The DEATH Penalty

[Chad32]

I like to watch Secular Talk. http://www.youtube.com/user/SecularTalk

In a couple of videos, the guy mentioned the death penalty is unconstitutional because it breaks the eighth amendment, which protects against cruel and unusual punishment. Personally I disagree. Since when is people killing each other unusual? He says most countries don't have the death penalty anymore, but I don't think that matters much. He also says it's cruel, but I think there are multiple ways you can kill someone without causing pain, or at least a lot of drawn out pain. Overdose on morphine, or really just blow their brains out with a high powered rifle. Something like breaking the neck or cutting off the head actually wouldn't be good, because an intact brain can still function afterwards. That's probably one reason why victims of the guillotine had bags over their heads first.

Now some may say that criminals should suffer, and don't deserve painless deaths, but we good citizens should be above that. I do believe that rehabilitation should be the first course of action, but I also believe there are some people that just can't be rehabilitated. Anyone who gets locked up and never released should really be put down.

There is a problem with accidentally killing innocent people. I don't think the death penalty should be used lightly, but I don't think it should be abolished either. Obviously we have a ton of people in our prisons, and I used to think well if we start actually killing the worst ones, there would be more room. That was a long time ago, before I realized that there are a lot of people in prison for non violent crimes. No one should be imprisoned for non violent crimes. That may be a different topic, but it just came to mind as I was posting.

Mainly I'm just bothered that the secular talk guy said the death penalty is cruel and unusual by definition, which I don't on either case.