The morally emasculated: Death for Death Penalty Opponents

[ansel123]

ByzCath:

Nice easy snappy saying but won’t you have the blood of the innocent on your hands if the guilty man you let go free kills?

I don’t think anyone is advocating letting capital offenders out of prison. The alternative is life without parole.

 

[Friar_David_O.Carm]

ansel123:

I don’t think anyone is advocating letting capital offenders out of prison. The alternative is life without parole.

But that is not what bogeyjlg said.

bogeyjlg:

Better to let a guilty man go free than to have your hands stained with the blood of the innocent.

 

[ansel123]

ByzCath:

But that is not what bogeyjlg said.

I guess he can speak for himself. My interpretation with respect to the death penalty is “free” means freedom to continue living and thus having the chance for redemption, instead of killing him, when he is no longer free to do anything.

 

[Friar_David_O.Carm]

ansel123:

If you take the time to actually READ what I wrote, you will find that I have said over and over in this thread that neither I nor our Church is calling for a blanket ban on the death penalty. Please don’t misrepresent what I say and then use the misrepresentation against me. As PRACTICED in the U.S., the death penalty does not meet the criteria of the Catechism. While the death penalty should be theoretically available, it is not necessary, thus does’t meet the Church’s criteria and thus immoral in most if not all cases. The Church leaves the door open, but at the same time says it should be practically non-existant. 3,500 people on death row and over 486 executed since 1976 is NOT even approaching non-existent.

Just returning the favor my friend.

As you seem to misrepresent what I am saying. Maybe you should read what I wrote again to.

Please point out where I defend capital punishment in any way or where I say that capital punishment in the USA meets what the Church teaches.

 

[ansel123]

vern humphrey:

I took several courses in Criminology from the Chief Sociologist of the Louisiana State Prison system. We spent one semester talking about the “root causes” of crime.

At the end of the semester, I asked him, “Mr. LeBlanc, what do YOU think causes crime?”

He looked at me and said, “Captain, some people are just BORN bad.”

He was a man with a LOT of experience inside prisons – and he harbored no illusions about dealing with “root causes” or “rehabilitation.”

There are some people that are very bad, no doubt. We can argue all day about the causes of crime. I studied with the former director of the Criminology Centre at Cambrige University, who is now a full Professor at Oxford (a rare honor). He also wrote the definitive text on the death penalty as practiced worldwide. He had some different things to say about the causes of crime and recidivism. Apparently, in the UK, where there is no death penalty, the murder rate is lower. Also there penal system actually equips people to return to society as productive citizens, instead of as more hardened criminals. Even if you are sentenced to life without parole (the captial sentence) you still must do job training and work in prison. In this way, rehabilitiation occurs. Even murderers released are given training before they return to society and as a result the recidivism rate is much lower than in the U.S.

Some people may be nearly beyond redemption, but that doesnt mean we should abandon the rest.

 

[ansel123]

ByzCath:

Just returning the favor my friend.

As you seem to misrepresent what I am saying. Maybe you should read what I wrote again to.

Please point out where I defend capital punishment in any way or where I say that capital punishment in the USA meets what the Church teaches.

I am sorry for any confusion. It was not my intention to misrepresent you. You asked for some documented Church authority and I provided it. I was not saying you defend captial punishment. I was just trying to explain the whole picture. My entire post was not limited to the specific points you raised. I was adding context to give a more complete picture.

 

[GULaw]

vern humphrey:

Let me offer the opponents of the Death Penalty a challenge – Silverstein needs someone to bring him his meals, see that he is bathed, gets his hair cut, and so on. And he spends his whole day exercising in his cell, and thinking about how he will kill the NEXT guard. How about volunteering to take care of Tommy – so other people don’t have to put their lives at risk?

I wasn’t going to hop in here, but I just had to reply to this one.

While I’d rather not move to Kansas, I did spend years working within the prison system - I have set across the desk alone in an office with men who have murdered their cellmates with nothing between them and me but a pair of handcuffs - in the front, not the back. I expect I’ll be in similar situations throughout my life. I was against the death penalty then, and I’m against it now. Good enough?

 

[vern_humphrey]

GULaw:

I wasn’t going to hop in here, but I just had to reply to this one.

