The real reason crime is rampant in America is that criminals are not held accountable for their actions. Our papers are full of stories of repeat offenders becoming more aggressive. These people should be in jail, not on the streets.
The death penalty guarantees there will be no repeat of the offense and helps reduce prison overcrowding.
Some people should not be allowed to EVER return to society.

This does not represent a softening of the penalty. The prolonged suffering of a long stretch in prison is a more severe punishment than a quick, easy death.

Leave it to conservatives to want to always put people to death with their Old Testament "eye-for-an-eye" brutality.
Conservatives are without a doubt the nastiest people on God's earth.

Sometimes I think that people who right responses here haven't actually ever sat down and spoken with a real "liberal." Oh there are certainly loud extremists that get press because they shout the loudest. But they are like the Limbaugh's and Hannity's of the wacky conservative wing, all sound and furey, signifying nothing. I oppose the death penalty because it is barbaric and because it is irreversable. It can't account for mistakes that we know happen in the justice system. It is also demonstrably and objectively applied differently depending on how rich and on what race the offender is. That is not to say that I don't think that these criminals should be punished. Life imprisonment is a viable humane and for those of you who care, cost effective way to deal with our worst offenders. Liberals (at least this one) don't oppose appropriate punishment, they often oppose irreversable and extreme punishment.

How about the criminals?

The death penalty is a deterant to crime.
Iraq has WMD's.
If you put a tooth under your pillow, a fairy gives you a quarter for it.

The conservative Supreme Court didn't see Murder for Rape as eye-for-an-eye. They saw it as overly punative, and rightly corrected Lousiana's blood lust.

i think the death penalty is a great thing but we make it way to quick and ez i think they should lock some 1 flat on the table take a hammer bash his knee caps in half than have that person lay there for 12 hours in pain than put a gun to there head make em beg for there life like they did the helpless victim and than end there life

The death penalty isn't a deterrent because it doesn't happen soon enough. The "alleged" yada yada yada.... It is correct that a person is presumed innocent until proven guilty. When they are found guilty (except OJ) and the punishment is death, then the appeals need to be expedited and if still found guilty then carry out the sentence.

Alapaca's have problems with Rush and Sean? Well, the list is endless of the Air America types that you favor in your liberal land. But you call them mainstream and center aisle. I'm sure you don't even listen to Rush because you don't like how he says exactly who you are as a liberal. You don't hear it anywhere else so when you actually hear your stances by someone else, it makes you cringe so you try to shoot the messenger. His message on liberals and their beliefs is right on target.

As for conservatives being nasty for approving of the death penalty, at least with punish people for their horrible actions.

Liberals cut, rip, poke, suck, tear the life out of over 1 million babies every year and call it choice.

Who's being nasty? Ever see a picture of partial-birth-abortion?

Problem with death penalty is that it allows for no human error on the part of judges and juries. At least 10 percent of the time they get it wrong. If they're guilty, sock 'em away forever. That's worse anyway.

Conservatives want the death penalty for criminals (specifically murderers and child rapists).

Liberals want the death penalty for unborn babies who have done nothing wrong except be carried by a mother who doesn't want them.

So remind me: Which group is "a nasty people"?

This isn't really a weakening of anything. The death penalty hasn't been used for anything other than murder for something like 40 years. There are two cases open now, hence the SC decision. By it seems the SC was merely upholding the national view on this. No one had done it for 40 years, despite deplorable crimes taking place everywhere, all that time. Why the push for the death penalty now?

Wow. I am surprised how quickly the jackals have descended on poor old Alpaca. I thought that the point he made was evenhanded and informational. He expressed his view and didn't really make any partisan digs, other than to say that both sides had extremists that often don't represent the positions of most people in that group. And then we have all of the angry aggressive folks like Charles and Nasty? who change the subject and then make it a personal attack filled with vitriol and disregard. Alpaca made the mistake of mentioning two of the demi-gods of the neo-cons, though in all fairness Charles, he did indicate an equal problem with extreemists on the liberal side. Read Alpaca's missive and then read Charles'. One of them sounds like a rabid extremist. One of them doesn't.

I know of no mother who demands to "cut, rip, poke, suck, tear the life out of over 1 million babies."
NOT ONE.
But this is what the sick-minded conservatives focus on day after day.
Is it any wonder the world views this splinter group of counterrevolutionaries as a twisted and demented lot?

To Charles:
Just wondering where exactly you got your info that liberals have more abortions than conservatives. I guess I wasn't aware that before you sign up for an abortion you fill out a form about your political leanings.

The death penalty is simply to put people to death. It doesn't function as a deterrent as these crimes would be committed anyway. The criminal committing the act only thinks about the death penalty after.

Also, there have been a number of convicted individuals sitting on death row who were later found to be innocent of the crime committed. This is why several states suspended carrying out the death penalty until all those on death row had every opportunity to get a fair trial. Many times there is a rush to judgement and justice gets abused.

