Show me your BUT

[Nuclear Unicorn]

"I don't believe in the death penalty -- BUT..."

I see this quite a bit on DU and it's rather amazing. I'm not here to guilt-trip those who say this I'm just asking that they consider how frequently it gets said.

Most times it's in relation to someone being executed for a heinous crime and I wholly understand their reflex -- because I feel it too. That the condemned brutally and sadistically took a human life is the reason capital punishment was imposed in the first place. If the aggravating circumstance justifies imposing the highest punishment then please understand you aren't really opposing the death penalty, you're actually endorsing the very reason why it is employed.

Again, this is not to guilt-trip people who have these feelings; I'm just asking people to examine what they actually feel and mean when they use such expressions. And, again, I understand their feelings of revulsion at the underlying crime. I empathize with them. I am certainly NOT their moral superior in this regard.

Then there are those who say such things for the executives at GM, bankers, etc.

I don't deny that these rat bastards are anything but rat bastards but this sort of thing smacks too much of diving face-first into the very reason we DO NOT want a death penalty -- the state abuses power, often in the name of preserving abused power. If (when?) the state murders with malice aforethought there is no ability to arrest, try and punish the perpetrators. We should never ask the state to become an instrument of vengeance. If we ask it to pursue Group X and Group Y you can rest assured it will someday, after it has run out of bogey men and needs a reason to justify the continued funding of the Federal Department of Bogey Man Interdiction, turn its attentions on Group U.

I am against the death penalty and I do not want to permit myself the luxury of showing my BUT.

[Cirque du So-What]

1. But...

...given the heinous nature of the crime (age/sex/race/religion/ethnicity/economic status of the victim(s)), it's understandable that people would be howling for the blood of the perpetrator.

Of course it's heinous. It's always heinous. Murder is the most heinous of crimes. The notion that some murders are somehow more 'deserved' or more 'heinous' than others has opened the door to plea deals that minimize the gravity of the crime while sensationalizing others in our multi-tiered 'justice' system.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

2. I think people recognize some things are different.

A person who becomes absurdly intoxicated and then attempts drives home only to accidently kill someone can still be charged with 1st degree murder due to their callous disregard for human life. Another might be charged with a lesser degree of murder after throwing a punch that was intended to harm but unintentionally led to death. Someone else could be charged for failing to put a fence around a pool -- an attractive nuisance -- all the while disobeying a local ordinances that leads to the drowning of a child. However, those acts are starkly different in their essence from someone who stalks, kidnaps, tortures, rapes and bludgeons a child.