While I’d rather not move to Kansas, I did spend years working within the prison system - I have set across the desk alone in an office with men who have murdered their cellmates with nothing between them and me but a pair of handcuffs - in the front, not the back. I expect I’ll be in similar situations throughout my life. I was against the death penalty then, and I’m against it now. Good enough?

So you won’t volunteer to guard Tommy? You’d rather someone else do it?

 

[ansel123]

vern humphrey:

So you won’t volunteer to guard Tommy? You’d rather someone else do it?

From your personal experience, do you find that there is a shortage of people willing to serve as corrections officers with all the risks that entails?

 

[GULaw]

vern humphrey:

So you won’t volunteer to guard Tommy? You’d rather someone else do it?

Note: after hundreds of posts, I just now discovered how the smileys work. Let me demonstrate:


Tell you what, get him transferred over to DC, and I’ll volunteer my weekends. Otherwise, don’t try to pull a fast one.:tsktsk:

What does Tommy himself have to do with the point you were trying to make? I’ve been in personal contact with murderers - dangerous men in my sole custody, some of them sentenced to death, some not, some who had killed in prison, some who had killed outside, and many, many more who had raped, beaten, and otherwise harmed people both in and out of the walls. So before pretending that I’m somehow a hypocrite for being anti-death penalty just because I don’t feel like making the trip to Leavenworth during finals, maybe you should meet some of the people I used to work with. If you were looking for someone who is completely against the death penalty and has personally and voluntarily exposed himself to dangerous situations with violent inmates regardless, here I am.

 

[bogeyjlg]

What I was saying was exactly what I meant. Do not think that I meant that those who we know are guilty should not recieve punishment.

What if an innocent man is accidentally convicted. Then those who sentenced him to death (that doesn’t just include judge, jury and prosecutor but those who wanted the death penalty as well) are responsible for the killing of an innocent (aka murder). Our justice is too imperfect for us to be killing the guilty. The stain of sin would be far worse than the social “good” of having a dangerous person killed.

 

[Trelow]

vern humphrey:

But who will go into the cage he’s in now, wrestle him outl, and PUT him in that box?

And who will take him out for a shower or hair cut when the Supreme Court says we have to?

pop a few darts in him, knock him out, wrap him in duct tape, toss him in. Heck, I’ll do the shooting, no prob.

As far as shower and shave, to bad, he’s in the box of hell, he don’t get nothing. sign the clipboard that you’ve done it. Nobody is going in to check.

you are right though, with the way the system is we have to do it, But we must rework the system. Heh, good luck, I know.

 

[vern_humphrey]

ansel123:

From your personal experience, do you find that there is a shortage of people willing to serve as corrections officers with all the risks that entails?

From my personal experience, I find that there is no shortage of people willing to demand that OTHERS take appaling risks and callously write them off.

 

[vern_humphrey]

GULaw:

Tell you what, get him transferred over to DC, and I’ll volunteer my weekends. Otherwise, don’t try to pull a fast one.

Talk aboput puilling a fast one!! You’ll do it ONLY if your impossible conditiosn are met.
:tsktsk:

GULaw:

What does Tommy himself have to do with the point you were trying to make? I’ve been in personal contact with murderers - dangerous men in my sole custody, some of them sentenced to death, some not, some who had killed in prison, some who had killed outside, and many, many more who had raped, beaten, and otherwise harmed people both in and out of the walls. So before pretending that I’m somehow a hypocrite for being anti-death penalty just because I don’t feel like making the trip to Leavenworth during finals, maybe you should meet some of the people I used to work with. If you were looking for someone who is completely against the death penalty and has personally and voluntarily exposed himself to dangerous situations with violent inmates regardless, here I am.

I’ve met many of them. And I note you are NOT a prison guard, and don’t plan to be one.

I’ll give you another one – I was asked to “help” a lady (who also had “been in personal contact with murderers - dangerous men in my sole custody, some of them sentenced to death, some not, some who had killed in prison”)

She wanted me to talk to the Governor of Arkansas to persuade him to release a man she met in prison and wanted to marry.

This man violently assaulted a girl, beat her insensible, raped her and left her unconscious on a railroad embankment, with her arms deliberately draped over the track. In addition to the brain damage and other lasting effects of his assault, she lost both arms.

