No....you and I have already
BEEN there. I'm not interested in trying to convince you or anyone else on this forum any further than I already have that the death penalty is inherently
wrong under any condition (other than my continued employment of my signature). If
You Missed that point in our earlier discussions, I suggest you go back and revisit those threads. Why you would out of hand simply refuse to address it with another poster is what I brought into question. I urge you to go ahead and make your argument that there are circumstances when killing people is a good thing with bob_dole4 as he has challenged you to do. If you choose not to, that's OK too. It just surprised me that you, above anyone else, would choose to avoid a good debate when given the chance to engage in one.
Either way, have a happy and safe 4th of July.
You feel the death penalty is wrong. I gathered that from our erstwhile debates. What I have never seen you do or don't recall you doing is taking it a step further in authoring the opinion that the life of someone who's committed a heinous crime is of equal value to the life that they have taken.
If you have then I missed it and that is a profoundly unbelievable point of view.
That aside, the other point I addressed that I didn't really think worth addressing was the notion that taking a life in any circumstance is wrong. That is another profoundly unbelievable point of view when you consider some of the circumstances in which it might come down to you or a loved one's life in the balance that must be defended possibly at the cost of a death.
But hey, like you said...you and I have gone on this merry-go-round before.
I don't understand your first sentence. "Defending the innocent" sounds a lot like "self-defense" just worded a little differently.
How so???
I guess I could address it simpler then. If you're a person who (as b dole suggests) believes that killing in any circumstance is 'wrong'...then;
Is it wrong to kill someone in order to save yourself from someone who is trying to kill you?
Is it wrong to kill someone in order to save a third party from someone who is trying to kill them?
If the answers to both of those questions is, 'yes' then why is it wrong to kill someone who has killed someone else (under premeditated circumstances)?
After doing away with the unrealistic notion that killing in all cases is wrong we're left with question of exigence.
In other words, you (and others) believe that exigence is no longer a circumstance in a case where the person is in custody. So therefore it would be wrong to kill a person
just because they killed someone else--and that denying them their freedom for life is sufficient punishment.
I believe in the exigency of circumstance too and it isn't even a question in my mind that it's appropriate, legal, ethical, etc., to stop someone from killing you or some other innocent person by killing them.
I take it a step further and say that since the above is a virtuous act it is also virtuous to go beyond taking the person's freedom away but to also forfeit their right to live under the same premise and authority of denying them their freedom.