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Subject: The Death Penalty – the most controversial of subjects


Author:
Vivien
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Date Posted: 09:57:34 06/07/01 Thu
 I will quite understand if people do not wish to go anywhere near this topic, but it’s one that I’ve been thinking about increasingly, and especially today as I hear that Timothy McVeigh, in all likelihood, will be executed on Monday.

I was in the USA last week, and while listening to the news I was chilled to the bone to hear a newscaster (female) speak in the same tone about McVeigh’s impending execution as she did when giving out the weather forecast. I leapt up from my seat and uttered the words “this is absolutely barbaric”.

Some people will say that if you take someone’s life you must pay the price, and that price is your own life. McVeigh’s crime was heinous in the extreme, and I would not wish to excuse it, or attempt to find a rationale for it. However, is institutionalised murder, because that is what it is, acceptable in a ‘civilised’ society?

Statistics show the death penalty does not act as a deterrent, so what purpose does it serve? Vengeance? As the mother of one of the child victims of the Oklahoma bombing has the pleasure of watching McVeigh executed, will this help her recover from the death of her child? I suspect not: the gratification of vengeance in this regard is but fleeting.

This topic has an association to Star Trek: Voyager and other sci-fi shows because it crops up occasionally, and although societies have advanced it seems that the death penalty has not been consigned to history. In my opinion, it really is time this barbarism was a thing of the past.
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Replies:
Subject Author Date
Re: The Death Penalty – the most controversial of subjectsApril11:31:42 06/07/01 Thu
Re: The Death Penalty – the most controversial of subjectsWyldchilde11:58:23 06/07/01 Thu
Re: The Death Penaltyanon11:49:26 06/09/01 Sat
Re: The Death Penalty – the most controversial of subjectsPF05:02:47 06/10/01 Sun
The Victims.Wyldchilde06:04:17 06/11/01 Mon
Re: The Death PenaltyChuckie09:00:32 06/11/01 Mon
Re: The Death Penalty – I'm done.Wyldchilde23:15:17 06/12/01 Tue

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