How Can One Be Simultaneously "Pro-Life" AND Pro-Death Penalty?

[Quantum Windbag]

Perhaps the reason some people are pro life and pro death penalty at the same time is the difference between one life never having been given a chance to succeed or fail and a life given the chance to succeed or fail but decided to fuck it all up and destroy many other lives in the process.

People are not perfect, judges, juries, prosecution and defense attorneys are not perfect - but those who put themselves in the position of being considered a suspect might not have been considered a suspect at all if they had kept their nose clean in the first place.

There are too many cases of mistaken identity where the innocent victim has spent years and even decades locked up behind bars enduring God knows what sort of unthinkable acts. Only to get a "Oops...we're sorry." from the guvment.

I smell more Far RW claptrap.

Funny.

You claim to see a conflict between supporting the death penalty and opposing abortion, yet you see no problem with your position that innocent people sometimes get put to death when we use the death penalty, yet you have no problem with killing children who are definitely innocent.

 

[M14 Shooter]

Isn't that THE definition of cognitive dissonance?
Please advise.

No.
The death penalty is reserved for the guilty.
Abortion kills the innocent, most often out of pure convenience..
Thus, apples and oranges.

I am greatly distressed that you (and, of course, others) do not the the obviousness of this.

 

[Liability]

Our society either values life or it doesn't

In this case we allow the death penalty and abortion. What does that tell you?

That you are adept at false dichotomies.

Our society does value life and that is precisely why we oppose abortion and may consistently favor putting killers to death.

The key factor remains INNOCENT life.

Really?

Does that innocence life meme you go going there go for Iraqis and/or Muslims as well?

I believe more than a few of your types were quite please with the Bombs Over Baghdad party Bush & Co threw some 6 - 8 years back now.

Yes. Really.

It's not a "meme" you mental midget. It's the basic premise that creates the philosophy, you dolt.

Someday, perhaps when you aren't high or painfully uneducated, dipshit, you can translate the shit you spewed, "Does that innocence life meme you go going there go for . . . " into something approximating English. I'd settle for coherence from you, you pathetic dork.

As for your "belief," that is of course irrelevant. Nobody cares what a fucking shit for brain asshole like you claims to "believe" anyway. And, of course, supporting innocent life does not mean that we have to oppose ALL war. It's tragic, but sometimes necessary.

The rectitude of THAT particular war may be open for debate, but an idiot like you could never hope to keep up anyway.

But thanks for flailing and failing, idiot.

 

[Zona]

The funny part is, the pro life guys are pro war as well.

How funny is that.

Again, most of us aren't Pro-Life. We're Anti-Abortion. There IS a major difference.

Please enlighten all of the. What is the difference between pro life and anti abortion.

they both end up with unwanted children that are born to people who didnt want them.

By the way, aborition is still legal here correct?

 

[bucs90]

Our society either values life or it doesn't

In this case we allow the death penalty and abortion. What does that tell you?

You and I rarely agree.

But you are 100% accurate on this assessment of our society.

Regardless of one's views on either, our society does not value life as much as we should.

 

[emilynghiem]

Isn't that THE definition of cognitive dissonance?

Please advise.

Dear MarcATL: I once asked an anti-death penalty activist about being pro-life on that issue but being pro-choice on the abortion issue. She said she trusted women with the personal choice of abortion that affected them (she said she had been in that situation before, and one time made the right decision and one time she regretted it); But she did not trust juries and lawyers/judges with the process of decisions on the death penalty.

In the reverse case, where people are pro-life regarding abortion but pro-choice regarding the death penalty, they don't trust the pro-choice politics and bias on information affecting decisions there (but apparently they trust God to govern state decisions on terminating life as a consequence for murder, and trust God would not allow innocent people to be punished, or if this happens they are able to forgive as an expendable loss, similar to collateral damage in war).

You can call either case inconsistent, or you can see how some people may trust decisions in one case but not the other. For me, it is easier to see how an individual can be trusted with the personal choice of abortion BEFORE trusting a corrupted legal and justice system with the choice of the death penalty. Yet I still support the CHOICE in either case to remain legal, provided decisions are made by consensus since religious issues are involved. As for others, whatever they trust or don't trust, believe or don't believe, I believe Constitutional laws should respect all such beliefs equally, even if people have these biases one way or another, consistent or inconsistent. I try to respect and accommodate all such views, and ask people to do the same, in keeping with equal Constitutional protections for all people. I believe in that atmosphere of equal respect, ALL issues may be worked out to prevent conflicts and to reach a consensus, case by case, so that no violations or abuses occur.

