State Execution in the USA

Hi Omnivorous, The first thing the family of the deceased has to do is learn to forgive the murderer
before they can get on with their life and how to cope with the problems that loss creates. Some people don't know how to forgive and some just refuse to forgive and just live in their hatred a miserable life.But I already know the answer to your question so why would I ask it?Taking the life of anything that you are not going to eat is a waste. My daddy taught me not to shoot anything I was not going to eat.Therefore I shot gators, rattle snakes. fish, deer, ducks, squirrels, turkey's quail, hogs, and in the 40's coons, and possums. If I killed it I ate it.So it does not benefit anybody to take a human life. No. I taught them they had to forgive and get on with their life. A few years ago my wife came up with a slogan I will share'Start where you are,
Take what you got.
And do what you can.
That is what the victims have to do as well as the families of the criminal.
If you can't do that you are not ever going to make it. It would benefit them more if the penal system had factories the inmates could work and make money and support the victims. I don't think public assistance should be necessary. I think the guilty party should supply the support. It could be done.There are a lot of cases where the defendant is sentenced to make restitution.Just a crazy notion of mine, that I get from the Old Testament as in certain events restitution was required and was not optional.I don' see why the public has to pay for the miss deeds of criminals put them to work and make the prison system self supporting.God Bless

Hi Rahvin, Yes you have your beliefs and I have mine. But we can still agree to disagree at least I can. I haven't ever said that either. Read my post to Percy if you really want to know my view on capital punishment. Message 45God Bless,

Hi Rahvin, This is one of those places we seem to disagree on.To me salvation is simple and easy. Some take verse 5 as talking about baptism and you have to be baptized to be saved. but verse 6 says that which is born of the flesh is flesh. I have never known a child that was born of a woman that her water did not break first that is the water birth that is required before you can be saved. we are a triune being composed of a body, mind, and spirit. The body must be born of the flesh. The spirit must be born of the spirit. When the spirit is born again it can never commit a sin because God abides there.Sanctification is the hard part. First it takes a lot of study of God's plan for mankind. Once we know the rules we must make them a part of our everyday life, not just one day a week as many try to do. Sanctification is a process that takes place in the mind as it is a battle between the flesh and the spirit. The flesh says yes do it and the spirit says no if it has been fed the information it needs to operate. If it has not been fed then it will be week and the flesh will win the battle and growth of sanctification will not occur. The mind simply processes the information fed to it and makes a decision what to do. You are right that sometimes bad decisions are made and other times. Being a child of God and doing what He wants to do is no easy job That is the reason I tell people "you do what you want to do." I can't make anybody do anything and nobody can make me do anything. Every thing we do is by our choice. A person commits a murder by a freewill choice or any other crime.God Bless,

Hi Tangle, Good for you. My country may never stop.If they viewed it like I do they would put them to work.God Bless,

I agree that citizens should not be forced to pay for taking care of these people. We have enough on our plates and the incarcerated should be self supporting, as long as they are alive. Ifr people want to make a difference, they should support education before these people become mentally ill. It does little good to support someone who is broken when it is too late to help them.

​ I too disagree. Salvation is not achieved through collective societal altruism. It is an individual decision.Throwing money at social problems is not always the best or only solution.

If this is your actual position, rehabilitation and restitution, in other words, if you actually agree with everyone here, then why all the rhetorical hand grenades urging the ultimate punishment?--Percy

Casting aspersions like "throwing money at the problem" is just political rhetoric, empty criticism taking the place of informed analysis.--Percy

I've probably spent most of my life feeling that there are some crimes by some people that are so heinous the best solution is removal of them.But there have been too many cases of mistakes or deliberate corruption of the system. If we sentence someone to life and we are wrong we can correct it. The death penalty (other than that one supposed crucifixion) doesn't allow for correction.Our whole western justice system is designed with a bias to not convicting the innocent. This results in the guilty going free sometimes but that's the bias we have chosen and I'm in agreement with that.With capital punishment I agree it is better to keep the evil alive than ever kill the wrong person rarely or not.

Hi Percy, That has been my position since I received a Remington pump shotgun in 1956 that was a guard gun on the chain gang in the 1920's and 30's. It had 8 notches on the stock for the 8 men it had been used to kill in the late 20's and early 30's when they ran.I didn't know anything about modular homes or mobile homes then but it seemed to me they could have them working in a confined area where they could run and get shot, and at that time we did not have a homeless problem where I lived.Then being a farm boy I thought they could have made tractor parts or something
like that. Our tractor would break down and it would take weeks to gets parts to fix it.But Percy I ask questions because I like to hear other people's reasons for their belief.I was always taught if you give a man a couple of fish you feed him one meal. But if you teach him to fish he can eat for the rest of his life. Just something my daddy taught me. You can apply that to anything.One of the biggest problems in our society today is the everybody owes me mentality. You can teach a person a trade but you can't make them work.God Bless,

Hi Percy, Percy do you think the great society of L. B. Johnson has worked?I don't as it has taught people to be lazy and depend on the government to take of them.Why work if you don't have too. Those who are working can take care of you also.God Bless,

If you'd like to know why people share your beliefs to see if they give the same reasons you would then you should just ask. Asking rhetorical questions that are actually arguments for the opposite of what you believe is perverse.--Percy

I try to imagine the horror for an innocent person being executed and just how fucked up a society has to be to risk that!

So much to unpack here ... sometime we'll have to talk about how police, chain gangs and work farms replaced black slavery with black penal servitude in the States Formerly Known as Slave States.And I wonder how much arithmetic thought you've given to these theoretical self-supporting, restitution paying prisoners. That would require a remarkably remunerative job. One might have to sell their organs.But what bothers me most is the notion that attempting to help the mentally ill is futile.Our jails and prisons are now our asylums, and the street our waiting room. Gently put, they are not effective treatment centers. Psychiatric care is expensive and sparsely covered by insurance and state health programs. The Great Emptying of state mental health hospitals of the late 20th century, ostensibly about the patients' liberty rights but more about Reagan era concern for your wallet, Phat, hastened the metamorphosis of patients to prisoners.Mentally ill, poor, denied psychiatric care and trying to self-medicate, perhaps, favorite victims of street predators: one might as well write a prescription for jail--where the untreated mentally ill will continue to go without treatment, living cheek and jowl with predators on both sides of the bars, from incarcerated sexual psychopaths to sadistic corrections officers.Squeeze a balloon in one spot, it bulges in another. Our society can deny care to the mentally ill, but they and their disturbed behaviors are gonna go somewhere. Refusing to fund that care saves money in its paper instance, but the consequent bills, financial, social and moral, are immense.Mental illness is not a lifestyle choice, no more so than a child chooses measles. There is no blame or sin: they are, simply, ill. The very term mental illness is a misnomer. There is no mind without a brain, and no severe disturbance of either one without a physical correlate. There is no satanic imp perched on our shoulders, whispering madness that we can embrace or reject.When we're "already broken" is when we need help.I'm glad you think education is good, though I suspect improving it makes your wallet cringe. I never thought of education as prophylaxis for mental illness, but what the hell, sure.

I agree, but...Years ago, in that den of stupidity that is "Evolution Fairytales", I proposed the concept that the convicted capital offender be given the option - "As things currently sit, you are going to die in prison. We offer you the choice of when such happens." The EFT "Christians" were deeply offended that the convicted be given such a choice.Moose