XJ Jeepin Girl said:
I don't agree with the death penalty because I find it hypocritical. If some guy kills someone (I always use murder as an example, but I know there are other things you can be on death roe for) and the government thinks death is a good answer as a punishment, how is the government any better than criminals? I know there are many sides to what I just said, but I am mostly looking at the morality of it. To put it really simply, if a little kid pushes another kid, as a parents, would you encourage your child to push the kid back? Well... who knows, maybe you would... But, what does that teach? Do you understand that? I know that ideology is very simple and capital punishment is much more complicated than kids pushing each other...
But, as much as someone would like a killer etc. to die as well for vengeance and revenge, I just don't understand how that teaches us to be better people? If we want violence to stop and prisons to not be so full... we should not encourage more crime to be a fair punishment. Again, I just think it's hypocritical.
As far as other options to the death penalty, I see prision like many others have mentioned. It's expensive and seems like a waste of our much needed tax dollars. If there was a way for us to take prison dollars to make... anything to help stop crime. Better security, criminal support groups, less violence in general (video games, TV, etc)? No, I don't have the answer to this problem, but I still don't agree with the way things are being run.
As I'd mentioned, the "deterrent" factor of the death penalty obviously doesn't work - if it did, it would be more widely applied and crime would be rather lower, I'm sure.
However, I see one point on which you should be straightened out. While the GOVERNMENT provides a mechanism for punishing by putting to death, is is NOT the government that sentences a criminal to death - that can only be done by a "jury of your peers," and (as I recall,) only by a UNANIMOUS vote of the jury. This means that TWELVE people have to agree that an individual needs to be put to death.
Is it perfect? No. Is it better than what a lot of other countries have? Certainly - in most of the Middle East, for instance, you can be put to death (legally!) based upon the decision of a single individual, and for a lot less than geniune sociopathy. "We ain't what we should be, and we ain't what we're going to be, but at least we ain't what we
was."
I don't think that "violence in media" causes violence in real life - art, after all, imitates life, and usually follows behind the curve in real life. Granted, the two can heterodyne each other, but it's not the whole problem, nor a panacea. What often happens is that we get people who cannot differentiate between fantasy and reality, and these people should be watched.
Also, we have a condition that COL Jeff Cooper calls "hoplophobia" in his writings - which can be defined as a "fear of inanimate objects." Truly a phobia, since it is unreasoning, illogical, and results in NOTHING.
Example - not that long ago (I'm not THAT old, people!) I was given a pocketknife for my fifth birthday by my grandfather (this was a mere 30 years ago.) It was a rite of passage - in my generation, nearly every child was given a personal blade sometime around age five to seven. It was often a hand-me-down, and came with a whetstone (which was new, and I still have mine) so you could learn to take care of it as well.
This was a tool, not a weapon. Most kids then carried some sort of personal blade, and I still do. I usually have at least two - with different (and sometimes overlapping) purposes.
Anyhow, I carried this thing EVERY DAMN DAY. I carried it to school. I sometimes used it at school (it had scissors on it as well, which make it handy, and I often needed it in the cafeteria.) No-one seemed to care that I had a knife on me every day, and a good half of the teacher had them too. Hell, our principal carried a pocketknife every day! We even thought, not forty years ago, that minors owning firearms wasn't a bad idea (until the Gun Control Act of 1968, but I digress...)
Anyhow, segue forward. I gave my two boys knives, but they weren't allowed to carry them in school (under threat of a week's suspension.) What changed? I didn't even give them anything that bit - both blades were about an inch and a half long, fairly narrow - the saving grace was that you could keep them sharp enough to shave with, if you cared to.
Teachers don't carry knives around anymore, most "
adults" don't carry knives around anymore, and I get shocked looks when I pull mine out to cut open a package or to cut food or something. "Do you always carry a knife?" My answer is "No, usually I have two or three!"
Y'ask me, I think parenting is the issue here. I am also a product of the last generation of the "single-income family" - parents having to spend time out of the home (and leaving their kids in daycare or somesuch) doesn't allow them to properly influence their larvae anymore, and that seems to be where we are failing. What solution do you offer for that?
I'd like to think a return to specie money and a revaluation of the dollar would help (most problems, and therefore most solutions, that society needs are economic...) but I'd like to hear your thoughts.
As far as capital punishment, it does not now (nor has it ever) really worked as a deterrent, and neither does incarceration. However, capital punishment does work in one important respect - it allows society a means to purge geniunely dangerous elements, and we have enough safeguards in place (theoretically speaking) to keep the number of innocents "officially" killed to a minimum. I'd also like to see a reform doing away with "tort law" - a civilian trial is little more than a contest between technicians anymore, when it should be a decision based upon facts and a search for the truth...
5-90
friend at that)...
