Death sentence. Yes or no?

[sundin13]

NoGenlefBhind said:

sundin, you're pretty much the reason I jumped into this thread. After reading through your comments I just couldn't help myself. 
You, and others that think alike, view the death penalty as a punishment and it's within that description that your morality is best served and at its most distracting.

I view the death penalty differently. I don't see it so much as a punishment as I do a guarantee that the convicted will never, ever be given a chance to hurt another human being. I believe the process in which we convict and resign individuals to death row should be overhualed so there's aboslutely no possibility of an innocent person dying at the hands of the state, and in this age of DNA that shouldn't be a problem, but there's no question in my mind that there are people whose violent actions and disregard for the lives of others, preclude them from ever being part of society, in any way, whether that be behind bars or not. There are certain acts so heinous and vile, so beyond comprehension, that the perpetrators should be dealt with in the most assured way possible that protects the lives of innocents. 

Honestly, the core reason why you and I think differently is our opinion on life. On what life is, more specifically.. human life. 
I see us as nothing more than apex predators, animals sitting at the top of the food chain. Given that, it's within our rights as a social creature to rid ourselves of those whose actions hurt that structure at it's most basic level. 
You view life differently. You see it as something more grand and mysterious, something of an ethereal nature.. in other words, you believe life has value beyond what we seem and that life is in some way 'given' to us and as a result, we ourselves are not the ones ultimately resposible for it. 
That's where your morals lie. Mine reside in the everyday, in the existential, in the dirt so to speak. 

You disagreed with me above about the death penatly taking life out of necessity. But that's exactly what it is and why I stated that. Regardless of whether or not we remove someone physically, locking them in a cell, or remove someone by capital punishment (their word, not mine) only one of those two absolutely ensure the safety of others. I'll take that one. 

I brought up the Hitler scenario because I know it's a moral trap.. as does ACE, as do you, which is why he refused to answer it directly and why you decided to add your own twist and give it an option C.. lol. My scenario, not yours. You can't just change it to better fit your argument, that's cheating and a cowardly way out of an intellectual disagreement. No matter the context; taking a life to ensure the safety of others is what the question actually poses and that's where the morality of people who are staunchly anti-death penatly falters, because they would take that life. Again, that's what the death penatly is, it's not a punishment, it's an assurance. 
Peace. 

First of all, how does the Death Penalty do anything that Life Without Parole doesn't do towards the goal of insuring that the individual is unable to commit further crimes? There is of course crime commited in prison, but there are of course non-lethal steps that can be taken to combat this.

Second, the vast majority of cases don't actually contain DNA evidence, and often DNA evidence doesn't prove a crime so much as an interaction, so it isn't quite as infallible as you make it out to be.

As for your view on life, it seems rather contradictory. If we are simply apex predators and our lives arent really any more meaningful than those of a spider or a dog, than why do you believe that we should so fiercely protect human lives in the first place. Anyways, my argument throughout this thread almost exclusively relied on facts and objective statements, nothing about the mysteries of life, so I'd rather you not put words in my mouth. Life and what it means however is fairly abstract and interpreted differently by different individuals, so I don't really see how any singular perspective holds more weight than any other in this discussion.

And again, your Hitler scenario is inherently flawed. You presented a situation which was extremely divorced from the discussion in an attempt to somehow prove your point. You did so by restricting the situation into a binary in a ridiculous hypothetical situation. I merely suggested that the reality of the discussion does not demonstrate the options that you presented. Your Hitler example was extremely flawed and I think it could be argued that the intelectual dishonesty here is on your side by trying to mischaracterize the argument to make it seem more black and white than it actually is.