Say No to Capital Punishment

Capital punishment is one of those debates similar to abortion, and religion. Everyone who is for or against is extremely hard headed, and it just ends up getting people angry and nowhere. Well, that's how all of my debates have gone anyway. Stephane Dion pulling out the capital punishment card was a pretty genius political move for that specific reason-because so many people feel strongly about it. If a government was planning on bringing it back, it could change thousands of votes in about a second. It's similar to abortion in that it's a really touchy subject; however, it differs because legalizing abortion would mean that people would get a choice, to abort or not, but restoring the death penalty would revoke the choice, and the ability to have ones life back again, if life imprisonment was the case. It would simply mean life or death. And I'm not sure people are ready for that.

The death penalty is a debate I've had with everyone, and it truly hasn't gotten anywhere. There are obviously arguments for and against that we've all heard. Some of them include:

For
-"an eye for an eye" policy
-deters criminals

Against
-killing an innocent man
-the idea of rehabilitating

These are pretty general, and essentially the main arguments, all of which are legitimate, however, as someone who has seen about several thousand presentations on both positions of capital punishment, and written several papers on the pros and cons, I would have to say that I’m most definitely against, and I don’t know how many people that aren’t, therefore, if the majority of people are against it, wouldn’t it be a genius political move to try and prove that an opposition party is rallying for it? Absolutely.

There are just ultimately more cons than pros in this argument. “Revenge” and “justice” just don’t necessarily seem like valid reasons to potentially take an innocent persons life, and although people who have lost loved ones to homicide would indefinitely disagree with me, the rational thing to do would be to imprison those people who do wrong. There have been too many cases of innocent people being imprisoned for dozens of years, only to be found innocent. Is that really fair? How would you feel if you were in prison for practically your whole life for something you didn’t do? I know I wouldn’t be a happy camper. Furthermore, prisons, especially in the state and Canada are worse than death sometimes. They’re grungy and dirty and besides- being locked in a square cell with nothing to do? Some of us would rather die than have to live like that.

It’s not even the prisoners that suffer when capital punishment is brought into play. It’s the families and the people who knew the criminals. I know that as a society, we tend to shut out murders and rapists, but sometimes it’s a serious, psychological problem, and even so, we may tend to look at them like animals, but they have families and friends still, and people that care about them, therefore, why let them off while making their families suffer? Does that sound like justice? I didn’t think so either.

I haven’t exactly been following politics all that much, so I’m not even certain of Dion’s claim is valid, or it’s just a cheap shot at the Conservatives, but I do know two things.

Stephane Dion is a genius. And if the Conservatives are really planning on legalizing the death penalty again, we can safely expect them not to be re-elected any time soon.