http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091110/ap_on_re_us/us_sniper_execution
I posted here because it will devolve into a capital punishment debate, and it should. I can’t think of a more worthwhile candidate in my lifetime for Virginia’s needle. And in only seven years? That’s pretty efficient for the U.S. He committed his crimes in 2002. Florida has death row inmates from the 1970s.
That being said, God have mercy on his soul, but justice is being done and this is the right thing.
From a rational standpoint, I’m against the death penalty- after all, if you screw up and have the wrong guy in the gallows, there are no take-backs. Better to let a hundred murderers live than to kill one innocent man.
However, from an emotional standpoint, I say let the guy (metaphorically) hang. The idea of this guy appealing his execution is particularly galling, considering how many innocent people he killed.
I’m against the death penalty purely for distrust of authority reasons so in cases such as this when culpability is not in question i see no problems with it.
I plan to wait for some shaky cameraphone footage of the execution to leak onto the internet, then I’m gonna masturbate to it all night wearing a pinwheel hat.
Will you be safer tomorrow than you were yesterday? If so, how so? If not, the execution serves no purpose. How about you show a little mercy on his soul and leave him alive in jail? No skin off your nose, right?
And then I will masturbate to shaky camera footage of you masturbating in that sexy pinwheel hat.
I’d honestly rather see him rot in prison for the rest of his life, being used as a fuck toy by a big hairy guy named Bubba. Hopefully to have a VERY long life to contemplate what he did.
-XT
I agree with other posters here. I’m generally against capital punishment, but in this particular case there is no ambiguity about who committed the crimes, no procedural mishaps, the crimes were particularly heinous, etc. This state-sponsored death pings no part of my sympathy module.
Crap, I think I’ve given away my true nature. I’m human, I tell ya!
I won’t be safer tomorrow than I was yesterday. Doesn’t matter, though. It’s about justice. He took many lives; now he must forfeit his own.
I think if more states had the Virginia system that can go from conviction to execution in 7 years, the death penalty might begin to act as a deterrent. We certainly need to make sure we aren’t executing an innocent person, but can’t we do that in less than 20+ years like it takes California? That system seems almost pointless.
I see it sometimes “John Smith was executed by lethal injection today for the 1986 rape and murder of…” and I’m thinking, 1986? The man was a different person then. I was a kid living at home with mom and dad. It makes no sense, for justice or otherwise to wait that damned long.
I’ve seen this argument before, and I ask this: What if he loves rough prison sex? What if sitting in his cell thinking about his crimes makes him, not remorseful, but arrogant and proud. He loves the 3 hots and a cot.
Would that change your opinion of the life in prison sentence?
Please help cure my ignorance. I’ve never been able to find a religion that says, Thou shalt not kill, unless you’re the government.
How can any religious person be in favor of the death penalty?
Good for you, jtgain. I hope you win the “Guy I Said Deserved to Die is Dead” prize, for all the difference it’s going to make to you.
It is a very sexy hat.
Well, I cannot speak to all religions but depends which part of Christianity you want to apply here.
So the Bible in those passages demands a life for a life.
Actually, my religion does say just this - although the catechism then specifies that as a practical matter the Church leadership believes executions aren’t needed anymore to administer justice.
The admonition in the Ten Commandments is generally understood as an injunction against murder. Now, not all killings are murder. Going to war isn’t murder, a justifiable homicide committed by a policeman in the line of duty isn’t murder and whatever we may debate about the death penalty, we do not define it as murder. And my faith does draw careful distinctions here.
I think you will find that most Christian denominations agree with this construction even if they disagree about the morality of the death penalty. They cannot just define it as murder and dismiss it - that is too simplistic an answer to a rather profound question concerning state power and personal responsibility.
I’m not a big fan of the death penalty, but I was in the DC area when this guy was driving around shooting innocents, I will not protest his leaving.
Your first mistake was assuming there’s a lot of religions people here. Some, but certainly not a majority.
You will find a number of commandments in the Bible which state, in no uncertain terms, that both individuals and the state are expected and required to kill under some circumstances.
As a devout Catholic and a Virginian I’m wholly against the death penalty and against this execution. I think to a large degree one of the most difficult things is to forgive this kind of action. However, I think that is the most cathartic approach, and I also think that it is not good for society for the government to be putting its citizens to death.
I’m often reminded of the Amish response to the Amish School House shooting in Pennsylvania; that’s an excellent example of a community expressing an almost unimaginable amount of forgiveness for a criminal. That’s a good model for anyone, religious or not.
I will say that I’m totally in support of punishing crime, and do think Muhammad should be punished, it just isn’t the place of the state to enact this punishment.