ABC NEWS/WASHINGTON POST POLL: Americans now favor life over death penalty

[eric82oslo]

Super!

I was hoping this would become the focus of social justice concerns once SSM was finally gotten out of the way. Quite a few states (18 or 19) have banned the DP and it's extremely hard to have applied in the vast majority of the rest. It's Texas, Oklahoma, and a few others that are noted for reckless use of it or trying to bring back torture (electrocution), etc.

Agree on that.
The joint work against the death penalty so cherished by traitor states like Iran, China, North Korea and so on, has got to be one of the most important civil right fights in the years ahead. Once same-sex marriage is done, death penalty will be next.

[eric82oslo]

George Zimmerman deserves life without parole, but the übervast majority of murderers (not massmurderers obviously) don't deserve it after all.

[eric82oslo]

Life in prison without even the chance of parole is wrong.

I agree. But it's better than death penalty. Waaay better.

From a philosofical, and moral/ethical, point of view, it's not so much a question of what is better for the person in question. But rather: Does a higher entity of society, like a nation state, has the - many will argue - divine right and privilege to commit the highest form of cruelty there is, to end someone else's life?

I would say you would be pretty inhuman to answer yes to that question. But I'm of the John Lennon and Mahatma Gandhi school, so I'm afraid that my philosofical baggage is not exactly downright mainstream. I mean, I'm after all a pacifist as well, who don't believe in military force. Nor in political borders for that matter.