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Death Penalty by BuggedEyes2006-11-19 12:55:59
  The death penalty is indefensible. by mmell2004-12-14 08:00:26
    Society has a responsibility... by tskelton 2004-12-14 19:29:29
to protect its members from acts of anyone (outsider or member of the society) who threatens -- or actually delivers -- great harm to its members. That is one of the basic tenets of societal philosophy, and one of the basic reasons why people form social organizations in the first place: personal protection from outside threats (other reasons include food, commerce, education, creation and preservations of assets, and so on).

So, what should a society do with a person so reprehensible as to purposefully kill an innocent member of society, who shows no remorse about the act, and is therefore perceived as likely to harm another person? A slap on the wrist isn't going to do any good at all for their next victim; incarceration in a facility populated with other anti-society individuals amounts more to a training ground than anything that will prevent future acts against members of society.

How do you protect society and its members from possible repeat recidivism? Imprison them forever? The US is trying just that -- it doesn't work because they eventually are freed from prison for "good behaviour" or in order to make room for newer convicts. Banish them? To where?

SO -- what is YOUR plan to protect me from someone we KNOW is capable of reprehensible, heinous crimes?

There is a huge difference between a society punishing an individual who violates the basic social compact from which the fabric of socity is woven, and the Nazi party that killed six million innocent victims guilty of nothing more than living in the wrong place at the wrong time. The first action protects the society and all the individuals in it; the second action tears society apart by favouring certain individuals at the (extreme) expense of other members of the society.
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