Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Hell: I am suspending my stance against the death penalty.
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Nicolemr
Shipmate
# 28
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Posted
and just to add to what tomb said, even if you yourself wouldn't mind if you were dead or alive, you might care if it was a member of your family. i know the man i mentioned above's mother was very pleased to have him back.
-------------------- On pilgrimage in the endless realms of Cyberia, currently traveling by ship. Now with live journal!
Posts: 11803 | From: New York City "The City Carries On" | Registered: May 2001
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tomb
Shipmate
# 174
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by sharkshooter: The condemmed will certainly have at least one (and probably many more) chance prior to the execution. That should be enough.
(As a shipmate) It's always so refreshing to discover somebody willing to arrogate to themselves a timeline properly left to Almighty God.
Posts: 5039 | From: Denver, Colorado | Registered: May 2001
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sharkshooter
 Not your average shark
# 1589
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Posted
I'm guessing tomb and nicole are getting upset with me, and so, since I really do like what they have to say, I'll bow out now before it gets out of hand.
-------------------- Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer. [Psalm 19:14]
Posts: 7772 | From: Canada; Washington DC; Phoenix; it's complicated | Registered: Oct 2001
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tomb
Shipmate
# 174
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by sharkshooter: I'm guessing tomb and nicole are getting upset with me, and so, since I really do like what they have to say, I'll bow out now before it gets out of hand.
I'm not upset with you, s/s. If I get upset with you, I'll be sure to let you know.
Actually, I would be grateful if you would engage in the points I have made. I write this as a shipmate, not a host. I have no plans to track you down if you ignore me.....
Posts: 5039 | From: Denver, Colorado | Registered: May 2001
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sharkshooter
 Not your average shark
# 1589
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Posted
OK, as per tomb's request, just to clarify,
quote: Originally posted by tomb: What an astonishing comment! I daresay, sharkshooter, that you might feel differently if you were one of the "rare" mistakes (which, as American jurisprudence is discovering, aren't so rare, God help us).
I would be in heaven "what a day of rejoicing that will be...".
Nicole said:
quote: you might care if it was a member of your family
Yes. But I would also care if they were hit by a bus and killed.
and, tomb said: quote: It's always so refreshing to discover somebody willing to arrogate to themselves a timeline properly left to Almighty God
I didn't think I was doing that. What I meant by the "that should be enough" comment, was that a person who knew his life was going to end, and was confronted with Christianity, but chose to reject it, is not likely ever to accept it.
-------------------- Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer. [Psalm 19:14]
Posts: 7772 | From: Canada; Washington DC; Phoenix; it's complicated | Registered: Oct 2001
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Nicolemr
Shipmate
# 28
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Posted
sharkshooter, you said:
quote: Nicole said:
quote: you might care if it was a member of your family
Yes. But I would also care if they were hit by a bus and killed.
ah... huh? i take this to mean that you would be unhappy if a member of your family were unjustly killed. yet on the previous page you said:
quote: I however view this life as the first small step in our existence. Death is just the passing into our eternal home. So, whether someone dies too early is irrelevant. Not that we should not vigorously ensure that the death penalty is deserved before being carried out, but I do not have a problem with the rare mistake - it will all be so insignificant in heaven (or hell as the case may be).
so which is it? is it irrelevant if a member of your family is killed early, or isn't it?
[quotes of quotes tidied up] [ 25 July 2002, 22:45: Message edited by: Nightlamp ]
-------------------- On pilgrimage in the endless realms of Cyberia, currently traveling by ship. Now with live journal!
Posts: 11803 | From: New York City "The City Carries On" | Registered: May 2001
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Nicolemr
Shipmate
# 28
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Posted
oh, and forgot to add, in either case, what does the bus have to do with it?
-------------------- On pilgrimage in the endless realms of Cyberia, currently traveling by ship. Now with live journal!
Posts: 11803 | From: New York City "The City Carries On" | Registered: May 2001
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tomb
Shipmate
# 174
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by sharkshooter: OK, as per tomb's request, just to clarify,
... What I meant by the "that should be enough" comment, was that a person who knew his life was going to end, and was confronted with Christianity, but chose to reject it, is not likely ever to accept it.
But that attitude is precisely my point! Who are you to assume that a person "is not likely ever to accept it" given the circumstances you posit? Admittedly, it seems plausible that such would be the case. Nevertheless, it seems possible to assume that a person facing death for a terrible crime is not in the best emotional or spiritual state to have an encounter with the ever-living and ever-loving God.
You imply that if you're not "scared into the kingdom" by the possibility of imminent death, then no other impetus is going to be effective. Yet I daresay that there are enough testimonies out there of people who have come to faith after everybody had given them up for lost to put the lie to that extreme viewpoint.
I can think of nothing more terrible than the arbitrary closing off of a person to every opportunity of repentance. Doesn't that place us in the category of the elder brother of the prodigal son, who was so pissed off at the welcome his brother received after having squandered everything?
