This is a nice way of confusing the issue, but the issues you listed and capital punishment are unrelated.

The bigger picture is this: there are so many people in America that we are becoming cynical enough to see eachother as statistics. We give our government permission to execute people and then complain about how flawed our system is.

So let me get this straight, our system is so flawed and yet we want to give it permission to punish people in a way so that there is no taking it back? Please. Are we so unimaginative that we cannot think of different ways of punishing people other than life in prison or death?

__________________
lambaste me not

Death penalty flawed? When did I ever say that?

You never said that. I said alot of people complain about the fact that our justice system is seriously seriously flawed and inadequate - which I out of personal experience wholeheartedly agree with - and then we go and give them permission to perform the one punishment they cannot undo, which is to kill. If you want to give this system your blind faith, go ahaid. Me? No way. It could happen to you.

__________________
lambaste me not

You are an idealist powergrid, and you believe in absolutes. The problem I see is that you don't perceive what is for the greater good. Somewhere in the 70's and 80's we were infected with a selfish individualism. You would be willing to dilute/sacrifice a strong system of justice and punishment to save a few innocent lives (selfishly providing an example of your own personal fear of being one of those innocents). Thus making the I more important than the We.

And I personally wonder what is more cruel for one such innocent: The death penalty or a lifetime in a jail cell.

I am also a realist. Your problem is that you see this justice system as strong. Very nieve of you. I would call that being an idealist. Our justice system is famously weak and so seriously flawed that Governor Parris Glendening of Maryland has called a moratorium on the death penalty until they can figure out why so many people are on death row innocently. Those few innocent lives are part of that "We." They count. I do not seriously fear being placed innocently on death row, but I do empathize. If innocently sentenced, I would no doubt rather go to prison than die. There is no coming back from death and no rectifying that punishment. Don't act like you care about people innocently put to death by saying a quick death is better. That is pretty sick.

__________________
lambaste me not

This may sound evil...but...

I am all for the death penalty. And furthermore, I am all for human testing.

What is that? Well, instead of using animals for medical research testing, I am totally for using murders, rapists, & child molesters in those experiments. At least they would be giving back to a society they have only taken from.

This is not a joke either. I am really in favor of this. I was raped some 10 years ago. The monster who did this to me walked after severing less than 6 months in jail. I stayed in the hospital for weeks recovering from the attack. Whenever he saw me afterward he would mock me, until he raped again & served another 6 months. During that time I moved out of Brooklyn & never saw him again.

But that is the problem here. Criminals get away with their crimes in America. Child molesters get set free even though the children they hurt suffer for the rest of their lives. Murders get released from jail even though their victims are rotting away in the dirt & their families left to suffer for the rest of their lives. Rapists walk while their victims live in fear & suffer the rest of their lives.

And not only that, but these monsters are defended by every day people..their 'rights' debated as if they should have rights at all!!

So, I say, let them give back. Free the poor innocent animals they do medical research on & in their place put these monsters.

__________________
Be Alert: The world needs more Lerts

I'm all for castration of child molesters and rapists because, chances are, they're going to do it again.

Not to mention, castration would be relatively inexpensive and they can still function.

I also agree with your idea on human testing. Or we can put them all on the mothball boats the military uses for target practice...

As you can see, I'm extremely hard-line when it comes to punishing criminals.

__________________
Proudly a "South Park Republican"

I can understand your feelings of rage against whoever violated you, but laws and punishements are not supposed to be created out of anger. There are so many systems of checks and balances inherent in our system to prevent anger and revenge from becoming legislation. And the reason for that is because sooner or later innocent people become caught in the crossfire. Whoever raped you should have to pay. But not Joe Average who just happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

__________________
lambaste me not

I am not enraged at all. After 10 years I have put aside any anger I harbored. As a mater of fact, for many years I was very much opposed to the death penalty & harsher punishment of criminals. But after years & years of seeing criminals go free, murders released after 6 months...rapists let out to rape again with nothing more than a slap on the wrist...molesters allowed to roam freely in society, I have grown disgusted with our so-called justice system. Which is why my views have changed. I am now all for the castration of rapists & child molesters...since they use their genitalia as a weapon I say remove the weapon. And I stand firmly behind my Criminals for Medical Testing. I only wish someone with any real power to enact it would listen!

As for Joe Average who happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, I can only say that NO justice system is perfect...but I would rather a harsher punishment system set up than a more lax on. Maybe, if say, a molester had something very real to fear if they hurt a child then maybe they would think twice before sexually violating a 5 year old.

I think that is what is so wrong with America these days. We have become so Politically Correct...so afraid of offending someone...so afraid of violating someone's rights, that we forget that some people do not deserve the right reserved for human beings. Terrorists for one. Murders for another. Rapists & child molesters for a third. These are people who are not people at all. These are diseases. And as such they should not be afforded the human rights people such as us in the law-abiding civilized world deserve.

__________________
Be Alert: The world needs more Lerts

The problem with being ok with violating someone's rights - as I see it - is what are our rights worth if we are ok with them being violated from time to time. I'm not really talking about or supporting the welfare of a rapist or child molestor.

You see, every act of tyranny begins by trying to right a wrong. If we allow ourselves to begin experimenting on human beings and knowingly putting innocent people to death even if it is to punish an abhorrent crime, we begin to create another monster that we don't even notice until it begins to cannibalize us.

You say no justice system is perfect. But death is perfect and it just doesn't make sense for an imperfect system to carry out permenant undoable sentences.

We need to choose between what we want to be, or what we will let ourselves become.

__________________
lambaste me not