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But the average citizen might find himself looking at the death row prisoner in the eye when the said prisoner is doing the killing.

Pigo 10y ago
Or maybe it's their 10 year old son who's lured away by some maniac, abused and killed. It's a complicated issue, and really easy to talk about how revenge doesn't solve anything from a great distance. I could see the absence of a death penalty putting me in a situation where I would end up taking the law into my own hands. Not that I think that's okay, but I could very much see it happening in that situation.
- saiya-jin 10y ago
  there is 7 billion people on earth, and number is growing fast. rather than focusing on preserving quantity at all costs, which is not an issue anyway, we should focus on quality (character, added value to mankind etc.). With this reasoning, killing a murdered of your own child (or any similar case, ie parents/loved one) isn't that much of a stretch. Extreme situations call for extreme solutions
  - lorenzhs 10y ago
    It's a small step from what you're proposing to euthanizing "unwanted" or "unproductive" parts of the population. Are you sure you want to go down that path?
    - saiya-jin 10y ago
      my point was only concerning the case above - somebody intentionally, even brutally kills someone closest to you. I never suggested scaling it up to anyone else, liked or not, from where did you get that?
      - lorenzhs 10y ago
        Oh I'm not insinuating that you do! But you do make an argument about quality of persons in the context of preserving life. That's a very dangerous path to go down.
        saiya-jin 10y ago
        indeed it is, but in the scenario above, rationality wouldn't be the strongest part of most humans, me including. All this topic is ridiculous and I hope that none of us would ever be facing anything similar. But if we would, this kind of rationalization would keep at least me sane afterwards... or so I think.
    - tremon 10y ago
      It's not matter of if, but how far the US is willing to go down that path.

Pigo 10y ago

Or maybe it's their 10 year old son who's lured away by some maniac, abused and killed. It's a complicated issue, and really easy to talk about how revenge doesn't solve anything from a great distance. I could see the absence of a death penalty putting me in a situation where I would end up taking the law into my own hands. Not that I think that's okay, but I could very much see it happening in that situation.

saiya-jin 10y ago
there is 7 billion people on earth, and number is growing fast. rather than focusing on preserving quantity at all costs, which is not an issue anyway, we should focus on quality (character, added value to mankind etc.). With this reasoning, killing a murdered of your own child (or any similar case, ie parents/loved one) isn't that much of a stretch. Extreme situations call for extreme solutions
- lorenzhs 10y ago
  It's a small step from what you're proposing to euthanizing "unwanted" or "unproductive" parts of the population. Are you sure you want to go down that path?
  - saiya-jin 10y ago
    my point was only concerning the case above - somebody intentionally, even brutally kills someone closest to you. I never suggested scaling it up to anyone else, liked or not, from where did you get that?
    - lorenzhs 10y ago
      Oh I'm not insinuating that you do! But you do make an argument about quality of persons in the context of preserving life. That's a very dangerous path to go down.
      - saiya-jin 10y ago
        indeed it is, but in the scenario above, rationality wouldn't be the strongest part of most humans, me including. All this topic is ridiculous and I hope that none of us would ever be facing anything similar. But if we would, this kind of rationalization would keep at least me sane afterwards... or so I think.
  - tremon 10y ago
    It's not matter of if, but how far the US is willing to go down that path.