Posted on 10/29/2007 5:12:35 PM PDT by EveningStar
I was not implying that relatives of the murdered should make the law. I said you would feel differently about the death penalty if you became directly affected by the actions of ANY murderer.
One was a psychotic serial killer.
So, he was the only one EVER who fit that description? Okay.
Some 19 year old trigger happy and stupid (usually black) bank robber
Nice. A racist too. You are a piece of work.
You may not listen to the Pope. Fine. A lot more listen to him than listen to you.
Oh, really? Then why do most Catholics vote for democrats? Why don't you tell your conservative buddy the Pope to make it a sin to vote for anyone who is prochoice. Perhaps then we'll get somewhere.
There is no point to further discussion between you and I.
ping
I tend to agree with you on the black/white view of many here on FR. It is really easy to see the world that way from the safety of the keyboard. Some of the most vociferous warmongers on this site have probably never been in the service. Again it easy to call for war from the safety of the keyboard.
I am one of those who had to make that terrible decision in 1971, and you are right it wasn’t easy. It’s my greatest regret that I made the decision that I did. Unlike your mother and friends my fiance/wife and I never had children because she couldn’t bring herself to ever get pregnant again. I am ardently pro life and believe that life begins at conception, but I would like the question to be somewhat less of an issue in the presidential election. My reasoning for that is simply because there really isn’t much a president can do other than appoint good judges and use the bully pulpit to change hearts. Roe is the law of the land and He/she can’t change that by executive order as many of the hard core pro lifers would like. I still consider it to be important to me and do list it as one of my top issues. However, we can’t afford to push away a large percentage of the electorate by demanding our candidate be black and white on an issue that is so gray to many people. I agree with Michael. We still win with the anti-abortion/pro choice argument if that what it comes to because to the Left abortion is truly a sacrament of their secular religion and therefore they have no ability or desire to see the gray edges. We should never stop pushing to make abortion rare, but we also have to realize that sometimes good people find themselves in terrible situation and make decisions they come to regret.
My hope is that as technology advances more and more people will come to agree with me on the beginning of life. If that happens then we as a nation will become much less accepting of abortion. If that happens then the culture will change and abortion will become rare, but we can probably agree that the genie will never be put completely back in the bottle.
Not necessarily. Some anti-abortion folk simply "won't go there" at this time, because they realize that it would backfire, given how most people would react to such a strong stand.
Nonetheless, I have had more than one person tell me that they favor the death penalty for the destruction of fertilized human eggs.
“... I maintain my personal religious views that life begins at conception ...”
If so: kill baby at 6 months, legal murder; kill baby at 10 months, illegal murder. People have all sorts of religious conviction and expression, but it is still murder whether punishable by the state or not. Either life is sacred or it isn’t.
Wow, thank you for your thoughtful post. I am so sorry that you didn’t have any children of your own.
One of those women I mentioned that had an abortion was my ex-girlfriend — we were 20 years old and just too young and stupid, we went out for 8 years and she always went to church and lit a candle on the anniversary of the abortion — we are in are forties now. My greatest regret had been that she never got married and never had a kid — and then just this year, I heard that she got married and had a child so I was so happy for her.
Anyway, I agree that the abortion issue takes too big a role in Republican Presidential politics — especially since there is almost nothing a President can do to change anything. About the only thing they can do is to appoint constructionist judges that might overturn Roe. Which all the top-tier candidates have promised to do. But even if Roe is overturned that would only throw the issue back to the states — not make it illegal.
I think technology and those incredible photos of the fetus in the womb is already having a huge effect — if not on the law, then at least on the rhetoric of the abortion-on-demand crowd. They are not nearly so smug as they were just a few years ago— they know they’ve lost the moral high ground.
People under death sentence in 2005:
-- 1,805 were white
-- 1,372 were black
-- 31 were American Indian
-- 34 were Asian
-- 12 were of unknown race.
You should probably inform the statistics of their error.
Secondly, the race of the victims in cases where the murderer was sentenced to death is not all that different from the racial make-up of our country. Black - 14%, White - 79%, Hispanic - 5%, Other - 2% Versus the 2000 census of racial makeup of the US: White 75%, Black - 12%, Hispanic 5%.
The real question is how people will feel about Rudy if he gets the nomination and THEN gets outed for something in his past, like for example being a bisexual. Could Larry Craig be elected now that the closet door has swung open? I sense that Rudy is a big risk. There's just something very creepy about him and I think it will all come out.
So, you're suggesting that those 1372 people did not commit capital offenses? You did read the rest of my post, right? Which delineated the victim's racial makeup, yes? Don't let reason and logic get in the way of your passionately held opinion.
48% of murders are committed by blacks. The fact that this is the case might be uncomfortable and not something we like to address in polite conversation. That is reflected in statistics of people who are sentenced to death. Now, if you'd like to have a conversation on why blacks commit such a high percentage of murders we could do that. But your analysis of the facts is wanting, to say the least.
actually the Bible is sorta quiet about slavery since it was widely accepted at the time.
Similar to Seagull Management.
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