Are you .....pro death penalty or anti death penalty (user search)
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  Are you .....pro death penalty or anti death penalty (search mode)
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Question: Well?
#1
Pro death penalty
 
#2
Anti death penalty
 
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Partisan results

Total Voters: 87

Author Topic: Are you .....pro death penalty or anti death penalty  (Read 2166 times)
TJ in Oregon
TJ in Cleve
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 8,948
United States


Political Matrix
E: 0.13, S: 6.96

« on: December 08, 2018, 08:49:11 PM »

Anti-death penalty. I admit in principle that it can be used justly, but I don't see it happening in modern America, outside of some truly extraordinary circumstances.

As for the pro-life thing, I get irritated when people try to equate the death penalty with abortion. Other than killing, they have next to nothing in common.
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TJ in Oregon
TJ in Cleve
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 8,948
United States


Political Matrix
E: 0.13, S: 6.96

« Reply #1 on: December 21, 2018, 01:49:24 AM »

Anti-death penalty. I admit in principle that it can be used justly, but I don't see it happening in modern America, outside of some truly extraordinary circumstances.

As for the pro-life thing, I get irritated when people try to equate the death penalty with abortion. Other than killing, they have next to nothing in common.
Since they both involve killing, they have a lot in common. It is disingenuous to say you are pro-life if you support murder which is what you do if you are pro capital punishment or pro war.
If you are pro death penalty, what if a woman is pregnant? Is it right to spare her life? Do you think that any pregnant women are killed in war? It is, therefore, logically inconsistent to call yourself "pro-life" and support capital punishment for pregnant women or war if there's any possibility that a pregnant woman could result from civilian casualties, which inevitably occurs during war.

I think part of the issue here is one of language: the phrase "pro-life", because it is a political slogan rather than a rigorous description has a certain degree of vagueness to it. Indeed, based on the meaning of the words alone, being "pro-life" could be defined as vegetarianism. In a similar vein, "pro-choice" could be defined as referring to the choice of incandescent and fluorescent light bulbs (or practically any topic for that matter). But that's not how language works. Both phrases clearly, and specifically, refer to abortion.

This carries with it some important distinctions between different types of killing that are clearly relevant to both its moral and legal ramifications. Not all killing is the same. There is a real distinction between willfully killing an innocent person on your own volition and between killing someone in a war and between killing someone as a sentenced execution. War, if it is just, is in defense of yourself or of other people. That's of course not to say we've always waged only just wars, merely that it is another question with its own set of complicated moral issues and clearly distinguishable from abortion or capital punishment.

As for the other point, when was the last time the US executed a pregnant woman? I think the course of action here is obvious for a pro-life death penalty supporter (not that I even support the death penalty but the logic remains): wait until after she gives birth before executing her. Yes, that means that child will grow up without a mother, but so would any other child whose mother is executed.

If supporting either the death penalty or war, in principle, in your opinion precludes being pro-life due to the fact that pregnant women may be killed (which is very unlikely with the death penalty anyways but I digress), then so do a wide range of other things from planes to trains to automobiles (all of which have killed pregnant women before).
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