death penalty

I just saw a poll at AOL.com that said that 85% of respondents supported the death penalty. Are you among them? Do you think we should kill people in order to stop people from killing people?

The question on the survey was straightforward enough: "Do you support the death penalty?"

I clicked on the NO icon, then on the VOTE icon, which I knew would show me the results of all the voting on this question. I don't know why, but I expected to find the majority voting "no". To my astonishment, not only did the majority vote "yes"--but the spread in favor was overwhelming.

Over 3,000 people had voted by the time I saw the poll, and more than 2,700 of them voted "yes."

God, what kind of country are we living in? Or am I living in, I should say. I am aware that many readers of this blog are from outside the U.S.

I know this Death Penalty thing is an old subject...but how can anybody who is civilized believe in the death penalty...? What kind of barbaric society would imagine that authorized killing is an antedote to unauthorized killing?

Am I really that out-of-sync with the world in which I live?

Albert Einstein was reputed to have said (and I paraphrase here): You cannot solve any problem using the same energy that created it.

You cannot solve the problem of violence with violence, you cannot solve the problem of anger with anger, you cannot solve the problem of impatience with impatience, etc. All you are doing is throwing fuel on the fire.

Again, I ask, for the third time: How in the world can a civilized society kill people as a means of convincing people that they should not kill people? Am I the only one who sees a direct contradiction here?

from Neale's blog

well, what about you? are you in favor of death penalty.... or not? an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, what do you get out of that? i hope Filipinos do not share the same thoughts of the Americans. not for this one please. ;-)