Seems to me that one of the most terrible prospects about this whole dilemma is finding the murderer of our child in Heaven while we are burning in hell--or at very least, Purgatory, because of our rage.
Posts: 5039 | From: Denver, Colorado | Registered: May 2001
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mousethief
 Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
What Tomb said.
Reader Alexis
-------------------- This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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blackbird
Shipmate
# 1387
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Posted
God would have to be a very sick puppy indeed if the murderer of a child ended up in heaven and the raging parent went to hell. i think the criminal should suffer the consequences of his own actions and leave the hereafter real estate up to God.
and the death penalty doesn't have to imply rage, any more than being opposed to the death penalty guarantees a motive of forgiveness. though i think rage is more than justified in many instances.
as others have pointed out above, it can be seen as more humane than living in a cell for 60 years, though more expensive. some of the survivors of oklahoma city's bombing who watched mcveigh die were sickened to see how peacefully he died compared to their loved ones. it's hardly a fitting revenge.
Posts: 1236 | From: usa | Registered: Sep 2001
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tomb
Shipmate
# 174
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by blackbird: God would have to be a very sick puppy indeed if the murderer of a child ended up in heaven and the raging parent went to hell.
I suspect that the Gospel is more radical than you want to believe it is. You're not the first person, BTW, to accuse God of being "one very sick puppy" just because He didn't make the world in your image and you find His Justice and Mercy incomprehensible.
quote: blackbird continues: i think the criminal should suffer the consequences of his own actions and leave the hereafter real estate up to God.
Well yeah. If you're arguing that the death penalty is strictly a societal punishment. And if you believe that a society is able impartially to administer justice, then your point is, perhaps, defensible.
quote: blackbird goes on: and the death penalty doesn't have to imply rage, any more than being opposed to the death penalty guarantees a motive of forgiveness. though i think rage is more than justified in many instances.
The death penalty doesn't imply rage? When, in the US at least, one of the main parts of the penalty phase of a capital trial is the balancing of aggravating against mitigating circumstances?
When family and friends of the victim are interviewed on television and they talk about the "need for closure" as if they're talking about closing on a mortgage for a house?
When, for example, the father of at least one victim of the Oklahoma City bombing spoke of the need for forgiveness for Timothy McVey and received threats against his life and property?
When parents of victims of the Columbine High School massacre are so enraged that they are suing anything and everything that moves, when they are quoted in the papers and on television as lamenting the fact that the killers took their own lives because it deprives the families of the satisfaction of "watching them fry"?
When, on this thread, posters have emitted the most shocking vicious statements about what should be done--not to a particular person, but to a category of people when they know absolutely nothing about particular circumstances?
quote: blackbird: as others have pointed out above, it can be seen as more humane than living in a cell for 60 years, though more expensive. some of the survivors of oklahoma city's bombing who watched mcveigh die were sickened to see how peacefully he died compared to their loved ones. it's hardly a fitting revenge.
Well color me gobsmacked. In one paragraph you write about killing a person as "more humane" than incarcerating him for a long period of time, then you lament that Timothy McVey went to sleep "peacefully" and that it wasn't a fitting "revenge."
Which is it? Are you saying that we should not imprison people because that would be (in the words of the US Constitution "cruel and unusual"--or are you saying that if we're gonna kill them, we need to find a way to insure that their last moments on earth are filled with an agony exquisite enough to constitute a revenge for their actions?
Posts: 5039 | From: Denver, Colorado | Registered: May 2001
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Erin
Meaner than Godzilla
# 2
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by tomb: When, on this thread, posters have emitted the most shocking vicious statements about what should be done--not to a particular person, but to a category of people when they know absolutely nothing about particular circumstances?
And what "particular circumstances", pray tell, could POSSIBLY mitigate the kidnapping, rape, torture and asphyxiation of a five year old girl?
-------------------- Commandment number one: shut the hell up.
Posts: 17140 | From: 330 miles north of paradise | Registered: Mar 2001
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Chorister
 Completely Frocked
# 473
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Posted
Tomb: well aren't we terrible sinners then (well aren't we terribly human).
-------------------- Retired, sitting back and watching others for a change.
Posts: 34626 | From: Cream Tealand | Registered: Jun 2001
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Scot
 Deck hand
# 2095
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Posted
tomb, speaking as an emitter of shocking viscious statements about what should be done with a category of people, I will affirm that I really do want to see this person (and his entire category) dead. However, I also wish to clarify why I want this. As long as he is breathing, there is a possibility that he will get the opportunity to do the same thing to another little girl. The only way to be absolutely certain that he never gets another chance is to kill him.
Is there rage at what he did? Of course, and rightly so. But the rage is not the reason he should die. The next child is the reason. The manner of his death and the tenor of his final moments are of no concern to me.
scot
-------------------- “Here, we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it.” - Thomas Jefferson
Posts: 9515 | From: Southern California | Registered: Jan 2002
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tomb
Shipmate
# 174
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by Erin: And what "particular circumstances", pray tell, could POSSIBLY mitigate the kidnapping, rape, torture and asphyxiation of a five year old girl?
