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I have bein falowing this on TV!!!
Timothy McVeigh´s (The Oklahoma City bomber) exequsen(I know! I cant spell)!
I just couldent help myself! I wonted to descuse it! If you wont to descuse it with me! I dont have anyone eles to descuse it!
Whats your thoughts about it?Well, Im wothing a intervue (60 minutes) of him and what I se is a cold blooded killer! With out remores killing 168 peapol (manny of the children from a daycaicenter), over 500 indured and saying that he did right!!!
He says that he thought what happend was sad but he feals that he did right bekos the goverment had killed more peapol in war and exequsens! He said that it was sad that civilans died but thats whas a right thing to doe!
Al the peapol, al the children!Shuld he be (Soon it will be “have bein) exequted? Manny say that he should be forgiven! I say that death isent punishment enoth! But unfortunaly there is nothing worse to doe!
I cant understand how peapol can forgive him! One woman lost her child and she forgave him and say that she pray fore him that he wount goe to Hell!
I hope he goes to Hell and Id be damned if Id “forgive” him so that he can goe to heaven instead!!!Sorry, but what I saw was a cold hearted man!
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I am the crusaderOh, crusader, a discussion on life or death? On forgiveness or unforgiveness, Hell or Heaven? Hmmmm, throw in abortion vs pro-life, politics, and (what’s the other no-no?), oh yeh, which is the TRUE religion so we can REALLY liven up this discussion, eh?
As far as suddenly seeking pardon McVeigh, I draw all my impressions from 790: “Cut the ceremony and get on with it [McVeigh]. And, don’t think I’m falling for your little parlour game. I know you’re both evil and possessed by something beyond evil!”
His appeals hearing: “Ignore it and give him the juice!”
And, of course, “[McVeigh] you give carbon molecules a bad name.”
And, I end by quoting Prince, “Good Luck! I don’t really mean that.” But, forgive him? It can and has been done for others before he came along, for horrors much worse. I believe forgiveness is a matter of the heart, mind, and spirit. I doubt such decisions are made on a purely emotional level. (now I am making a purely emotional decision to go the heck to bed ‘cuz I think this whole exhibition of an execution is going to make me miss Buzz LightYear
)[This message has been edited by BlackCloud (edited June 11, 2001).]
McVeigh? what I want to know is why it’s taken so long. The man killed innocent people, children. If he ever escaped from prison or got out on parole or anything like that, he might kill again. I know the death penalty is a sensitive subject but this case seems pretty clear cut to me…the only times I think someone shouldn’t be executed for killing is if it was self defense…if the other guy was trying to kill you or rape you or something like that. But if someone killed out of hatred, or did it to get something, and there’s no guarentee that they won’t kill again, then I’m not willing to endanger more innocent lives by letting an obviously dangerous person live.
Here’s an interesting moral question. John Lennon, who touched millions of lives and is my biggest hero, was killed by Mark David Chapman, an obsessed and insane fan. If you could go back in time to the day before Lennon was shot and save him by killing Chapman, knowing that you may then be arrested for murder and have a murder on your conscience, would you do it? I would, in a heartbeat. (If that situation doesn’t make any difference to you, insert something that does…Kennedy or Martin Luther King or someone.)
Sorry for the long post but this is an issue I really care about and could talk about for hours.
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Gideon: I thought you said you don’t hold a grudge.
Galen: I don’t. I have no living enemies. At all.i guess although i have felt such horror at certain crimes that i wonder why we bother trying people, i have a real abhorrence to the death penalty for two practical reasons…the first is, mistakes have been made…and i do not think an innocent person should suffer on the chance that the majority who die deserve the penalty…the second one is, i do not trust my fellow man to decide who should die…having said that, i also understand why people do agree with the death penalty, and i myself do not believe in the parole system, life should mean life, not six years with good behavior…flame away, as i said, i understand and empathize with how deeply feelings run on this issue…crusader, i am not sure about heaven or hell, but this is the one shot i am sure about, and i would like to get it right…but i sure would like to believe certain people are in hell and alive as we speak…
quote:
Originally posted by FX:
i myself do not believe in the parole system, life should mean life, not six years with good behavior…
Exactly. I’d probably be against the death penalty if I didn’t consider it the only sure way to make sure the killers don’t get out and kill again. Even if they don’t get parole there’s always the chance that they’ll escape, and why take that chance and put more lives in danger?
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Gideon: I thought you said you don’t hold a grudge.
Galen: I don’t. I have no living enemies. At all.
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Originally posted by Catalina:
Exactly. I’d probably be against the death penalty if I didn’t consider it the only sure way to make sure the killers don’t get out and kill again. Even if they don’t get parole there’s always the chance that they’ll escape, and why take that chance and put more lives in danger?
Well, the chances of them escaping are slim to none. Prison breakouts rarely happen, and when they do the escapees are generally apprehended quickly. As for putting more lives in danger, most people convicted and put in prison for murder are not of the mass-murderer or serial killer persuasion, and they would be unlikely to be so compelled to kill again that they would risk revealing themselves to their pursuers. I’d actually think that more escape attemtps would involve death-row inmates, since they’ve got more to lose. I know that if I were sentenced to death, that the first thing I’d be thinking is “how do I get out of this place?”
