Lethal injection is not Biblical.

[RDKirk]

Consistently low-priced labor is, on the whole, beneficial to the economy. The problems it causes by reducing employment do not outweigh the benefits of low-priced goods.

You realize why Henry Ford paid his workers so much better than workers in other types of industry, right?

Because people with more money buy more stuff, such as automobiles.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

That's more a problem with our prison industrial complex than it is about capital punishment.

I would say that's partially true...however, we don't have the means nor the ability to fix it.

To build solitary confinement cells for every violent criminal would cost astronomical amounts of money (which we don't have)...therefore we're stuck letting members of the Bloods and the Aryan Brotherhood share the same yard and say "you guys play nice".

As far as my comment about researching prison gangs...the Aryan Brotherhood was one of them. That gang was run by people who were in there for murder, and they were still ordering hits. One option would be to deny them the right to have contact with other prisoners and not allow them to write to their family or talk to them on the phone (pretty much cut them off from all human contact)...but the moment you suggest that, you have groups like the ACLU jumping in claiming that it's cruel to deny them human contact and visitation/phone calls.

Now, if we ran our prisons the same way Russia ran theirs, it'd probably solve a lot of the issues...but, again, certain groups here in the US would say that's cruel.

Russia's Three Toughest Prisons - Black Dolphin, Vladimir Central and Camp 17 - Part 1/3 - YouTube

 

[IanCG]

It would be cruel, when we're locking up people for nonviolent offenses and possession. We put so much emphasis on punishment that we forget to rehabilitate. Like Andy Dufresne said, they have to go to prison to be a crook.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

It would be cruel, when we're locking up people for nonviolent offenses and possession. We put so much emphasis on punishment that we forget to rehabilitate. Like Andy Dufresne said, they have to go to prison to be a crook.

We're not talking about nonviolent offenders here, we're talking about rapists, pedophiles, and murderers.

 

[SolomonVII]

The Roman Catholic Church in modern times came up with the notion that capital punishment is no longer needed because modern society has the means to effectively contain the threat of violent criminals through incarceration and non-lethal means.

That is simply not true any more. Maybe it never was, but now especially, prisons have become like the head offices for organized criminals where they can run their criminal organization with impunity.


It will only be a matter of time before judges and law enforcement officials become the targets of these criminal organizations, much as is happening in Latin America now.

Some people actually need to be eliminated. RICO laws streamlined the process that broke the backs of the old mafias. If such streamlining is too mired in red tape to be possible for the new mafias, what has happened to Mexico is nothing that America is immune from.

Just because kind and gentle Christians and their kinder and gentle non-Christians cohorts have chosen to remove themselves from the battle against evil, it does not mean that evil has given up its battle against us.

 

[RainbowDashIsBestPony]

"An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind."

- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

 

[freezerman2000]

The Roman Catholic Church in modern times came up with the notion that capital punishment is no longer needed because modern society has the means to effectively contain the threat of violent criminals through incarceration and non-lethal means.

That is simply not true any more. Maybe it never was, but now especially, prisons have become like the head offices for organized criminals where they can run their criminal organization with impunity.


It will only be a matter of time before judges and law enforcement officials become the targets of these criminal organizations, much as is happening in Latin America now.

Some people actually need to be eliminated. RICO laws streamlined the process that broke the backs of the old mafias. If such streamlining is too mired in red tape to be possible for the new mafias, what has happened to Mexico is nothing that America is immune from.

Just because kind and gentle Christians and their kinder and gentle non-Christians cohorts have chosen to remove themselves from the battle against evil, it does not mean that evil has given up its battle against us.

Read what happened at Marion Correctional after 2 COs were murdered..
ADX Florence - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[ThatRobGuy]

"An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind."

- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

I thought it was M. Gandhi who coined that phrase???

It's a lovely concept in theory, however in the real world, if you don't punish the eye-poker, he'll keep poking out more eyes.

 

[Hawisher]

You realize why Henry Ford paid his workers so much better than workers in other types of industry, right?

Because people with more money buy more stuff, such as automobiles.

I never disputed that.

 

[Geoff m]

There should be no death penalty, only God can judge. Besides, I think the death penalty is the easy way out, let whomever spend 40 or 50 years in jail and see how they feel then

 

[SolomonVII]

I thought it was M. Gandhi who coined that phrase???