Absolutely none. I'm not talking about mitigation.
quote: Scot wrote: tomb, speaking as an emitter of shocking viscious statements about what should be done with a category of people, I will affirm that I really do want to see this person (and his entire category) dead. However, I also wish to clarify why I want this. As long as he is breathing, there is a possibility that he will get the opportunity to do the same thing to another little girl. The only way to be absolutely certain that he never gets another chance is to kill him.
Sorry. Won't fly, Orville. You and I both know that it is possible in the US to put somebody in prison without the possibility of parole. That pedophiles, etc., don't always get so severe a sentence is not proof that they can't get such a sentence.
And reasonably speaking, given the current climate in this country, not to mention the pressure from other nations, there's a greater possibility of a person such as this spending the rest of his life in jail than dying for his crimes.
quote: scot went on: Is there rage at what he did? Of course, and rightly so. But the rage is not the reason he should die. The next child is the reason. The manner of his death and the tenor of his final moments are of no concern to me.
Well, I admire you that you are able to separate your visceral emotions from your arguments about justice. Nevertheless, I find unconvincing your argument that the only way to eliminate danger of this sort is to kill the perps.
Setting aside theology for a moment,
Even if it is true (and I subscribe to that theory) and pedophiles cannot ever be rehabilitated, it nevertheless is true that society has the means to restrain people such as this so that they can never commit a similar crime again.
And yes, I understand that jurisprudence in the US has in the past set people free to commit similar and even more heinous crimes.
But it is not reasonable to argue for the most severe sentence as a corrective to the failures of the judicial system when a more measured sentence will achieve the same result.
You may argue that anything less than killing a perp of this sort will leave alive the possibility of something equally or more terrible happening. I would argue that the fact that "life in prison" doesn't always mean "life in prison" can be remedied. And, to restate, you're probably going to find more political will for an absolute life sentence than for a more universal application of the death penalty.
This all suspends the theological arguments against the death penalty, which for me are far more convincing that the societal ones above. But since both Erin and scot confined themselves to that venue, I have tried to respond in kind.
Posts: 5039 | From: Denver, Colorado | Registered: May 2001
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Scot
 Deck hand
# 2095
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Posted
If I really believed that life in prison really meant life in prison, then I would not continue to advocate death for these people. However, even if the system was changed so that such was the case, where is the assurance that it will not change back?
I will confess that the theological implications of my position weigh heavily on me. Nonetheless, I will not allow hand-wringing on my part to potentially contribute to another occurence of what was done to Samantha Runnion. In my moral world, protection of children is paramount in the absence of an extremely clear and compelling reason to do otherwise.
scot
-------------------- “Here, we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it.” - Thomas Jefferson
Posts: 9515 | From: Southern California | Registered: Jan 2002
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Erin
Meaner than Godzilla
# 2
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Posted
I want a guarantee that this man will never hurt another child ever again. The needle guarantees that. Nothing else can. As long as he breathes, he has the potential to kill again. I'm entirely sure his life sucked donkey balls at one point. However, there is no excuse, no reason, no history in the world that could ever explain or justify this. None.
There are excellent theological arguments against the death penalty. But to the last they fall when measured against the thought of another child tortured and killed by a child-raping murderer.
-------------------- Commandment number one: shut the hell up.
Posts: 17140 | From: 330 miles north of paradise | Registered: Mar 2001
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Robert Porter-Miller
 Tiocfaidh Separabit
# 1459
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by Erin: I want a guarantee that this man will never hurt another child ever again. The needle guarantees that. Nothing else can. As long as he breathes, he has the potential to kill again. I'm entirely sure his life sucked donkey balls at one point. However, there is no excuse, no reason, no history in the world that could ever explain or justify this. None.
From a recent visit to the States, I note that there is now a precedent being set where those with a low mental capacity can be acquitted from the death penalty. So therefore claim you fall below a certain level of intelligence and be freed from the death penalty.
This would seem to suggest that because of your mental state you can explain why you did it and not be held accountable to the death penalty. It would seem also that you could claim to have any sort of psychological disorder/illness and use this to explain your actions.
Therefore if these are cited as reasons. why punish the accussed because of their lack of intelligence or because of their illness?
(That's very unsubstantiated - but it is a genuine possibility)
Posts: 1231 | From: Washington, D.C. | Registered: Oct 2001
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Ginga
Ship's lurker
# 1899
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by blackbird: just for the record, i believe you found me harsh, ginga, not babybear.
Record duly updated. Apologies to all confused and concerned. I have now had some sleep and am ready to stop being stupid.
Carry on...
Posts: 1075 | From: London | Registered: Nov 2001
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blackbird
Shipmate
# 1387
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Posted
(by the way, ginga, only the first sentence of that previous post was intended for you ...it was just my sloppy rambling)
tomb
1. i was only accusing the God YOU described and apparently worship. so you're filling his shoes in the mercy and justice departments are you? how about channelling some of YOUR rage at the murderers instead of people who want them stopped.
