Jophiel wrote:
Uglysasquatch, Mercenary Major wrote:
That most of you are lying to yourselves when you say you're against capital punishment.
Setting aside the question of whether a sin of commission is the same as a sin of omission, I've never been against capital punishment on "Only God can decide..." style grounds. I'm against it because it relies on an imperfect legal system to make that (potentially flawed against an innocent) decision, doesn't reduce crime and is more expensive than the alternatives.
While I can't speak for Ugly, I think the point here is that so many people who think it's wrong to kill someone via legal process involving conviction of a heinous crime by a jury of their peers, under strict legal requirements and scrutiny, followed by years (sometimes decades) of appeals process, followed by possibility of executive pardon, would justify killing someone because his method of expressing his freedom of speech annoys them (or they just want a bunch of money). I agree that the two conditions are not directly equivalent, but I'd think that the former should be much more ethically acceptable than the later.
I guess I have a hard time wrapping my brain around the idea that someone would oppose capital punishment because the process we use can't absolutely guarantee that we aren't killing an innocent man, but would be fully willing to act as judge, jury, and executioner for someone they personally dislike. It does seem a whole hell of a lot like a double standard. Jury of peers and due process isn't good enough, but if I decide someone deserves to die, then that's good enough!