Finally, death penalty cases get to be very expensive, particularly during the appeals process. Some have advocated life without possibility of parole as a less expensive process. Life in prison is quite severe punishment.

The death penalty does not deter crime. As opposed to life in prison, it costs more in taxpayer dollars to defend someone on death row- and finally get them killed. Support of the death penalty is obviously based on revenge- not reason.

"If you put a tooth under your pillow, a fairy gives you a quarter for it"

Where have you been. The tooth fairy gives at least one dollar for every tooth these days or you have a very unhappy child on your hands.

Get with the program!

Executing a human being is a pretty drastic thing for society to do. It follows that there should be some great good that comes from this practice, or else it should be discontinued altogether. It isn't cheap, owing to all the legal costs associated with the practice, and it hasn't been shown to be a deterrent to new crimes. If it was, Texas would be our most peaceful state, which it isn't.

So, no savings, and no deterrent. What's the payoff? A momentary satisfaction that - - will never kill again. Since we can pretty much guarantee that already with "life without parole", I must conclude that executions just are not worth it. Most of the western democracies now agree. A true believer would know that, in the long run, there is no "getting away" with murder or anything else.

The Old Testament god gave mankind: "An eye for and eye." (this is also the same philosophy of Muslims)
Jesus Christ came along and changed all that in The New Testament. He taught reverence for all life. (As Buddha did).
Why do so many so-called conservatative "Christians" choose The Old Testament before the New Testament in todays politically-charged world?

"You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.' But I tell you... whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also."

"He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first."

"But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses."

"Judge not, that you be not judged."

Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse... Repay no one evil for evil... do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath; for it is written, "Vengeance is Mine, I Will repay," says the Lord."

Killing someone = possible death penalty. If you don't kill someone you don't' deserve to die. Life in prison is pretty harsh, so is 15 years, so is 5.

Other than death, what could happen to a child that would be worse than rape? What kind of adult would rape a child? What kind of society approves the rape of a child?

When there is proof positive that a child has been raped, when there is proof positive that the rapist is known, when there is proof positive that no mistake has been made, then execute the rapist.

Nothing can restore the innocence of that child. Nothing on earth can redeem the rapist. Society has the right to send home a criminal who has forfeited his right to live.

Some crimes cannot be forgiven. To expect a child to grow into an adult, knowing that his rapist is enjoying life, even in a prison, is cruel and unusual punishment to that victim.

Why does society think that it is so essential to protect the rapist? He has already proven who he is. It's time to let justice take its place in society.

Mike Richards tells us:
"Some crimes cannot be forgiven."

Jesus tells us:
"But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses."

Thanks, but I think I'll focus on what liberal Jesus taught rather than what conservative Richards is trying to feed us.

I'm afraid that having the death penalty for raping a child could possibly encourage more rapists to also kill their victims--"I mean why not if I'm going to die anyway." But if they leave their victim alive they might simply get jail time. Which thought do you want doing through the rapists mind if he has just raped your child?

Of course no one ever condones raping a child, but wouldn't you rather have your child raped and alive than raped and dead?

While campaigning for the presidency, George W. Bush was interviewed by Bill O’Reilly. O’Reilly pointed out that Bush had named Jesus Christ as his model political philosopher and suggested that this might be a contradiction with Bush’s own support of the death penalty. Bush replied, “I can’t justify the death penalty in terms of the New Testament. I’m going to justify it in terms of the law…” (from No Spin Zone by Bill O’Reilly, p. 102). O’Reilly then stated, “I don’t believe he [Jesus] would be embracing the death penalty if he were here today.” Bush: “We can both agree on this.”

In the same chapter of his book (v.104), O’Reilly states: “As for the death penalty, with all due respect to the president, you don’t have to put words into Jesus’ mouth to infer what he might have thought on the subject. Most theologians believe he considered all life sacred and, thus, would most likely oppose the death penalty.

Bill said that Alpaca said, "I thought that the point he made was evenhanded and informational. He expressed his view and didn't really make any partisan digs, other than to say that both sides had extremists that often don't represent the positions of most people in that group."

Another review of Alpaca's comments doesn't show anything Bill says. Here are Alpaca's comments,

"Oh there are certainly loud extremists that get press because they shout the loudest. But they are like the Limbaugh's and Hannity's of the wacky conservative wing, all sound and furey[sic], signifying nothing."

Yep, sounds even handed and included both sides. I guess Bill has rose-colored glasses on and must be listening to Air America and their truth telling anchors....or are they off the air yet because they are morally and financially bankrupt?

Get a clue...

JenM...never said what you claim but your point stands to reason doesn't it? Those who think "choice" is in the Constitution but murdering an innocent life doesn't merit consideration or pause. Abortion, killing of innocent life, is the worst stain on our society.