2. you're the one who labels people as usurpers of God's role. what is it? or maybe only YOU have the right to measure what is just and merciful? and of course, you can see into the hearts of all and measure their rage can't you. have you measured your own lately?
3. i said the death penalty "doesn't have to" imply rage. stop selectively editing. thank you for so aptly demonstrating that one opposed to the death penalty doesn't necessarily connote a peaceful person.
4. i was arguing that if you're so convinced and offended that people might feel rage and want the death penalty used, that the punishment of lethal injection does not satiate such a desire.
and yes, i was very depressed the morning mcveigh was executed. i was upset that he looked so innocent and was so evil. i was upset at the images that don't leave one's mind of people blown to bits. i can't imagine how the survivors deal with their well-understood rage. but i think he deserved the death penalty. and yes, tomb, color me hypocrite, i even prayed for his soul. and i think lethal injection is the only humane way to do it. and no i don't think all crimes deserve it, but i think some do.
Posts: 1236 | From: usa | Registered: Sep 2001
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ChastMastr
Shipmate
# 716
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by tomb: If you're arguing that the death penalty is strictly a societal punishment. And if you believe that a society is able impartially to administer justice, then your point is, perhaps, defensible.
Well -- yes, for me anyway -- I do see the death penalty as a secular societal punishment, and that while a society may not be able to impartially administer justice (being human and all), it ought to make the attempt rather than giving up based on human error.
However, I wholly agree (as I posted above and no-one commented -- Hey! I'm invisible! Neat! I'll just pop down to my local gym's locker room and -- ahem) that rage is a very very dangerous thing and very wrong. The desire (especially from our armchairs rather than jury-boxes or judge's seat) to, Mikado-like, make the punishment fit the crime (the crime), the punishment fit the crime, can be really, really dangerous. (Examples I came up with have been deleted before I posted this on the grounds that they were too stomach-turning, even for Hell, to subject my fellow Shipmates to) But once we set the precedent -- Really Nasty Criminals Can Be Punished In Really Horrific Ways -- at what point does it stop? Our government has more or less determined that certain things really are "cruel and unusual." Yes, I think they've gone too far -- I really do, joking about my S & M lifestyle aside, believe that being flogged (up to a point) in the public square for theft, for example, is not cruel, and may be less so than being imprisoned with people who will try to rape you in the shower. But they've decided that certain things are cruel based, at least partly, on really horrific abuses in the past. One of the things you find out when you -- salaciously or otherwise (and believe me, reading about the abuses was quite effective at turning me off -- ugh) -- do research on prison conditions from the past is just how horrible people were treated, and often for fairly minor offences. Little things like limbs being dislocated, blindness, maiming, etc. by the "official methods of discipline" which were perfectly legal at the time. And you got some of the more sadistic people into places like that because, well, they could indulge their own nasty little desires on people without getting into any trouble at all. There is a reason we've gone as far as we have in the opposite direction, and any measures we take to correct that must be, I believe, with moderation in mind, lest we either repeat previous errors, or worse, go even further. In my opinion, letting the family of the victim, or other prisoners, have free reign to torment someone in whatever inventive ways they can come up with (and the ones I deleted are fairly simple things one could do with household appliances), is frankly crueller than things like burning someone at the stake, hanging him, or cutting his head off.
I'm not much into Luther but I think he was right when he compared mankind to a drunkard on a horse -- first he falls off on one side, and then makes sure he doesn't again -- and falls off on the other. But I think our job, not only as Christians but as thinking people who do want justice, is to fall off of neither.
Even in our own imaginations.
David
-------------------- My essays on comics continuity: http://chastmastr.tumblr.com/tagged/continuity
Posts: 14068 | From: Clearwater, Florida | Registered: Jul 2001
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duchess
 Ship's Blue Blooded Lady
# 2764
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Posted
This link Samatha's Mother has the following and more:
"Samantha had been taught to run from strangers. "She had been through the Sheriff's Department's program through the schools. ... Kick, bite, scream. She knew it all. She did everything right. She just didn't have a shot. ... And she even had the composure to tell Sarah to 'Go tell my Grandma' as he is carrying her. And she's a very strong kid."
Can you imagine a little girl...being carried away saying "Go tell Grandma".
I am sorry...I have to take another break from these stories. I get so upset. I can not understand why people continue to let these people go free.
BTW, Samatha's mother blames the jurors for SETTING HIM FREE.
-------------------- ♬♭ We're setting sail to the place on the map from which nobody has ever returned ♫♪♮ Ship of Fools-World Party
Posts: 11197 | From: Do you know the way? | Registered: May 2002
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Nightlamp
Shipmate
# 266
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Posted
Maybe the fault lies with the prosecution for not putting a convincing case.
