headless pixie - The quote is "It's better that 100 guilty men go free than one innocent man suffer" - I am prepared to accept inflation impacts as a basis for your statement - and as a principle, has been traced back through English common law, Roman and Greek statute to the bible.

It is a quote which refers to the suffering of innocent and not the punishment of the guilty. Thus to use it as a defence against capital punishment is inappropriate even by those who feel the "absolute" nature of execution automatically implies such a risk.

Although I have lived most of my life in countries where the death penalty has been rescinced to a maximum of life imprisonment, I do sincerely belief the ultimate sanction should be available for killers and most particularly for second offence drug dealers (who show a more callous disregard for human life than the average domestic violence killer who, it could be argued, act out of emotion). Why drug dealers - because someone who has trafficked in death, been caught and imprisoned and then returned to deal some more has, in my humble opinion, shown total disregard for his/her fellows and the suffering of the people they encourage into addiction. They promote and exploit human weakness and enslave people to the drugs they deal in - in so doing diminishing the quality, expectancy and social contribution (turning to negative contribution through crime to feed their habit) of those they addict.

I can, imagine, in the corner of my mind, the perpetrator of a domestic killing would suffer in a life sentence the remorse and guilty of his crime and may, ultimately, qualify for parole through personal reform. There is never ever, any remorse or guilt from drug dealers who see their only "crime" as getting caught or blaming their plight on family background, poor schooling, social disadvantage and every other platitude, excuse and cop out which avoids and absolves them of personal responsibility.

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Censorship measures the idiot as equal with the Sage.