Quote:
Originally Posted by The_Lady_Snow
My emotional side over rides any of my logical thinking, I'll be honest. I would not want the person to live if they harmed one of my own. I would want them dead.
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I understand.
Two of the people closest to me have been the victim of violent crimes perpetrated by people they/I know.
I have had overwhelming urges to harm those perpetrators physically. To destroy them.
My desire to harm them has been so great that I have consciously gone out of my way to avoid situations where my own emotions might overcome my rational thought, my ethics (regarding taking a life or harming another person) and my sense of self-preservation.
I also know,
my job is to love and support those people closest to me to help them to heal and to carry on with their lives. That is the most important thing, I as an individual, can do. In my experience, vengeance doesn't heal.
As far as "the state" is concerned - I do not trust that our legal and justice systems are unbiased enough to be granted the power to take a life.
To me the natural question that should arise from this debate is -
The death penalty doesn't work - it neither reduces (nor deters) violent crime, so:
How do we prevent and reduce violent crime?
We talk about how much it costs to keep perpetrators on death row through their (rightful) due course of law, we talk about how overcrowded prisons are, how short sentences are, how rehabilitation doesn't work...
But we don't talk about tightening legislation around gun control. We don't talk about making weapons for personal use illegal all together (NRA-forfend). We don't talk about substance abuse as endemic to our nation. Or the "blind eye" law enforcement turns to domestic violence in so many cases. Or the reality that the impetus is upon a rape victim to prove s/he was raped...
And we don't discuss the NEED to dramatically alter our national fiscal priorities so that we can strengthen our social services, education and physical/mental health systems; provide more support for parents and children; and training for teachers and nurses and school counselors (those on the front line of raising healthy non-violent people).