2009-11-11, 10:17 PM
Grog Wrote:Revenge and hatred should be considered base emotions ranking on about the same level as greed and envy. Such emotions need to be kept under the control of rational thought processes. The death penalty doesn't deter crime and murder, so what does it do? Like Frank Castle once said, "IT'S NOT REVENGE... IT'S PUNISHMENT."
Of course, society needs to protect itself from criminals. This is done by improving law-enforcement methods, correcting social conditions that contribute to crime, incarcerating those who are a danger to society, rehabilitating criminals who aren't incorrigible, and deterring people from becoming lawbreakers. The death penalty is not a solution to anything. Instead, it's a violent and hateful act that makes the world worse. Really, anyone who's pro-death penalty just wants to see someone die for what they did, or they just flat-out don't care.
[color="#cc8899"]I'm pro death penalty in cases like this because
1) Chances are, they're not going to feel remorse, meaning imprisonment has little punitive value
2) They're getting 3 meals a day, exercise time, medical, and anything else they need, and a surprising degree of what they want
You argued that it's about punishment, and I fail to see how sending someone to the equivalent of the time-out corner is adequately doing so. If both options are equally useless, go with the one that wastes less money (with the alternative being a lifetime in prison, which at even $20 a day between food, staff, supplies, repairs, etc over the course of even as short a time as 40 years (reasonable if the person is 35 or so, some may be in prison 50-60+) the costs add up to way more. [/COLOR]