007 Do you believe in the death penalty? What if someone murdered your mother in cold blood? What if someone murdered a stranger’s mother, but saved your life the month before?

We actually debated this in class a couple months ago. Personally, I don't believe in the death penalty. Shouldn't we believe the best of humanity, and that people can change? I think the government should set an example to its people by showing that second chances should be given. Most crimes happen in a moment of passion, or with a specific target anyways. And isn't it hypocritical of us to kill people who kill people because killing people is wrong?

And what about if the convicted criminal was innocent? There's no undo button for death. You can't bring someone back from the dead, but you can bring them back from a jail cell.

If someone murdered my mother in cold blood, I would probably be inclined to give them the worst punishment possible. I don't think that exactly means death though, after all, as Dumbledore once said, "Do not pity the dead, Harry. Pity the living, and, above all, those who live without love." I don't mean that we should deprive criminals of love, but if we take away their connection to the world, or, in other words, keep them in a dark cell for the rest of their lives, that might be an even greater punishment. I believe that if we spend much less than two million dollars per head on safety measures, instead of spending more than two million dollars per execution, we could create a better deterrent than easy and expensive death.

A whole separate question we could talk about is: What does it show about humanity when we only begin to question the death penalty because of the cost of death? An article that I found very interesting on this topic is The Cost of the Death Penalty.

As Pauline Rogan puts it, "It seems that everyone is trying to find new ways to save money, yet the majority seem blind to the one way we could save millions, and instead are sacrificing programs that that are far more beneficial to society. Why is killing higher on our list of priority's than education, crime prevention, or health care? I believe that many state and local governments have our priorities all muddled up."

I agree 100% with her. Why hasn't the government realized that instead of painfully raising taxes percent by percent, it can get rid of the death penalty and save billions? Billions of dollars that can be used to enhance our education systems, our health care, and our safety in general?

 

If someone murdered a stranger’s mother, but saved my life the month before, he/she is still a murderer. My opinion of him/her wouldn't change because he/she saved my life the month before. It's not "a life for a life", like in Mulan. It's the fact that he/she still murdered a stranger's mother. These kind of things don't happen "by accident", and he/she should still experience the consequences and live through the punishment he/she deserves.

These are my opinions on death penalty. It doesn't work as a deterrent, makes the government extremely hypocritical, creates the possibility of the government killing civilians, and costs a hell lot more than punishment should. And most of all, it might not even work as the best punishment for the worst criminals.

- Quibbles 7/12/14