🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <4146@master.CNA.TEK.COM> mikeq@freddy.CNA.TEK.COM (Mike Quigley) writes:
>In article <MS-C.726270852.377401575.mrc@Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU> mrc@Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU (Mark Crispin) writes:
>>Mike Quigley writes:
>>
>>> many of those gathered outside the prison
>>> to SUPPORT THE HANGING where [sic] CHRISTIAN FUNDAMENTALISTS and RIGHT TO
>>> LIFERS!
>>
>>So what is Quigley trying to prove?
>
>Just this.
>
>Why do Christians preach love, understanding, forgiveness, sanctity of life,
>etc., etc., while they practice hate (OCA, Dodd hanging), murder and
>rape (Bosnia), fear and greed (pick your favorite TV preacher), 
>violence (against pro-choicers, even their own children), etc., etc.?????????
>
>Seems to me 180 degrees from what was taught in the Sunday school I
>attended.  But, then again, I flunked out of Sunday school early.
>Must have missed these graduate courses.

While I agree with some of your assertions (about the OCA and TV preachers,
for example), getting back to the subject at hand, the death penalty, in
my mind at least, has nothing to do with hate. It has to do with a 
cost/benefit analysis of the situation. From my perspective, it costs
society more to keep Dodd alive, in terms of lives of innocent people. By
keeping him alive, we risk the lives of prison guards even if he doesn't
escape (he even said he'd kill a prison guard if given life). And if something
does happen and he gets out, we risk the lives of every young boy in the 
area.

I agree that the death penalty is not a deterrant. I agree that it costs more
money, on average, to execute someone rather than lock them up forever.
But I'm not willing to risk innocent lives on the possibility that, in
the next 50 years, a prison guard turns his back and gets strangled or 
someone does something stupid, Dodd escapes and young boys start disappearing
again. The death penalty is a permanent solution to the specific problem
of a specific heinious murderer. It's not an ideal solution. It doesn't
address the problem of preventing people from turning into WADs, but it does
cure the specific symptom.

In my view, that has nothing to do with hate.

	...Dave

P.S. I'm not arguing with your assertion that many Christians (or Muslims
or Jews or whatevers) don't practice what they preach; I'm just arguing with
your assertion that the death penalty is necessarily and act of hatred.