Comments by "Evan" (@MrEvanfriend) on "Is the Death Penalty Ever Moral? | 5 Minute Video" video.

  1. You're only saying this because you've never spent a significant amount of time in prison. I haven't either, but I do know that people are remarkably adaptable, and that prison loses its punitive value after a while as inmates become institutionalized. Life in prison is still life, and while prison inmates don't have the nicest lives, they can still find value in what they have. Death takes that all away. The argument that life sentences are somehow worse than death sentences is disingenuous. Life sentences are also absurd, and should not be given out in any circumstance. If someone is deemed so horrid that they can never be released into society, they should be put to death, not warehoused indefinitely. I am in favor of taking life sentences off the table entirely and replacing them either with death sentences or with a set number of years (anything more than, say, 15 years should be a death sentence). Inmates sentenced to life without an option for the death penalty are the ones most at risk to commit more and worse crimes. They have nothing to lose, and can't be given a more severe punishment. If you already have a life sentence and can never get out, what's to stop you from committing even more crime from the inside? Why NOT kill a prison guard or fellow inmate? With condemned inmates, they at least have appeals processes and clemency applications and such, and thus have an incentive not to keep committing violent acts. The best argument for death sentences over life is the one the prosecutor used in the case of Westley Allan Dodd, a child rapist and serial murderer. "Look what Mr. Dodd likes to do in his free time. Plan child murders. Commit child murders. Relive fantasies about child murders and write about them. With life without parole, two of those things are still available to him."
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  2. I also have yet to hear a decent moral argument against the death penalty.
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  3. SilverMenace100 Whether it strikes terror into them is irrelevant. The point is that it's the only acceptable punishment. I don't really care about the deterrent value of capital punishment, people wouldn't commit heinous murders if they thought they'd get caught for them either way. I care about justice. And every minute these two scumbags draw breath while those two girls and their mother don't is a travesty.
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