Probably the fault lies with an adversarial system of justice were there are attempts to put two forms of truth to a jury. A European as opposed British\ American form of inquisitional trial may actually be better at getting to the truth and justice.
-------------------- I don't know what you are talking about so it couldn't have been that important- Nightlamp
Posts: 8442 | From: Midlands | Registered: May 2001
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Scot
 Deck hand
# 2095
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Posted
It's happened again.
I have to wonder if there is not an element of copycatting involved. If so, then I hope that justice will be done so swiftly and surely that there will be a deterrant effect.
scot
-------------------- “Here, we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it.” - Thomas Jefferson
Posts: 9515 | From: Southern California | Registered: Jan 2002
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Mad Geo
 Ship's navel gazer
# 2939
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Posted
I have mixed emotions on executions much of the time. Especially in the light of how many people are being released on new/old DNA evidence.
However, I can point to a solid case where an execution would have directly saved lives. Robert Lee Massie was sentenced to be executed and had the execution overturned when the California Supreme Court in its infinite wisdom overturned all death sentences (including the notorious Charles Manson) circa 1972.
Then the REAL stupidity began, the same leftist idiots PAROLED him (Massie). And he promptly killed again, and was again sentenced to death which was done (THANK GOODNESS) on 12:20 a.m., March 27, 2001.
So, the bottom line is that there are idiots whose hearts are abnormally sensitive to the killer instead of the victim, and these idiots parole and release the freaks occasionally!
I am not a big fan of the way the Death Penalty is implemented but it seems pretty simple when it comes to Child Molesters/Killers:
1. If there is good DNA evidence proving they did it, and
2. A jury of their peers convicts, then
3. Bullet to the brain, the sooner the better so the bastards do not get out to mess with children.
If I was king for a day, I would be happy to cease all other executions to implement this simple solution to save children from those evil bastards.
Posts: 11730 | From: People's Republic of SoCal | Registered: Jun 2002
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doctor-frog
 small and green
# 2860
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by blackbird:
and yes, i was very depressed the morning mcveigh was executed. i was upset that he looked so innocent and was so evil. i was upset at the images that don't leave one's mind of people blown to bits.
It came as a surprise to me; I knew it was happening that week, but I didn't know the day. So I just woke up one morning to hear Sky News announce he was dead.
I just got a dull thud at the pit of my stomach and thought, "Well, there's one more family just lost their son out of all that carnage."
Doesn't excuse what he did. But out of that carnage, we just make more. That's our response.
Posts: 981 | From: UK | Registered: May 2002
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Erin
Meaner than Godzilla
# 2
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Posted
And they found the body of that little girl in St. Louis.
Christ Almighty.
-------------------- Commandment number one: shut the hell up.
Posts: 17140 | From: 330 miles north of paradise | Registered: Mar 2001
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blackbird
Shipmate
# 1387
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Posted
texas veggie...yes, i know what you mean. it is carnage. nothing pretty or admirable about it. but i'll take the carnage on my own soul for supporting the death penalty and offer condolences to the families of the murderers rather than watch this keep happening around me.
being in favor of the death penalty doesn't mean i think i don't need prayers for my own soul and forgiveness and mercy from God for maintaining that stance.
cm....i find the idea of decapitation and firing sqaud horrendous. i just want them stopped. i have no impulse or desire for them to burn for eternity, either.
Posts: 1236 | From: usa | Registered: Sep 2001
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Unkl Davy
Shipmate
# 2777
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by madgeo: I have mixed emotions on executions much of the time. Especially in the light of how many people are being released on new/old DNA evidence.
However, ... If I was king for a day, I would be happy to cease all other executions to implement this simple solution to save children from those evil bastards.
I didn't want to quote the whole thing to save length, but there's not a word I could disagree with on that post, Madgeo.
That being said, when reading your link about Massie, at the very end, it says something about spending the day with spiritual advisors.
If he indeed did confess his sins to God and accepted Jesus, we can expect to see him in Heaven.
Maybe I'm some kind of freakish hybrid, but I see nothing wrong with OT justice and consequences being meted out for the sins and crimes one might commit in this life, yet a NT grace and forgiveness by ANYONE who repents before the needle is injected.
The thief on the cross was forgiven, but not saved from death for his sins. And even the NT says that we should fear and obey the state because it carries the sword for a reason ... and is allowed to do so by God’s own will.
Posts: 216 | From: Silicon Valley | Registered: May 2002
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Rossweisse
 High Church Valkyrie
# 2349
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by Erin: And they found the body of that little girl in St. Louis.
Christ Almighty.
....just about 15 miles from my house.
There was a heartbreaking photo of the man who found her on the front page of the paper this morning. He looked absolutely shattered by it.
And I was late to a morning appointment because I had to sit and reassure my little girl that she is safe and that no one will hurt her....but she should still be careful, not talk to strangers, and so on. How do you keep your children safe without destroying their trust and friendliness?
They caught the man who murdered the little girl in Valley Park almost immediately; from the look of him, he'll get off by pleading retardation. It sickens me.
