I'd always be hoping for new evidence/technology that would someday to lead to my exoneration (assuming I didn't actually commit the crime, which is not a guarantee.)[/QUOTE]

This.

[xoxoxoBruce]

How do you justify the cost of keeping Charles Manson alive?

[Happy Monkey]

It's worth the cost of keeping 1000 Mansons alive if we keep one innocent person alive long enough to be exonerated.