It's a lovely concept in theory, however in the real world, if you don't punish the eye-poker, he'll keep poking out more eyes.

I recall reading a book years ago on game theory. Basically the game was simple. The guy hits and you don't, he gets two points, and vice versa. You both hit, nobody gets a point, you both play nice, and the two points are shared.

The best strategy turned out to be tit-for-tat, with the occasional mercy thrown in order to lure the other guy into a stragegy that didn't involve hitting you.
Turn the other cheek works just fine, as long as people remember that they only got two cheeks Justice requires that turning the other cheek is a ludicrous policy when what results is your head spinning around like a top, as the other guy collects his two points times after time after time.
Fair enough though if a Christian chooses to do that strategy on his own. It is cruelty on the Christians part, when he decides to choose that strategy for his neighbours as well.

 

[RainbowDashIsBestPony]

I thought it was M. Gandhi who coined that phrase???

It's a lovely concept in theory, however in the real world, if you don't punish the eye-poker, he'll keep poking out more eyes.

It's on a poster in my high school. I don't know for sure.

 

[RDKirk]

I recall reading a book years ago on game theory. Basically the game was simple. The guy hits and you don't, he gets two points, and vice versa. You both hit, nobody gets a point, you both play nice, and the two points are shared.

The best strategy turned out to be tit-for-tat, with the occasional mercy thrown in order to lure the other guy into a stragegy that didn't involve hitting you.
Turn the other cheek works just fine, as long as people remember that they only got two cheeks Justice requires that turning the other cheek is a ludicrous policy when what results is your head spinning around like a top, as the other guy collects his two points times after time after time.
Fair enough though if a Christian chooses to do that strategy on his own. It is cruelty on the Christians part, when he decides to choose that strategy for his neighbours as well.

The biblical strategy for Christians is:

1. The king has a sword to keep order.
2. You are not the king.

 

[Jeffwhosoever]

Seems that Jesus was an advocate for the death penalty. Without it, he could not have died on the cross.

 

[SolomonVII]

The biblical strategy for Christians is:

1. The king has a sword to keep order.
2. You are not the king.

I think yours is too simplistic a read of the Bible strategy.

The king recognizes the legitimacy of governments to keep order rationally until the return of said King Jesus.

As long as there exists a legitimate government, we are to deter justice to that legitimate government and not take justice into our own hands.

 

[RainbowDashIsBestPony]

Seems that Jesus was an advocate for the death penalty. Without it, he could not have died on the cross.

His circumstances were different, though. He knew he was coming back.

Those on death row don't share that factor.

 

[Jeffwhosoever]

His circumstances were different, though. He knew he was coming back.

Those on death row don't share that factor.

Outstanding testimony about the resurrection!

 

[Paradoxum]

Actually,the "eye for eye,tooth for tooth" was brought on the scene so that punishments would not go over board.
Remember that Christ was flogged 39 times? If the soldier flogging him hit 40 times,HE would receive the same..under Roman law.39 was the official cut off point.
By the axiom's reasoning,no more than the original offence could be meted out to the convicted.

Which might have been good then, but is just messed up now.

Why do you think that the average time between sentencing and being put to death is around 10 years..at the least? TIME ON DEATH ROW | Death Penalty Information Center

Why is that?

 

[RDKirk]

Which might have been good then, but is just messed up now.

I'm not sure the basic concept is "messed up" even today. The basic concept is that the punishment cannot be worse than the offense. a good many people in prison in the US today--perhaps even a majority-- were given sentences far, far worse than their offenses.

For instance, man is arrested with a weekend's worth of marijuana and sentenced to 15 years in prison. Another man writes three bad checks and is given life in prison.

Is that "eye for an eye" in any reasonable way? Is it even reasonable in any way?

 

[SolomonVII]

I'm not sure the basic concept is "messed up" even today. The basic concept is that the punishment cannot be worse than the offense. a good many people in prison in the US today--perhaps even a majority-- were given sentences far, far worse than their offenses.

For instance, man is arrested with a weekend's worth of marijuana and sentenced to 15 years in prison. Another man writes three bad checks and is given life in prison.

Is that "eye for an eye" in any reasonable way? Is it even reasonable in any way?

Good points.
I don't know if these huge sentences for marijuana possession still happen much, but they used to.
Jail is not often the most useful form of either punishment or rehab. Hard time is often the greater injustice, and expensive to boot.