I’m personally against the death penalty simply because of the potential for error (since I cannot believe that the system is flawless, that innocent people do not get executed and that the loss of innocent lives is worth sustaining a program that is of insufficient deterring value), and because of the fact that it costs taxpayers more to foot the bill for prosecution, appeals, etc. in death penalty cases than it does to keep a prisoner in the pen for life.
quote:
Originally posted by Aleck:
As for putting more lives in danger, most people convicted and put in prison for murder are not of the mass-murderer or serial killer persuasion, and they would be unlikely to be so compelled to kill again that they would risk revealing themselves to their pursuers.aleck, i would have agreed with you up to 15 years ago…since then, the reasons for murder, and the murderer population have changed…i was a medical examiner for a while, and though i was the only one opposed to the death penalty in the medical examiner’s office, it seemed the deathrow guys always got executed on my shift, which meant i had to review the cases and fill out reams of paperwork before and after the autopsy was performed by the pathologist…it used to be murder was a crime of passion, so to speak, unlikely to be committed again by the same individual…we are no longer living in the ‘shawshank redemption’ era;people kill for 14 dollars, or other trivial reasons, or for no reasons at all…and all the drug related murders are still just about money (albeit large sums of money)…these are repeat offenders aleck, and yet i always felt defeated when reviewing the charts on these guys, it seems like society’s final failure reads as “state executed homicide” on the death certificate to me…however, since i do believe murder is wrong, i do not think it is right when done in the name of the state, especially since “the state” has been known to make mistakes…
I’m personally against the death penalty simply because of the potential for error (since I cannot believe that the system is flawless, that innocent people do not get executed and that the loss of innocent lives is worth sustaining a program that is of insufficient deterring value), and because of the fact that it costs taxpayers more to foot the bill for prosecution, appeals, etc. in death penalty cases than it does to keep a prisoner in the pen for life.
agreed, but i still do not think the cost of death penalty versus life imprisonment should really affect whether we decide to take a life…money has nothing to do with taking life, otherwise we are no better than the criminals, and are therefore,again, in no position to judge them…maybe part of the problem here in the us is that we do try to justify moral/ethical issues in terms of money, and that sort of easy morality is what is causing at least part of the problem…just segregate these people as incurably diseased at this time i say, and do not let EVER let them out to spread their disease…
FX: I agree that the majority of murder cases right now is made up primarily of repeat offenders and/or people who kill for little to no real reason (i.e. over money). I was basically addressing the point and problem of escapees. What I meant was that your average murderer is not uncontrollably compulsive when it comes to killing. It’s not like they *have* to kill as part of their psychological makeup. So, in the rare case of a prison break, and in the rare case of it involving someone convicted of murder, the chance of the escapee putting many more lives in danger is slim. They wouldn’t desire to bring more attention to themselves by immediately killing again, and they are usually captured fairly quickly.
As for the cost issue, I brought that up mostly because it’s one of the points that I often had to deal with when explaining why I was against the death penalty. I would always end up dealing with someone who would say “Well, I don’t want to have to pay to keep some criminal behind bars his/her entire life.” It’s not the main reason why I’m against the death penalty (I just found this fact out recently, actually, and I’ve long been against the sentence). It is, however, a reason. And anyway, sometimes a person’s actions cause their value in my eyes to get reduced to a question of which is the most cost-effective way to keep this schmuck off the streets. At that point, I don’t care about his or her human dignity, and whether or not it deserves preserving, I just want them away from everyone else. If new evidence or new investigative techniques can lead to prove their innocence, then let them out.
Of course, there is the question of the overcrowding of America’s prisons. One aspect of which can be easily solved (and this may ruffle a few feathers as well): Let people who are guilty of “crimes” against themselves *out of prison*. There are people in prison right now on convictions of drug posession for personal use. Not even intent to distribute. Kids are facing “mandatory minimum” sentences of years to life because they happened to be carrying blotter acid, which gets weighed to determine their crime, and which includes the blotter used as a medium to carry the drug. It’s like if someone was carrying a joint in a lead box, and they get charged with carrying 300 lbs of marijuana. The drug war in this country has made criminals of thousands of people who have harmed no one but themselves (if even that). Instead of effective treatment (unless you live in Beverly Hills), people with the disease of addiction are put away in prisons, where they can get drugs easily. Unfortunately, the propaganda machine has worked too well in this country, and these things will probably never get reversed in my lifetime.(off my soapbox now, I promise)
–Aleck
quote:
Originally posted by Aleck:
FX: I agree that the majority of murder cases right now is made up primarily of repeat offenders and/or people who kill for little to no real reason (i.e. over money). At that point, I don’t care about his or her human dignity, and whether or not it deserves preserving, I just want them away from everyone else. The drug war in this country has made criminals of thousands of people who have harmed no one but themselves (if even that). (off my soapbox now, I promise)–Aleck
hey, this is a soapbox kind of topic! but i will show restraint since the drug war is my favorite topic…i do wish to point out, besides your arguments, that just as prohibition not only did not work, it in fact glamorized alcohol to an extent that is contributing even today to the tendency to abuse it, as well as creating a lot of rich gangsters and an extremely organized criminal underground…with the drug war of course, the money made is even more ridiculous (and hard to resist) and can even be enough to finance an army, complete with state of the art hardware…look at the mess in colombia…and the drugs still get in,and still get used…
and what was wrong with putting prisoners to work on highways and bridges and such…
and while we are on the topic of useless expenditure of resources, is any city so free of crime that the police can afford to waste time on arresting hugh grant for soliciting a prostitute, or george michael for cruising men in bathrooms, or peewee for …well, you know…in a porno theatre for pete’s sake?! are these guys really criminals, or just guilty of poor taste?
okay, i am through ranting; just don’t bring up gun control
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