Ever seen a picture of partial-birth abortion? There is no medical reason to save the mother either!

I get a kick out of conservatives when backed into the corner on a subject, ie., Death penalty, how clever they think they are to suddenly change the subject into ... voila! Now we are discussing partial-birth abortions (see Charles 12:48).
I swear the neocons think everything is a partial-segment of The Rush Limbaugh Show.
And this is the main reason their nasty ways are decreasing in number daily. (Except in Utah where Limbaugh is their neocon god.

Has anyone here know someone who has gotten off earth alive? We all die. Knowing this fact, why cut a pentalty short?

Conservatives think only three things the government can do right, torture prisoners, figh wars and muder people.

We look at Taxas where many prisoners on death row have been exonerated by DNA. We know the system has flaws.

Christ did capital punishment. Do you glean anything from his story. The death pentaly was used by a corupt power structure to rid its self of their questioner. They murdered the messinger.

The lessons is people are imperfect. We should not play god with lives. Let god do his job.

Charles- AlpacaFamilia said "Sometimes I think that people who right responses here haven't actually ever sat down and spoken with a real "liberal." Oh there are certainly loud extremists that get press because they shout the loudest. But they are like the Limbaugh's and Hannity's of the wacky conservative wing, all sound and furey, signifying nothing." The implication was that he was talking about "liberal" loud extremists. Not rose colored glasses, just the ability to see clearly. I still say that it was taking a swipe at the extremists in both factions. You on the other hand...

Save the rapist! Save the rapist! Save the rapist!

He has such outstanding value to our community.

Destroy the victim! Destroy the victim! Destroy the victim!

He/she should have known that we had a rapist in our midst.

Liberal views give such enlightenment. What would we ever do without Liberals to tell us how to think?

Poor black-and-white conservatives!
Neocons like Mike Richards simply must black-and-white everything before it makes sense to them.
To this deluded politically-motivated type (aka neocons)to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ:
Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse... Repay no one evil for evil... do not avenge yourselves," is likened to "destroying the victim."
It would take a battery of theologians, psychiatrists and social scientists working night and day to come up with just what motivates this pathetic group of people.

To Charles,
My apologies for misunderstanding your statement, but it was certainly inferred:
"Liberals cut, rip, poke, suck, tear life out of over 1 million babies every year and call it choice." I am certain that a good number of those woman who are faced with such a painful choice (I am not a fan of abortion by the way, and have never met one) are in fact people who would not be considered a liberal. That was simply my point.

Mike Richards, no one is advocating to "save the rapist" the death penalty is no a penalty for raping, and thats a good thing. I for one would not like to be a part of a society that kills people for reasons other than murder. Sounds like you want to take us back to Old Testament times, let me guess... your favorite book?

I guess Mike R. feels his words are more believable if followed by an exclamation point. Other than that, his posts are full of "I believe" and "anyone can see" or "only an idiot would..." It's like getting a finger shaken at you all day with the shaker unaware of even the possibility of being wrong. It gets old, man. You need to be aware that rational people can disagree.

I see things have gotten so dark and dismal for the conservative Limbaugh crowd they are back to their same old tricks trying to convince themselves that liberals (aka Democrats) are working overtime trying to get people to turn gay and get married, and now those same liberals (aka Democrats) want to murder babies.
And we've got FIVE MORE MONTHS to go before the general election!
Keep posting more of your wacky postings, Neocons.
You're making it easier and easier for mainstream America to drift left.

A couple people mentioned "an eye for an eye" as being Biblical. For the sake of clarity I think I should point out that it is from the Babylonian Code of Hammurabi.

Basically it was the first example of a legal system where the punishment fit the crime. Before then you just got arbitrary death penalties for everything. Of course, considering that the Bible says Babylon was bad, some must think that balanced punishments are bad and we should go back to killing everyone. I swear, some people never read past Leviticus...

Personally, I think rape is not the same as murder and shouldn't be punishable by death. Cheers to the supreme court.

It's a well-know fact that conservatives follow the very same Old Testament, eye-for-an ideology that just happens to be a mirror image of Muslim ideology.
Conservatives think nothing of torturing prisoners, shock-and-aweing civilians and calling this collateral damage, and actively promoting the death penalty (even though Christ respected all life and taught us differently).
A real sweetheart of a group aren't they?

Let's get past the name calling and the Old Testament diatribes. Look at Matthew 18:6, where it says:

"But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea."

Drowning someone in the depth of the sea might be called cruel and unusual punishment, but that was pronounced by the Prince of Peace. Christ had no respect for child molesters.

Most of us have gardens. We don't let the weeds dictate our gardening practices. We don't leave the weeds to see if they change into something beneficial to our gardens. We know weeds. We know that weeds, if left unchecked, will destroy our gardens.

