Quote Originally Posted by Neruo View Post
Emotions, of all things, certainly shouldn't decide over life and death.
That's what I thought the flaw in the all arguments supporting the death pental was. They are basing their opinion on emotion rather than logic.

Quote Originally Posted by Universal Mind View Post
I think this conversation has lost track of the fact that capital punishment goes beyond deterrence. It also involves a revenge element for the victims' families, which does have a therapeutic effect they deserve, and it does provide closure. The victims' families can move on after the perpetrator is dead. Thinking about him playing basketball and watching T.V. with his friends every day doesn't have the same closure effect. Prison is sometimes escaped, and the families have to think about that too. That also makes prison more threatening for society. A dead person can't perpetrate again. A prisoner still has a shot at it.
What about the families of the 30-40% of murders in the U.S. that are never solved? Millions and millions of dollars are wasted frying a tiny minority of killers; this could be spent on law enforcement, which is underfunded (yes, it wouldn't be if it wasn't for the insane war on drugs but that is a different subject.)

It's time for the U.S. to join Europe and every civilized democracy, and leave the company of Iran and China in this matter. Surely, a few people's emotional response to the subject vs. the majority enlightened civilized viewpoint means something. In theory I would be for the death penalty too, even expanding it to include several other crimes, if you were always sure you had the right guy and it didn't cost like 10X more to kill him than put him in prison for life. I don't think prison is for revenge (emotional response), and we don't really have the luxury of rehabilitation, so the point should be keeping society safe from dangerous individuals.