 

[Avatar4321]

Isn't that THE definition of cognitive dissonance?

Please advise.

As has already been pointed out. One is an innocent child. The other is a burtal murderer. If you can't see the nuance then you are literally the dumbest person on earth.

Personally, I think you understand it fine, you just are corrupt and deceptive as hell.

The real cognitive dissonance is being anti death penalty and pro abortion. Now that makes no sense. Protect the murder, but kill the child.

I can understand being pro both or anti both. I can understand being anti abortion and for the death penaltiy. It's just the anti death penalty, pro abortion position that makes no logical or moral sense.

 

[JohnA]

Perhaps the reason some people are pro life and pro death penalty at the same time is the difference between one life never having been given a chance to succeed or fail and a life given the chance to succeed or fail but decided to fuck it all up and destroy many other lives in the process.

People are not perfect, judges, juries, prosecution and defense attorneys are not perfect - but those who put themselves in the position of being considered a suspect might not have been considered a suspect at all if they had kept their nose clean in the first place.

There are too many cases of mistaken identity where the innocent victim has spent years and even decades locked up behind bars enduring God knows what sort of unthinkable acts. Only to get a "Oops...we're sorry." from the guvment.

I smell more Far RW claptrap.

Funny.

You claim to see a conflict between supporting the death penalty and opposing abortion, yet you see no problem with your position that innocent people sometimes get put to death when we use the death penalty, yet you have no problem with killing children who are definitely innocent.

name cases where its been **proven** a innocent person was executed under american law ????

 

[JohnA]

I find it contraditory that you bleeding heart liberals give gays *RIGHTS * that are not prescibed in the constitution yet deny gun owner *RIGHTS * that are .

I dont SEE any differance between democrats and republicans as far as contraditions go
most times it depends on who they are talking to and who is funding .

 

[Mr Liberty]

If it not necessary, don't do it. Abortion is only necessary to save the mother. Don't want to be a parent, give the baby to people who do.
It is not necessary to kill. Don't allow them out and they can never kill again. We all make mistakes, innocent have been convicted and killed.
If it is not necessary, then don't do it.
Having said all this--I could be wrong

 

[Quantum Windbag]

There are too many cases of mistaken identity where the innocent victim has spent years and even decades locked up behind bars enduring God knows what sort of unthinkable acts. Only to get a "Oops...we're sorry." from the guvment.

I smell more Far RW claptrap.

Funny.

You claim to see a conflict between supporting the death penalty and opposing abortion, yet you see no problem with your position that innocent people sometimes get put to death when we use the death penalty, yet you have no problem with killing children who are definitely innocent.

name cases where its been **proven** a innocent person was executed under american law ????

You do not want to go there.

Trust me.

 

[Liability]

Funny.

You claim to see a conflict between supporting the death penalty and opposing abortion, yet you see no problem with your position that innocent people sometimes get put to death when we use the death penalty, yet you have no problem with killing children who are definitely innocent.

name cases where its been **proven** a innocent person was executed under american law ????

You do not want to go there.

Trust me.

One of the best, most profound, most honest, most compelling, most rational, most just and most persuasive "reasons" to oppose a death penalty is the fact that our system of justice is less than perfect. People have been wrongfully convicted. Some people have spent years (10, 15, 20 years some even more) in state prisons for crimes they DID NOT commit.

Is it that impossible to believe that an imperfect system made the ultimate mistake?

I don't think so.

But in my view, that's an argument to be extremely cautious; it's not a winning argument to abolish the death penalty. Insist on proof being absolutely unequivocal before the death penalty is an available sentencing option.

Requiring that level of proof might make the death penalty all but impossible to obtain. Frankly, I'm ok with that. But I still recognize a justifiable need for the ultimate deterrence.

 

[Dr.Drock]

I'm pro-choice, that was one of the dumbest original posts I've ever read. It should've been deleted after someone said innocent and guilty.

The question I have, that may have already been asked, is how there's almost always a connection between being pro-life and having a positive view of wars. This is what causes me to conclude that pro-lifers more often then not aren't worried about saving innocent babies, the more important aspect is having their religion forced on someone else.

