8th February 2004, 11:59 AM
Quote:"Eye for an eye" is a primitive and nasty idea whose time ran out centuries ago...Exactly...to quote Ghandi, "An eye for an eye will only leave the world blind".
Quote:I think the current alternative, 'life sentence' (which is so often reduced to lesser sentences) is extraordinarily wrong. Not only are we wasting tax money supporting a scumbag who doesn't deserve to breathe the same air us real human beings breathe, but they often serve this sentence in the presence of such luxuries as cable TV, weight rooms and basketball courts. Prison should be a punishment, not a rent-free hotel. Prison should be where capital inmates sleep and eat for the six hours they aren't spending reflecting on their evil while performing the most exhausting physical labor the men in charge can come up with.
Quote:You're telling me that you'd be perfectly happy to know that the person who killed your friend is sitting in a bed with four walls, reading a book, watching TV, or playing basketball in his free time, not having to work another day for the rest of his life. On top of all that, it is YOU and every other hard-working taxpayer out there giving your hard earned dollars to the penal system to keep him there watching television.
Uh...I think you two are forgetting some other 'activities' that go on in prison. Forced anal sex, for one.
Quote:I think anyone who willfully takes a life no longer deserves the right to live.
I disagree with that...everybody deserves to live, no matter what wrongs they may have done. So they killed somebody...that is an extremely unforgivable act, but to take away the only thing that they have, the only thing that ANYBODY really has, their life, is just inhuman. So lock his ass up then. You (and Edenmaster) make it sound like prison is a nice little getaway, where the inmates have no cares and are free to do pretty much whatever they want. Bleh. ONE YEAR. Could you imagine spending a mere 365 days in prison, away from your family, away from your (*gasp!*) videogames! The only sex you'll have is that which cannot be spoken, and sure you'll get TV, but uh, in many ways I don't see how that would brighten up the joint at all. Basketball? Meh. Weights? Meh. TV, basketball, and weighlifting would maybe bring a little happiness to your life in jail, but uh, I don't see how that could make a life sentence seem like a "rent free hotel". Yeesh. I can't think of ANY punishment that would be better than a life sentence.