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Yes, that seems rather obvious. But it in no way addresses my question as to 'why they draw the line at the death penalty'. I explained that I would be willing to draw the line where the death penalty would be allowed if we could address issues such as the cruelty of being on death row. Others oppose the death penalty due to the fact that mistakes can be made. Some people though draw the line at the death penalty but don't seem to be able to articulate why other than saying because 'we shouldn't take a life'. It is those people I am trying to understand. Have someone articulate all the reasons they oppose the death penalty, then propose scenarios where all of those reasons for opposition are eliminated. The people who still oppose the death penalty, even though all their concerns have been addressed, are the ones I'm interested in. No one ever says "I am okay with a 20 year prison sentence but not a 21 year prison sentence". But people will say they are okay with locking up an 18 year old and throwing away the key, but not a quiet, painless death after sentencing. What is going on in people's minds that they cannot cross that barrier? People die every day. They die because people want to buy a watch instead of feeding the poor guy on the street. They die because we send people to war. Even the guy we decided it was not right to execute is going to die. So why do some people feel we cannot hurry that process along, no matter the horrors that person has inflicted on the human race?

Yes, but why should we do everything in our power to keep from causing it prematurely? We certainly don't seem to mind degrading a human life. We take people away from their families, lock them in dark rooms, and keep them confined for decades at a time in relatively harsh conditions. We degrade human life significantly. Why stop prior to the degradation being complete? Why do we have the right to degrade human life, but we cannot cross the line where life ends? Why don't we have the right to cross that line? So propose something. I pulled my definition of 'cruelty' off the internet.

I propose "callous indifference to or pleasure in causing pain and suffering". Does that work for you?

No, your described punishment would not be acceptable to me. As I stated earlier one of my objections to the death penalty is the cruelty of the execution process. So increasing/modified cruelty would not be acceptable to me. However, I wouldn't necessarily be opposed to something harsher than the death penalty, such as adding in the forfeiture of property from the criminal's estate.

Um, I guess I would consider that to be a greater punishment than execution.

What is it about 'preciousness' that makes life untouchable? Is it a spiritual thing? Is there some sort of objective quality you can assign to it?

I do maintain that perspective even after factoring in the costs. Everything costs money, some things more than others. It costs more to incarcerate for twenty years than for one year, but if we deem the crime requires a penalty 20x greater then we bear the cost. And 'no innocents' being executed would certainly greatly reduce the number of executions possible although I'm not sure it would eliminate them altogether (e.g. I don't know all the details of the case and thus if this example would apply, but Timothy McVeigh clearly seems to have been guilty including his own admission and desire to be executed). But those are practical matters and kind of get away from the question I was raising. I agree that all of these factors should be considered when deciding whether or not to execute people. But I think all of these factors should also be considered when deciding whether or not in incarcerate someone for 20 years, or to fine them $10,000, or to impose any other punishment on them. What I don't understand is the apparent position of some that regardless of how well we can address cost, risk, abuse of power, or any other factor, that the death penalty is still an option that is verboten. It almost feels like a position taken from religion, that life is 'precious' or a 'gift' that we have no right to take.

Those are of course all good reasons why we should not have the death penalty, and I would add to that list, a run up to the actual execution that to most objective observers would appear to be state sanctioned torture. I think where I differ from some on this site is that if we could eliminate concerns such as the risk to the innocent, the cruel process, and the abuse by authority, that I would no longer find that I had an objective reason to oppose the death penalty.

Grabbing someone off the street and locking them in a room against their will is illegal because society considers it wrong and has codified it as such. How do we avoid hypocrisy if we allow the state to act on that agreement by grabbing someone off the street and locking them in a room against their will? What we choose to be illegal are those types of things that are detrimental to the victim of the crime. Any type of punishment is also going to be detrimental to the person being punished. It is not possible to punish a criminal if we cannot do to them what we have determined cannot be done legally by them to others. We generally try to ensure the punishment fits the crime. If you cheat on your taxes and steal money from the government, you will likely have the government take money away from you. If you kidnap someone, you will likely be incarcerated yourself.

Why is it that the use of the death penalty crosses the line of acceptable punishment? I have no objection to society drawing the line wherever they wish, but I don't understand why people feel so strongly that the death penalty is somehow a punishment that no 'seemingly sentient' person would even consider, or how the death penalty is so outrageous that its mere consideration is laughable. Society has decided that people should be punished for their crimes, and the level of punishment can fall anywhere on a continuum depending upon the severity of the crime. The more egregious the crime, the more severe the punishment. Few people seem to have a problem with punishing a bank robber more severely than a bicycle thief. Punishment generally takes something away from the criminal. Either money in the form of fines for smaller crimes, or freedom for more serious crimes. Punishment generally increases in step with the severity of the crime. While people generally do not see anything wrong with minimal punishment for minimal crimes, and medium punishment for medium crimes, many people do not accept the idea of the maximum punishment (which I suppose is death) for the maximum crime. I understand that people are generally afraid of wrongly putting someone to death for a crime they did not commit, and it is not that attitude I am questioning. What I don't understand is why some people feel it is simply something beyond the bounds of what can even be considered. Why should the death penalty be strictly off the table, but locking someone up in a 10x6 cell for 60 years is not off the table? Why is the maximum penalty for the maximum crime unacceptable?