I would think if someone finds it so important to save unborn american babies, that they would also find it important to save born Iraqi/Afghani/Pakistani/Libyan babies as well.

 

[Mad Scientist]

Isn't that THE definition of cognitive dissonance?

Please advise.

You silly fellow...one is innocent, the other guilty.

Is that too nuanced for you?

Hmm, good point.

 

[del]

I'm pro-choice, that was one of the dumbest original posts I've ever read. It should've been deleted after someone said innocent and guilty.

The question I have, that may have already been asked, is how there's almost always a connection between being pro-life and having a positive view of wars. This is what causes me to conclude that pro-lifers more often then not aren't worried about saving innocent babies, the more important aspect is having their religion forced on someone else.

I would think if someone finds it so important to save unborn american babies, that they would also find it important to save born Iraqi/Afghani/Pakistani/Libyan babies as well.

bullshit

 

[Two Thumbs]

Isn't that THE definition of cognitive dissonance?

Please advise.

Very good question!

I have no idea how ANY moral person could be for killing an innocent baby yet let a serial killer out of jail after 20-40 years. Even less with good behavior.

well done Marc. I thought you were a complete retard that had no idea how things worked. Seems you do have some moral fiber in there somewhere.

 

[PoliticalChic]

I suggest you reconsider your comment PC. See: The Innocence Project - Know the Cases

Jury's don't always get it right, investigators and prosecutors don't always disclose potentially exculpatory evidence, and defense teams don't always offer the best defense.

Well, then how about we limit the question to those proven and admitted guilty...would that be satisfactory?

No...it would not.

June 27th He entered the apartment 2, 79 year-old Jenny Vincow, and as she slept, he took a razor sharp six-inch hunting knife, and plunged the full length into the elderly woman’s chest. He raised her chin, he stabbed, then slashed her throat from ear to ear. The last image her dying eyes registered was of him- killing her.

March 26th He entered the home of Maxine and Vincent Zazzara, stood over the sleeping Vincent, and shot him in the left side of his head, just above the ear. Maxine awoke, he beat her and tied her hands behind her with a necktie. He found a ten-inch carving knife in the kitchen, and tried to cut her heart out: the rib cage stopped him. He cut away her eyelids, and removed both of her eyes, put them in a little jewelry box he had found, laughing as he did so.

April 14th He decided on the home of sixty-six year old William Doi and his fifty-six year old invalid wife, Lillian. He quickly found the bedroom. He shot Bill above the upper lip, right through the tongue. He used his gloved fists to beat him, kicking him. He went to Lillian and raped her.

May 29th Mabel Bell was eighty-three, and her invalid sister, Florence ‘Nettie’ Lang, eighty-one. He couldn’t find a sharp knife in the kitchen, but he did find a wood-handled hammer. He walked up to the frail, sleeping form of Nettie, and without hesitation, struck her in the head, sinking the hammer into her brain repeatedly. In Mabel’s room he struck her…returned to Nettie, ripped her nightgown off and raped her. Ate a banana, and left.

May 30th He moved straight to the bedroom of forty-two year old Carol Kyle. He ascertained that she was alone except for her seven-year old son. He locked the boy in the closet. He ripped off her nightgown, then her panties, unzipped and forced her to orally copulate him. He turned her over and roughly sodomized her. After ransacking the house, he sodomized her again, as she pleaded with him.

June 27th Twenty-eight year old schoolteacher, Patty Elaine Higgins, blond and attractive, was beaten brutally, her head nearly cut off, after having been sodomized.

July 2nd He stopped in front of the home of seventy-five year old Mary Louise Cannon. A widow, she lived alone. He spotted a heavy, milk-white vase-lamp with a gloved hand, and brought it down with all his might on Mary’s head. He walked to the kitchen, found a sharp ten-inch butcher knife, and plunged it into the left side of Mary’s throat. He twisted it, and plunged it in again.

July 7th On this night he selected the home of sixty-one year old Joyce Lucille Nelson. She lived alone. When she awoke, he knocked her to the ground with his fist, bent over her, and beat her with rapid, piston-like blows. He kicked her so hard that he left a clear imprint of his shoe embedded in her face.

