Here we go with this death penalty issue bullshit that sends me

[cboy4]

through the roof every election cycle. :wtf:

I just got finished watching ABC's This Week With George Stephanopoulos - - -

Lincoln Chafee, a REPUBLICAN!, is getting raked over the coals because he said during his recent debate that Osama bin Laden should NOT get the death penalty.

Oh the humanity!!!!!

Chafee: "Highly emotional issue. But Rhode Island executed an innocent man in the 19th century and I oppose the death penalty."

Do we really have to replay the whole Michael Dukakis episode (http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2000/debates/history.story/1988.html) during every single EFFING debate for the rest of time? :grr:

Earlier this year, a good friend who was leaving a restaurant in Elk Grove, Calif. with his wife, was shot in the head and killed by a gunman who was on a rampage.

I was so, so angry. I wanted the shooter dead.

However, I'm OPPOSED to the death penalty..........And despite my immense sorrow about how this maniac killed my friend, leaving his three kids without their dad and a wife without her husband, I am opposed to this suspect being executed even though my stance on the issue has never been more tested.

I am sick and tired of reporters, during debates, coming up with extreme examples in an attempt to shame anti-death penalty politicians about their not so popular positions.

Yea, yea.....Bin Laden is filth. So, lock him up for the rest of his life and throw away the key if he's captured.

What I don't understand about pro-death penalty advocates is......IT'S A GIFT for most criminals to receive lethal injection because it's quick and by most expert accounts, probably painless.

Long story short.....good for Chafee standing up for what he believes in.

***DU should file this remarkable post for safe-keeping. I mean, here I am defending a repuke! Wow. :wow:

[DRoseDARs]

1. Yeah, I've never understood the pro-DP camp's desire to give murderers...

...the sweet mercy of death. And don't give me that "life imprisonment is expensive" bullshit. Then why are there ANY life sentences? Why not just execute them all if it's sooo expensive to keep people locked up for life and cheaper to kill them?

[NMMNG]

2. Here's something I don't understand

A majority of Repugs, and fundies in particular, are pro-death penalty.

However they are staunchly (so they claim) to be of the belief that "God will punish people in the afterlife for their sins in this life".

If that is the case, why do they feel the need to exact such a significant punishment on people in the here and now? Why not just let God deal with the person after s/he dies? Do they not trust their God to levy a significant enough punishment? Do they, despite all of their blathering about the existence of God, have some hidden doubts that he exists? Do they feel the need to exact a hideous punishment on a person just in case they are all wrong about their God and what he can/will do?

[DRoseDARs]

3. 'Cause fundies rely mostly on the O.T. "Eye for an eye" for justice. n/t

[ikojo]

18. According to a sermon I heard a rabbi give a few years

ago, the Judaic qualifications for carrying out a death sentence are rigorous..first there must have been two witnesses to the capital offense. One of the two witnesses had to warn the offender that he/she was committing an offense punishable by death and the offender had to acknowledge verbally that he/she knew that what they were doing was punishable by death.

FYI: aish.com is an orthodox website and not liberal.

http://judaism.about.com/library/3_askrabbi_o/bl_simmons_deathpenalty.htm

Judaism supports the death penalty, but only when there are at least two eyewitnesses who fully corroborate their testimony, and also that the criminal was warned beforehand that committing this crime could result in the death penalty.

The Talmud says that in practice, the death penalty was administered by the Jewish court only once every several years.

With blessings from Jerusalem,

Rabbi Shraga Simmons
Aish.com

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

4. Don't try to apply logic to it (unless debating these folks). It's simple

minded bloodlust. Plain and simple.

[NMMNG]

6. Of course

That's why, despite the fact that they call themselves Christians, they pay so little attention to the teachings of Christ and so much to the wrathy God sections of the OT. It reflects and condones their hatred and desire to torture people different from them so beautifully.

[cboy4]

9. Buffy, I'm going to pray for you after reading your response

:sarcasm: :rofl:

[NMMNG]

10. When I saw the subject line I wasn't sure what to think

Was it someone who didn't know me trying to be kind? Was it someone trying to be rude? Was it someone trying to be facetious?

