Spinmonkey, no need to apologize for your tangent. This is a very emotional topic to say the least. I have come full circle concerning this issue. In the earlier years of my life I was totally pro death penalty, and I used the same analogy your employed in your comment. But as I got a bit older I began to rethink the matter. When a person commits a heinous crime, such as the abomination you described, it is a natural reaction to want revenge. But I am firmly convinced that the state cannot take life. The state can try to protect life, but never take it. By taking the perpetrator's life we reduce ourselves to the same level as him or her. And then of course, there is the other proble...

Spinmonkey, no need to apologize for your tangent. This is a very emotional topic to say the least. I have come full circle concerning this issue. In the earlier years of my life I was totally pro death penalty, and I used the same analogy your employed in your comment. But as I got a bit older I began to rethink the matter. When a person commits a heinous crime, such as the abomination you described, it is a natural reaction to want revenge. But I am firmly convinced that the state cannot take life. The state can try to protect life, but never take it. By taking the perpetrator's life we reduce ourselves to the same level as him or her. And then of course, there is the other problem that errors happen, and we could be taking the wrong life. But to me the bottom line, is that if taking someone's life is illegal, which of course it should be, then we should not commit the same crime in revenge. Life in prison without any chance of parole is punishment enough. Imagine living in a cage for the rest of your life, and you will understand where I am coming from.

Thank you so very much for commenting on my clip.

I'm usually a little more level-headed but there's so many horrible crimes happening on a daily basis, I've become too emotional about the subject. I think what pushed me over the edge were two particular cases: the girl that was abducted from the mall in Kansas and then killed the other day and also the guy in Florida that broke into a home, kidnapped a little 7 year old, raped her over and over, then buried her alive in a trash bag in his back yard when he got spooked. When authorities dug her up, they found that she had torn a little hole in the bag and her fingers, which were only bones when they found her, were sticking out in an attempt to get air. I'm just so disgusted with it all. I ...

I'm usually a little more level-headed but there's so many horrible crimes happening on a daily basis, I've become too emotional about the subject. I think what pushed me over the edge were two particular cases: the girl that was abducted from the mall in Kansas and then killed the other day and also the guy in Florida that broke into a home, kidnapped a little 7 year old, raped her over and over, then buried her alive in a trash bag in his back yard when he got spooked. When authorities dug her up, they found that she had torn a little hole in the bag and her fingers, which were only bones when they found her, were sticking out in an attempt to get air. I'm just so disgusted with it all. I know that capital punishment doesn't seem to deter anyone, but do we want these people living next to us after a slap on the wrist and some rehab? Or do we want to keep building more jails and willing to keep footing the bill for it? Like Bill Hicks said: "Hitler had the right idea, he just had the wrong people."

Spinmonkey, look at the situation in Illinois (around '97-'98), where it turned out that more than half the people who were on death row were innocent. Then-governor Ryan put a moratorium on the death penalty and commuted all the remaining guilty felons to life without parole. Even DNA evidence is subject to human error or corruption, and once a person has been executed, all the new evidence in the world won't perform a resurrection. Note also that lab backlogs sometimes mean that DNA evidence remains unprocessed even when cases come to trial. Ryan was later convicted on corruption charges, but, unlike Bush, at least he owned up to injustices occuring on his watch.

It's also been demonstr...

Spinmonkey, look at the situation in Illinois (around '97-'98), where it turned out that more than half the people who were on death row were innocent. Then-governor Ryan put a moratorium on the death penalty and commuted all the remaining guilty felons to life without parole. Even DNA evidence is subject to human error or corruption, and once a person has been executed, all the new evidence in the world won't perform a resurrection. Note also that lab backlogs sometimes mean that DNA evidence remains unprocessed even when cases come to trial. Ryan was later convicted on corruption charges, but, unlike Bush, at least he owned up to injustices occuring on his watch.

It's also been demonstrated that the appeals guaranteed a prisoner sentenced to death cost taxpayers more than housing the person for 50 years.

Of course with Bush, it's not so much that he supports capital punishment - he RELISHES it (take, for example, his attitude towards commuting Karla Faye Tucker's sentence from death to life without parole). Under Bush's governance, Texas executed 153 people, many of whom were later shown to have been poorly represented. Bush claimed to have carefully reviewed each one of those cases, but, in fact, was merely briefed by his legal adviser Alberto Gonzales (yes, THAT Gonzo).

Bush is a callous, uncaring unfeeling son of a bitch (a term that adequately describes his mother) who probably qualifies to be considered a psychopath. In six years he has torn down carefully constructed pillars of our government that took decades to build. And he wonders why people don't like him? Look in the mirror, guy and you'll see the reason.