>
>Day Brown wrote to Frank Masingill about Death Penalty
 
 FM>... to be HIGHLY PUNITIVE in the VENGEFUL sense.  
 DB> You assume that execution is punitive; I regard it as a humane way 
 DB> to end a life destined for decades of misery in a cell.  If we had 
 DB> the resources to administer stupifying drugs to prisoners rather 
 DB> than executing them, I would consider that as well. 
 Certainly viable; but why keep them alive at all?  To do so means
 administering nutrients, probably intraveneously, for years; which
 would be rather expensive.  Logically, to make good use of the penal
 system, one would weed out those who continually cause death for others
 and eliminate them; whether they cause deaths of innocents through
 direct, or indirect means such as through the means of cocaine, heroin,
 methamphetamines, etc, so that these matters would have closer. 
 
 Execution is not a punishment, but rather a form of self-control for
 society as a whole.  It generally is supposed to eliminate the parts
 of itself which cause pain and suffering, so that pain and suffering
 disappear from the body of society.  It is illogical and inhumane to 
 keep killers alive, because it is expensive, for one, to keep killers
 alive.
 
 On the other hand, keeping them alive means making space for them, keeping
 them warm in the winter, cool in the summer, feeding them food which
 could go, at least vicariously, to a starving child somewhere, and hiring
 workers to watch them and see to their basic needs.  It also allows the
 probability of parole, in which these persons are allowed to integrate
 themselves once again into an unsuspecting society, wreaking havoc
 once again.  Personally, I don't see that it is worth the risk.  We
 free-people like a life without worrying about getting killed by a 
 murderer.  It's simple piece of mind, and plain old good economy, to
 execute murderers.  The simple adage applies: those who steal a life,
 should of a kind forfeit their own life as repayment.  
 
 By attempting so arduously to save the life of a murderer, those who
 do so take no thought that they are actually _harming_ society.  They
 are effectually placing a higher value upon the life of a killer, than
 on the life that was stolen.  This message puts us all on uncertain
 footing, and makes society a much more dangerous place.  It spells out
 the ominous sentence: "The Criminal's Life is Valued Above the Life of
 Victims and Their Families."  One or many lives were STOLEN.  ONE life 
 of a murderer must be SAVED?  Show me the logic of that.  Which life has 
 more value: The one stolen, or the one forfeited?  How can we decide that
 one life is worth saving when we show NO regard for the value of the life
 that was STOLEN?  By NOT executing murderers, we send a message that the
 victim was not worth saving in the first place, but the criminal: we
 will do all that we can to save him because his life is valuable.  That
 is flawed.  No, the murderer has lost their right to live; they have
 forfeited it.  This is logical, and it is right.
 
y
 
 
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