imported post
tyguy808 wrote:
I think that we should have the Texas Death Penalty law, If there is DNA evidence proving positive, or two or more credible EYEwitnesses, you go right to the front of the line. Ron White said it best, "your state is trying to abolish the death penalty, my state is putting in an express lane!"
This doesn't address the wrongfully convicted. All you've done is advocate killing some (based on an entirely arbitrary -- and false -- standard of "proved") more rapidly. You just argued, essentially, "Don't worry about the wrongfully convicted, we'll just execute those we are less unsure about first." It entirely dodges the pertinent issue.
In your eagerness to grant the state more power to deal with people
you should be defending
yourself against, you ran right past the salient detail.
I'm on the same page as Citizen on this issue. I don't oppose the death penalty
per se on moral or ethical grounds, I just highly question the competence of our (or any) government to carry it out without an unacceptable (read: any) false positive rate.
This is why Citizen's warning ought to be carefully heeded. If the death penalty is to be used, it must be with exactly the same kind of consideration that you so willfully just breezed past as though it were entirely irrelevant.
I also question, in general, those who are the victims of government aggression (like essentially every non-LEO gun owner), recognize this, and fight against it, but advocate an increase of government power anywhere at all so long as it doesn't affect them, intentionally ignorant of the supreme foolishness of such an act.
Personally, I'd have no problem wiping our country free of murderers and a few others sorts of offenders, from a purely moral perspective.
I simply don't trust the government anywhere near enough to willingly cede the power over my life and death to it. Which is what the death penalty entails in the read world where the innocent may be accused and convicted base on "conclusive" but misleading evidence (ESPECIALLY that of notoriously unreliable "eyewitnesses").
I trust most people enough to allow them to arm themselves, and I trust that, in general, people will make the best decisions they are able to. I trust that, most of the time, you have nothing to fear from an armed citizen as long as you don't aggress against him.
I simply don't extend this level of trust to the government. Were I to, it would prove me a fool time and time again.
If we want to take a bite out of crime while preserving liberty, the ONLY option is an enhanced emphasis on individual self-defense (that's why I'm here!). Giving the state more power can only reduce liberty.