Since the beginning of time society as a whole has tangled with the notion of weather or not capitol punishment is acceptable. Some people say it’s right; other’s say its wrong. (Why is life so confusing?) Anyhow, my answer to this timely dilemma would have to be that capitol punishment is usually wrong unless the person did something totally heinous, like brutally murdering babies in front of his parents. On the other hand, Jesus said we should learn to forgive, but on another hand, Jesus’s dad wasn’t quite so forgiving. (He was seriously into “smoting” the bad guys in the olden days.)
Andrew Taylor, Phd candidate (he’s got my vote) in ethics at Boston College agrees. Andrew (who, if you don’t mind my saying so is sort of cute in a nerdy sort of a way) thinks that people who are against capital punishment are a bunch of mamby-pamby sissies. And the Catholic Bible also agrees, too. Furthermore, its way ethical to kill cold-blooded baby killers because “The fact that it is possible not to execute killers doesn’t establish that that it is morally obligatory to do so.” According Andy’s quote, theirs no question that the death penalty is moral. How could anybody even possibly disagree with that?
Even so, the death penalty is kinda harsh, if u get my point. And sometimes the dudes aren’t even guilty. As a guy wrongly convicted of murder, America as a nation needs to be more careful than that. “Retesting of evidence from the case indicated that, contrary to earlier tests, a chemical found in semen was not present on the victim, suggesting that she was not sexually assaulted before the murder.” How does stuff like that even happen? As people, we need to be a lot more careful. I completely see why it sucks to be wrongfully abused of horrifical crimes that you didn’t even commit.
Lastly, check out this quote from the Guys at the American Civil Liberties Union. “The capital punishment system is discriminatory and arbitrary and inherently violates the Constitutional ban against cruel and unusual punishment.” Whoa. I know that my dad says that their just a bunch of terrorist-loving communists, but hey, nobody’s perfect. Besides, the death penalty does sometimes seam like it’s a little bit of an overreaction. I mean, live and let live and all. Why can’t we all just get along, right?
In conclusion, as I mentioned before, both sides have some pretty ritecheous arguments on the morality of the whole capital punishment thing. And statistically speaking, the numbers don’t lie. If I had to come down on one side of the arguments, I would pick one because capitol punishment is like killing someone for killing somebody else, and that’s pretty serious business. Why can’t all of the humanity in the history of the universe just deal with these issues on a more humanistic level?
Sources Sighted in this paper
http://ethikapolitika.org/2013/05/16/capital-punishment-and-public-safety/
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/
https://www.aclu.org/capital-punishment
by Richard W. Bray
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