17/08/2008
My views were challenged today, by GP.
Is it right to issue death penalties?
There are innocent people getting killed each year, due to misjudgment.
Its inevitable that misjudgment happens, we are all humans after all.
What do we have to say to those innocent lives we took under the justification of death penalties?
All war is nothing more than an "Organized crime." Do you agree?
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Read the following slowly, and reflect on your morals and beliefs.
Extracts from GP notes:
Most people who murder do not see beyond their action; they kill quickly in moments of
great fear or
emotional stress.
More significant is the possibility that legal executions may stimulate violent crimes by exemplifying society's approval of killing.
In the 1800s, Georgia law provided death for Blacks convicted of raping a White Woman, while a $25 fine was the punishment of a White convicted of raping a Black woman.
In Florida, black offenders who murder whites are 40 times more likely to end up on death row than whites who kill blacks.
The death penalty has no effect on reducing crime rate.
People would like to believe this punishment (Death penalty) is justified by reason, when in fact it results only from helplessness and rage.
The death penalty teaches that killing is sometimes acceptable, while denying the fundamental humanity of all people (The right to live) - including those who commit atrocious act.
People who are not as skillful as others in expressing themselves verbally may find it more rewarding to express themselves in ways in which they will do better, such as physical threat or violence.
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Why is it acceptable to kill in wartime and not in peacetime?
The cost of keeping an inmate in custody is US$50 per day, while the cost of a person death row is about $100.
Over 50 years it would cost 1.285 million to finance such an inmate.
It is soul-destroying to count the lives of people in terms of dollars, but now ask yourself:
is S$85million a year better spent on lifesaving treatment for children with cancer, or on keeping convicted murderers and drug traffickers alive in prison?Would you be willing to forego or downgrade the quality of medical treatment for your loved ones, to subsidise that life sentence?What if a deaf child was strapped with a remote-controlled bomb and unknowingly made to advance upon a crowd (where the bomb will be detonated) -- if law enforcement cannot persuade the child to halt, or evacuate the crowd quickly enough,
should they open fire?
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So, is it right to still take a life?
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I will leave it up to God to decide.
Such complicated matters, i once yearned to understand and engage my brain when i was younger.
I've learnt to fall on back on simplicity the past few years.
When you hold no final answer to the question posed,
simplicity is the key.As God puts it in Proverbs, "Let the punishment fit the crime."
Yet which human on this earth, has never administered decisions, or made judgments, without once being bias or with a discriminating attitude?
Scintillate, Sparkle, Shine