More Than Just Words
(A discussion between Dominique Green and Robert Shields)
: The death penalty is a form of justice man created when our mentality, in its stages of infancy, was learning how to bring law and order to civilization.

: If that's the case then what you're saying is Capital Punishment was established solely for the purposes of intimdating and ultimately controlling society.

: I wouldn't go so far as to say intimidating and controlling because back then executions were made public. If the people felt the condemned was being wronged, they busted him free, and the government chalked it up.

: Then how'd it mutate into what it has become today? Everytime we turn around it seems the wrong individuals are being killed. Unless, one must sadly say, people condone the murdering of juveniles, retards, and innocent human beings.

: No! Most people do not condone those killings; but the fact is, those same people have been frozen out of the process. They don't know what goes on in the courtroom because they aren't there, and the media is not making it a issue to report how juries are being instructed to abide by court rules that spur injust convictions. Everything is so much of a secret, people are left no choice but to believe in the government. Even when the things the government does in the name of the people is wrong and totally against them.

: True. I know that most people, of civilized countries in particular, have mixed feelings about America mainly because of the stance it takes regarding Capital Punishment. Not so much because they feel it is wrong, but because its totally hypocritical to criticize other countries and speak of respecting the value of human life in one breath; while allowing these same autrocities to happen in your own home, refuse to acknowledge they exist, and then speaking (favorably) of an ailing judicial system that's on pace to possibly kill more innocent than guilty people in the next.

: You got to realize Capital Punishment has lost its meaning though. Its not about justice anymore. If people wanted justice; let them see the effects prison has on a person if they have to live there for the rest of their life. If they want to rid society of evil; there are scores of criminologist, psychologist, and sociologist in this world who are masters at curing sick minds. If they want vengeance; let the accomplishments of the person who's been condemned stay in the shadows of the life they took as a constant reminder to the world of why they're there, and to the condemned as what that persons life had to offer. So let that shadow hang over their head. Because the only thing you accomplish in taking the condemned's life for the life of the victim, is showing both of them their lives are equal. If that's true, how can you tell the condemned (without insulting the spirit of the lost loved one) that their life is worthless?

: This is when it becomes an issue of politics because not many people actually listen to what the leaders say. As long as its something that soothes the heart at the time, that's all most folks want to hear. I know I heard someone from a victims right group once say "innocent lives being lost is the cost of ensuring justice." The first thing I got to wondering after I heard that was if they would put their child in an empty bed on death row to appease the victims family pain; until either the crime could be solved or their life was necessary for sacrifice. Now we all know the answer to that don't we? So why ask my parents to do it?

: Yea, but they aren't the monsters - we are! We are because people very rarely stop to see if any of us are human beings. And, as long as sensationalism sells, the worst of the worst cases will always define us as a whole, embedding people to have a natural fear of the unknown.

: That is why this cause is so important to me. Its evil has to many faces. So we need to fight, not just to prove others wrong about their beliefs, that is not the issue. The issue is if you're going to believe that killing me is right, then be fair about it if you have nothing to fear; but don't cheat me out my life.

: Bruh, all most of us want is fairness, but for now that is the last thing that matters ...