Rossweisse // thinking justice might be a mercy
Posts: 15117 | From: Valhalla | Registered: Feb 2002
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John Donne
 Renaissance Man
# 220
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Posted
I am aghast - with horror and grief over this one: Rape of 8 month old baby.
It's a magnitude of atrocity that's difficult to grasp. The judge who sentenced the last rapist of a baby (9 months old) in RSA described it as the most gruesome violation of a human rights he'd come across. The question 'What's worse?' becomes meaningless in these cases.
There are a large number of crimes against children occurring in RSA because it is believed that sex with a virgin will protect from AIDS.
[Week old baby rape allegations were false according to police in South Africa. So I replaced your link with another child rape story] [ 01 August 2002, 16:21: Message edited by: sarkycow ]
Posts: 13667 | From: Perth, W.A. | Registered: May 2001
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HoosierNan
Shipmate
# 91
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Posted
Two passages from _The Bean Trees_ by Barbara Kingsolver:
(Background: A woman has been handed a little child and asked to take care of it. In the first scene, she takes the child with her and stays the night at a motel. She is giving the child a bath. In the second scene, she has been functioning as the child's mother for several months.)
"All of the baby's clothes were way too big, with sleeves rolled up and shirt tails wrapped around, and everything wet as mud boots and as hard to get off. There was a bruise twice the size of my thumb on its inner arm. . . . When I pulled off the pants and the diapers there were more bruises.
"Bruises and worse.
"The Indiana child was a girl. A girl, poor thing. That fact had already burdened her short life with a kind of misery I could not imagine. I thought I knew about every ugly thing that one person does to another, but I had never even thought about such things being done to a baby girl. She sat quietly in the bathtub watching me, and I just prayed she had enough backbone not to fall over and drown, because I had to let her go. I doubled up on the floor at the base of the toilet and tried not to throw up."
At the doctor's office, months later:
"He laid some of the x-rays against the window. Dr. Pelinowsky's office window looked out onto a garden full of round stones and cactus. In the dark negatives I could see Turtle's thin white bones and her skull, and it gave me the same chill Lou Ann must have felt to see her living mother's name carved on a gravestone. I shivered inside my skin.
" "These are healed fractures, some of them compound," he said, pointing with his silver pen. . . . .
"He put up more of the x-rays in the window, saying things like "spiral fibular fracture here" and "excellent healing" and "some contraindications for psychomotor development." I couldn't really listen. I looked through the bones to the garden on the other side. There was a cactus with bushy arms and a coat of yellow spines as thick as fur. A bird had built her nest in it. In and out she flew among the horrible spiny branches, never once hesitating. You just couldn't imagine how she'd made a home in there."
Kyrie eleison. Christe eleison. Kyris eleison.
Posts: 795 | From: Indiana, USA | Registered: May 2001
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blackbird
Shipmate
# 1387
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Posted
hoosiernan...that book takes my breath away at times. i gave a copy of it to my daughter who is leaving for college next month. i feel like i need to make a last ditch effort to prepare her for the real world. and it's a horrible feeling.
Posts: 1236 | From: usa | Registered: Sep 2001
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Basket Case
Shipmate
# 1812
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Posted
I suspect that Jesus was more radical in his hatred of evil than YOU want to believe, tomb & mousethief – quote:
“Things that cause people to sin are bound to come, but woe to that person through whom they come. It would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around his neck than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin – so watch yourselves”. Luke 17:2-3
Jesus doesn’t specify “better than what”, but a very plausible reading would be, “better than to go on living”.
By the way, Chastmastr, I like your CS Lewis quote which tells us not to think it is our place to forgive another for a sin that has been committed against someone ELSE. That is for the victim – to enable them to find peace.
Posts: 1157 | From: Pomo (basket) country | Registered: Nov 2001
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ChastMastr
Shipmate
# 716
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by Gracia: By the way, Chastmastr, I like your CS Lewis quote which tells us not to think it is our place to forgive another for a sin that has been committed against someone ELSE. That is for the victim – to enable them to find peace.
Well -- I don't want that quote to be taken out of context -- what it says is, and remember this is from The Screwtape Letters, i.e., letters from one devil to another on the art of temptation, quote: Hatred we can manage. . . . If conscience resists, muddle him. Let him say that he feels hatred not on his own behalf but on that of the women and children, and that a Christian is told to forgive his own, not other people's enemies. In other words let him consider himself sufficiently identified with the women and children to feel hatred on their behalf, but not sufficiently identified to regard their enemies as his own and therefore proper objects of forgiveness.
Please remember that everything Screwtape says is like a spiritual photographic negative; his advice here is on how to get "the patient" to hate and not to forgive, with an aim toward the "patient's" final damnation. If we are sufficiently identified with the victims to feel hatred on their behalf, then we are identified enough to make the attempt to forgive, as best we can (even if we are to punish them in any number of ways). (And, it could be argued, we are all part of civil society -- and as such, in a sense, we are, though not directly, "victims" when someone commits such an atrocity.)