And this is the kind of person some people would like to bring home and marry!

 

[John_19_59]

What if an innocent man is accidentally convicted.

In the UK we have a long list of people who have been wrongly convicted, later released, but in the old days would have been hanged.

Thankfully the death penalty is not legal in our country.

You have to ask yourself “what if I was wrongfully convicted”.

Judges would love to be able to bury their mistakes (like Doctors do).

 

[pnewton]

vern humphrey:

So you won’t volunteer to guard Tommy? You’d rather someone else do it?

In my earlier years, I have guarded people like him. Now I watch over others who do the dirty work. It is great to do a dirty job in society that benifits all and many would never want. When I speak on the death penalty, it is from knowing some who were candidates, and some who received lethal injection. The Catholic position, as clearly stated by ByzCath is the truth in reality as I have seen it.

In my experience it is a rare individual, even among prisoners, who has become so totally sociopathic as to be beyond reasonable hope of being safe, in the free world or behind bars. (less than 1%)

However they do exist and eventually they will be out and in your town. The question as I see it is whose life do we want to save?

 

[vern_humphrey]

pnewton:

In my earlier years, I have guarded people like him. Now I watch over others who do the dirty work. It is great to do a dirty job in society that benifits all and many would never want. When I speak on the death penalty, it is from knowing some who were candidates, and some who received lethal injection. The Catholic position, as clearly stated by ByzCath is the truth in reality as I have seen it.

In my experience it is a rare individual, even among prisoners, who has become so totally sociopathic as to be beyond reasonable hope of being safe, in the free world or behind bars. (less than 1%)

**However they do exist and eventually they will be out and in your town. The question as I see it is whose life do we want to save?/**QUOTE]

I have emphasized the last part of your post, because it contains the true issue.

Jesus told us if someone slaps us on one cheek we should turn the other cheek. He did NOT say if someone rapes and murders your wife, give him your daughter so he can do likewise to her.

That points up a difference between private and public morality – as an individual I can choose to go unarmed, I can choose not to resist a mugger. As a public official, policeman or soldier, I don’t have those choices – I have a duty to protect others.

If I let my own scruples against executing a criminal and some innocent person dies as a result, the blood is on my hands.

To answer your question, too often we have chosen to accomodate the criminal at the expenser of the innocent – as I remarked earlier, the news is flooded with stories of children being kidnapped and killed by people with prior offenses. We should have chosen to protect the children, not the criminals.

 

[GULaw]

vern humphrey:

Talk aboput puilling a fast one!! You’ll do it ONLY if your impossible conditiosn are met.

I don’t feel like bouncing around in this conversation for much longer, but keep in mind that you set up the “impossible” conditions. What, you can dismiss any anti-death penalty opinion if someone is unwilling to leave their homes, jobs, and families to hold vigil at Leavenworth? It is an unreasonable strawman, so I answered it with an unreasonable strawman. My condition - transfer an inmate up to where I live - is much more plausible than yours - drop my entire life to prove a point. Now let go of this ridiculous game, and talk to me like a man - or not at all.

I’ve met many of them. And I note you are NOT a prison guard, and don’t plan to be one.

Clarification: I was a prison guard, but only for a portion of the time I worked in the system. I was in contact with inmates the whole time I worked in prison, not just when I was a CO, which is why I wasn’t specific.

 

[vern_humphrey]

GULaw:

I don’t feel like bouncing around in this conversation for much longer, but keep in mind that you set up the “impossible” conditions. What, you can dismiss any anti-death penalty opinion if someone is unwilling to leave their homes, jobs, and families to hold vigil at Leavenworth?

Who said “vigil?” I said take over the dangerous job, and don’t put others at risk for your own personal self-satisfaction.

GULaw:

Clarification: I was a prison guard, but only for a portion of the time I worked in the system. I was in contact with inmates the whole time I worked in prison, not just when I was a CO, which is why I wasn’t specific.

And I appreciate your service and experience. But I remain unconvinced that the most dangerous amongst us can be controlled by anything less than the death penalty.

 

[GULaw]

vern humphrey:

And I appreciate your service and experience. But I remain unconvinced that the most dangerous amongst us can be controlled by anything less than the death penalty.

That is, at least, a fair disagreement between us.