Then without even knowing the answer I decided my response--I started laughing my butt off.

Then I clicked on and discovered that the third option was indeed the case.

Thank you. :hug:

[cboy4]

11. LOL....you know I love you!

:hug:

[NMMNG]

14. I know that

But when you are in "my posts" you don't know who wrote a particular reply so I had no idea it was you at the time. :shrug:

[Kutjara]

7. It's even better than that.

Let me lay out a scenario, by way of example. Imagine a man walking down the street in any town. He passes an alleyway, from which a gunman springs and, after an altercation, the first man is shot dead. Both of these men are Christians.

The gunman is caught, tried and sentenced to death. After the usual round of appeals, he is sitting in his cell, the remains of his last meal before him, awaiting his date with destiny at dawn. A priest joins him in his cell and, after hearing the gunman's confession, grants him absolution. The gunman dies the next day at the hands of the state, a repentant and absolved soul, and is instantly whisked to heaven to enjoy his eternal reward.

The victim, however, had made a couple of bad choices in his life and had embezzled a bit of money earlier in the week. Nothing large, you understand, but enough to keep his large family fed and his head barely above water. Unfortunately, he was shot on a Wednesday when his normal confession day was Thursday, so he died an unabsolved sinner. Sadly, our victim will be spending a considerable amount of time in Purgatory or may even merit consignment to Hell.

This is a logical outcome of rigid religious belief, absent common sense and compassion.

[NMMNG]

13. Interesting scenario

Thank you for sharing. :hi:


Of course the fundies (to the best of my knowledge) don't believe in purgatory. I'm not sure Catholics adhere to the concept so strictly any longer.

I don't believe in any of it myself.

To me both men would simply be dead, and their families would be the ones fretting about where they were for one reason or another, based on whatever rigid beliefs they might have.

[Kutjara]

15. You're right, of course.

The reality of the two men's fates would be the same: decay, decomposition and reintegration into the loam of the Earth.

But you point out the real evil of the situation. The families left behind would be suffering not only from their immediate and tangible loss, but also from their belief-based ideas about the spiritual fate of their loved ones. The idea of an ultimate fate that's based on an inflexible set of rules about salvation and damnation is inherently unjust. It's even more unjust when the rules are presented as divine but, in fact, were just cooked up in the heads of a few ancient clergymen who should have known better.

Religion is bunkum, but punative religion is evil bunkum.

[Rex]

5. Stop telling humans to quit killing in mass numbers!

Who do you think you are? The government? :sarcasm: OBL who? Is that someone, somebody is looking for? At least he is still the Most Wanted Terrorist on the FBI's list. Humans can't live without killing Cboy4. Darn, anti-war, peace lover! ;)

[cboy4]

8. In the words of that maniac Zell Miller, I challenge you to a duel

. . . TROUBLE-MAKER!!!

[cboy4]

12. Yea....I didn't think you'd respond tough guy. You're all talk.

;)

[Rex]

23. HA! I went to bed!

Avast! :spank:

[durrrty libby]

16. As long as we continue with this death penalty mentality,

we are hardly better than barbarians.

:banghead: :freak:

[ikojo]

17. What's interesting is that pugs and other death

penalty supporters will say they don't want their tax dollars to go to feeding and housing a prisoner for the rest of his/her life. Well, everything I've read about the death penalty says it is more costly to execute a prisoner than to house and feed them for the rest of their lives, given the automatic appeals and such worked into the equation.

So, if someone is a fiscal conservative then it stands to reason that person would be opposed to the death penalty, right?

[NNN0LHI]

19. The idiots have a simple answer to that argument

Quit allowing all those "expensive" appeals and hang 'em quickly.

Guilty or not. Just hang 'em. Much cheaper that way.

Don

[cboy4]

22. Funny how their only concern about saving tax dollars has to do with

this issue.

Otherwise, it's waste away!!

How much have we spent in Iraq? :shrug:

[WinkyDink]

20. Well, if Bush, Cheney, and Rummy were eligible for it............

[cboy4]

21. Darn you for throwing a wrench into my argument! LOL!!!

:)