I'm also not quite sure about the main purpose (though I think it can be a good side-effect -- and you didn't say that it was the main purpose) of forgiveness being for the victim to find peace; I think the main purpose, at least for Christians, is that we are told to forgive by the One who forgave us.
I was pretty disturbed by the hype surrounding the McVeigh execution, not because I don't believe it was right for him to be executed for murdering all those people, but by the way people kept talking about how doing this would "bring closure." Screw "closure." We could sacrifice an innocent person, and if people thought he was guilty, it would "bring closure." I believe McVeigh should have been executed on the grounds that he deserved it, as a matter of justice. (And I believe he was, at least in this case.)
Sigh, nattering on again, and as a matter of justice/obedience in my own life I need to get back to work...
David
-------------------- My essays on comics continuity: http://chastmastr.tumblr.com/tagged/continuity
Posts: 14068 | From: Clearwater, Florida | Registered: Jul 2001
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
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# 76
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Posted
What Tomb said.
And, (ducking), it strikes me that the heart of this is one person seeing another person as merely an object with which to satisfy our desires - for perverted gratification, for power, for hatred, for revenge, for whatever.
And Jesus told us where that began, IIRC. Am I innocent? If only. And Jesus also, IMHO, told us who should cast the first stone.
Lock 'em up, obviously. Sink to their level? Never.
-------------------- Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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blackbird
Shipmate
# 1387
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Posted
if you want to use the "am i innocent?" argument, why lock them up at all? why draw the line there? many of these people are on parole when they commit their crimes because jurors want to give them a second chance. most of us want to believe their is hope. many criminals are banking on our thinking that way.
as a parent, i use that argument when my kids do something stupid but not injureous to someone else. i recognize they are young and we all make mistakes. but when it comes to using that argument for people who torture and rape children, i think it's sticking one's head in the sand. the murderers are the one's who have satisfied their perverted appetites. for us to sink to their level, we would have to choose a citizen randomly and butcher them for someone else's crime. that's not what is being suggested here.
Posts: 1236 | From: usa | Registered: Sep 2001
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Erin
Meaner than Godzilla
# 2
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Posted
I'm curious... how is throwing someone in jail for the rest of his or her life the humane alternative?
-------------------- Commandment number one: shut the hell up.
Posts: 17140 | From: 330 miles north of paradise | Registered: Mar 2001
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tomb
Shipmate
# 174
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Posted
There's nothing "humane" about it. It's probably one of most grave punishments anybody could come up with.
It does admit the possibility of repentance, however. Until the "natural" end of the person's life.
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
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# 76
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Posted
The point of the "am I innocent?" argument is that there seems to be a sort of division here - my sins are forgivable, and I'm still a valued child of God, bought by Christ etc. etc., but particular people are merely scum who should be done away with.
I cannot reconcile that view with how I understand God.
Do we think the doctrine of imago Dei only applies to people whose sins we put in the "forgivable" bucket? I wonder, had Our Lord been preaching in Sheffield Peace Gardens today, who would have been the Tax Collector in the Temple in His parable.
I think we would have all been offended.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Erin
Meaner than Godzilla
# 2
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Posted
Karl, who's talking about sins? We're talking about crimes. No one here is denying that these people may very well find forgiveness from Jesus. What we're trying to figure out is what is the appropriate EARTHLY punishment for such horrific crimes.
-------------------- Commandment number one: shut the hell up.
Posts: 17140 | From: 330 miles north of paradise | Registered: Mar 2001
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HoosierNan
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# 91
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Posted
This is a true story.
When I worked at a certain mental health center, a married couple came in wanting help with their teenage daughter who was "rebellious and running away." They couldn't understand it, as they had always been such a "Christian family." Indeed, there was no history of child abuse or alcoholism of the parents or any of a number of things that initiate a lot of trouble in a child's behavior. I didn't understand it myself, until the teenager told me in a private session with her, "Ask my father about Brian Smith." (I made up the name just now.)
So, I requested a private session with the father. I asked him about Brian Smith. It seems that Brian had picked up this 16-year-old girl when her car broke down by the side of the road. He took her to a secluded place and raped her, then dropped her off at in a public place, where she called first the police and then her parents. The police arrested Brian. Brian used his one phone call from jail to call the father of the girl he had raped! Brian then persuaded the father to visit him at the jail. Brian cried and said he was sorry, and would this man forgive him for what he had done? The father, who considered it his Christian duty to forgive (after all, Brian had just reminded him of this, in so many words), did forgive him. Also told the police that his family was dropping the charges. Therefore, Brian gets out of jail free--doesn't even have to post bail.
The daughter, who has been at home crying, after having a rape kit done at the local hospital, finds out when Daddy gets back that Brian is free as a bird. That there will be no punishment for the rape. That it is the Christian duty of the whole family to forgive him. In the next several days, Brian brags to his friends in the community how he raped a girl and got out of jail, by making the father of the girl do his Christian duty.
