Position On
The Death Penalty
“Death Penalty is “uncivilized,” “inhuman,” inconsistent with “human dignity” and with “the sanctity of life”(Van Den Haag). I strongly disagree with the death penalty. One of the reasons why I disagree with this is that one needs to value life, learn from the mistakes we make in life, and one that killed another
person needs to think about and realize that he didn’t do a good thing. If the murderer is killed he will not have time to learn, and we will not suffer like his victim did. Also many innocent people die due to not enough evidence of murder, they are sentenced with the death penalty, and this is hard for many
families.
We need to cherish life because God gave it to us for a reason, and no man has the right to take it away from us. “Our emotions may cry vengeance in the wake of a horrible crime. But reason and experience tell us that killing the criminal will not undo the crime, prevent other crimes, or bring justice to the victim, the criminal, or society. Executions cheapen life. We must cherish life” (Clark Ramsey). Killing a murderer is not going to make anything better, this is not going to undo the fact that he killed a person. Some people argue that killing the murder is a way to show that person that because he killed someone innocent he doesn’t deserve life, but once again we are not God to decide who can live
and who can’t.
Everyone learns from his or her mistakes. I strongly believe that anyone can change, and murders are in that list too. When they are put in jail they start thinking of all the horrible things they’ve done, and they know that did they bad by staying in jail for the rest of their lives. Having them killed is not going to make
them think about what they did. They also suffer while they’re in jail, which makes them feel what there victim felt. “The death penalty is our harshest punishment” (Van Den Haag).
The government says “No Killing” but they do it too. When a person commits murder they are sentenced to the death penalty, which makes people think, if government says no killing but they do it, then they’re being hypocritically, and then they question what there real purpose is. They are encouraging people to kill, that’s what others focus on, they say that because the government is sentencing others to death, that it’s ok, to kill, because they do it. “By killing a murderer, we encourage, endorse, or legitimize unlawful killing” (Van Den Haag).
Innocent people are sentenced. “Misdistribution between the guilty and the innocent is, by
definition, unjust” (Van Den Haag). Families suffer because of this, and that’s why whoever is taking care of the criminal’s case should fight if he knows he did not commit the crime.
In conclusion I believe that the death penalty should be abolished. I think that a worse punishment is to be stuck in jail all there life, that way that person learns that what they did was bad, and that way they will learn that taking other people’s lives is not fair and that everything has consequences in life. This is why our society should see this as a bad way to punish criminals, and see that God is the only one that can take our lives away, also that being in life forever is worse.