CO-Quinnipiac: Hickenlooper (D) in trouble after death-penalty decision

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Why are conservatives so opposed to abortion but so supportive of the death penalty?

Probably because the fetus didn't commit pre-medidated murder.

You know, forcibly closing the door on all possible future hope of redemption in this world by killing somebody really doesn't carry the same moral character or significance that people inflamed with blood-lust seem to think that it does.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Why are conservatives so opposed to abortion but so supportive of the death penalty?

Probably because the fetus didn't commit pre-medidated murder.

You know, forcibly closing the door on all possible future hope of redemption in this world by killing somebody really doesn't carry the same moral character or significance that people inflamed with blood-lust seem to think that it does.

My feeling on this (for the 1000th time) is that the death penalty is the price society has determined will be paid for certain acts of pre-meditated murder and I agree that should be the price.  I want anyone sentenced to that to have DNA tests if DNA was a part of establishing their guilt and subsequent sentence, assuming such testing wasn't used initially.  Executing someone who has even the slightest possibility of being innocent is unacceptable, and although there probably is no 100% certainty that will never happen, we need to be as diligent as possible in ensuring it doesn't

Executing someone who has even the slightest possibility of repenting if left alive is unacceptable, and that applies to everyone.

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Oh, I don't consider you an individually bloodthirsty person. We live in a society that, by and large, encourages on a mass level the sensibility that retribution in kind is acceptable or even desirable in matters of life and death, and that sensibility makes sense to you. This isn't your fault or anybody's in particular.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Why are conservatives so opposed to abortion but so supportive of the death penalty?

Probably because the fetus didn't commit pre-medidated murder.

You know, forcibly closing the door on all possible future hope of redemption in this world by killing somebody really doesn't carry the same moral character or significance that people inflamed with blood-lust seem to think that it does.

My feeling on this (for the 1000th time) is that the death penalty is the price society has determined will be paid for certain acts of pre-meditated murder and I agree that should be the price.  I want anyone sentenced to that to have DNA tests if DNA was a part of establishing their guilt and subsequent sentence, assuming such testing wasn't used initially.  Executing someone who has even the slightest possibility of being innocent is unacceptable, and although there probably is no 100% certainty that will never happen, we need to be as diligent as possible in ensuring it doesn't

Executing someone who has even the slightest possibility of repenting if left alive is unacceptable, and that applies to everyone.

Nathan, until now, we've agreed on pretty well every issue that's come up. But here, I would beg to differ. Redemption has to have a price, as far as I'm concerned - something must be paid equal to the crime committed. And for the likes of tyrants, rapists, serial killers, and spree murderers like Breivik, imprisoning them would be a waste of money and would accomplish just about as much as sitting them in the corner to think about what they've done.

That being said, this should not be Hickenlooper's litmus test after all the good he's done.

'Paying something equal to the crime committed' is a good way to get oneself wrapped up in sophistry about what 'counts' (if the general categories of options for judicial sanction for serious crimes are fine, imprisonment, and death, how do we translate those in terms of 'equivalence' onto crimes that don't directly relate to loss of money, freedom of movement, or life?) and, in all honesty, strikes me as an unexamined revenge mentality. How does killing somebody accomplish any more than 'sitting them in the corner to think about what they've done'? The allegedly higher cost to keeping someone imprisoned for life (not actually higher in most cases, at least in the American criminal justice system) is a frankly small price to pay for not having blood on our collective hands, for asserting some degree of moral superiority or attempted superiority over people who have committed monstrous crimes.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Allow me to preface this by saying that I am not a supporter of the death penalty.

Nevertheless, the "the death penalty is bad because it's more expensive than life in prison" argument seems to me to be extraordinarily weak, since it's essentially a milder version of the Charles Taylor pitch.  It's not that the death penalty is inherently expensive - way back when the only costs were a hangman and a piece of rope.  Rather, it's death penalty opponents saying that "if you try to apply the death penalty we will finance endless frivolous appeals and get our like-minded judges to let them drag out interminably in order to make it more expensive than life in prison."

Oh, of course. Which is more expensive depends on the justice system in question and obviously at most points throughout history it was the death penalty. I don't really think this is a good, or pertinent, argument in either direction, which is why I relegated it to a parenthetical comment in response to one of Wyodon's points.