The daughter begins rebelling against any family rules and begins running away.
Can you blame her? After all, the biological parent is the natural guardian of the child; in this case, the father failed in his duty to protect her.
Posts: 795 | From: Indiana, USA | Registered: May 2001
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Chorister
 Completely Frocked
# 473
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Posted
HmmmmmThis sounds very much like the 'Myra Hindley has become a Christian therefore she should be set free' argument. Now if I became a Christian whilst in jail I would be full of remorse and feel it was the least I could do to serve out a full sentence for the crime I had committed. True Christianity gives you a heightened sense of justice not the urge to seek a cop-out.
That Brian guy sounds pretty manipulative to me......
-------------------- Retired, sitting back and watching others for a change.
Posts: 34626 | From: Cream Tealand | Registered: Jun 2001
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blackbird
Shipmate
# 1387
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Posted
there does seem to be a definite difference for people on this thread on how to classify sin and crime in a christian light, as erin pointed out in her last post.
it sucks pulling for the death penalty, but here goes. it doesn't seem to me that Jesus intended that we free criminals in our attempt to prove our christianity. in the parable of the vinedressers he relates that the wicked vinedressers were destroyed for their evil. that does not imply they should not pay for their crimes.
in acts (25), paul says "if i am wrong and have committed something for which i deserve to die, i am not trying to escape death." though paul was an oddball, so perhaps he was just having a suck-up to authority kind of day on that one.
in romans (13), "for rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. do you wish to have no fear of the authority? then do what is good. but if you do what is wrong, you should be afraid, for the authority does not bear the sword in vain! it is the servant of God to execute wrath on the wrongdoer." while i generally don't like to bow to all authority blindly, i think this certainly affords a tweak of justification for capital punishment...at least in these beyond the pale, heinous crimes.
i'm sure aquinas pointed out that criminals sentenced to die are actually being afforded mercy by being allowed to know the date of their death and prepare for death, including asking for forgiveness and seeing a priest, in a way they did not allow their victims. i can't put my finger on where that comes from though.
Posts: 1236 | From: usa | Registered: Sep 2001
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ChastMastr
Shipmate
# 716
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Posted
Beating the dead horse again, I agree with Erin's last post. I believe that, on the one hand, Jesus can forgive any sin except that of refusing to be forgiven (which is what I believe the Sin Against The Holy Ghost to be -- permanent unrepentance). On the other hand, I also believe that we may, indeed should (apart from rare cases of legal mercy), practise civil justice in this world as best we can (which in a case like this would involve the death penalty, in my view). I don't see the two as mutually exclusive at all. At the same time, I believe as Christians we really are forbidden to hate other people -- that however hard it is, in the long run, we must try to forgive as best we can, try to be reconciled if we can, at least hold the attitude that if a person genuinely repents, to be willing, as human beings, not necessarily in a legal capacity, to extend the hand of forgiveness -- perhaps only to meet again in the afterlife. Lewis' book The Great Divorce gives an example of a repentant murderer who is, in Heaven, reconciled with his victim. But Lewis himself also argues, I think persuasively, in favour of the death penalty, and even says that if he himself murdered someone, "the right Christian thing to do would be to turn myself in and be hanged."
David
-------------------- My essays on comics continuity: http://chastmastr.tumblr.com/tagged/continuity
Posts: 14068 | From: Clearwater, Florida | Registered: Jul 2001
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Nicolemr
Shipmate
# 28
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Posted
the woman taken in adultry was condemned to death. thats what stoning was, a particularly nasty form of execution.
jesus said "let him who is without sin cast the first stone." when no one was willing to claim being sinless, he let her go.
what clearer biblical condemnation of capital punishment could we have?
-------------------- On pilgrimage in the endless realms of Cyberia, currently traveling by ship. Now with live journal!
Posts: 11803 | From: New York City "The City Carries On" | Registered: May 2001
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Sarkycow
La belle Dame sans merci
# 1012
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Posted
Hefting thread on hostly toasting fork
Ok, posts now are basically rehashing the same arguments over and over. And it's getting boring. So this thread is promptly moving to the great knackers yard in the sky, otherwise known as Dead Horses.
Remember the way back to hell - wouldn't want y'all to get lost in the knackers yard, would I now?
Viki
-------------------- “Just because your voice reaches halfway around the world doesn't mean you are wiser than when it reached only to the end of the bar.”
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blackbird
Shipmate
# 1387
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Posted
i thought the repetition was giving it a nice hellish ambience .
from one old nag to another, nicole, i think your post combined with mine adds to the murkiness of the issue and outlines nicely how unwise it is to back up a stance for or against the death penalty based strictly on scripture. maybe Jesus knew his audiences and what they needed to hear better than we do. the words "how much more must i put up with you?" springs to mind.
Posts: 1236 | From: usa | Registered: Sep 2001
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