True. I find it very odd that the most vocal anti-abortion folk also seem to be pro-death penalty and pro-war.

This is a peeve with me. It's right up there with "Well I'm a Catholic and the Pope said _____ is wrong" when he said any number of things were wrong and the speaker does half of them.

Hypocracy gets to me.

Oooh! Oooh! And gender double standards in TV familys, say what you will about the Camdens, but they expect the boys to be virgins too. Now I'm risking a rant.

I don't think there's a bureacratic organization on earth (or an individual, for that matter) who's infalliable or honest enough to be given power over life and death of a human being.

This is actually what I was trying to say above. I mean, for example, Buffistas, who, as a group I certianly trust more than politicians, can barely discuss preferential voting/ how can anyone, anywhere, decide who wil; die. This is not to say thay were I, for example,a character on Lost, I would not turn into Ana Lucia to survive,-- just a statement on basic human nature, and our genaric fallability.

say what you will about the Camdens,

Thay got cancelled....

it is as flawed and broken as any human institution, and perhaps more than many.

WROD.

Thay got cancelled....

They had it coming. There is just no WAY the Rev. is Ruthie's dad.

I mean, for example, Buffistas, who, as a group I certianly trust more than politicians, can barely discuss preferential voting/ how can anyone, anywhere, decide who wil; die.

Forgive me for finding this so true and funny.

I mean, for example, Buffistas, who, as a group I certianly trust more than politicians, can barely discuss preferential voting/ how can anyone, anywhere, decide who wil; die.

I'm now picturing a proposal in Light Bulbs that we use preferential voting to decide who lives and dies.

I can see it now:

Live___

Die___

Tickybox!

I'm learning a deeper distrust of the criminal justice system in general and not just around the death penalty.

A couple of weeks ago, the Sunday LAT ran a great section on crime. There were several startling statistics on incaraceration including the fact that we have more people in jail in the US than any other country in the world. A quarter of our citizens have been incacerated or are currently so. etc. etc.

To think that we'd give a broken justice sytem the power of the killing people seems wrong. And, it's always been sort of odd to me that we kill people to show people that killing people is wrong.

Human imperfection is one of the reasons I don't support killing even heinous murderers. You can't actually have a system that kills only heinious murderers. You can only have system that kill those highly imperfect people in a highly imperfect system decide are heinious murderers.

There is another point too. Yes governments and human decisions to make life and death decisions; as a non-pacifist I agree that sometimes they have to. But my feeling is that when death is the decision the only excuse is neccesity; defensive wars where it is him or you; the cop on the street who kills the guy about to smash in the head of the baby. And you know that both these excuses get abused. We fight wars that are not defensive in the name of defense. Cops kill people on occassion when they are not in danger. I don't think we should ever kill anybody when there is a reasonable alternative. Imprisonment is such a reasonable alternative. Not perfect; an imprisoned murder may get out and kill again, or kill someone in prison; but reasonable nonethless - usually none of those things happen.

In short I accept killing on ocassion as a lesser evil - an imperfect choice in an imperfect world. I do not accept killing because some one deserves it. I do not accept killing to try and achieve justice, or to satisify the emotional need for veangence or to try and achieve perfect safety. We are not as gods, when we try to act as though we are we are, we are much more likely to achieve the opposite and become devils.