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Isn't that a bit self controdiction. "I would want my frined murderer dead, but if I ever commited such a crime I should be an exception?"

Does any criminal really want to die? DOn't most of them feel, the unrepenting ones, that they shoudl be an exception?

This is my own opinoin, but if I were toi murder some one, for any reason at all, I would want to die. I woudl try to justify my actions, that human nature, but somethign inside of me would be screaming that death is the least I deserve.

Actually the majority of serial killers (who really DO fit in with the whole purposely killing people) who are discovered (a lot of them just disapear, even if the cops know who they are) do not end up dead before trial (that is if a cop discovers it. Average Joe/Jane Shmou will probably kill them).

The sadness of our justice system is that it is flawed, however there has to be a system otherwise the method in which our society works would crumble. There is something to be said about anarchistic communism ( pirate )in the whole "punishment leads to more crime" idea, but I do not believe the vast majority of societies in the world today could handle this concept and it would lead to the eventual crumble of any order.

So we have to assume that a verdict is true untill an appeal proves to overturn the verdict. Its a sad case when it DOES turn out that a verdict is overturned and the imprisonment resulting from the original false verdict was unjustified, but it is something as citizens that we have to take into account in order to support our society as it currently "needs" to function. However, in the death penalty. if a verdict is overturned and the defendent is already executed, then there is no chance to restore any sort of justice. The punishment cannot be cut short so to speak as it was already paid in full.

My issue with the death penalty is not even about the innocents....although this does disturb me greatly...my issue is the concept that anyone, let alone an organized group of people (government) can make the decision to conciously try to balance the loss of a life with another loss of life. The scales of balance are used to justify punishments for certain crimes. However, a human life has infinite moral weight. If you were to place the weight of a victims life on one side of the scale and the weight of the agressors life on the other side, you would only serve to destroy the scales of justice....not to balance them. In a case where life is lost there is no way to balance it out, because how can you give closure to the victim when they are dead? There is no method of retribution for the victim....and in the same vein it would be impossible to seek balance by destroying a second life. It is a case of two "wrongs", two agressive acts, not bringing about a right.

The only problem with that Ghandi thing, is that it requires the rules for everyone to be set as:

If you.eye1 = 0 Then
anyoneElse.eye1 = anyoneElse.eye1 - 1;
Loop until (anyoneElse.eye1 < 0);
End(0);

Basically, in layman's terms, that means "If someone takes your eye, you -must- take the eye of someone else; Need not be the taker of your eye."

Whereas, though the literal meaning of "An eye for an eye" could be taken as that way, the spirit of the idea is that, if someone takes your eye, take thiers. If they don't have an eye, that doesn't mean for you to go and take the eye of the next person you meet; Which, if everyone followed the rule of "An eye for an eye" would obviously leave the world blind, because she'd have to take your eye, at which point you'd take her other eye, at which point she would be forced to find someone else because you have no more eyes... On and on.

But, as I said, that's not the spirit of term.

Well see... that's my point... that it is a self contradiction that I would want my loved-one's murder dead but that I would want mercy for myself. When I try to put myself in the position of a murderer (and I can't see why I'd ever murder someone)... I'd want for mercy.

So I have to wonder if I'd want the death penalty because I feel it is just, or if it is because I am angry and seek revenge (and is revenge a good enough reason for a punishment to exist?). And I'd have to wonder if my fear of death is a justification to avoid the death penalty.

I suppose if I had to choose a side I'd rather err on the side of caution. Since the possibility of an innocent being killed is very real then life in prison would be just as satisfactory for removing someone from society (assuming that is the intent of the death penalty)... because it gives the falsely accused at least a bit of hope.

And in response to the Ghandi thing... something my S.O. (who is a sarcastic a**) loves to say in response to, "An Eye for an eye leave the whole world blind" is, "Then the man with one eye is king." Not really sure how it relates except to say it has something to do with the Ghandi quote ^_^;;

Not so what it means is that if someone takes your eye then their eye is taken from them. Now the person that took the eye from them has taken an eye and so therefore should have an eye taken from them, so on and so forth.

In mob terms if a mob guy kills someone in another mob then that mob will retaliate and kill someone from the first mob, who will the retaliate and so forth. Until everyone is dead.

That's a much smaller scale but it's the basic idea behind the quote.

I think that what most people assume is that the authority that carries out the "eye for eye" sentance is immune from thusly being accused of taking an eye.

Man A takes Man B's eye. Man C (who has judicial authority) then takes Man A's eye to make things even.

One would argue that because Man C took Man A's eye, because of what he did to B, means that Man C must now have his eye taken. However, because Man C was acting out of Justice he is immune to needing his eye removed.

However like you pointed out... if we take it as literally as possible... because Man C took Man A's eye then Man C must also lose an eye.

The only way around this is if we have Man B take Man A's eye in retaliation for Man A taking Man B's eye. Then Man A would have no claim against B to take another eye.

Yes however Man B would still have taken an eye, whether it was the eye of the offender or not he would still have taken an eye, which is seen as a bad thing to do. Because of this, he should (theoretically) still have to pay the price of taking an eye.