I appreciate the effort you put into those calculations, but unless I'm mistaken you have shown that 'planting more plants' is not a solution to the growing problem of climate change, much less an easy one.

How many plants are part of this easy solution?

You are right that life on this planet will make adjustments. The issue I think is that we are doing it to ourselves, we know better (well, some of us), and if we acted collectively we could take care of the issue before it became a bigger problem than it already is. If you accidentally started a small fire in your kitchen you wouldn't say "No problem, there have been fires for millions of years. We'll adjust." Instead you would make an effort to put the fire out and minimize the damage. Why not deal with a smaller problem now than a bigger problem later?

Sorry that you feel I am attacking or mocking or misquoting you, but I really don't think I am. I don't know how to read your comment any other way. Doesn't matter if there is or not. You don't wish to answer the question. I'll drop it.

Interesting perspective. Locking up someone for something they might do in the future. Great! So back to my previous question. Assuming we had a full proof method, if someone who robbed or killed is no longer a threat to do so again, do you believe they should not be punished?

You believe in punishment. Ten oz said he does not. That is why I asked him. Deterrence was not the issue.

The mechanism to 'deem' someone to no longer be a threat is irrelevant to my point. Assuming we had a full proof method, if someone who robbed or killed is no longer a threat to do so again, do you believe they should not be punished? So given that you believe the government should keep dangerous people off the streets, and that we should not be 'punishing' them, you seem to be saying that anyone who kills for a reason other than defense should be jailed for life, since they are a risk to do it again.

So if a person robs a store but they are not deemed a threat to commit a crime again, you don't see any reason to put them in jail? Let's say someone killed a person who wronged him in a most egregious way. This person is not a risk to kill ever again. They should not be punished?

Some of us have that right. Not everyone though.

You've still taken away part of their 'life' in both cases. You can let them out if you find you've made a mistake, but you've already taken 'x' number of years from them. You can't say 'oops' and give them those years back. Maybe the death penalty should be reserved for old people. That way if we were mistaken we didn't take very many years from them. I suppose I'd rather be mistakenly executed 10 years before my natural death, than to spend 10 years of my youth in prison and then get out.

While I am very much opposed to the treatment of death row inmates that seems like years of torture, and I recognize that we do execute innocent people, I can never make up my mind as to whether or not I support the death penalty. On the one hand it seems so barbaric, but on the other hand I feel there are crimes for which the ultimate punishment is justified. I seem to sway one way or the other based on the latest horrific murder or the story of how some inmate lost his mind while on death row. We sanction murder all the time of people much less deserving (war) but struggle with conscience when we get to see the person face to face.

If the death penalty is about retribution and revenge, then what is life in prison about? Or any prison term for that matter? If running the risk of executing an innocent person is justification for banning the death penalty, then isn't running the risk of jailing an innocent person justification for banning jail terms? It seems as if the same arguments I am hearing against the death penalty apply to other punishments as well.

In the Fall, deciduous plants and trees are responding primarily to the increasing length of night, but also to changes in temperature, intensity change of sunlight, moisture availability, daytime versus nighttime temperature differential, and other factors. The behavior of these plants on Mars would therefore depend in large part on how they experienced the above mentioned factors. Plant roots are pulled down by gravity in exactly the same way that plant stems are pulled down by gravity. It is the cellular response to gravity and sunlight that determine the direction of root and stem growth. See Gravitropism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitropism and Phototropism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phototropism

Yes, that is it exactly. Isn't it obvious that is what I've been saying all along? I'm happy to see that you've been able to keep your emotions in check and carry on a rational discussion without resorting to hyperbole or purposely misconstruing whatever is said by anyone who has the nerve to not agree with you.

Well, that's all rather disquieting. Asking men who were trained to use the maximum force necessary in the military, to now use the minimum force necessary is looking for trouble. I was previously not very worried about the 'militarization' of the police as I was basing that primarily on my view of the events in Ferguson, which is when that topic really started hitting the press. The fact that police showed up in MRAPs or APCs, maybe wearing camo, didn't bother me as they were not rolling over cars or launching mortars into the protesters. But as the report by the ACLU showed, it is not just the equipment that has changed, but the tactics as well. Combine that with the fact that more and more of our police were actually trained in those tactics and with that equipment while in the military, I can see that as another major problem that needs to be addressed.