Or arrest fewer potheads.

(addressing the bold parts)

so now the fact that they have relatives is somehow a real issue here? seriously, what? nobody can change that people are related to others. you are born, you are automatically related to someone. most of us have families, and sometimes its only because its not legal for someone to throw a baby away after pushing it out.
life is never devoid of unavoidable suffering. however, i can tell you this much for sure: if tomorrow i went out and brutally slayed 10-15 elementary school kids, i would have to be insane to think my family would still consider me family after that. people have the ability to cut others out of their lives.

and, yes, it does. to kill something to eliminate a threat to oneself/others is NOT on par with killing something for fun. an act is defined by its motives, not its essence. for example, sex: is all sex rape? is all rape sex? by saying that all killing is murder, you are basically ignoring an important distinction that is just as important as the difference between sex and rape. the two are the same ACT but the motives are what it all boils down to.
im sick of hearing that 'all killing is murder'. theres never such a thing as a wholly black or white world.
and if you still think the two are the same, ask yourself, "if i had to share a cell with a state executioner or a convicted serial murderer, who would i pick, and why?". what about war veterans who have killed people? are they murderers too? is being around someone who ensures your physical safety through the destruction of another who would seek to harm you really so dangerous?

and it will prevent that person from murdering again. of course we cant keep others from deciding to murder in the first place, but we can keep them from deciding to do it again. thats the whole point.

that's backward logic. if you really wanted to prevent overpopulation, you wouldnt kill people who kill others.


and for those of you who think that "murder is against the law" is a real reason to oppose the death penalty, ask yourselves...: how many murderers do you know of were kept from murdering someone because its "against the law"?
laws are rules. guidelines for behavioral conduct.
nobody can stop you from breaking them. you choose to obey them or you choose to break them. people who dont play by the most important rules should not be allowed to play...otherwise, what kind of game do you have?
laws appeal to those who are not interested in making a mess. laws to people who murder others for fun are about as meaningful as what you had for lunch today. perspective, people. perspective.
if you can murder someone for fun and go largely unpunished in a way that the murderer understands as punishment, whats the point of having a law against murdering? if anything, youd want something like "please dont murder, we wont do anything to you, but we really dont like it when you do that..." instead. because, really, ask john wayne gacy or albert fish or any other murderer how much he gives a crap about what anyone finds to be socially appropriate.

Even better. If prison was just for people who were actually endangering other people, who had actually hurt other people? I bet the prison population would drop by at least 30%, if not more. In the US that's millions of people.

yes you're right that they have the ability to cut others out of their lives but I look at it this way. my father is an ahole and I wish I didn't love him but apparently I do. you see that's why I hate him. he's done things to me that I say he might as well have just murdered me (not that I'd rather be murdered because I'm very much afraid of death, hopefully you get what I mean)
sometimes I feel like the only one going through this..I just don't know how people can just shrug it off and say they don't care but I'm wondering do you ever think of the possibility that people feel the same as I do? that they may have done horrible things but they still love the person because they're family
(oh just so you're wondering I did cut him out of my life several years ago and that is why I'm suffering now. I feel regret. I try to block it out by staying mad..singing angry songs and that help sometimes but other times the regret seeps in anyway)


I'm not saying they're exactly the same and it's not dangerous. I guess it's hard to explain. I'm going with is the "eye for an eye" appropriate here when it's something as final as death? I'm glad you brought up war veterans. see I think war is stupid. why do we have war anyway? it's just petty..has no one heard of talking it out? peace and love not war

very true this is why I consider it a no win situation


I can see why you'd think that but I look at it this way. there are a lot of killers out there (maybe just as many or more than regular people? I don't know I don't do statistics but I say this because it seems like for every good person, there's about 10 bad people) also killers waste space do you agree?
overpopulation isn't as much of a problem when there's good people





it certainly keeps me from doing it...then again I'm an Aquarius so I don't like doing harmful things anyway but still even if I weren't I would be chicken.
yeah idk I don't get murderers. why would you want to live your life in a cell eating cruddy food and unsanitary toilets? I mean geez I don't even like porta potties. and it'd be so boring. nothing to do but watch a little tv maybe and tv sucks these days for the most part.
or worse yet, execution (admittedly not much worse)? I mean how is it not scary to think that you could die for what you did? death is the end and you don't know what happens. you could go to hell or you could just be looking at a dark pit for the rest of eternity

