Thursday, March 17, 2005

Death and Taxes

I was reading the internet today, and was reading an article about how Scott Peterson is not going to get a retrial. First of all, I'm not here to comment about SP's trial and the fiasco that it devolved into. The man was sentenced to death, that's the final word. Or is it!?

We all know the death penalty is an ineffective deterrent for most of us common lawbreakers in America. We all know full well that Scott is going to sit in a cell in California for a good 20 years before he tastes death. We also all know that Scott is going to be mooching off of our tax dollars, because in order to keep him alive for 20 years in order to put him to death, we need to give him food, water, hire guards to watch him, get him some awesome Tropicana fatigues, juice, books, etc. The death penalty is so screwed up that way. I know people have problems with the death penalty because it killlllssss people. Waa waa waaaaaaaa!!

I was reading this article online about how people don't 'believe' in the death penalty anymore. People the death penalty exists, so believe in it. "A majority" of Americans apparently think that the penalty is ineffective for dissuading criminals, and that it's mean, and that it would be better for a first degree murderer to rot in jail than be put to death forcibly. The way the penalty is set up now, a lot of people on death row have basically a life with no parole term....they're going to die in their cells before dying on a gurney with needled poking out of their forearm.

The death penalty sucks, and people don't believe in the death penalty, beacuse it's not grisly enough. The death penalty would be a much better deterrent if it were swift and sufficinet to meet the crime. Picture the scene: After the appeal process is done for SP's trial, the shackle him up, drive him to jail, go out in the courtyard of the jail, and put bullets into his head. That's a horrible thought, and that's just the reason why the death penalty needs to be disgusting. The carnage deters people. Sitting in jail for 20 years only to be put in a chemically enduced coma at the end of your term would actually be probably more of a release and reward than a punishment! I bet old people would kill to be able to die in their sleep, and not from cancer or tumors and whatnot. If people could see that the most heinous criminals were punished in the most heinous way, would that not deter them from committing such atrocities? We'll never be able to know because everybody is too busy getting their panties in a twist thinking about a man who committed a double murder having Jesus juice and dying peacefully. That's messed up. We'd save so much money! We'd save so much useless babble on MSNBC from Chris Matthews. We'd have a much greater appreciation for the life that we are able to lead. Two slugs to the back of a criminal's head seems a perfect ending (and cheaper ending) for the person who willingly takes others' lives. I know you all agree with me here.

2 comments:

DMac said...

Clearly, Andrew brings up a very good point. I feel that if I was sitting on death row for 20-30 years before I actually died...I wouldn't fear it.

This is what I say we do. GO Roman!! Make a Roman Colosseum right in the middle of DC. Put two people sentinced to death in there are make them fight to the death. To make it interesting make them fight with odd iteams like spoons and spatulas...I am sure that would keep people from doing evil crimes.

My other suggestion is that we go DANTE... Punish them as you would in "THE INFERNO"...I bet if you made every punishment for crimes the equivalent to what Dante made in hell/purgatory there would be less crime...

Anonymous said...

Hmmmm....Andrew, you really are a frat boy at heart. Not to get into the whole of the issue...because it seriously took me 10 pages of a research paper to address the whole of the issue of the death penalty, but since you, like most Americans have this preoccupation with money, actually it is cheaper to keep someone in jail for life than it is to kill someone on death row. After all of the appeals processes, court fees, public attorneys, you know...all that stuff you and I pay for with our taxes, it costs over 30 times more to kill someone on death row than to let them rot for their entire life. Then of course there's the psychological element that some even consider torture and then there's sheer boredom. Most inmates who have life without the chance of parol die well before the age of 75, the average life expectancy of a normal US male resident. As for a deterent...that's the thing...these kind of criminals who get the death penalty will ALWAYS do this crap...they are psycho and have little to no moral restraint, so shoot them in the head, go Roman or Dante on them, and they will still be there, they will still do it...because they are not afraid...of anything...as a matter of fact death is intriguing to them. But yeah...we can turn barbaric if you want...it's not going to make any difference. But whatever... ;)