Poll: the death penalty, and your experience with death

In My Humble Opinion
21

  1. Against

  2. I’ve assisted at the slaughtering of sheep (holding and stirring the blood-bucket, fetching tools) twice as a young child and once as an adult. Never personally killed a large animal, though I’ve killed bugs and once mortally wounded a snake by accident.

22

  1. Against.

  2. Putting aside the occasional swatting of insects, I was a bow hunter in my early adolescence. I never actually got around to killing any deer (lord knows I tried) but I witnessed deer being killed and eviscerated. I did not find it particularly disturbing at the time.

I have been against the death penalty for as long as I can remember. However, my outlook on life has changed substantially since I was a kid. I now refuse to kill anything, even bugs.

23

  1. Definitely For

  2. Never killed an animal, not even a rodent. Killed lots of insects though, with no remorse whatsoever.

24

  1. Against.

  2. I’ve had my cats killed. There’s a thread about it somewhere, but of course that experience has nothing to do with my standpoint, that a state should not kill its citizens.

25
  1. Against
  2. I’m from Texas
26

  1. Against. I used to feel different when I was younger but the older I get, I know there are always exceptions to the rule. I also feel that murderers should be obligated to serve society in some manner for the rest of their unnatural lives.

  2. Yes. I’m an archery hunter. I also used to work for a taxidermist by doing all the skinning & hide prep.

(I don’t know if this is extra info you’d want but my brother was murdered. Due to the circumstances, I’ve never harboured any hate for the killer.)

27
  1. Against.
  2. No, unless you count those annoying tiny bugs that land on your monitor.
28

  1. For. 100% for.

  2. No. (I am not counting bugs because everyone’s killed bugs.)

29
  1. Are you FOR or AGAINST capital punishment (the death penalty)?

A: against

  1. Have you ever killed a living animal, or helped to butcher a recently-killed animal? Explain.

A: Insects. Spiders. Killed a chicken in my back yard once to cook and eat. (Wasn’t my idea but a guest brought a live chicken to my barbecue because he wanted to do it the old-fashioned way like Grandma in Alaska used to do.) Of course I connive at the killing of animals since I eat meat. Also had two cats in the past that I put to sleep because of disease / old age. Fish from the aquarium have been sent to a watery grave.
On the other hand, when as a child I went fishing with my dad, I would look in the bucket of caught fish behind his back and if any still looked alive I would sneak them back into the lake. Also once as a five-year-old, after seeing a Cousteau show with sea sponges in it, I started crying in the bathtub because my mom had a sponge to wash me with, and she had to explain to me that this was an artificial sponge and not a corpse.

30

Maybe I’m wrong, but I thought fish/sea life were reptiles. Cold blooded, not mammals.

I’ve never killed a reptile/fish, etc. either.

Eaten plenty of them, though

31

“Animals” in english is sometimes used to mean members of kingdom “Animalia” (i.e. not plants) and sometimes to mean mammals.

32

  1. Uncertain. In theory I’m for, in practice I don’t trust the system.

  2. Yup. I’ve killed, gutted, and occasionally skinned grouse, bunny rabbits, antelope (pronghorn), deer, and elk. Then I eat them, for their flesh is tasty.

33

  1. Against

  2. Yes and yes. I have no problems with killing things that are to be eaten. Killing for pleasure (aka sport) is something I have a real dislike of. Even coarse fishing is something I don’t think I’d nowadays join in with.

34

1.) Against in practice, though it doesn’t bother me in theory.

2.) Caught, gutted and fileted many, many fish ( though I haven’t been out in some years now ). Never hunted myself, but have assisted in a minor way in butchering a couple of fresh-killed rabbits and ducks. And I have done a few dissections on ( pre-killed, prepped ) mammals while taking Comparative Anatomy of the Vertebrates back in college.

35

Personal training and experience I guess, but a concept of “animal” that is restricted to mammals strikes me as profoundly weird.

36

  1. Against.

  2. Only insects.

37

[QUOTE=Max Torque]

Now, on to the poll. There are only two questions:

  1. Are you FOR or AGAINST capital punishment (the death penalty)?

  2. Have you ever killed a living animal, or helped to butcher a recently-killed animal? Explain.

  3. For (though I worry about due process and bad trials, etc–I do feel there are crimes that we as society can say–“you should die if you have done this thing.” Monstrous things, though.)

  4. I’ve probably clubbed a fish or two back when my dad (I’m 38, so I’m talking 30 years ago) actually fished and ate the fish. But I do eat meat. (And of course I kill bugs.)

38

Against

I never directly killed a live animal. Having been raised in a rural area, I however saw a number of farm animals (ranging from rabbit to pig) being killed and helped in small ways (I was a kid, then) to butcher some of them.

Since fish are mentioned, yes I caught and cleaned some, too. I’ve proved to be unable to boil a lobster alive, though.
I hope you’ll eventually explain us what you have in mind asking these questions.

39

Against in practice. Not quite sure how I feel about it in theory.

I’ve never killed anything other than bugs. Oh, actually - I’ve euthanized goldfish as a kid.

40

1: Really haven’t decided on that issue.

2: Yes, killed mice and bugs.

Also, when I was about 18 I found one of my pet guinea pigs dying (he was 6 years old) and I freaked out. I just didn’t want him to suffer and I was afraid the death would take a long time so I held him on my lap, then held a shirt over his face. It was over in a second. At the time I just thought that you have to do what you have to do. It was years before I could even cry about that.