I think rapists definitely deserve a savage beating, but the death penalty just seems... a little... hypocritical?

sorry, i really am lacking in patience these days...so i'll just address the part of your post that i feel i can do justice with my answer to.
the bold parts pretty much support what i was saying. no LAW keeps you from doing it...you, specifically, do not want to kill anyone. you dont want to really watch someone die, or inflict it on them. you are not the same as a murderer; even without the law against murdering, you wouldnt run out and kill people.
your hand might be able to be forced, if you felt you or someone you loved were in dire need of such assistance (EX: you have the opportunity to kill them to save your loved one/yourself). but its never your first option, never the option you consider seriously unless pushed to your limits to.
which was my point.
murderers are different than most folk in a very dangerous way.

last i checked, none of them choose to be caught. if they did, they wouldve turned themselves in, rather than have the police chase them down.

also, i really recommend you do some reading on prison facilities. many of them have more than "a little tv"...they have outdoor exercise enclosures, weight rooms, libraries, and many of the newer ones have computers and shops where the prisoners can be employed to do things for the outside world while giving them something to do.

Some murderers are different than most folk believe themselves to be in a possibly dangerous way.

Someone who murders someone else in a fit of rage doesn't necessarily have to be all that different than anyone, because I think nearly every one of us has the potential to lose our cools at precisely the wrong moment, with precisely the right buttons pushed, that we make a mistake we're unlikely to repeat in our lives. People kill other people because they're told to, for matters of principles and even more ambiguous concepts. They kill people because they're simply trained to do so, and by rote reaction a life ends. We excuse those people, and even glorify them sometimes. I don't see there being a vast ocean of difference between one monkey and another.

We like to pretend that there are vast differences between all of us, especially those of us we choose to look down on, but even as complicated as we are, as interconnected and dependent as each of us is, I don't see anyone being without guilt or possible moral trespass.

It's never a good idea to let your emotions dictate your behavior, it only ends up in a deed you regret later on. Each one of us has the ability to exercise self control, without self control you let your emotions run wild.

I agree, we all have the potential to lose our cool and do something stupid, but most of us don't because we think first and hopefully realize what we were about to do is irresponsible.

Most of us don't, but assigning absolute and irredeemable punishment to a whole host of people based upon a false generalization isn't a good idea either. If nothing else it's lazy as hell. Murderers should be punished for their crimes, but declaring that every murderer is forever a threat to society is no more based on facts than if I suggested that every thief that steals to feed his children will forever bear the burden of a contemptible disregard for personal property forever and ever. I don't think most people change their core behaviors very often, but I also reject the notion that hardly anyone is a criminal as a core behavior. Worse, I am convinced that sometimes our justice system prompts criminals who might otherwise be victims of singular, aberrant behavior into adopting changes in their core behavior. We put people into prison and we manufacture worse criminals, because of our obsession with punishment rather than addressing rehabilitation and recidivism. We put people into environments designed to break their will, then we only allow them to socialize with criminals and authority figures in an adversarial relationship. It's like criminal boot camp.

That still doesn't mean I oppose the death penalty on principle, but there's enough wrong with the justice system in the US that I think anyone who can't find something to criticize about the way we're doing things is probably being a little willful, callous, or even possibly inclined to behaviors outside the lines of the coloring book themselves.

where exactly did i say "forever"?

and of course there are differences between murderers. as many differences between murderers exist as differences between motives exist. that was my whole point. however, murderers DO think differently (in one form or another--violent rage, calculated action, whatever) than your average fluffy citizen.