As a society, we should know weeds. We should be willing to rip those weeds from our midst and thrown them away before our society is destroyed.

Too many liberals have decided that weeds are an important part of life, that we should nurture them, that we should enable them, just to see what they will do.

It doesn't work in the garden. It won't work in society.

Re Mike Richards... sounds like GOD has a plan for punishing those when they face judgment. Certainly that verse in Matthew doesn't say to DROWN those, it says it were better if they had drowned.
Our current system imprisons those who commit heinous crime against children.
I personally wouldn't want to live next door to someone who executes child molesters anymore than I would like to live next door to a molester.

Mike Richards once again wants us to forget about the Old Testament's eye-for-an-eye philosophy (same as the Muslims) that supports the nasty death penalty, AND the fact that Jesus Christ appeared in history and turned that whole barbaric idea around with: "if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses"
and now wants us to look at killing another human being in revenge as nothing more than pulling weeds.
You are a true hero in the eyes of your fellow neocons, Mike Richards. You receive a medal from Rush Limbaugh personally.

Chris,

The violins play such sad songs.

You can't have it both ways. God has put the responsibility on keeping an ordered society on us, His children. He, just like any responsible Father, is not going to continually fix the problems that we can fix ourselves. He, just like any just and noble person, expects us to take responsibility for throwing out the trash. He will give final judgment to those whom He chooses, but to us is left the responsibility to establish and keep a clean house, a clean society, a clean neighborhood.

We do not have to settle for perversion in our midst. We do not have to offer our children and our grandchildren as sacrifices on the alter of liberal society's desire to create a cesspool in our midst.

What would you expect from that group of people that supports preemptive destruction of innocent mothers and their children in the shock-and-aweing of Iraq?
To support their political base, they even turn a deaf ear to the words of the ultimate peacekeeper Jesus Christ.
I sometimes wish there was something I might do return to the teachings of The Prince of Peace but they would rather get instructions from Rush Limbaugh.

The modern American conservative movement has become so calloused by their jingoism and political partisanship they have lost respect for all life.
These are a dangerous people in our society.

The death penalty isnt a deterrent because criminals dont think they will be caught. No rapist (child of otherwise) considers the possible punishments before committing rape. They are rapists, you cant apply your thought processes to their insane thinking.

Look at this thread and count how many are chanting: "Give us Barabbas!".

The liberal left will stop at nothing when trying to establish a new low in societal evolution. They will stop at nothing as they protect the perverts and the lawless while they claim that the innocent should be defiled and destroyed to further their cause.

Where is the concern for the innocent child? Where is the respect for virtue? Where is the outrage against an adult who rapes a child? What kind of society welcomes child rape? What kind of sick society triumphs "justice" as it bows before perverts and child rapists, as it excuses their conduct and grants them hospitality in its midst?

God help us when we honor a rapist; but, what should be expected from a nation that has clapped and cheered as 48,000,000 innocent babies were slaughtered in the womb?

The death penalty is pure violence, a barbaric and useless violence. Dangerous even, because it can only lead to other acts of violence--as all violence does. The supreme punishment ought to be a life sentence, and one without brutality.
Once again, Jesus Christ new exactly what he was talking about with "turn the other cheek."

Re: Seems clear to me @11:09:

If we follow your recommendation and apply Christ's teachings to the law of the land in regards to capital punishment, should we not apply the words of Christ to all law enforcement?

Are you suggesting a society without punishment or judgement of any kind for any crime? If we read the New Testament as a whole, instead of a few select passages, it would be clear that is not the intent. There must be laws. There must be those called as judges. There must be punisments that are compensurate to the crime.

Until our society as a whole is ready to live a better way, we must have a means to protect the society.

Mike Richards-
I am so sorry that you profess the beliefs that you do. You have created an evil, bent, malintended monster and you call them "liberals." But that reality is in your own mind and not anywhere in form. Before anybody objects, I know that the left can be just as destructive in stereotypes of the right. But Mike, if you think that liberals try and "protect perverts" and suggest that the "innocent should be defiled" you really need some help. Every single liberal I know, without exception feels the pain of victims at least as deeply as any conservative I have met. Is it beyond you to see an honest differennce of opinion? How dare you suggest that because someone doesn't believe that Capital Punishment is appropriate they have "no concern for the innocent child" that they "welcome child rape" and that the "bow before pervers and child rapists." You have no decency in you, it seems. You do not seem to have any sense of charity or compassion in you. The very way that you speak about me (a liberal)is without a trace of Christian love, or respect.

"a nation that has clapped and cheered as 48,000,000 innocent babies were slaughtered in the womb"...?
This poor sap simply cannot drag himself away from the Rush Limbaugh Show and this sort of wacko postings reveal that instead of breaking his medication in half he would be better off taking the WHOLE thing.