July 20th Next, the home of Maxon and Lela Kneiding, sixty-eight and sixty-six. He switched on the light, and swung the machete into Max’s neck. The put his gun to Max’s head and pulled the trigger. Then to Lela’s face, and shot her three times.
July 20th Not satisfied, he found his way to the home of Chainarong and Somkid Khovananth, and their two children, an eight-year old boy and two-year old girl. He put the barrel of the gun one inch from Chainarong’s left ear and pulled the trigger. He ripped off Somkid’s nightgown, laid her next to her dead husband and raped her. After ransacking the house, and tying up the eight-year old, he made Somkid sit in a chair and fellate him. Then he sodomized her. After beating her, he raped her again.

August 8th Elyas Abowath was thirty-one. His wife, Sakina, twenty-seven. They has two boys, three-years old and ten-weeks old. He went to the bed, and without hesitation put a bullet into Elyas’s brain just above the left ear. He quickly broke Sakina’s nose, and handcuffed her. He told her he would kill her children, ripped off her nursing bra, and forced her to fellate him, then he raped and sodomized her- ripping and tearing. After searching the house, he returned to rape and sodomize her again, even drinking milk from her swollen breasts.

August 18th The Pans, Peter and Barbara, were sixty-six and sixty-two. He entered the home at 2 a.m., quickly walked up to Peter and shot him in the right temple. He attacked Barbara, sexually assaulting her, but she resisted…so he shot her in the head.

The above is from the painstakingly researched book by Philip Carlo, “The Night Stalker.”
In 1989, he was convicted on 43 counts, including 13 murders, and the authorities have good reason to believe that he had committed several others.
October 3, 1996, in California's San Quentin Prison he married Doreen Lioy, age 41, was a freelance magazine editor with a bachelor's degree in English.
No execution date has been set.

It is just as wrong to allow a killer like this to live as to put an innocent person to death...


Where is the justice?

 

[DiamondDave]

Isn't that THE definition of cognitive dissonance?

Please advise.

You silly fellow...one is innocent, the other guilty.

Is that too nuanced for you?

Interesting question though, which I think the innocence / guilt thing sidesteps a bit too neatly.

If the jury says someone is guilty, the law provides that they can be executed. The law also says that a woman can have an abortion. I guess as always it comes down to whether one agrees with a particular law, which generally comes back to a moralistic / religious standpoint.

And nobody is saying abortion is currently illegal...

But... you are free to fight against the death penalty just as others are free to fight against abortion being legal

 

[Immanuel]

You silly fellow...one is innocent, the other guilty.

Is that too nuanced for you?

Interesting question though, which I think the innocence / guilt thing sidesteps a bit too neatly.

If the jury says someone is guilty, the law provides that they can be executed. The law also says that a woman can have an abortion. I guess as always it comes down to whether one agrees with a particular law, which generally comes back to a moralistic / religious standpoint.

1. The period during which abortion is legal is, I believe, related to the time the foetus is viable....
So, Bob, if science pushes back the time of viability, should the law, at some point elimate the right to abortion?

2.This may be as different direction from the OP, but the punishment of the guilty is an obligation of a just society.

It is of more than passing interest to me that the death penalty for murder is the only law repeated in all five of the books of the old testament.
The death penalty is a value, values are eternal, as opposed to customs or traditions, such as stoning for adultery.

For the record, there are 39 books in the Old Testament and 27 in the New Testament. I believe you are referring to the Books of Moses (aka The Torah or The Laws of Moses).

Maybe someone caught this and mentioned it after your post. I have not yet finished reading the thread.

Immie

 

[Immanuel]

Perhaps the reason some people are pro life and pro death penalty at the same time is the difference between one life never having been given a chance to succeed or fail and a life given the chance to succeed or fail but decided to fuck it all up and destroy many other lives in the process.

People are not perfect, judges, juries, prosecution and defense attorneys are not perfect - but those who put themselves in the position of being considered a suspect might not have been considered a suspect at all if they had kept their nose clean in the first place.

There are too many cases of mistaken identity where the innocent victim has spent years and even decades locked up behind bars enduring God knows what sort of unthinkable acts. Only to get a "Oops...we're sorry." from the guvment.

I smell more Far RW claptrap.

I very much agree with you here which is why I went from being outright pro-death penalty to someone who thinks it needs to be reserved for the most egregious crimes and those for which there is no doubt as to who it was that committed the crime. For instance, I think Charles Manson should be pushing up daisies today, but unless there is no doubt at all, and I am not even talking about reasonable doubt, then nix the death penalty.

Immie